Michael Brown

Have you ever felt a hostile glare on you, watching your every step with disturbing intensity? I did, and it was quite disturbing, even if the person watching me was just a twelve-year-old girl.

From the moment I stepped off the train, I could feel Hermione Granger watching me from afar. She, along with Ron and Harry, followed my group the entire trip from the train to the castle, with Hermione constantly trying to drill a hole in the back of my head with her piercing gaze. Fortunately, Harry and Ron were less intense, actually looking quite embarrassed by Hermione's behavior, but they nonetheless seemed interested in talking to me too.

I sighed, conflicted. I knew that ignoring them would only make things worse, but I also knew that talking to them would probably lead to something troublesome. Still, aware that there was no point in postponing the confrontation any further, I turned to Luna and Marcus, who were walking beside me.

"You guys go ahead. I will join you at the feast," I declared, ready to deal with the situation.

"Good luck, Michael," Luna said simply, nodding to me and starting to walk ahead, already knowing what I was about to do.

"Wait, don't include me in your group! I was walking next to you because we're all going in the same direction. Seriously, don't lump me together with you!" said Marcus, as contrarian as ever. Nevertheless, I knew he had good intentions. I smiled, nodded my head and started walking towards the Gryffindor trio, ignoring Marcus' further protests.

Seeing me coming, the group tensed up, clearly not expecting me to approach them on my own. Ignoring their surprise, I went straight to the point.

"Hey, it looks like you want to talk to me about something" I said confidently "Then let's talk."

We didn't of course talk in the corridor, as anyone could overhear us there, instead going somewhere a little less crowded. We decided to talk in the courtyard, mainly because neither of us trusted the other side enough to go somewhere really private. I didn't want to be kidnapped and interrogated by them, and they didn't want to be kidnapped and interrogated by me (again). Therefore, the most logical choice was to talk in a public place, albeit one large enough so that passersby couldn't overhear the conversation.

Once we finally reached our destination, I turned to the group and decided it would be for the best if I started.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" I asked frankly, not fully understanding the reason for this meeting. Was this some kind of trap? If so, it would have been better if they hadn't watched me for almost an hour. "I assume this is related to the topic you wanted to bring up in the Hogwarts Express. You looked very angry then, Granger."

The group seemed shocked by my words, looking at me with wide-open eyes. After a few seconds, Hermione gathered her bearings and responded, looking quite angry.

"Are you making fun of us?!" she asked furiously "It's obvious that we want to talk about the recording you made before Christmas!"

"What about it?" I asked, honestly confused. I thought I had made myself clear before. Hermione won't tell anyone about her kidnapping and interrogation, and I won't show anyone my recording in return. What else did she want?

"Don't screw with me! I want to know what you plan to do with it! You could have framed us for Malfoy's petrification, but you didn't!" Hermione was practically shouting at this point, forcing Harry and Ron to shush her -"I've spent the last two weeks wondering why, and it's obvious you're planning to do something even worse with this! There's no way you wouldn't reveal the recording out of the goodness of your heart, so we want to know your intentions!"

Framing them for the petrification of Malfoy? That's right, people were saying that some shapeshifters were responsible for it. It was so obvious to me that there were countless metamorphmaguses and polyjuiced agents at Hogwarts that it didn't even occur to me that they might have been talking about the Gryffindor trio.

It was also strange that Hermione was nervous about this whole situation. It's not like Dumbledore or the Ministry would seriously punish their poster boy and his sidekicks. They would sweep the problem under the carpet and frame some poor schmuck, ignoring all evidence against the trio. My recording was actually quite useless, since it wouldn't get the group punished, while incriminating me for the kidnapping. That's why It was strange that Hermione, supposedly the brains of the group, was obsessing over it. She must have been really paranoid. It was kind of sad.

"You spent two weeks worrying about it?" I asked, feeling sorry for the poor girl. It must have been hard to live like that, worrying about everything and constantly imagining new conspiracy theories "You know, Granger, I think you might be a little too paranoid"

Upon hearing me, all emotions disappeared from Hermione's face. She was looking at me with a blank gaze, as if unable to understand what I was saying. Harry and Ron looked at her with concern, but she ignored them, focusing only on me.

"You... are you calling me… paranoid? You? Paranoid?" She asked quietly with a voice devoid of any emotion. Her eyes were still blank, but there was some distant spark in them, like a fire burning in the distance. Not knowing what it was, I decided to ignore Hermione and turned to Harry and Ron, who were looking at me with disbelief on their faces.

"To answer Hermione's earlier concerns, you really have nothing to worry about. I'm not going to do anything with the recording. As long as you don't try to investigate me again, I won't show it to anyone. It's pretty simple, right?" I said, trying to look confident. As I said before, my recording was basically useless as long as they had the Ministry's support. That's why I didn't make any demands, instead being content with them leaving me alone and hoping they wouldn't call my bluff. I looked Harry, the leader of the group, in the eye and asked "So, will you stop investigating me?"

Harry watched me for a moment with an angry expression on his face. He most likely wanted to show that he wasn't intimidated by me, displaying the courage for which his house was known, but in the end he slowly nodded, with defeat evident in his eyes.

"Great, then I think our business here is finished!" I declared, ignoring the disgruntled faces of Harry and Ron. Then I turned to Hermione, who was still mumbling the word 'paranoid' under her breath while looking at me. "And a little piece of advice for you, Granger. You need to relax a little, you know? You're way too tense, constantly fretting over nothing. You should be more like me and live in the moment"

My words seemed to have an effect, as Hermione's eyes immediately lost their hollowness, replaced by a piercing gaze. The distant fire that I had previously seen in her eyes seemed to spread, consuming everything around, until I could only see two burning orbs directed at me, intense and scorching hot like the surface of the sun.

I was so focused on this unusual reaction that I didn't even notice Hermione's fist flying at my face at blinding speed until it collided with my cheek and sent me flying. Everyone in the courtyard went silent as I hit the ground, creating a small cloud of dirt around me.

After spending a few seconds wondering why I was suddenly seeing the sky, I slowly raised my hand to my face to massage my struck cheek, only to feel the pain upon touching it. I then raised my gaze to look at my attacker. Hermione was standing in front of me with her fist still raised, looking at it confused, as if not understanding what had just happened herself. Harry, Ron and everyone in the courtyard were looking at her in shock, not expecting such a violent reaction from such a polite girl.

"Damn, you really hit me, Granger. What am I, Malfoy?" I asked sarcastically, quite surprised by her attack. Hearing this, everyone turned in my direction, looking at me with shocked expressions on their faces: "What, too soon?"