"I can't believe you ran toward the thing that the poltergeist ran from!" Severus shouted.
If he thought his daughter was difficult last year, this year she aimed to prove him wrong. Hermione shrank against a wall in his office and held her hands together, once again, digging her nails in to them. She bit her lip and stared at the ground. When he caught her in the corridor there had been a trace of defiance in her face, like back in Dueling Club. Any trace of that was gone. That might have made this conversation easier but he did wonder when that defiant spirit would rise again. Last year she was unlucky and working things out...but this year, Hermione was just being stupid.
"What is wrong with you?" he demanded. "First you help Potter and Weasley sneak into the school, you publish an expose on a teacher, you find yourself at a gruesome crime scene and fail to give me a reason for it, you investigate something I tell you to stay the hell away from, you sneak out of the hospital because you hear banging in the pipes, you publish your mad theory and turn the student body against each other-oh, yes, Potter can thank you and your pathetic attempts to 'use the rumor mill for good' for half the student body thinking it was him-"
Hermione gripped her hands tighter and drew in a sharp breath. He noticed her shoulders give the tiniest tremble before she shuffled her feet to steady herself.
Shit. "The other teachers and I put little stock into murmurs of students. Any actions officially taken against Potter as a result of our investigation and won't rest on your little shoulders. So you can put to rest any idea you got the boy expelled."
She said nothing.
"Just tell me," he said, leaving her very long list of misdeeds behind. "Why did you run in there? Cocksure, no plan? What could you possibly do to subdue the attacker that I couldn't? Or were you trying to get yourself killed? You are never this careless! This isn't like you."
Hermione steadied herself, the grip on her hands tightened yet again as she drew her eyes from the ground to him. Where she had seconds before been on the verge of tears and thoroughly ashamed of what she'd done, now that defiant spirit flashed across her eyes once more. "I'm starting to think that's not a bad thing."
'Not a bad thing'? What could she possibly mean by that? He regarded his child with a resurfaced fear that the biggest danger to her was herself. Hermione stood opposite him, drawn to her full height and instead of avoiding eye-contact, as she was often want to do, she searched his eyes, her face drawn, solemn and determined.
"'Not a bad thing'?!" he seethed. "How in hell is you rushing head-first into danger 'not a bad thing'? Have I taught you nothing, Hermione?"
Hermione scoffed-scoffed-at this then spoke in a cold voice he hadn't thought her capable of. "Less than two months ago I would have froze like the coward I was. But now that I'm more reactive I can actually be of some use to someone. Those girls attacking me might just have been the best thing to happen to me."
"Be of use?" he yelled slamming his hand against his desk. "And just how useful do you imagine you'll be if you're dead?!"
Hermione didn't have an answer to this question, but her features didn't soften and whatever defiant spirit possessed her lingered. Normally she would have backed down by now, reconsidered her position. Of all the things she could be justifiably angry about, this was the hill she wanted to die on? This was the thing that she allowed herself to be angry about? Eleven years of 'it's fine' and now, when her life was at risk, she chose to grow a spine? The failed transfiguration might have been a catalyst, but he remembered that first day he came to see her when her behaviour should have been at its worst. She still had the ability to curb her stupider impulses, and she still tried to appear calm at all times.
"Best thing that ever happened to you?" he steadied his breath. "Let's review what your behaviourial changes have accomplished to establish your 'usefulness' then, shall we? You put not one, but two students in the hospital because you scratched them. Nearly cost your best friend his eye...if it wasn't for already being in the hospital, he would have been scarred at the very least. You dragged him out of the hospital endangering him as well as yourself. If you don't give a damn about your own safety, I know your little martyr-complex will allow you to see how stupid that was!"
"I do not have a martyr-complex!" cried Hermione.
"Silence, you silly little girl!" he snarled. "And all evidence seems to point to the contrary. You think rushing in with no regard to your own well-being and doing whatever you feel others require of you is a good thing. You may have even been told that by your peers and other professors that this is somehow a virtue. Well, I see it for what it is: self-destructive! Which is why I imagine the only person you've ever managed to say 'no' to is the one person who actually gives a damn about your welfare!"
Hermione's rigid posture left her and her facial features softened. She let out a drawn out sigh before nervously wringing her hands. After a moment she stopped and looked at him before speaking in soft, even tones. "Running in there was stupid," she admitted.
"Incredibly so," he agreed, gently running his hand over the top of her head.
