AN:/ So everybody here is the deal. This is a tiny update, but it comes with some interesting news. Myself and another wonderful author whom I had not seen update in a long while, known as Daliastarr, have an arrangement. I will update, when she will update, and vicea versa. If you have not read her stories I would highly suggest them. The one that is now synchronized with this one. (Hopefully) is Specialis Revelio. It is in the Young Justice and Harry Potter crossover section and I find it highly entertaining and hope you will too! So while this is only about 2000 words, it will hopefully be indicative of a pattern is more timely than what I have upheld in the past. I already have the next chapter in the works! So yup. Here you go, a little taste of what is to come. be sure to check out Daliastarrs story too!

Batman Doesn't "Do" Magic

Chapter 13

by deadlydaisy8o8

Originally Uploaded: Februrary 1, 2015, 9:37PM

What woke Harry the next morning was the beginning of a racket that soon had the entirety of Gryffindor tower curiously moving into the Common Room. It started with the panicked and chaotic rustling of bed sheets and papers.

"Com'on Scabbers you know its not safe for you outside of your cage with that beast of a cat around. Here Scabbers Scabbers Scabbers."

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" Dean Thomas had been woken by the same rustling and panicked whispers that had started to raise Harry from his slumber. At Dean's short exclamation Harry shot up and what he found was their dorm in complete disarray. Clothes were flung on top of everything, papers were strewn about on the floor in no particular order, trunks had been overturned, there was a red fuzzy sock sticking to the mirror on the far side of the room for some reason. Seamus having been woken by Dean as well took in the scene and let out his own exclamation on seeing his belongings flung about.

"Ron what the hell are you doing!" Ron franticly turned around panic written across his face.

"Scabbers is gone! Guys you have to help me I can't find him anywhere! He wasn't even under the bed and I looked!" Indeed the space around Ron's bed was the worse off. The mattress had been taken off of the frame, the curtains were flung on top of themselves, the contents of his trunk was completely emptied out, and on top of the heap was a rat cage conspicuously absent of any occupant, looking torn apart and disheveled itself. Harry had finally got his wits about him and swung his feet over the side of his bed.

"Ron calm down. He's got to be here somewhere. Who would want to take your rat anyway?" Ron turned to his friend.

"I'm not going to calm down because there is only one thing that would want to make Scabbers disappear and it has claws and teeth and can get into our dorms!" Harry winced at his friend's accusation because it was true. When they stayed at the Burrow before the start of term both Harry and Ron had seen Crookshanks figure how to open a door. The boys had thought it creepy while Hermione cooed about how smart her little man was. Unfortunately Ron had seen the resigned look in Harry's face as well as the wince that followed and he lost it.

"Ron, just wait a sec-"

"Oh god that stupid ugly cat has eaten Scabbers! I knew it! I knew that cat was no good! That's it, this is the last straw!" Ron's face was in the process of turning a shade of red that would make any Weasley matron proud and he thundered down the stairs to the Common Room. Harry was jumping up out of his bed trying to catch up to the angry red head but it was no use.

"HERMIONE, YOUR BLOODY CAT ATE MY PET RAT. HE ATE IT! THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS COME DOWN HERE AND TELL ME YOU'RE SORRY!" When Harry made it to the common room it was with the rest of the third year boys behind him and the cries of 'Oy!' and 'What the bloody hell?' from the other years they had descended past with such a racket. Slowly those boys too made their way down the stairs.

Ron was pounding on the bottom step and the walls of the staircase that led to the girls' dorms, screaming Hermione's name. There were girlish shrieks at the racket, and frizzy heads poking themselves out of the girl's dorms glaring at the culprit at the bottom. Finally a particularly frizzy explosion of hair stepped out of the third door.

"Ronald Billus Weasley you will stop screaming at me right now or there will be consequences!" Hermione shouted back down to Ron as she stepped onto a landing in the staircase, her wand clenched in her hand and shooting sparks. Ron did not stop shouting at Hermione.

"What are you gonna do that your stupid cat hasn't already done for you? Are you gonna let it eat me too then?" Hermione marched down the stairs about to bowl Ron over but Ron was not backing down and held his ground at the bottom of the stairs. The difference in height that would usually be apparent between Ron and Hermione was absent as Hermione came to a stop on the last step. They stood nose to nose. Hermione was no longer shouting but speaking very sternly.

"Just what on earth are you talking about Ronald." Ron swallowed and he growled.

"Your stupid cat. Ate. My. Rat." The adrenalin of anger was staring to wear away and Ron was on the downward spiral towards outright grief. A flash of comprehension crossed Hermione's face and she repressed a sigh at the impulsive stupidity of her friend before she clenched her teeth and spoke.

"Ron, Crookshanks has been sleeping on my feet the whole night. It's not possible for him to have eaten your rat because I would have woken up if he had moved." Ron huffed through his nose.

"So I guess you're just 'The Princess and the Nettles' then. Its completely impossible for you to sleep through anything because of course you would wake up to tend to precious little Crookshanks." Hermione's hair almost seemed to expand as she glared back at the insult.

"Did you even look for him or did you automatically assume that Crookshanks had put the balding little thing out of its misery?" Ron's eyes were staring to get irritated and bloodshot.

