A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I am excited that you are enjoying the premise as much as I am writing about it. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour). Huge thank you to lanamarymack for alpha/beta reading this chapter.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter three and be on the lookout for chapter four soon!
After Hermione's rather embarrassing incident during the Quidditch match (the one where she'd spent the whole time ogling the ref rather than watching her own team win the damn thing), she decided to buckle down and regain focus. She needed to get a handle on herself if she was going to have a successful year. Also, if she didn't want to completely embarrass herself in front of that big, hot brute, she needed to keep interactions with Flint to a minimum.
As a result she decided to invest all of her energy into her Transfiguration classes, completely revising her curriculum for all seven years so that she would have something other than Marcus Flint to focus on. She assigned more essays than usual, because then she would have more papers to mark, even though it often left her classes complaining.
Minerva had noticed and commented. "Are you trying to drive the poor dears to exhaustion?" she asked, after seeing the stack of essays that Hermione carried with her.
Hermione had reassured her Headmistress. "Nonsense," she said. "A few extra essays won't hurt them. And besides, this year I just really feel like this group of students could push their success to the next level." Not to mention that she didn't actually have any reason to believe this - her students were no different from any other year.
She also started sitting further away from Neville during meal times. An unfortunate consequence, but it seemed that her former classmate was determined to be best buds with the new flying teacher and they often spent meals chatting about this or that. Hermione had chosen to spend most of her time chatting with Hagrid, who was still serving as Professor of Care of Magical Creatures, or Melanie Fitzwilliam, the new Charms Professor.
Flint had noticed that she was suddenly avoiding him and seemed to be taking it a little bit personally, but Hermione was sure that he would take her completely unprofessional behavior a lot loose if he was made known about it.
But, as the weeks flew by and September turned into October, Hermione could not deny the pull of her writing. She longed to put quill to paper again, having found that her romance novels were a great way to blow off steam. Finally, one chilly Friday, she decided to give it another go. Only, she realized that she knew next to nothing about actual Quidditch - or flying really - to make it sound compelling and fun, not just sex with Quidditch slapped on the top.
Biting her lip, she knew that she needed to do a little bit of research if she was going to write a stellar novel. She couldn't let Clementine Dearly face her first flop of her career over Quidditch of all things. Standing up to stretch her legs, she looked out of her massive windows at the Quidditch pitch. Everything looked still and undisturbed, all practices long since over due to the late hour. Squinting, she could just make out the building that held the locker rooms.
She hadn't even stepped a foot in a Quidditch locker room since...well, fourth year she thought. She could hardly even remember what one looked like. Her mind started spinning. It would be really helpful to her writing if she could get into the locker room so that her writing could be more authentic. Then, she was sure that the words would just start flowing out of her.
Only... she couldn't think of any good reason that she could give Flint that would allow her access to the Quidditch locker rooms.
The answer was staring her right in the face. Obviously, the only logical thing for her to do was to break in. It was a Friday night - no one would ever know!
Before she could think of a reason to second guess herself, she pulled on her trainers and a cloak and left her apartments. Hustling down the stairs, she made her way out into the crisp autumn air and across the lawn to the Quidditch locker rooms.
She was quite pleased to see that no one was around to disturb her, but disappointed to know that the locker room was locked. That had never stopped her before. Looking left and right to make sure no one was around, she drew her wand. "Alohamora," she whispered, and heard the lock click open.
Slipping inside, she held her breath while she looked around. It was dark, but not so dark that she couldn't see what there was. It appeared that there was an individual room for each of the four Quidditch houses, with open lockers, holding uniforms and different pieces of equipment.
Hermione didn't even have much familiarity with a Quidditch uniform. Walking into the Gryffindor locker rooms, she started pawing through one of the Chaser's uniforms. Maybe it was a little too close to real life, but she had decided to make her hero a chaser. There were all sorts of leather parts that she hadn't known about - shin guards and wrist guards and gloves and a helmet. She would need to do some sort of research into how they were worn and what exactly they were called.
Maybe she should go to Quality Quidditch Supplies and try some of the gear on. It would be important for her book to figure out how it was all taken off. Eventually, she would need to get to that point in her book, though she was still plotting out the rough edges.
All of the locker rooms had access to showers. They were not too exceptional - basically just the same as any other shower for any sport or gym. But…there was potential there for some kind of shower romp for her characters. She'd never written something like that before. It would be a challenge, but she thought that her readers would probably respond to it.
She was pleased with how her creativity was finally flowing after just a few minutes in the locker rooms! Conjuring a piece of paper and a pen, she decided to start writing some of these notes down — just a few words to help her remember what she needed to do more investigation into. Deciding that she'd gotten enough, she decided to explore a bit more.
