This Chapter is dedicated to Neville Longbottom, whose birthday is in three days. Happy Birthday Neville, you are an inspirational character who taught me that it's never to late to become who you were born to be. Thank you for being everyone's hero when they needed one, me included. Because of the fact i'm working to get a chapter out on the 31st it would be impossible to get one out on the 30th, so the 27th will have to do. This chapter also shows that despite what everyone thought, Neville was brave and loyal from the beginning, read on to find out.
Chapter Eleven – Hardships
Dear Mum and Dad
Exams are coming; I've started revising of course and making timetables and things like that. Ron and Harry think it's too early to start but I'm trying to convince them otherwise, the teachers all agree with me. We're getting a lot more homework now but I'm still coping fine, although I don't have as much free time anymore. I can't believe how quickly the year is going, can you believe it's almost the Easter holidays! It feels like a few days a go I was saying goodbye to you after Christmas, I don't know where the time goes. Harry won his match against Hufflepuff, he caught the snitch in five minuets, they think it was one of the quickest games ever. This means that Gryffindor are in the lead for the house cup for the first time in seven years, how great is that?
Oh I have a favour to ask you. Ron's Birthday is coming up (the first of April) and a few weeks a go we were having a discussion about the differences between muggle and wizard sweets. We couldn't decide if there was any difference between muggle and wizard chocolate so I was thinking for his Birthday I could get him a few different types of muggle chocolate as he's never tried it before. Would you buy and send that over for me please, I'll pay you back the money when I get home as I'm sure you don't really want to be paid in sickles! Mum please don't buy any of your weird sugar-free chocolate, I'm trying to prove that some muggle things are as good as wizard things and that chocolate was just plain disgusting, I think it would scare him away from muggle things for life!
Thank you. Missing you loads and I can't wait to see you in July
Lots of love
Hermione x
OOO
Hermione had indeed begun to revise very hard, she knew that they needed to pass these exams to get into their second year, so they were very important. The boys didn't think along the same lines and resented her telling them to draw up revision time tables and colour code their notes. When the Easter holidays began Hermione dragged Ron and Harry to the library every day to study and practise. Ron's Birthday fell on the first Monday of the holidays and when he arrived in the common room that morning, still thanking Harry for the Chudley Cannons poster he had bought him, he point blank refused to step foot in the library.
"It's my Birthday, and if you think I'm spending it stuck in the library surrounded by boring books, you've got another thing coming!"
Hermione sighed and decided not to argue the point at that moment in time and handed over her present instead. It had arrived at breakfast two days ago and the questions about what it was had been difficult to dodge. Ron unwrapped it eagerly but his face fell when he saw what was inside, he stared at it for a long time saying nothing. Hermione felt quiet upset; she thought it had been a good idea.
"What is it?" asked Ron finally
Harry burst out laughing and had to hold onto an armchair to stop himself from falling over, when Ron turned to look at him with a bewildered look on his face he just laughed harder, even Hermione couldn't suppress a giggle.
"What?" said Ron angrily
"It's chocolate stupid," Hermione said, still laughing.
"Is it?" Ron said, turning the three bars that were in there over curiously.
"Yes muggle chocolate, so you can find out if it tastes any different from wizard chocolate, like you wanted to," Hermione reminded.
"Oh yeah," Said Ron, brightening immediately "Thanks Hermione, that's a cool present,"
Hermione shrugged "It was nothing, glad you liked it,"
As she spoke Ron was already tearing into the biggest bar and popping a chunk in his mouth. Both Harry and Hermione fell silent to watch his reaction. For a long while he chewed thoughtfully.
"Well?" Said Hermione, getting impatient
Ron swallowed and looked back down at the bar.
"Well, it's different," He said
"Different how?" Harry asked, looking amused
Ron seemed to have to think for a moment again before saying slowly, "Well it tastes more chocolatey than Honeydukes, but it tasted less…magical," he finished, sounding like he couldn't think of a better word.
"Magical?" Harry and Hermione repeated curiously
"You'll have to try Honeydukes to see what I mean," Ron reasoned
Harry rolled his eyes and began walking out of the common room, Ron followed, taking the chocolate with him,
"So will you eat it even though it tastes less 'magical'?" Asked Hermione, catching up to the boys.
"Hermione, Ron will eat anything as long as it stays still for long enough!" Harry laughed
Ron grinned and said "'course I will, it's not bad different just…..different,"
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief that her present had been a good idea after all and the three of them proceeded down to breakfast. Ron held true to his word and refused to do any work that day, after a lot of discussion Hermione finally agreed to take the day off but insisted tomorrow they catch up on work they had missed, muttering to herself.
