Sorry it took me so long to upload the next chapter.
I've been struggling a bit with migraines lately, unfortunately. The next chapter will follow more quickly and hopefully won't feel so much like a "filler chapter".
Thanks to everyone who still reads and likes my story! :)
Hermione could not imagine anyone from her own house doing such a thing.. If Cormac had still been here, it might have been different.
Nevertheless, she thought it was a good suggestion from Ginny to move the research to her dormitory.
If only because then she could no longer be bothered by Ron and Harry, who were clearly having too much fun with the whole thing.
So now she sat on her pillows on the floor of the bedroom with Lavender, Parvati and Ginny, swiping profile after profile in different directions.
Fellow students who were logged in as themselves she did not match, of course.
All others were swiped right blindly.
"As far as I know, the first message always came from our catfish," Parvati commented. "So I wouldn't write to anyone for now."
"That's fine with me," Hermione agreed, quickly swiping away an unflattering picture of Ernie Macmillan.
So far, she'd had a few matches with people from abroad.
"Do you actually think it could be a girl?" mused Lavender.
Hermione looked up from her phone. That thought had actually not even occurred to her, yet.
"You think?" asked Ginny. "Well sure, anything's possible, but somehow..."
"I'd actually only thought of boys from the castle, too," Parvati admitted. "But sure, could be."
Lavender pursed her lips and tilted her head thoughtfully.
"Maybe someone who's jealous because their beloved facies Seamus or Padma instead of them."
"Well, if it only involved one person, that would be a possibility," Hermione agreed. "But when someone fools several people at once, it looks more like a boredom action to me. Or rather, an I'm-an-idiot-and-like-seeing-other-people-suffer action."
"Haha!" Ginny laughed loudly and pointed at the screen. "That's Michael, let me see."
"Don't waste our time with that, what do I want with anyone's real profile?" protested Hermione, sticking her arm out to the side so Ginny couldn't grab her phone.
"But he does think he's the big expert of dating apps, I need to see that. Please!"
Hermione rolled her eyes and opened the Ravenclaw student's profile.
The pictures were okay, at least he wasn't faking hobbies he didn't have and he wasn't holding up animals to the camera that didn't belong to him.
The linked song was "Hey Brother" by Avicii. He had actually kept the text very short.
"I'm looking for the one who will someday be the only thing to appear when I enter the Room of Requirement," Hermione read out.
"That's very specific, though," Parvati noted. "Surely no one outside of Hogwarts knows what the Room of Requirement is. Or do other schools have something like that?"
"I don't know," Lavender said with a shrug. "But it does sound very romantic."
Hermione had to pull herself together not to roll her eyes again at her dreamy tone.
"Well, I think it's cheesy," Ginny said, unimpressed.
"Oh, you all have no sense of the magic of love," Lavender exclaimed in an exaggerated pining tone, tossing her hair back theatrically.
The four of them spent almost another hour looking at profiles and searching for obvious fakes. There were quite a few of them.
In between, some time was wasted with Lavender and Parvati drooling over Blaise Zabini's pictures before Hermione snatched her phone away from them again.
But still. She had to admit that is was somehow fun. But just a little bit.
Parvati left an hour before bedtime to breakt to her sister that her Prince Charming had not only ghosted her, but had pretty much fooled her in the first place.
She didn't come back until Ginny was already in her own dormitory and Hermione and Lavender had just turned out the lights.
She did her best to be quiet, but they weren't asleep yet anyway.
"Good night," Parvati whispered when she realised her roommates were still awake.
"Night," Lavender murmured into her pillow.
"Good night," Hermione replied but then still had to ask.
"How's Padma doing?"
"She'll get over it, but she's ashamed to have fallen for it. Much like Seamus, except she doesn't express it in tantrums."
"Understandable," Lavender yawned.
The three of them were silent for a moment, until Parvati spoke up again.
"Hermione?"
"Hmm?"
"Thank you for doing this for Padma and Seamus."
"No problem."
"When you find out who it is, let me know. I want to smack him myself."
"Check with Ginny about who gets to go first," Hermione yawned and closed her eyes.
"Good night," Parvati repeated.
"Night," Hermione mumbled. There was already no reply from Lavender.
On Monday morning, Padma was still quite depressed. Seamus was taking out his anger quite effectively on a dummy in Defence Against the Dark Arts, while Hermione couldn't stop thinking about all the classmates she'd already seen on Amortentia.
That meant they'd all seen her too. Them and probably many more. She, who had warned so big-headedly about the dangers of the internet and had made no secret of what she thought of this app.