There was a locked closet in the main hallway. Another whispered spell had that door opened as well and Hermione found an assortment of school brooms that all looked a little bit worse for wear. She briefly thought about telling Minerva about the need for a refresh, before nixing the idea. How would she tell her that she had come by this knowledge? (Oh, just a little evening jaunt to break into the locker rooms, Headmistress, to support my secret second job no one knows about).
Poking around, she also found the chests that held the various Quidditch balls. She opened one up and was immediately alerted to the bludgers desire to be let free from their confines. Ignoring them, she picked up a Quaffle. It was odd - she'd always expected that a Quaffle would be rubbery like a dodgeball that Muggles used in gym class, but instead she found that it was covered in leather (Merlin, what was it with Quidditch and covering absolutely everything with leather?) and had several dips that could be used as little handholes. She tossed it into the air and tried to catch it, only to be embarrassed when she couldn't and it fell to the floor in a clatter.
The noise was immense in the stillness of the locker rooms and Hermione immediately held her breath, hoping that no one would have heard that. After a few beats of silence, and giving her heart a chance to slow from a gallop, she bent over and return the Quaffle to its cozy home in the chest and locked it back up.
There was only one more room left to explore, but it included a narrow glass window next to the door so she could see in it. Peaking in, it was immediately evident that it was an office, most likely inhabited by Flint. Biting her lip, she waffled on if she should go in or not. It felt like a big invasion of privacy, but ultimately her curiosity won out and she was slipping inside the office.
Flint's desk was mostly bare, save for a large calendar that mapped out all the Quidditch practices and games. It didn't look like he had a lesson plan anywhere, but she supposed that there probably wasn't much to write down. All of the flying exams were practicals, after all.
Walking around the edge of the room, she looked at some of the pictures he'd put up on the walls. There was one of him with the Falmouth Falcons, the team he'd spent the majority of his career with (okay, she looked it up - so what?). There were a couple candid pictures of him goofing around with various team members, and one of him standing with who she believed were Pucey and Warrington, if she wasn't mistaken.
Before she could think about it too much longer, she heard the front door of the building being thrown wide open. "Shit, shit, shit," she whispered to herself, not wanting to get caught doing something so embarrassing. Looking around, she saw a clothing rack in one corner that seemed to hold Marcus's Quidditch stuff, including his ref's uniform. Disallusioning herself as quickly as she could, she hid behind the clothes, hoping that she'd be unnoticed.
"Hey! I know that someone's in here," came the sound of Flint's booming voice.
Fuck, there was really no one worse that she could be caught by, Hermione thought to herself. She figured that she could explain herself if it was someone like Minerva and she could punish someone if it was a student. But Flint himself? There was no logical way for her to explain why she was hiding amongst his clothes!
Almost unbidden, she breathed in deeply, some strange part of her wanting to know what he smelled like. She was pleased that his uniform didn't have that stale sweat smell that Ron would get after he played Quidditch. Instead, it was fairly pleasant - broom polish, leather (again with the leather!), and something spicy. Maybe cinnamon?
"Come out now and I promise that I won't take away too many house points!" he added, stomping around until he came into his office. He looked concerned that the door was unlocked, but he did nothing but stand in the middle of the room and look around.
Oh Godric, he thinks I'm a student! Hermione thought, before realizing that was really the only conclusion he should come to. Why would a Transfiguration Professor with zero interest in Quidditch be breaking into the locker rooms, after all? But, she was a little disappointed that he didn't even try to use the wand at his side to figure out where the intruder was. Didn't he know about a revelio? Hermione would have gone about this completely differently.
She held her breath, hoping that he wouldn't notice her over at the side of the room. His grey-blue eyes swept around the room, looking for anything out of place. For a second, she thought that he might have seen her, when his eyes seemed to lock with hers, but the next moment, he stormed out of the office, locking it behind him.
Hermione wasn't sure how long that she stayed hidden there in Flint's office, but she didn't even try to emerge until she was sure that she hadn't heard a single noise before she moved again. Her heart was pounding away in her chest when she finally crept out, opening the door and locking it behind her. It wouldn't do to leave it unlocked and make the wizard even more suspicious than he already was.
Once she was free, she practically sprinted back to the castle and back up to her apartments, unsure of how she had gotten quite so lucky to escape unnoticed. That had to have been the stupidest thing that she'd done and she'd taken on a basilisk! At least the night wasn't a total flop. She'd gotten more than enough inspiration to start writing. But, that would have to wait until morning. After all the adrenaline she'd felt during her breaking and entering spree, she was utterly exhausted.