"My timetable will be completely ruined now,"
After breakfast the three of them made their way down to Hagrid's, who beamed happily when they walked through the door and handed Ron a batch of freshly made rock cakes for his present, Ron's smile was slightly forced. They spent the day chatting happily and Hagrid told them some funny stories of when he was in his first year at Hogwarts. Finally at dinner time the four of them made their way back up to the castle, where Fred and George decided to humiliate Ron by singing 'Happy Birthday' loudly to 'ickle Ronniekins'. Ron was giving them looks that could slice glass throughout. Back at the common room Harry and Hermione each played a game of chess against Ron whilst happily munching on Hermione's chocolate and an assortment of other food Ron had received, before traipsing up to bed.
OOO
The only significant thing to happen through the rest of the holidays was finding out that Hagrid was keeping an illegal dragon in his house, which Hermione was not very happy about. Aside from this Hermione worked hard at her revision and tried to force the boys to do the same. When term started extra homework was piled onto their workload, so much that even Hermione began to feel the strain. The first week of term was the same as any other, apart from the teachers now stressed the importance a lot more of what they were doing in lessons. The second week saw a change in the routine. On Monday morning Hedwig flew into the great hall with a note from Hagrid, it was two words 'it's hatching'. On the way down to Herbology Ron and Hermione fought over what to do.
"Seriously Hermione, it's a once in a life time opportunity and you want to miss it to go to a lesson we go to every week!" Hissed Ron
"Ron we have our exams in a few weeks, we can't miss anything! And if all three of us are missing they'll know we're doing something and try to find us,"
"No they won't, they won't ask till later and by that time we can make something up. It's a dragon Hermione!"
"Yes exactly, an illegal dragon, do you realise how much trouble Hagrid will be in if anyone finds out, and then we'll be in trouble for knowing but not telling anyone," Hermione whispered angrily
"But no-one's going to find out and if they do, Hagrid wouldn't turn us in. Come on Hermione, you must want to see a dragon hatching," Ron wheedled
Hermione sighed, Ron did have a point, it would be fascinating to see a dragon hatching. "Fine we'll go quickly during morning break, it will take a while to hatch so we should still be able to see it then,"
Ron nodded, although rather grudgingly as they entered the greenhouse for Herbology.
OOO
Hermione had her head in her hands, not even attempting to do anything constructive, in fact she quite wanted to cry. It had been a week and a half since Norbert had hatched. Since then worries had been mounting on Hermione endlessly. Malfoy new about the dragon, they were anxiously waiting for a reply from Ron's brother Charlie about taking the dragon, Hagrid kept getting them no help out with Norbert and school work was becoming an endless battle. It was now midnight and all Hermione wanted to do was fall into bed, but instead she and Harry were waiting for Ron to return from feeding Norbert. Finally the portrait hole opened and Ron appeared out of nowhere as he pulled Harry's invisibility cloak off. He was extremely angry when he came in and showed them a nasty bite Norbert had given him, which seemed to have bled quite a lot. Before Hermione had time to give any suggestions there was a tap on the window, it was Hedwig with Charlie's answer, they all read it hurriedly.
Dear Ron
How are you? Thanks for the letter – I'd be glad to take the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I think the best thing will be to send him over with some friends of mine who are coming to visit me next week. Trouble is, they mustn't be seen carrying an illegal dragon.
Could you get the Ridgeback up to the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday? They can meet you there and take him away while it's still dark.
Send me an answer as soon as possible.
Love,
Charlie
Hermione surprised even herself by agreeing to Harry's plan to sneak out with the invisibility cloak to get Norbert to the tower. It showed just how much she hated Norbert, if she was willing to sneak an illegal dragon through the corridors in the dead of night to a tower students weren't allowed in apart from lessons. Absently she thought about what a nice brother Charlie sounded like, and how un-fazed he seemed by the fact his brother wanted to sneak him an illegal dragon out of the country, but she didn't linger on it. She had more important things to worry about.
OOO
Hermione happily jigged about when Harry lifted the invisibility cloak off of them.
"Malfoy's got detention! I could sing!" she laughed
"Don't," Harry advised smiling
They waited, still chuckling about Malfoy getting detention, Norbert thrashed around in his crate and a light wind picked at Hermione's hair. After ten minutes Charlie's friends arrived, they were cheery and happily showed Harry and Hermione the harness they had rigged to carry Norbert. After carefully lifting the crate into the harness they all shook hands and took off into the night. Hermione smiled widely as Norbert disappeared into the distance and her and Harry nearly skipped back down the staircase. As they turned the last corner to the bottom of the stairs a face loomed out at them from the darkness, Hermione nearly screamed in terror. It was Filch, he gave them a small twisted smile and said quietly.
"Well well well, we are in trouble."
