I own Harry Potter!...Clothing. Cause I'm broke.
Hermione was in a foul mood during the feast, and that was was a hard thing to do. She talked less than usual (which wasn't much anyways) and made sure that she sat with her back facing the Slytherin table, even though doing so was just begging for someone to flick something into her hair. Ron and Neville quizzed her on where she'd been, but she wouldn't tell.
She shovelled sweet potato into her mouth angrily, swinging her leg back and forth unknowingly. She had no idea where that random spike of Git-ness had come from, or why. Harry knew she was friends with Ron, that was all.
And even if it wasn't, what did it matter to him?! She didn't interrogate him about those twittering airheads always hanging off his arm. They hadn't been "friends" long enough for that, not even close. Maybe she should have expected it though. Once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin.
And right after she bought him something, too...the nerve-!
"OUCH! Hermione!" Ron yelped, dropping his fork and grabbing for his leg. Hermione had kicked him hard without noticing. She grimaced. "Oh, Ron, oh my gosh. I'm so sorry."
He grumbled, rubbing his knee and peering at her. "What's got you so hot and bothered then? Where'd you run off to after Hogsmeade?"
Hermione raised and dropped a shoulder. "Nowhere." And she wouldn't be doing it anymore, that was for sure.
When the feast was over, she followed the rest back up to the portait hole, stiff and snooty to hide the lingering hurt.
The name Harry Potter became synonymous with the invisible man. Hermione didn't acknowledge his presence at all, and she didn't try to meet with him after hours. It was especially hard to ignore him in Lupin's class, as by pure concidence the seating roster put them directly next to each other, but she managed it.
She went back to spending most of her time with Ron and Neville, but it was different than before.
She noticed how different they were from Harry, even started comparing them. He was so...sharp, and witty, and they just weren't. Ron's life revolved around the Quidditch brackets and his constant spats with the Slytherins, and though Neville was sweet and a good listener, sometimes he just couldn't keep up.
Although she'd never admit it, she missed his sarcasm and his cynicism. The people in her book club were book smart, but he was smart in a different way. Their small falling out was an unhappy spot in her mind, but she was much to proud to apologize first, never mind the fact that she wasn't in the wrong to begin with.
Her interest about Sirius Black had been peaked though, and she continued to research him when she could. It was difficult, separating myth and rumours from actual fact, but it was fascinating.
That lasted for all of two weeks, and then Harry Potter and the entire Slytherin house became impossible to ignore.
"Wonder what all that's about," Neville commented, as they were coming back from a late dinner. Ron was blabbering about the Tornados wins and losses, and Hermione was struggling to appear interested. They hadn't noticed the huge commotion in the hallway, and the blockage of muttering, excited students at the stairway.
Most of the chaos was at the foot of the stairs that led to the dungeons. As they drew closer, the noise got louder. An uneasy, dreadful feeling bubbled in Hermione's heart, and her footsteps quickened. There was only one reason Hogwarts students got excited like this- something awful had happened.
"Mione? Hermione, wait!"
She was sprinting by now, shoving past people, the horrible feeling in her stomach increasing with each step. By the time she broke through the crowd, she was facing the stretch of wall that was the secret entrance to the Slytherin common room.
Or used to be.
The wall had been attacked, shattered by multiple curses and hexes that had burned the stone and put scorch marks on the damp surface. Large chunks of debris littered the floor and surrounding hallway, still steaming with violent magic. It looked like magical barriers had held up, BARELY, because inside the threshold the common room was undisturbed. The dumbfounded Slytherins milled around, stunned. Malfoy, Knott, and Pansy were near the front of the crowd, shellshocked.
Her heart dropped into her stomach, then clenched painfully as something akin to fear washed over her. There was one person she did not see. She peered over and around, looking, looking...
Where was he?
"Move aside, move aside there!"
The bodies parted like the red sea as the trio of Dumbledore, Mcgonagall, and Snape strode forward, grim and tense. The lines around the Gryffindor head of houses mouth had never looked so tight, and Snape was downright murderous with a vein popping in his sallow cheek.
"Potter!" Mcgonagall barked loudly over the din, searching them all from her tall thin height. "Potter! Where is Potter?"
"Mr Malfoy," Snape grunted. "Where is Potter?"
"I-I..."
"Here."
She'd deny it later, but a wave of relief broke over Hermione as she saw a dark head of hair shoving its way to the front. A shaky exhale tumbled past her lips, and she slowly uncurled her hands, prying her fingernails out of her palms.
"Potter, are you...alright?" Mcgonagall asked briskly. Her hands swayed strangely by her side, as if she wanted to touch him, but she didn't dare.
