Hermione Granger

"Why would you do something so irresponsible?!" Hermione exclaimed in disbelief, shocked by her friend's behavior. She thought that the previous school year, calmer than the first one, had allowed the boys to mature a bit and stop being so stupid. Clearly, she was wrong. "They could have expelled you from Hogwarts for that! You could have lost your wand!"

"It's not like I did it on purpose..." Harry tried to defend himself, rubbing his neck and looking away. At least he looked somewhat guilty, though not as much as she would have liked "And Mr. Fudge said he would take care of everything, so there shouldn't be any problems.

"That's not the point! You turned your aunt into a balloon!" replied Hermione, exhausted by the whole situation. Even if it was just an accidental use of magic, why did it have to be so public and showy? It was as if the world itself had something against Harry, with him constantly getting into trouble. "Besides, why did the Minister of Magic himself decide to get involved in this situation? It doesn't make sense at all. Shouldn't he be dealing with more important matters?"

"Like a pureblood murderer on the loose?" Ron asked as he stuffed his mouth with another cookie, seemingly unconcerned about Harry's recent troubles. If anything, he was quite amused by the whole situation, bursting into laughter upon hearing about Harry inflating his aunt.

"Yes, Ronald. 'Like a pureblood murderer on the loose', exactly." Hermione replied irritably, throwing the boy an angry look. She was already quite furious at Ron for his behavior from before Harry's arrival, and his current attitude did not make the situation any better. She then turned to Harry, looking at him questioningly "I just don't understand why he would spontaneously decide to deal with your problem for no reason at all."

The three of them were currently sitting at one of the tables in the Leaky Cauldron, discussing recent events over breakfast. While they would normally have discussed such a topic in one of their rooms, the fact that Harry had arrived during the night, running away from his home after inflating his aunt, meant that it was at breakfast that they had their first opportunity to talk to the boy. The fact that the first thing they talked about after nearly two months apart was Harry's accidental breaking of the Statute of Secrecy depressed Hermione quite a lot, especially considering that her stay in the Leaky Cauldron prior to Harry's arrival had already been quite unpleasant.

It was hard for her to enjoy herself when everyone around her was freaking out about the new murderer currently on the loose.

She didn't know the full details, as most of her knowledge came from a Daily Prophet article she had read and a description from a wanted poster, but apparently the notorious Voldemort supporter known as Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban with the help of an unknown third party. Black was reportedly an extremely dangerous criminal, responsible for the deaths of countless innocents, mostly muggles and muggleborns, whom he murdered with particular cruelty.

If that weren't enough, it turned out that their former DADA teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, began causing trouble around the world, committing various acts of terror and targeting prominent purebloods in random countries.

It meant that two maniacs were now running rampant in the wizarding world, a fact that made everyone extremely nervous. Both purebloods and Muggle customers were sitting far away from one another, looking at each other with clear suspicion, fearing that they would be attacked by a crazed madman. This, and the fact that the entire pub was filled with wanted posters of Black and Lockhart, created a rather oppressive atmosphere in the building, making it impossible for Hermione to relax.

It however wasn't the only reason for her bad mood. There was also the fact that the Weasley family had been getting on her nerves ever since she arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. Well, she obviously didn't mean the whole family. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were actually quite lovely people, and Ginny helped her a lot during her stay. No, she meant the twins and Ronald.

For some reason, Fred and George chose her as the next target of their so-called "pranks," deciding that it would be fun to pretend to be, as they called it, brownists and follow her around, repeating Brown's nonsense. It was incredibly annoying to listen to that boy's lies even during the summer, but she was able to endure it for a while, knowing that her anger would only give them satisfaction.

It worked for a while, but she lost it when they said she was 'a hostile agent of an inherently flawed regime whose blind loyalty to the rotten corpse of wizarding Britain and propensity for violence were obvious symptoms of moral degeneration among the wizarding population', which apparently was a direct quote from a lecture held by Brown after being punched in the face by her.

The screaming that followed was so intense and loud that Mrs. Weasley had to intervene, forcing the twins to stop harassing her, threatening to take away all their gadgets and toys. The whole situation, while extremely infuriating for her, turned out to be quite hilarious for Ronald, who started laughing out loud when he saw it. She found it quite offensive that he, of all people, found it funny. After almost a year of dealing with that chaotic boy, he should have understood the danger of spreading Brown's lies. It of course wasn't enough to put him on her blacklist (which so far only included Brown and Voldemort), but she was quite annoyed by his behavior. He should have known better.