"I wasn't thinking," she sighed.
"Evidently."
"I know you're only worried," she returned her gaze to her wringing hands. "I-erm-I thought someone could have been hurt and I had to do something I-"
"Couldn't help yourself?" he sighed sitting and inviting her next to him.
Hermione obliged with apprehension and nodded.
"I figured as much," he moved tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You don't trust me and I can't force you to. But some part of you has to know I only have your best interests at heart."
She nodded again and inched closer to him.
"Hermione," he said softly. "Never let me catch doing something so reckless again. You will not like what follows if you do."
"Yessir."
"So, the Parseltongue is a remnant from You-Know-Who's failed spell?" Ron asked astounded.
I wonder how that works...Hermione thought but kept quiet hoping that Dumbledore imparted more information to the not expelled Harry. She furled the scroll of the latest family tree she had been researching, relieved to stop looking at cousin-marriages for just a bit. A week of research and Malfoys connecting to Slytherin were non-existent...they had better get definitive proof infiltrating the Slytherin dorms or it would all have been for nothing...
"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Reckons Voldemort spoke it and that there's some connection or link between us now. Residual effects."
Hermione bit her lip pensively as she mulled over spell effects that could do. She couldn't think of any, though. Harry was the first and only case of surviving the killing curse. She abandoned it for more pressing matters. Harry was innocent! Not only was he innocent, but he wasn't being manipulated by the monster. This was a victory. She could cross Harry off the list and move to seeing what was effecting Ginny's mind. Harry was right to call Hermione out on it, but there was certainly something wrong.
"There's no chance I'll get you to stop saying that name, is there?" Ron asked.
"Dumbledore says fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself," Harry said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"You'll forgive us if we don't join you," Hermione said recalling the only time she had ever said the name.
"Daddy?" asked five-year-old Hermione clinging to her father's hand.
"Yes, love?" he said, distracted.
"What's a Voldemort?"
Whatever had been distracting her father disappeared as his black eyes turned on her, wide with terror and his face bloodless. He knelt down to her eye-level and seized her shoulders with shaking hands and shouted. "YOU MUST NOT SPEAK THE DARK LORD'S NAME!"
Hermione had never seen her father so frightened, she didn't know what happened, what she did wrong or why he was yelling at her and burst into tears.
Hermione now knew exactly why he had reacted the way he had. The atrocities Voldemort had committed, the dark wizards at his disposal, the fact that he was likely not truly dead...If she thought she'd been liberated from cowardice by her newfound reactivity, she only needed to think about the fear in her father's eyes at the mention of a name, and all she read attached to it for it to surface. Fear doesn't make you a coward, you little idiot.
"You too?" Harry shook his head.
"Me too," Hermione sighed putting her scrolls back. "Call me a coward if you like."
"I wasn't going to call you a coward," Harry sighed. "If I did, I'd have to call every wizard but Dumbledore one. What's asphodel?"
Hermione hid her eyeroll behind her notebook. "It's a flowering Greek plant, part of the lilium family, most often used in sleeping draughts. They're also quite pretty. They have like three pages dedicated to their usages in 1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi and they collect them from the floor of Hades to enter the Dreamrealm of the half-dead in Pearls of Persephone. Remember?"
"I'm not there yet," Harry sighed.
"Shit!" Hermione nervously smiled. "Sorry! I'll refrain from further Son of Hermes comments until you're done."
"Thank you," said an exasperated Harry.
"Agreeing to extra reading," Ron shook his head. "Especially when we've already got so much on our plate. How are we supposed to figure out what this thing is when we have so much homework? I can't believe Snape assigned an essay immediately due before holidays and one after. That's just cruel."
"Why are you surprised?" Harry scoffed.
Hermione made no effort to hide her eyeroll here. "It's for the best. We won't be getting breaks when we're grown, you know? He just wants us to have a decent work ethic."
"You don't believe that," Ron groaned.
"You two should just be happy you've never had to write a two-roll essay on the origins of the word 'shit'," she sighed.
Harry and Ron exchanged victorious grins before laughing.
"That's excessive, well beyond detention," Harry mused.
"He was acting as my father, not my teacher," Hermione regretted bringing this up. "I wasn't even in school yet, I was nine."
"Merlin's beard," Ron breathed.
"Erm-forget I said anything!" Hermione, happy to be done with researching families returned to Monsters of Myth Made Material and flipped to the section on Basilisks.