Harry frowned and crossed his arms. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" This time, the gentle question didn't come from Mcgonagall or Snape, but from Dumbledore himself. Harry turned to face him slowly, and every muscle in his back tightened as his expression flattened into practiced blankness. His jaw twitched, as though he was biting down on his words.
"Positive."
"HIM!? What about the REST OF US!?" Malfoy shrieked, finally losing it. The chatter started up again, loud and frantic.
"Did anyone see what happened here?" Snape sneered.
"It was Locke! He's always blowing shit up!"
"Screw you, it wasn't me!"
"Bet it was the Gryffindors!"
"IT'S SIRIUS BLACK!" one boy howled. "He's coming to get Potter and he'll kill us all to do it!"
The panic reached a new height as every eye found Harry, and his cheeks flamed red. "Stuff it, Pucey!" he snarled.
"YOU'RE GONNA GET US ALL KILLED POTTER! Just wait and see!"
As if all that wasn't enough, Peeves the Poltergeist finally decided show himself by drifting out of the wall, drawn to the fear and chaos and cackling madly. "Oh, what FUN! What wonderful, terrible, awful fun! You'll never find him, you know."
"What do you mean, Peeves?" Dumbledore asked calmly. Peeve's grin faded a little- he didn't dare insult the Headmaster. He adopted an oily voice that was no better than his cackle.
"The person who did this, Your Headship sir. He's long gone, oh yes he is. He was at it for an hour at least, sir, screaming and carrying on." He pantomimed attacking the wall, swinging an invisible wand wildly. "I have to see him! I have to see him!" He collapsed into hysterical laughter, turning himself upside down in midair with the force of his giggles.
"Yes Peeves, but do you know who it WAS?"
"Oh, oh...ah, excuse me, Professorhead, sir," Peeves chuckled, gazing at Dumbledore wickedly from between his legs. "Allow Peevesy his little laugh, sir. Yes, I know him. Quite the mad fellow he is, and quite the temper he's got, that Sirius Black."
There was no containing the frenzy after that. The noise was explosive. Several people took off running right then and there, with a cackling Peeves zooming after them the whole way.
"I KNEW IT!"
"We're all doomed!"
"I TOLD you it was Potter! Toss him!"
Mcgonagall shot of several loud sparks from her wand. "THAT IS ENOUGH! Potter, you come with me. The rest of you, get back to your common rooms immediately and find your heads of houses, then report to the great hall! Slytherins, follow Professor Snape."
In the midst of the chaos, Hermione saw Harry grab Theodore Knott tightly by the arm and hiss something in his ear. The smaller boy started to protest, but Harry gave him a hard shake and growled something else. He let him go as Mcgonagall reached for his shoulder and steered him down the hall, flanked by Dumbledore, and Hermione watched as Knott slunk back through the ruined entrance to the common room unnoticed.
Snape was trying to corral the frenetic Slytherins. "All those in my house, follow me to the Great Hall. The rest of you had better make yourselves scarce before I take fifty points from each of you!"
Faced with that threat, they scattered like roaches, and none but Hermione noticed Knott creeping back into the hall with a noticeable bulge beneath his robes.
Peeves had spoken the truth. The castlewide search for the alleged Sirius Black turned up nothing, but the students were still forced to sleep in the Great Hall for the remainder of the night.
Ron, Hermione and Neville set up their sleeping bags a little ways away from the others. The two boys whispered about it feverishly while Hermione kept her silence, brain once again in hyperdrive.
Sirius Black simply COULDN'T have been in Hogwarts. It just wasn't possible. With all the extra precautions- dementors, magical wards, protection spells...
And...and if it had been Black...there was only one reason why he would attack the Slytherin common room, and no one else's. Hermione shuddered at the implication of that. Pucey was right...it all boiled down to Harry.
They argued and discussed until curfew was called and the candles were extinguished. Silence fell over the entire hall, but it was obviously not the silence of sleeping people. Excitement and fear still buzzed in the air, and the thoughts could almost literally be heard turning in people's heads.
Hermione did not sleep, even when Ron was snoring loudly by her ear and Neville was mumbling about Puffskeins in his slumber. She couldn't turn off her mind, and found herself staring at the enchanted starry sky above her head. She was exhausted, but her concern for her school and her friends would not let her rest. She kept seeing Harry being dragged away by Mcgonagall, and she could feel Black's presence like a hot breath on her neck.
It was around three in the morning, just when she was drifting off, that a rustle of movement roused her. It sounded like someone was trying to carefully edge their way over and around the carpet of bodies, and it was getting steadily and slowly closer.
Hermione gripped her sleeping bag tightly between white knuckled fists, gasping out tight pants from behind clenched teeth. Her eyes were frozen shut and her muscles were locked. As the sounds grew nearer, she debated waking up Ron, but what good would come of that, even if she did manage to shake him awake in time? He was more likely to scream and run.