The point was that Hermione was already stressed enough, and now Harry decided to break the Statute of Secrecy in the most public way possible! How was it even possible for him to almost reveal the existence of magic to Muggles and get expelled SECOND YEAR IN A ROW?! And the Minister of Magic himself decided to intervene on Harry's behalf, saving him from trouble and sweeping the problem under the rug! While she was obviously grateful for saving her friend, it basically confirmed all of that lunatic Brown's crazy theories about the Ministry and their preferential treatment of their poster boy! The only consolation was that Brown wasn't there, because...

No, now was not the time to worry about Brown's nonsense. She had to take care of Harry's issue first. She looked at the boy, patiently waiting for his answer to her earlier question.

"To be honest, I don't know myself why the Minister decided to talk to me." The boy replied after a moment's thought, though then he seemed to have thought about something, as his face turned rather contemplative. "I got the idea he didn't talk to me just because of the accident, though..."

"What do you mean? Did he say something strange?" asked Ron, his voice thankfully a bit more serious than before. Then again, maybe it was only because he had already finished his breakfast?

"Well, no, but he certainly acted odd." Harry said quietly, before leaning towards them conspiratorially "Especially once I mentioned Sirius Black. He said I should be especially careful now that Black was on the loose, but he got quite evasive when I asked him about him."

"The minister was evasive? Wait, do you think he's hiding something?" Hermione asked uncertainly. Was it possible that the minister knew something they didn't? Well, it was quite likely. He was the Minister of Magic, after all, while the three of them were just Hogwarts students. It was only natural that he was better informed than them. But what was he trying to hide? Was there perhaps a connection between Harry and Black?

Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long for an answer, as a few seconds later Ron provided one.

"I mean, isn't it obvious? The minister is probably worried that Black will try to attack Harry." Ron declared confidently, causing Harry and Hermione to look at him questioningly. Seeing their confusion, he decided to clarify. "Black is a loyal follower of You-Know-Who, right? If you were a fanatical servant of the Dark Lord, what would be the first thing you would do after escaping from prison? Revenge for your master's defeat. The minister probably fears that Black would try to kill Harry, the person responsible for defeating You-Know-Who. If Black were to succeed, it would look very bad for the Ministry, so they need to make sure Harry is safe."

That... actually made a lot of sense. If Sirius Black was as fanatical as he was described, he would certainly try to harm Harry, no matter how long it took. To make matters worse, they also had to take into account that Black was most likely not acting alone, given that he had been freed from Azkaban by some unknown group. The fact that these people risked capture or dementor's kiss in order to free one of Voldemort's followers meant that they were most likely Voldemort's followers themselves, who freed Sirius Black in the hope that he would help them achieve some nefarious goal, which might in fact have been to kill Harry Potter, the boy who lived.

It was a rather worrisome conclusion, especially since Hermione was quite skeptical about their chances in a battle against a powerful dark wizard, most likely backed by other equally powerful followers. While they were somehow able to defeat Professor Quirrell in their first year, it was not due to any combat prowess, but due to luck and Harry's unique ability to hurt Voldemort. She doubted it would prove useful during their confrontation with Sirius Black.

After Hermione shared her concerns with the boys, they spent almost an hour discussing the issue, ultimately deciding that for now it was best to simply trust Professor Dumbledore and the Ministry to keep them safe and catch dangerous criminals. However, in case Black somehow managed to elude them, they decided that under no circumstances could they allow Sirius Black to get close to Harry. They decided that as soon as they saw him, they would either flee as quickly as possible or cover him with suppressive spells, hopefully stopping the criminal from pursuing them. It wasn't much, but there wasn't really much else they could do, so it seemed reasonable.

When they were finally done discussing Sirius, their conversation thankfully shifted to more lighthearted topics, eventually ending with the boys asking Hermione how she spent her summer. Upon hearing this, Hermione smiled broadly, knowing that it was finally time.

Time to reveal to Harry and Ron the project she had been working on since the beginning of the summer.

The Board.

Yeah, you know what kind of board it is. It's coming.