Now if that didn't seem hypocritical...
But even apart from Hermione's worries, Seamus' anger and Padma's dejection, the mood that day was somehow strange.
No one really seemed to be in a good mood.
Dean was worried about Seamus, Neville had probably slept badly, Ginny was still arguing with Ron about Theo at breakfast, Lavender suffered because Ron was in a bad mood, Parvati felt bad for her sister and even Harry was somehow grumpy.
The weather didn't help the mood either. The sky was still full of heavy rain clouds and a cold wind whistled around their ears as soon as they left the shelter of the thick stone walls.
Even the Hufflepuffs in herbology class couldn't lift the mood. Susan and Hannah looked as if they had just failed an exam and were not happy at all.
When the day's lessons were finally over, Hermione rushed to the library. Here at least she had peace and quiet from Ron and Harry, who were asking her every hour if she had any new matches and if anyone had written to her, yet. As if she was playing around on her smartphone during lessons.
And here, between all those beautiful books the thing also remained unnoticed for the time being.
She had to study. She had a lot of catching up to do to get through her workload as she had set out to do. The last few days had messed up her study schedule completely.
After two hours, she was reasonably satisfied with her progress and then reluctantly reached for her phone.
First, however, she saw a new message from her father on the screen.
Hello my favourite daughter, how are you?
I'm going to a conference in Madrid tomorrow
and won't be back for two weeks.
I'll be pretty busy there but I might be able to call
you in the evening. When is a good time for you?
Hermione frowned. Another one of those obligatory messages. Her parents should just tell her if they would rather go back to sending letters once a month again.
Hi Dad, all good so far. Lots of learning to do,
as always. Have fun in Spain!
I can always make a phone call after class
just give it a try when you have time.
If I'm busy, I'll call you back as soon as I can.
Love You
Okay, she shouldn't invest too much energy in frustration about parents, there was a more important task to worry about.
She opened Amortentia and saw a startling number above the little letter icon in the top right corner.
20 new matches, 6 messages.
She didn't look at who had matched her, but took a look at the messages. After all, they had agreed not to write to anyone of their own accord for the time being.
The first message was a simple "Hi, how are you?" from a wizard in Ilvermorny.
Hermione left it at an equally uncreative reply.
Good, how are you?
If it was the catfish she was looking for, they would be moving the conversation along themselves. If not, the conversation would probably end quite quickly.
Message number two came from France.
Hey, up for some magic? My wand is ready ;-)
Wow. If someone from inside the castle wanted to trick her, they would surely realise that such a thing didn't work on her. So, for now, she didn't bother to reply.
It didn't get much better, though.
Do you remember me? Oh no, that's right. We've only seen each other in my dreams so far.
Hermione didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So this was what her classmates got to read every day? And yet they were all still so crazy about this app?
The next message, was in Chinese, which Hermione of course did not understand. With that, the person was eliminated from the circle of suspects and Hermione deleted the match straight away.
Only the last message she opened seemed to have a little potential.
Hi Hermione, you seem very nice. How are you?
I see you're a student at Hogwarts, where are you from?
Hermione opened the profile before replying. The username was quite simple, Raphaël_A_B.
Finally, no wordplay with any spells or magical creatures.
There were only two pictures and as far as Hermione could tell, no watermarks had been retouched on them. That didn't mean it couldn't still be a fake, but it was at least much more authentic than the profile Lavender had shown her back then.
The first picture looked as if it had been taken by a professional photographer - or at least someone who was good with cameras.
It showed him sitting in a gloomy location on some kind of bridge or balcony. His legs were dangling in the air and his head was resting against one of his hands, holding onto a thin railing above him.
He had dark curly hair, ice blue eyes and lots of freckles on his face. Hermione had to grin when she saw his location. Southern France.
Yes, he reminded her of one or two guys her mother had tried to set her up with when they were on vacation there. Sons of her parents' friends, or sometimes a waiter from the café next to their holiday home.
The second picture, on the other hand, was obviously a candid photo, a little blurrier and maybe shot on a vacation. Raphaël was standing with a surfboard leaning against a wooden hut, laughing heartily as if someone had just told the funniest joke ever.
He was hardly the Catfish we were looking for. Online, there were rarely professional and self-shot photos of the same person to be found. Hermione didn't put it past the imposter to go to such great lengths and find the private photos of someone of whom there were model pictures online.
He had been far too sloppy for that so far.
Still, she didn't want to take the risk of not replying to exactly the right person.