Closer now...she inhaled deeply and reached for her wand. If it was Black...she might have only a second to catch him off guard.
They were right on top of her. She had to act, and now.
"Stupef-"
A cold, thin hand clamped down on her lips, but before she could scream bloody murder a whispered gasp froze the sound in her throat.
"Granger!"
Pure confusion, blood and adrenaline still rushing hot through her veins, how did a murderous criminal know her name?
Then-
"Potter?!"
Hermione glared at the boy straddling her sleeping bag and gazing down at her. His knees were on either side of her hips, and his hands were a few inches above her shoulders (she would find time to be embarrassed about that later.) The stars from the ceiling revealed her late night "attacker", reflecting glitteringly off his glasses and midnight hair, and his cocky smirk.
"Merlin, Granger, did you just try and hex me?"
"I thought you were Black," she hissed, sitting up and shoving him away, grateful for the dark that hid the rising colour on her face. "What are you doing here?"
"I need your help." he said.
"What are you ON?!" she snapped. Ron snorted thickly next to her, and they froze for a moment. Eventually he settled back into silence. Hermione turned back to glare at Harry. "Do you know how late it is? The teachers are coming back any second!"
"Just shut up and follow me!" Without so much as a by your leave, he grabbed her arms and hauled her upright, ignoring her attempts to pull away. She couldn't really struggle, because that would risk waking up the entire hall and getting in trouble. And from the look on his face he was well aware of that.
So she had no choice but to let him sneak her out, fuming all the while. She hadn't forgotten his ass moment, or that she was still angry at him for it.
After a close scrape with a slumbering, twitchy Percy, they made it into the corridor. Hermione rounded on him, ready to burst, but he clamped his hand down over her mouth once again and put his mouth right up to the side of her head.
"Keep it quiet." he murmured. The feeling of his lips brushing her hair paralyzed her, and she felt him smile against her ear. "Good girl. Now come on."
Her body followed him without her mind knowing why, still stuck in the last two seconds of time.
That felt almost like... A kiss...
A kiss?! Are you INSANE!? Am I insane?!
Harry Potter definitely was, regardless. Ron was right- the boy was a class A nutter.
Eugh. Ron being right. Her life was taking a turn for the gutter.
Harry led her to some random corridor and yanked her to a stop. "Here," he breathed. He started to let go of her wrist, then leveled a glare at her. "Don't run."
Hermione snorted. "Please. You're not worth a suspension." They swapped chilly looks for a second, and then he smiled bitterly. "Still pissy are you?"
"Get on with it Potter, or I'm getting a prefect." Suspension be damned. She didn't even know why she was indulging him now.
He rolled his eyes, but turned away and walked toward a statue of Rowena Ravenclaw tucked into a shallow alcove in the wall. He started to edge behind it, cramming his hands into the space behind the bronze figure. He looked like he was searching for something, lips twisted in concentration.
Hermione crossed her arms and shivered. This was so stupid. They could get caught by a ghost, or a teacher... She tried to act uninterested, but her curiosity got the best of her. "What the hell are you doing?" she hissed finally.
"I told him to put it here... If he screwed me I'll rip his- here." His scowl was replaced by a triumphant grin, and new pulled something long and shimmering out from behind the statue.
Hermione's eyes widened, and she moved forward to get a closer look despite herself. "What... What is..."
"Watch and I'll show you," he smirked. He unrolled it completely, revealing it to be a large cloak. Nonchalantly, he threw it around his shoulders... And promptly disappeared.
Hermione's jaw hit the ground. Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and she let out a choked little gurgle. "W-what... H-how did..." she squeaked, thunderstruck.
The air shimmered, and then Harry's head became visible. "Invisibility cloak," he said, eyes glowing. "Aunt Bella sent it for my birthday. Said she got it off some buggery coot."
"What... What does it have to do with me?"
"Don't start feeling special, Granger. You're here because I had no one else. Draco and Theo would rat me out in a second, and Daphne would probably steal it. Crabbe and Goyle are just slow as shit." he huffed.
"No one else for WHAT?" Hermione shuddered.
Harry smiled, a sharp, deranged expression. "I wasn't in the hall with everybody else. McGonagall and Dumbledore," he spat, derision in every syllable of the man's name, "put me in his office. I heard them talking when they thought I was asleep. They think Black is here for me. And they think he's still in the castle."
"And?"
"And I'm going to find him, tonight."
Hermione instantly backpedaled, away from the crazy Slytherin. "You're nuts." she whispered.
Harry smiled again. "Little bit, maybe."
(I know, all this wait and I leave you with a cliffhanger. But it was getting ridiculously long. As always, review!)