Hermione's heart was in her throat and her legs felt like jelly. They had left the Invisibility Cloak at the top of the tower. Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall's office where she and Harry sat, not looking at each other. Hermione actually began to tremble in fear and tears threatened to spill over her cheeks when for the second time that year she saw her magical career ending before it had really began. Finally Professor McGonagall walked in, Neville was with her. Hermione listened in horror as Professor McGonagall gave her idea of what was going on, that they had fed Malfoy a story of dragon hoping to get him out of bed and that Neville had heard and believed it too. Hermione glanced quickly at Neville as this was said and saw his wounded expression, he must have been so afraid as he tried to find them in the dark to warn them about Malfoy. Hermione actually felt sick with herself at dragging poor Neville into this unbelievable mess. The feeling only increased as Professor McGonagall said she had thought Hermione had more sense. Yet again Professor McGonagall was disappointed in Hermione for something she had never done, only this time Hermione hadn't wanted to throw herself in front of the bullet, this time she had tried desperately to dodge it but failed miserably because of a moment of utter stupidity. How could they have not remembered the cloak! Impossible as it was her heart sunk further still as she received a detention, something she had never imagined she could get, and fifty points deducted from Gryffindor. In one stupid night she had helped lose Gryffindor one hundred and fifty points. She couldn't recall how she got back to her dormitory, all she knew was that that night she didn't sleep a wink, just sobbed into her pillow until no more tears would come, by that time it was dawn.
OOO
Hermione had never been so miserable in her life, no one would speak to her or Harry, she was shot evil looks in the corridors and whispers followed her wherever she went.
"That's the one, one of Potter's stupid friends that did it,"
Every single one of the girls in her dormitory had turned against her, even Parvati who had always been so nice, refused to speak to Hermione. Their thunderous looks followed her as she moved around the dormitory in the morning, along with all of the Gryffindors, Hufflepuff's and Ravenclaws every single time she walked into the great hall. The only person who stuck by her and Harry was Ron, who treated them no differently and told anyone who shouted things at them in the corridors to shut up.
Every lesson was torture and Hermione no longer answered any question in class, she kept her eyes firmly on her desk and took careful notes of everything said. To keep her mind off of her misery Hermione worked herself harder than ever. She had expected to be alone in her long hours of revision, but Harry and even Ron joined her working late into every night practising spells and memorizing dates and ingredient lists.
The detention was horrendous, the forest at night was a terrifying place where every small sound seemed like a gunshot and insignificant movements made their hearts beat fast in fright. Even worse was Malfoy running back to Hagrid without Harry, screaming about something in a cloak drinking a dead unicorn's blood. Hermione's heart seemed to chill but she knew that they had to find Harry if he had been left alone, and quickly.
"Where, where was the clearing?" Hermione asked urgently
Malfoy looked at her, normally when this happened his look was scathing or cruel but now it showed only terror, to Hermione's surprise he answered her question properly, not shooting her any mean remarks.
"Over that way," Malfoy said pointing a shaking hand down the path.
Hermione took of at a run, no longer scared of what could be in the forest, focusing only on making sure Harry was alright, if anything happened to him….
She ran for what seemed like an eternity, Hagrid puffing along behind her. Finally a centaur came into view, he was walking slowly along the path and on his back was….
"Harry!" Hermione yelled in relief "Harry, are you all right?"
Harry said he was in a shaky voice and told Hagrid where the unicorn was, then the centaur said his farewells and walked away into the dark forest.
OOO
When they arrived back in the common room, Hermione was exhausted, Harry however was full of restless energy and shook Ron, who had tried to wait up for them, very roughly awake. Ron yelled something to do with Quidditch as he was woken but soon looked wide awake as he sat up and watched Harry pace back and forth. Hermione took a seat next to him.
"Are you alright?" He asked, glancing at her pale face
Hermione nodded and they both turned to watch as Harry began to explain what he had seen.
"Well, we came into the clearing and the unicorn was lying on the ground, dead, so we were about to send up green sparks when I heard this horrid slithering sound and out of a bush came a hooded…..thing, it was crawling along the ground and it got to the unicorn and began to drink its blood,"
Hermione gasped in horror and Ron just looked disgusted.
"So Malfoy and Fang ran off and then the thing looked up and started to come towards me, and that's when I got this terrible pain in my scar,"
Harry reached up absentmindedly to touch his forehead.
"It was the worst pain I've ever had so I tried to move but I couldn't really… and then the centaur who you saw Hermione comes bounding into the clearing, but the pain was so bad that I'd fallen over and I didn't see how Firenze got the thing to leave but when I looked up it was gone. So then Firenze said I could ride him to get back to Hagrid because that would be quickest. So then he told me that unicorn blood will keep you alive even if your about to die, but once you drink it you'll have a cursed life,"
"Well who would want that!" Burst out Ron
"That's what I said, so Firenze said that the only reason you'd really drink it was to keep you alive until you drink something that can bring you back to full life,"
"The Philosophers Stone, it produces the Elixir of Life!" Hermione breathed.