Basilisk, King of the Serpents, is born from a chicken egg hatched by a toad. Its venom is so destructive that magical means cannot repair or heal that which is afflicted. The gaze of the Basilisk is just as destructive, infused with the same burning venom, it kills instantly. No image of the Basilisk has ever been captured. Spiders flee from the creature more deadly than them. The enemy of the Basilisk is the rooster, whose call could kill it instantly.
"Shit!" Hermione cried leaping up.
"Hermione!" Harry hissed. "Are you trying to get us kicked out?"
"Sorry," Hermione whispered putting the book open before them. "Read this! We got it!"
Harry and Ron obliged their eyebrows knit in confusion, but she saw understanding cross Harry's face.
"That's why I've been hearing voices all year!" he began pacing. "It's a giant snake!"
"And that's why I could only hear it moving!" Hermione consulted her notes. "Its image has never been captured! That's why the film and chamber melted! It has a venomous gaze! I bet you anything the burning I smelt in the walls was its venom!"
"It all makes so much sense now," Harry agreed. "If its a snake it can constrict itself to move about!"
"Aren't you two forgetting one very important detail?" Ron said. "Nobody's dead. It's a good thing, but the Basilisk kills immediately. It can't be that."
"But no one saw its eyes!" Hermione thought back to each victim. "Colin had a camera so he only saw a filtered image and Justin saw it through Nick, having the same effect!"
"And Nick can't die twice!" Harry agreed. "So he was just petrified."
"And Mrs Norris-" Hermione continued.
"The flooding!" Ron gasped. "By Merlin, we have it!"
"Except," Harry said losing his victorious gleam. "Where the chamber is and who's controlling it."
"Malfoy," Ron said. "His manor was investigated by my dad this summer. That can't be a coincidence. We just need to worm a confession out of him."
"Which will be easy enough when he's bragging to us as his mates," Hermione mused wondering who else would be hurt before the potion was ready.
She'd forgotten that the Malfoys were investigated. That certainly added to Malfoy's appeal as the culprit, and Hermione suddenly felt very guilty for her suspicions of Ginny. She had what, one conversation to go off of and a misplaced theory of her father's? Stupid piece of shit.
"What do we do with this information now that we have it?" Ron asked.
"I think I have a plan..." Hermione sighed. "My father is going to have my head for it, but we can't keep quiet."
"Thanks for agreeing to this, Luna," Hermione said looking at her sketchbook. "Oh, that's gorgeous!"
"Thanks!" Luna beamed.
Luna had drawn a character she suspected were inspired by the manga she lent her. A pretty, stylized cat-girl with long, curly hair dressed like a princess, smiling on the page surrounded by filigree, butterflies and dragonflies. "I'm so happy someone else like Koneko Mahou Shoujo! Hiro would be thrilled."
Luna shut the book and looked at her after a sigh. "Yeah, it's very good. I'm really enjoying it. I can't believe I leave tomorrow." Luna now looked up at the snow flakes falling on them in huge fluffy flakes. She stuck her tongue out to catch them.
"Oh!" Hermione tapped her wand on the abandoned closed sketch book. "Impervius! That should keep it from being wrecked by the snow."
"Thanks," Luna smiled before grabbing Hermione's hand and dragging her off the fountain. "Come play with me!"
"L-Luna!" Hermione laughed.
Luna let go of Hermione's hand to stoop to the ground and throw armfuls of it into the air, spinning under the falling clumps alongside the flakes like an overdressed ballerina, her hair fanning out behind her. The smile on Luna's face, the gleam in her eyes, she seemed so happy. Her laugh rang through the court yard and Hermione for a moment forgot everything and joined her. The two flopped into the snow beneath them cackling like madwomen until Hermione heard a crunch in the snow of two approaching footsteps.
"Must be them!" Luna sang rising from the snow and helping Hermione up.
Hermione produced steam from her wand to dry Luna, her long hair and robes looking as they did before they collapsed in the snow. Shivering, she turned the wand on herself to do the same.
"Could've chose a warmer place, y'know?" O'Malley asked miserably.
"This way no one will hear us," Hermione said.
O'Malley's companion was a willowy student of his year in Hufflepuff with wavy black hair, even brown skin and amber eyes sitting on top of high, smooth cheekbones. They flashed a smile at the two of them before speaking with an even voice with a Welsh accent. Hermione couldn't tell if this student was a girl or boy, and didn't know if she should feel bad for not knowing immediately.
