Chapter Six

The whole table rattled as Hermione slammed her fork down hard and captured the attention of the entire Great Hall.

"What is your problem?!" Hermione was way past caring that everyone was currently staring at her and her reddening face. For the past few days Ron had either been avoiding her like she was a leper or he completely ignored her every time they were in the same room. But today he had thrown in some angry glares when he didn't think she was watching.

"My problem?" Ron looked at her with mock surprise in his eyes and raised eyebrows.

"Yes, yours! You have been ignoring me for days like some three-year-old."

"Well I'm not the one fraternising with the enemy."

"Fraternising with the enemy?!" there was no controlling her temper anymore. "Last time I checked Voldemort was dead and not coming back. There is no bloody enemy anymore!"

"Then what do you call you eating with the snakes all the time?! Have you forgotten where you belong?" he growled out, no longer able to rein in his temper either. At his outburst, they didn't just have everyone's eyes on them, everyone had now stopped their conversations and where waiting with baited breath for how she would respond. It was so silent you could hear if a pin dropped to the floor.

"You did not just say that!" he was completely unrecognisable to Hermione, this was not the young man she had come to be so impressed by the last couple of months, this was not the man she considered a brother. "How can you still hold onto these childish grudges that has caused so much harm and cost everyone here so much? I really thought we were past this Ron. Everyone here has let it go, why can't you?"

With a final glare thrown in Ron's direction Hermione stormed out of the Great Hall. It was dramatic and so unlike her. While she was known for her hot temper, she was not known for displaying it so publicly. Ron had made her blood boil though and she felt like she was about to explode or combust at any moment now. She walked out of the castle hoping that a walk around the grounds would help to calm her down.

It was beautiful and Hermione was glad that she had returned, this was a view she had missed dearly and it never failed to make her feel better. Summer was holding on to its last breath, it was still green and warm outside but you could detect a slight chill in the air as the wind swept by, letting them all know that autumn was on its way.

Tomorrow was her birthday, the birthday she had been dreading for months. She would inherit everything that her parents had once owned. Their dental practice, the house where she grew up and all of their personal belongings. It was frightening because once it was all hers the last of her parents would be no more and that would make everything she had spent the last year a reality. That her parents would be dead according to the law and in every sense to her and her surroundings. The stress that had built up the last couple of days because of it was one of the reasons why she had gone off on Ron so easily. His actions had been too much to handle on top of everything else.

After walking around the grounds two times she returned up the castle and made her way towards the common room. She was still fuming, but at least she wasn't fuming flames like some dragon anymore. The dinner had already ended by the time she came back and the common room was filled with her peers who all looked up from what they were doing when she walked in through the portraithole.

She spotted Ron sitting in one of the far corners, playing wizards chess with Seamus and Dean. When their eyes met across the room, Hermione thought herself see a hint of regret in his eyes, but he looked away before she had a chance to look further. She shook her head, if he wanted a fight she was going to give him a fight. Harry was nowhere in sight, which meant that he was probably off with Ginny somewhere, so she walked over to the loveseats in front of the hearth where Blaise and Draco were sitting.

"Well, well if it isn't everyone's favourite drama queen!" Draco smirked and patted the empty seat next to him. "That was quiet the scene you made earlier."

"Shut up!" she grumbled and took the suggested seat, not realising beforehand how close it put her to Draco.

"Oh, I'm not complaining. Quite the opposite really, it warmed my heart how you jumped to our defence like that." Blaise chuckled at his friend's mirth and Hermione couldn't help but follow.

She looked up at the smirking blonde. While he might be joking Hermione could tell that he also meant what he said, that he appreciated that she had stood up for him and his friends. To her it might be a given to stand up for her friends, whomever they might be, but they were used to being the bad guys that no one cared to defend and whom everyone liked to blame. It pained her that they all had come to terms with prejudice as an everyday occurrence whichever way it went. They were just kids and weren't supposed to be formed by other people's mistakes and opinions already.

Draco gave her hand a squeeze and a small, but genuine smile, before he picked up the conversation he had had with Blaise and two other Slytherins that were on their Quidditch-team before she had arrived. From time to time, Blaise would turn towards her and ask her opinion, but for the most part she was content with just listening.

It hit her once again as she sat there next to Draco how comfortable she had become with the two wizards in the last two weeks. They were easy to talk to, she had found herself opening up to them on more than one occasion, and she found that she didn't mind their teasing or act like a flustered girl around them. At least not around Blaise.