"Of course I looked for him! I turned the whole dorm upside-down but I couldn't find him and you know why? It's because that bloody cat ate him! Your pet hell spawn ate my rat Hermione! Scabbers is dead because of you and you won't even say sorry!"

"Because it's not my fault!"

"That bloody cat has had it out for Scabbers since you decided to buy it. I tried to tell you to keep the stupid thing away but you wouldn't listen."

"How could Crookshanks even-"?

"IT LEARNED TO OPEN DOORS HERMIONE!" Ron's voice cracked and Hermione recoiled her own eyes becoming glassy. As she was about to open her mouth Neville managed to wiggle to the front of the crowd.

"Ron come on. You don't really know if Hermione's cat ate Scabbers. We should go back up to the dorm and look. I loose Trevor for days sometimes before he turns back up. We can still find him." Ron turned to the intruder with new anger.

"Nobody cares about your stupid toad Neville!"

"Ronald Weasley! Detention! Twenty points from Gryffindor for insulting a housemate. Everyone back to their dorms to get ready for breakfast." The room went silent as they all turned to look at Professor McGonagall who had just entered the Common Room, a First year hiding behind her legs. When no one moved she spoke again, "Get!" and there was a great rush of feet back up the stairs from both the girls who had crowded the staircase behind Hermione and the boys who had gathered behind Ron in the Common Room.

LINE BREAK

Neville looked around for Hermione in the greenhouse, but she still wasn't there. There was a horrible feeling of both guilt and relief at the fact that it looked like Hermione was so torn up over the fight that she was going to skip class. He was guilty because he knew what had actually happened to Ron's rat. He was relived because he wouldn't have to sit next to Hermione and know that he actually knew what happened to Ron's rat. When professor Sprout started to move towards the front of the room to take attendance Neville finally decided it was safe to relax in the knowledge that Hermione, for whatever reason, wasn't coming.

"Thanks for sticking up for me this morning." Neville let out a shrill squeak as he jumped in his seat. His reaction only garnered a glance from the rest of the class before they turned back to the front of the room. Neville was startled easily and the rest of the class had been disturbed by his yelps of surprise often enough to find them uninteresting. Neville's face was flushed as he responded.

"H-hi Hermione. When did you get here?" Hermione seemed to become nervous herself at the question.

"Only a moment ago. I was running a little late this morning. I meant it though. Thank you for saying something. You know it's very possible that something else happened to Ron's rat besides Crookshanks having gotten a little peckish." Neville's blush refused to retreat as Hermione brought up the lost rat again.

"Uh-huh sure." Hermione looked at Neville a little strangely, concerned that he was nervous about something.

"Neville are you alright, your neck is flushed." Neville tried to smile reassuringly and nod his head but it came out more like a jerk of his head and a grimace. Hermione was clearly not convinced and in a panic Neville furthered the conversation.

"D-do you really think Crookshanks couldn't have gotten into the dorms? Can he really open doors?" Hermione looked down now at her hands in her lap.

"Yes. He's a smart little cat and if he wants to he can get into a room with a closed door. But Crookshanks wouldn't do something like eat Ron's rat. He knows he's not supposed to and I'm relatively sure he was with me the entire night." Neville looked at Hermione a little confused.

"Relatively?" It was Hermione's turn to flush as she nodded.

"I'm not exactly a light sleeper, nothing close to Ron, but… Oh Neville what if Crookshanks really did eat Scabbers? Ron has been looking for him all morning and he still can't find him and Scabbers has never run away like this and who else would want to make Ron's stupid ugly rat disappear? What if it's all my fault? Ron was so upset…" Hermione's blush crept up to her cheeks as she turned her head as if to hide her face behind her frizzy mane. Neville panicked as he watched a tear crawl down Hermione's cheek just before it disappeared behind a wall of hair.

"But Crookshanks didn't eat Scabbers." Hermione took a slow breath in before she turned back to Neville.

"Thank you Neville, but we can't prove anything-"

"The door was locked, on the cage. Unless Crookshanks has thumbs I'm sure he couldn't have gotten in there without a ruckus. A person would have had to sneak into our dorms and open the cage to get Scabbers out. Crookshanks had nothing to do with Scabbers you have to believe me." Hermione paused at the determined look on Neville's face. The color started to drain from her own cheeks as her thought process jumped tracks.

"Neville… Do you know something about where Scabbers has gone?" Neville's eyes opened widened for a brief moment and all of the color drained from his face. He turned to face forward and got out his things for taking notes.

"N-no of course not. I just have a lot of experience with missing pets you know and there are a lot of times where I thought maybe an owl had eaten Trevor and it didn't turn out to be true so I just thought-"

"Mister Longbottom, Miss Granger I would like to get class moving, if we could." Both Hermione and Neville looked up towards the front of the room slightly mortified at Professor Sprout's kind face. They both mumbled a 'yes ma'am' before they fell silent and started to copy what was already on the chalkboard.

Hermione didn't miss the way Neville sighed when Professor Sprout started her lesson, or the way he wouldn't quite turn his head to make eye contact with her the rest of the hour.