Hi, I'm fine and you? Yeah, I'm in my last year
at Hogwarts. I'm originally from suburban London.
I assume you're going to Beauxbatons, or have you
already graduated?
"Well, found anyone yet?" Dean's voice made her wince inevitably.
"Sorry, I thought you heard me."
"It's fine, I was just...focused." Hermione placed the phone, screen down, on the table in front of her.
"So? Any suspects lined up yet?" Dean leaned against the bookshelf beside her and grinned.
"No, not really. But I haven't had much time to write with anyone today." She took a deep breath. "And honestly, I also didn't really want to do so, either."
"I've had two obvious fakes text me so far, but I doubt it's anyone from Hogwarts. Looked more like some chat bots, anyway, the messages were clearly a Google Translator crime."
Hermione smiled and started packing up her things. She was starting to get hungry.
"Why I'm actually here, though" Dean straightened up and handed Hermione one of her books.
"Seamus is still ashamed, but he gives you credit for trying to find this guy. I thought that might motivate you."
"I'm not alone in that, thankfully," Hermione replied, closing her bag.
"Yes, but I'm afraid you're the one with the best chance of success in this case."
Hermione laughed and shrugged.
"Maybe I should apply to be an Auror after all. Do you think if I solve this case it will count as a reference for that profession?"
Dean's grin grew even wider.
"I'm sure it will, but I think your battles against that old noseless man could possibly be helpful, too."
"Oh, I don't know... There's probably nothing about that on my final certificate," Hermione joked, looking questioningly at Dean, who was blocking her path to the library exit.
"Are you coming to dinner, or do you still have... research to do?"
"Dinner first, then pleasurable work." With those words, Dean took a few steps backwards and made a sweeping hand gesture to let Hermione pass him.
All the way to the Great Hall, Dean talked almost non-stop about the Quidditch training he had just come from and Hermione was more than grateful for that.
Finally, something different to talk about.
Ever since Ron had stuck to Lavender, the Quidditch conversations during dinner had decreased significantly. And Harry hadn't been particularly talkative in the last few days, either.
Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that it might have something to do with Ginny and Theo, even though he would never bring it up and admit it.
Once in the Great Hall, there was a surprise for all the sixth- and seventh-graders.
As soon as Hermione had sat down, a black envelope appeared in front of her on the still empty plate.
Next to her Harry had taken a seat, still grumbling to himself.
"Well that looks suspiciously Slytherin to me," he observed, ripping open the envelope unmotivated.
Hermione was a little more cautious, after all, you never knew what to expect with virtually anything from the Slytherin house. Even though she could guess that it was an invitation to the New Year's Eve party.
Apparently the Slytherins didn't bother with posters. They probably thought it was too immature.
"Isn't it a bit early?" remarked Dean, who was also still eyeing the letter somewhat sceptically.
"I suppose we'll be lucky if we know what dress code they're insisting on this year as early as possible," Harry scoffed.
Hermione reached into the envelope and out came a black card with silver trim that glistened dark green on closer inspection.
All it had on it was Hermione's full name. It looked like a ticket.
With it lay a letter on light-coloured paper.
Exclusive invitation
Dear Hermione,
Slytherin House hereby invites you to our New Year's Eve party on 31 December 2014.
The enclosed ticket will give you access to our premises.
Unfortunately, guests without a ticket cannot be admitted.
The event will begin at 9 pm. with a cocktail reception and will end at 1 am. in accordance with current Hogwarts rules for house parties.
Dress code: Black Tie
Also important:
Anyone attending our party agrees, upon entering our common room, to participate in at least one game taking place.
If someone shows up to our event without a date, the number of compulsory participations increases to two games.
What happens in our common room stays in our common room.
Hermione looked up from her letter and saw several questioning faces.
"Um... What?" asked Ginny, waving the paper through the air.
"That's where they want to sound classy and pompously, but then they have to somehow include the words "party game" in their stupid invitation," Ron laughed.
"But," Hermione read the last lines again. "Let me get this straight. We have to play along with party games they come up with beforehand and get around one if we come with a date? What the hell is that? Who came up with this nonsense?"
"The main thing is that they can somehow impose their will on others," Harry sighed.
"All right, but I suppose everyone will find someone to introduce as a date until then," Ron reasoned. Lavender leaned against his shoulder, giggling.
"Well, there's still time before then. I need to eat something first." Hermione tucked the envelope away, ignoring the vibrating of her phone as well.
Now it was time for lasagne.