Without even realising Hermione had subconsciously moved closer to Draco as her eyelids got heavier. The soft murmur from around the common room and the slight vibrations coming from Draco's chest were calming and she was slowly drifting off to la-la-land.

"Hey princess, are you falling asleep on me?" Hermione felt the soft, feather light touch of lips against her forehead.

"No." she huddled closer towards the warmth. "I'm awake."

"Sure you are!" Draco laughed and nudged her slightly. "Why don't you head up to bed and when we see you next time it's to celebrate your existence on this earth." Hermione slowly got up from the couch and then she leaned back down and pressed a kiss to Draco's cheek.

"Goodnight!" she was too tired for her to even recognise what she was doing, if she had she would have been mortified. It was too forward and way too soon for any show of the kind of affection between the two of them.

The morning sun was streaming through the big window on the other side of the room, waking Hermione up from a wonderful sleep. On any other day, she would be out of bed the minute she opened her eyes, but today the bed felt so warm and toasty that she found herself not wanting to get up. She stuck a foot out from the covers but pulled it back in quickly when it was hit by the cold air.

As she looked around the room, Hermione found that every other bed in the room was empty and that she was alone. This was a very rare occasion, she couldn't remember the last time she wasn't the first one of her dorm mates to wake up, in fact she was pretty sure that it had never happened before but considering the late hour she fell asleep it wasn't so weird. While she might have been tiered last night and practically fallen asleep on Draco's chest, after she had gotten into bed her mind had started to reel and she had stayed awake thinking about her upcoming birthday for hours. Or dreading it more like it.

Today was her nineteenth birthday and the day she would inherit everything her parents had owned. Part of the reason, aside from the cold, why she didn't want to get out of the bed was that she was sure her friends would make a big deal about her big day to make her feel better. And that was something she just wasn't up to right now.

Hermione picked up her wand from the bedside table and accioed over some clothes from the open closet on the opposite side of the room. They flew across the room and landed in her lap. She quickly changed underneath the covers before climbing out of the bed to face the day, ready or not. Before she had even descended the last step, her friends rushed over to her from their positions on the couch.

"Happy Birthday!" they all yelled in unison.

"Thanks guys." she mumbled and moved over to the couches, feeling embarrassed from all of the attention. Harry sat down next to her while Luna ran away, only to return a few seconds later carrying a bunch of presents that she dumped in Hermione's lap.

Harry smiled sympathetically at her. He had clearly noticed her discomfort and wrapped an arm around her.

One by one she opened the gifts with a fake smile that had her cheeks hurting. The gifts were nice. Books, clothes and a candy supply that would last her the entire year. But she couldn't quiet enjoy them. Her entire body ached with discomfort and she had to steel herself to sit still on the couch. She leaned her head against Harry's shoulder while she tried to focus on the conversations going on around her.

They spent the morning in the common room, eating the breakfast that someone had managed to smuggle up from the kitchen. Hermione suspected it to be Ron, a pathetic attempt from his side to distract them from his absence. They were waiting for the owl that would arrive at any minute now. Hermione Jean Granger was born on the 19th of September at 11:44 am. It was now 11:43.

The nauseating feeling, she had had since the moment she woke up had intensified during the day and it had become so unbearable that she couldn't contain the slight moan of pain. Hermione doubled over and if it weren't for Harry holding onto her, she would fall to the floor. When she was younger Hermione had terrible growing pains and it felt just like this, intense pain before turning into a dull pain and then back again.

"Mione?!" her friends' voices sounded from the distance, but all she could focus on was the pain coursing through her body.

The pain only lasted for a few minutes, but to her it felt like hours before it finally went away. With a deep breath, she righted herself and looked over at her friends that were staring at her with gaping faces. Their eyes were wide as saucers and their mouths wide open, but Hermione couldn't for the life of her understand why they were looking at her like that.

"What's wrong?"

"Your hair, it changed. You changed."

"What are you talking about Ginny?"

Ginny reached for her hand tentatively and lead her over to one of the ancient mirrors hanging on the wall. The person staring back at her was not the same person who had looked back at her last night before she went to bed. This girl had long, wavy hair instead of frizzy curls and it was black, not brown. Her eyes were blue and she was a couple of inches taller. The girl, or young woman, held no resemblance whatsoever to Hermione Granger except for the nose and mouth. What was happening to her?