"Hi," the student extended his or her hand to her. "I'm Skylar Sloan. You wanted a token Hufflepuff?"
Hermione laughed at this taking Skylar's hand. "Well, we have one of every other house. Gotta fill our quota somehow."
"If you're going for patterns," Skylar said. "You'd better getting a third-year. Then you'd have a first-year Ravenclaw, a second-year Gryffindor, a third-year Hufflepuff and a fourth year Slytherin."
Luna let out a delighted howl of laughter at this. "That would be better, wouldn't it? I'm Luna Lovegood, and this is Hermione Snape."
"We couldn't get a third-year that also fit a pattern of friendless," O'Malley explained. "We're kind of a who's who of Hogwarts most despised."
"That would explain why you never bothered to speak to me before now," Skylar rolled his or her eyes. "Or why you're speaking with these poor girls."
O'Malley rolled his eyes back. "I swear, they're always like this. So suspicious."
"I'm suspicious," Skylar groaned. "You tense up whenever anyone speaks to you."
"Hark who's talking!" O'Malley hissed.
"Should we leave you two alone?" Luna giggled.
"L-Luna!" Hermione choked fiddling with her scarf.
"They're not my type," O'Malley rolled his eyes.
"Too infatuated with Heather George for anyone else to be your type, O'Malley," Skylar teased.
"Uncalled for, Sloan!" O'Malley seethed.
"Oi!" a gruff voice called out.
Hagrid, bundled up trudged through the snow, large fat flakes in his bushy black hair and beard. He towered over the four of them as Fang frollicked through the snow. "Ye lot aren' figh'in' are ye?"
O'Malley suddenly lost all his bravado, his shoulders slumped and all Hermione could spy was the flaming red top of his head as his face disappeared into his green and silver scarf.
"We're just hanging out," Hermione said touching Hagrid's arm. "Promise, Hagrid."
"Oh, hi, Hermione," Hagird smiled and a massive hand came down to muss her hair. "Strange lot yer with. Not used ter kids outside their own houses an' years together."
"Yeah," Luna beamed. "There's one of each house. We just met our token-"
"Oi!" Hagrid suddenly snapped, his eyes wide.
"Hufflepuff, Hagrid," Hermione sighed. "She was going to say 'Hufflepuff'."
"Yeah," Hagrid nodded. "Well, whatever ye kids are doin', yeh migh' want ter go inside, blizzard's whipping up. Can feel it."
The four of them headed inside and spoke in hushed voices.
"Last time we did a mass spread of leaflets," Hermione explained. "We got Libby, a houseelf, to put them in Hufflepuff common room, but we also need someone to talk to people. Advocate, or at least practice the measures to make it look less crazy. It's not under our paper's name, but it's a list of creatures that fit the bill and passages on them. We-"
"Ehem," O'Malley coughed.
"I think it might be a Basilisk. If you see its eyes, it kills you. But if you see its reflection, my theory at least, is that you'll be petrified. So we want people to start carrying mirrors around, that's why we need you. You don't have to if you think-"
"It'll save muggle-borns from being killed," Skylar said in a quiet voice. "I don't care if I get in trouble."
"Thank you," she said in a quiet voice.
"But dumb question," they whispered. "Wouldn't it be smarter to bring the attention of the teachers to your theory? They could do more than we could."
Hermione didn't have a retort for that. What Skylar said made sense on paper, but they didn't know how useless the adults were last year when Voldemort nearly snatched the Philosopher's stone from under their noses.
"I'll consider going to them, but I don't know if they'll even listen to me," she said thinking back to the previous year.
"Isn't one of them your father?" Skylar raised a pointed eyebrow.
Hermione sighed. "I wish I could explain it."
"If they get petrified or killed while you're working up the courage-" O'Malley whispered.
"I can take care of myself, O'Malley," Skylar hissed.
Each of them walked away with a copy of Hermione's list of potential culprits to place on the bulletin boards in their common rooms before students left for holidays, and a copy to put back up after holidays in case they were taken down. Hermione spent the rest of the afternoon with Skylar's words weighing heavy on her mind. Was it smarter to talk to her father?
What is wrong with you? I told you to leave it alone! You are going to get someone hurt, you little idiot! Would her father even believe her if she came to him? If he wrote her off as mad every other professor surely would. She felt that going to anyone would somehow betray Harry and Ron, but if she didn't go to him and someone else got hurt, it would be all her fault. But if her father didn't believe her, it would all be for nothing.