Harry nodded " So then Firenze asked me who has wanted to return to power for years and years and has clung to life until he got the chance… but before I could say if it was Voldemort, Hermione, you came running up, but I know I'm right. Sanpe wants the stone for Voldermort…and Voldemort's waiting in the forest…and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich…"
"Stop saying the name!" Ron said, sounding terrified,
Harry ignored him "Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have done …Bane was furious …he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen …They must show that Voldemort's coming back …Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me … I suppose that's written in the stars as well."
Hermione was now a bit lost by the conversation but she assumed that Harry and Firenze had met the centaur that they had all met earlier in the evening called Bane.
"Will you stop saying the name!" Ron hissed
"So all I've got to wait for now is Snape to steal the Stone, then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off … Well, I suppose Bane will be happy."
Hermione felt scared by what Harry was saying, she couldn't believe that at eleven years old he was having to fear for his life, but she remembered something from a few of her books she had read over the summer.
"Harry, everyone says Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore around, You-Know-Who won't touch you. Anyway, who says the centaurs are right? It sounds like fortune-telling to me, and Professor McGonagall says that's a very imprecise branch of magic,"
They finally stopped talking just as the sky began to turn light, all collapsing in their beds, exhausted.
OOO
Hermione didn't have much room in her head to worry about the Stone as exams were upon them. Her nerves were very jittery and she found she had a lot shorter temper than normal. The written exams were done in large classroom that got swelteringly hot with all the pupils in there, but Hermione made sure she was distracted by nothing. The papers themselves where relatively fine, although challenging at points Hermione didn't come across anything that made her completely unstuck. The practical exams were more pressurised as you only had one or two spells to pass or fail on but Hermione found that most of the spells were ones she had been doing since Christmas. Potions was a good exam as Hermione had managed to remember the instructions with ease, the only distraction was Snape breathing down their necks as they worked. The last exam was history of magic which Hermione found far easier than she thought she would and then it was over. There was no more revision to do, her exams had gone well and the weather was lovely. Hermione reckoned that she was in for an enjoyable afternoon.
OOO
She was wrong. The rest of the afternoon was spent racing around in panic. Hagrid had admitted that he had told the stranger who gave him the dragon egg how to get past Fluffy so the three of them had tried to find Dumbledore before Professor McGonagall told them he had left the school and she wouldn't listen to their theory that someone was trying to steal the stone. After this Hermione tried to watch Snape whilst the boys guarded the third floor corridor, this also went wrong and when they met back together Hermione felt like she was about to cry. The feeling only intensified when Harry said he was going to try and get the stone first, after arguing his point that this was a lot bigger than house points now, that Voldemort would kill if he was allowed to come back, Hermione saw his point.
"You're right Harry," She said in a small voice.
"I'll use the Invisibility cloak," Said Harry. "It's just lucky that I got it back."
"But will it cover all three of us?" Asked Ron
"All – all three of us?"
"Oh come off it, you don't think we'd let you go alone?" Ron scoffed
"Of course not," Hermione said briskly "How do you think you'd get the stone without us? I'd better go and look through my books, there might be something useful …"
"But if we get caught, you two will be expelled, too."
Hermione smiled grimly as a happy memory of a few days a go floated back to her "Not if I can help it, Flitwick told me in secret that I got a hundred and twelve percent on his exam. They're not throwing me out after that."
Ron nodded "We're coming, Harry,"
Dun, Dun, Duhhhhhhhh. My first cliffhanger, although you know what happens next. So this means that Hermione's version of 'through the trap door' (it will have a different title) will be up on the 31st. YES! It has just hit me that we have nearly finished the first year, only around 2, possibly 3 chapters to go. But we have 7 more years (hopefully) of this story left :D
I'm sorry if anyone found this chapter boring, it kind of just repeated the book, but i had to put something in to transition to the next one, in which (as well as other things) you will get to see my version of what happened after Harry left Hermione to go fight Voldemort. eeeeee i'm exited to write it!
If anyone is interested, Lucy and Julie, Hermione's room mates, weren't made up. Well their names were but from 'Harry Potter wiki' I found out that there were exactly 40 students in Harry's year, exactly 10 per house and each of them was split evenly boys and girls. It also gave me the names of a few students that were never mentioned in the books but J. had names of nevertheless, unfortunately she either never made up or never released the names of the two extra Gryffindor girls, so I christened them myself. Lucy is actually named after my best friend. I did this because my name is in the books (and i marry Neville, WIN) but hers never was so i named a character after her and also because she was the first person i told that i was writing this because i trust her with my life. I thought the least i could do was name a character after her :D
So i hope you enjoyed this PLEASE review, you don't know how much it pleases me to see a review alert in my inbox, i know it's cheesy but it quite literally makes my day.
Hannah x