Malfoy, Malfoy...If he can give us an admission and evidence then everything, the lying, the fighting, everything, it will all have been worth it.
"You seem distracted, love," Severus rested his hand on Hermione's head. "When was the last time you slept?"
Dark purple rings encircled Hermione's amber and hazel eyes, her bushy hair frizzier than usual and her usually olive skin seemed to have a grey cast to it. Was she sick?
The two sat on the floor of their living quarters by the fireplace doing Christmas themed cross-word puzzles, and Hermione, who loved puzzles and languages, seemed to be elsewhere, her eyes looking past the sheets of paper instead of at them. She always loved doing these together, of course, that wasn't the first clue something was wrong. She'd been off since they'd found the Finch-Fletchly boy...no, earlier than that, he thought.
"I'm fine, Dad," Hermione offered a weak smile that didn't touch her eyes. "Though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about you. You don't look like you've slept much either."
"I'm fine, love," he sighed mussing her hair. "You know, I don't believe either of us are old enough yet for the child to be the carer."
He hadn't been sleeping either. Sprout was rightly paranoid about the mandrakes' maturation, meaning she wanted to handle their care herself. Severus had himself stole into the night to survey the mandrakes himself, several times. It wasn't that he didn't trust Padmona Sprout, but rather that he had to see it himself. If his lie didn't work, he had to know that Hermione would be fine if she was attacked. He couldn't even start the damn potion till they were ready, so that was all he could do.
The Creevey boy's camera was the only physical evidence he had. He thought maybe something that could petrify a ghost would narrow it down. He even asked the houseelves about the banging in the pipes. It was more frequent this year, but it started back in September and none of them heard it on Hallowe'en. Until more evidence came, he was stumped. He mused on the four victims and the scenes each were found in, but found no common trait. Unless the camera, Sir Nicholas and flooding all-He was most concerned with how it opened. They had to catch the culprit before things got worse. The creature might not matter if it could be reawakened by its master after fifty years. Despite Hagrid being framed for the opening back then, Hagrid had no clue who did the framing.
Hermione absently stoked the flames staring as the kindling cracked and popped and the orange tendrils danced around her fire poker. She set the poker down and spread her hands out, bathing in the warm orange glow, absorbing whatever warmth she could. She closed her eyes but she didn't look any relieved, huddled on the hearth, but troubled. Whatever weighed on her mind, it was serious.
I remember when I thought her biggest problem would be bullies or boys. No, I never truly thought that, but still, how I wish that were actually the case... Severus summoned a blanket and wrapped it over her shivering shoulders.
"Thanks, Dad," she said in a quiet voice, eyes not leaving the flames, clutching and unclutching the blanket.
"I'm certain whatever you're thinking of has nothing to do with a ten-letter word for a festive flowering plant," he sighed patting her head. "What's going on inside that little head of yours?"
Hermione was silent for a moment before clutching the blanket at her throat and sighing. "It's probably all mental, anyway."
"Well," he said with a shrug. "I imagine it is all mental, given that it's going on inside the mind."
"Ugh, Dad," Hermione groaned burying her face in her hands. "I'm twelve and I know that was terrible!"
"Sorry, love," he ran his hand through her hair. "But I'm obliged to subject you to bad jokes until I die. It's in the contract all fathers sign when they have children."
"Pretty sure the fine print says adolescent children are equally as obliged to roll their eyes and groan," Hermione lifted her head from her hands with a slight laugh.
Her retort might have meant she let her guard down, which meant she might actually tell him whatever she was thinking. The laugh, however weak, helped cement that theory, he just had to be delicate. I also remember a time where I didn't have to think about conversations with my daughter in terms of extracting information. Oh, baby girl, I wish you had never gotten involved with that boy...
"So, what has you so troubled?" he asked. "Is it, I wonder, that you, for whatever reason, decided to disregard my warnings and continued to look into the attacks?"
Hermione's faint smile disappeared and she turned her gaze to her clasped hands. "Colin was- is- a decent person. I wasn't overly fond of Justin Finch-Fletchley, but he certainly didn't deserve-and if anything happened to Skylar or Dean-" she took a deep breath. "I just can't stop thinking about it-that's all."
"I wasn't aware you and Mr. Thomas were close," he observed.
"We're amicable," Hermione sighed. "Same as Skylar, not close, but we've interacted enough for me to worry about them-okay, it was once, but putting a face and name to a potential victim makes always makes it so-real-I'm not making any sense, am I?" she sighed. "And I keep wondering if Colin would have been attacked if he weren't alone."
"I believe you were in the hospital," he reminded her. "And the boy didn't exactly have other friends, so had you imparted the advice for him not to go anywhere alone, it wouldn't have done any good."
That didn't seem to comfort her. Hermione seemed to always take responsibility for those around her. She was determined to blame herself for everything. He wondered exactly when she decided the weight of the world belonged on her little shoulders, but he couldn't pinpoint it. He could only hope her guilt wouldn't push her to do something incredibly stupid. And hoped it hadn't already, and he feared that might have been the case. Years ago I went through losing the only person I gave a damn about, don't make me go through that again, little girl.
Father and daughter sat in silence for what felt an eternity. Severus felt the air grow thicker and colder around them as Hermione stared at her clasped hands, unmoving with the exception her squeezing and releasing fingers. At some point in her childhood she learned not to look people in the eye when she was deep in thought, making her intentions all the more elusive, though the emotions were plain as day. Guilt, anxiousness, sadness all registered in her frame.
"Poinsettia," Hermione muttered once the silence became too much.
I'll try again tomorrow...
"Sorry! I know it's late!" Hermione burst through the door to the toilet.
Crabbe and Goyle should have a few more hours of being unconscious if she calculated their weight right. Seeing Harry and Ron in the over-sized Slytherin robes she pilfered from the laundry said they'd done their job in feeding the two festively iced cauldron cakes laced with a sleeping draught. Hermione originally wanted to give them Draught of the Living Dead, but it would have required even more lying on the inventory forms she done up for her dad, so she had to settle with using her sleeping draughts to re-accustom her to diurnal life. She didn't like using them anyway. She had no control over her own mind during sleep, she didn't know how anyone could stand it.
"I thought you were going to tell him you were sick!" Ron hissed.
"Sorry!" Hermione backed away from Ron and clasped her hands. "I didn't want him getting suspicious!"
"Will you two stop?" Harry let out an exasperated sigh glaring at both of them. "You two are always having a row about this or that. Not the time, mates!"
"I know," Hermione sighed. "I'll change then we'll take the potion."
Hermione invited the boys into the cubicle moments later feeling like a five-year-old swimming in Millicent's robes. She poured the potion into three separate cups and surreptitiously added the hairs to each serving. Millicent's turned an acidic yellow that reminded her of cat-vomit, Goyle's an uneven khaki that no liquid should ever be. A strange anxiety filled her looking at it, thinking about its texture, Hermione wanted to make her own 'essence du Millicent Bulstrode' as Ron called it. Crabbe's deepened in colour, but still reminded her of mud, so it didn't illicit the same visceral reaction. She bit her lip and stared at her cup, her stomach churning.
"Cheers?" she squeaked.
"Erm," Harry said. "I reckon we won't all fit here once where done. Crabbe, Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode all are, erm-"
"Fat?" Ron finished.
"Ron!" Hermione hissed.
"Oh, come off it, Hermione!" Ron groaned. "Why should I speak nice about the bitch who tried to strangle you? Or Malfoy's lackeys? I swear you're nicer those Slytherin gits than your actual friends!"
Hermione didn't have a response to that. Was he right? Hermione was abrasive with Ron...but fat? They had no control over their appearance, and as the only ugly person in their social group she got offended vicariously. There were plenty of fair things to mock them about. They were bullies, cruel and...hurt people hurt people...no that's not an excuse!
"Sorry, Ron," she sighed staring into the yellow mixture in her cup.
"Harry's right, anyway," Ron mumbled. "Let's take it in different cubicles."
The three of them counted down and downed their potions as quickly as possible. Hermione wanted to gag, but held it down in time for a searing pain to rip through her body. Every cell burned with pain. It felt eerily similar to Violet Vane's transfiguration. At least her bones stayed in place, but the pain still drove her to her knees, she stared at her hands and noted something went drastically wrong.
Black fur aggressively sprouted on the backs of her hands and arms. She didn't get Millicent's hair-she got hair from her cat! She felt fur sprout from her face and whiskers from her cheeks as a familiar pain encompassed her ears, she knew they were morphing into pointed, fury triangles and moving to the top of her head. Was it that or the formation of the tail that hurt more. She sobbed whether in pain form the morphing or the embarrassment that she could be so damn stupid as to not check the hair, she didn't know any more.
"So, Millicent isn't pretty," Crabbe's voice groaned outside the cubicle door. "This was your idea!"
"Come on, Hermione," Goyle's voice said more gently-that must've been Harry. "It'll be alright. What's-"
"Something went wrong," she squeaked. "We don't have time for me to f-figure it out, you two have to go now!"
Just get it over with, you stupid piece of shit! she berated herself and opened the cubicle door.
She knew exactly what happened to her, but when she caught her reflection in the mirror it felt more real. Her face was completely covered in the same black fur as her hands, her facial features were not like last time, last time she looked more human, but her face was that of a cat's, nose, mouth, and large lamp-yellow eyes with white whiskers poking out of her eyebrows and upper lip. Pointed black ears protruded from her now black, bushy hair. She thought she might sob at this again, but instead she simply felt frustrated. She just gotten out of the hospital for being a weird cat-girl-thing. This was a product of her own carelessness, she should have ripped hair directly from Millicent's head...
"Oh, come on!" she cried stamping her foot.
Those boys had better get that information!
"You have a tail! AGAIN!" Myrtle's shrill voice filled the air as she glided around her. "I can't wait till everyone sees you're a cat-freak again! Do you want to be a cat, Hermione?"
"I'm sure it looks like it," she grumbled. "I'm getting changed into something that isn't falling off me."
"Cat-freak!" Myrtle sang.
Hermione waited for the boys to return, reading and rereading the passage on Polyjuice Potion. Nothing mentioned animal transformations. It was useless! She kept combing it, looking for answers, even looking for other potions for indicators. Stubborn tears sprang to her eyes again as the realization came upon her that no matter how many-times she read through this book she would never have the answers she needed.
"Hermio-" Harry's voice called, but cut off.
She looked up at Harry, his now wide green eyes behind specs again and his once again thin frame a swimming in Goyle's robes. Ron, too, was himself again from his giant blue eyes and gaping ruddy mouth, similarly swimming in Crabbe's robes.
Shock registered on their faces as Myrtle howled with laughter.
"Tell me he confessed," Hermione pleaded. "If you got a confession, everything, everything will have been worth it."
There was a silence, both Harry and Ron exchanged a pained look before turning their eyes downward.
"No, no, no," Hermione started pacing nervously, wringing her hands. "Shit! I can't-this-"
"Hermione," Harry held up his hands like he was speaking to a panicked animal. "How did this happen?"
"Millicent must have a cat," Hermione sighed. "I grabbed a fucking cat hair! After all of that!"
"I mean, it's only temporary," Harry offered. "Just stay here until-"
"It's only meant for human transformations, Harry!" Hermione cried before evening her tone. "Sorry. I-I don't know how long I'll be a cat-freak. There's nothing in the book about animal mishaps."
"It's okay!" Ron said quickly. "We'll just take you to the hospital and everything will be fine. Madam Pomfrey doesn't ask questions."
"She doesn't ask questions," Hermione continued her mad pacing and touched her face and gestured to her whiskers. "But what am I supposed to do with the fifteen centimetres of 'my-dad's-going-to-kill-me' growing out of my face!"
"After what happened in November he might buy you were attacked again?" Ron offered. "Pin it on Malfoy, I'd love to see him taken down a peg after tonight!"
"That won't happen," Hermione sighed. "What exactly did he say?"
"That he wants the heir to confide in him," Harry spat in disgust. "You should have heard him! 'I can help him! I heard a mudblood died last time! Too bad it wasn't that Potter fanboy Creevy'. Are you certain Snape won't expel him for attacking you? I think everyone's better off with him gone-at least muggle-borns are."
"He always knows when I'm lying..." she admitted. "I have no clue how I've been raised by someone who lies all the bloody time and haven't managed to learn a damn thing!"
"I mean," Harry said in defense of her father for the first and she imagined only time. "After what we overheard about your mum, I guess I see why."
"Can we not talk about Sato, please?!" Hermione clasped her furry hands and stared at them. Of all the things to talk about on their way to the wing, this was not what she wanted to speak about. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap...I just-that woman-"
"Look on the bright side, Hermione," Ron said putting an arm around her shoulders. "At least now you have proof none of those rumours are true. The creature can't go after you now, right?"
"It's not as if the whole school knows, or that it can use legillimency or-" unless it can. The timing... "I'm going to make this as painless as possible"... "That son of a bitch!"