Gaslighting Hermione
Perfectly Reasonable Explanations
This is the first of two Harry/Romilda shorts I'm writing, with very different tones. This one is decidedly more cracky.
Hermione walked through the dimly lit hallway on the fourth floor, the braziers doing a better job of casting shadows across the hall than actually lighting her way through it. It was, she supposed, an apt metaphor for her current mood, even though obviously literary devices used to foreshadow or highlight a character's arc had nothing to do with her own emotional state here in the real world.
She sighed. A world where Ron was apparently happy to swan about and snog squealing blonde... blonde... blonde strumpets rather than intelligent witches who were inspired by deeper loyalties and interests and friendships. Not that she even cared, Ron could do whatever he liked, bad idea or no. Preferably he could do it someplace far away and ideally, very cold.
She shook her head, nipping the bud on several cathartic thoughts that sadly, now was not the time and place for. Last year's business with the Inquisitorial Squad aside, Prefects at Hogwarts had serious responsibilities and she had a duty to perform them properly for her house, her own pride in her own high standards, and to reciprocate the trust the professors had shown in her. And even, though they might be ungrateful about it, the students themselves. Something else Ronald ought to be thinking about instead as the other Gryffindor prefect instead of chasing skir-
A classroom door banged down the hall.
Hermione's eyes narrowed and her world gained a renewed sense of focus. She took out her wand. "Peeves?" she called out in a loud whisper. Usually acknowledging the poltergeist was enough to get him to quit his antics and at least make himself known to whoever had caught him in his evening acts of magical mischief, even if it soon thereafter usually required a well timed shield or two followed by the rather large compendium of poltergeist-repelling charms that the professors had made available to the prefects.
No response.
Hermione let out another sigh, this one rather less lovelorn. Somebody was out beyond curfew, doing something that almost certainly wasn't about protecting an ancient artifact from a dark lord or slaying an evil beast to save the lives of the castle's residents and rescue a wrongfully imprisoned groundskeeper. Well, she had a duty, and unlike some she'd see it through.
Without another word, she moved as quietly as she could down the hall to the offending door. Keeping her wand arm ready and steady, she knocked sharply once. Then, standing outside the door's immediate path, she spoke clearly, "Alohamora."
"No games, please. I've caught you red- Harry?" Hermione blinked. "And Miss Vane." Less enthusiastically. She paused for a moment as she caught sight of Harry's rather unexpected partner who was half-sitting, half-lying on top of a professor's desk, her robes hiked up and rumpled above her knees. She turned to her friend, keeping her wand on the other witch. "Are you alright, Harry? I overheard some of the other girls talking about her you know, and how she-"
"No, no, Hermione, please. Everything's fine," Harry interrupted, pushing out his hands in a placating gesture and then fiddling with the collar of his robes, around which was a very sloppy Gryffindor tie. "I was coming back to the Tower from a meeting with you know, when I heard a noise in here. Someone had stupefied Ro-Vane. So I ended the curse but her legs were a bit stiff and wobbly so we were just waiting five minutes before she was ready for a walk back to the tower."
Curfew began at eight. The last prefect patrol ended at nine-thirty, after which the paintings, ghosts, elves, and Argus Filch and his cat took over. It was almost nine-thirty. That was a very long five minutes Romilda had needed for a simple stupefication reversal, regardless of how long she'd been under.
"Yes, thank you, Potter," Romilda said, making a show of giving her legs a very long and leisurely rub and interrupting Hermione's train of thought. She smiled. "I think I'm just about up for it now, if you don't mind giving me some support."
"I think you've been up for it since the beginning of term," Hermione couldn't help herself. "Harry, I know you mean well, you always do, but... please be careful alright?"
Harry nodded, looking a little bashful. Hermione felt a small warmth inside: unlike someone, she could count on him.
The three Gryffindors made there way back up to the portrait of the Fat Lady, Romilda leaning far too deeply into Harry's embrace than surely was necessary to merely steady herself, Hogwarts Castle was big but it was still a single building, for goodness sake. Still, Hermione shepherded her charges back where they belonged and she smiled to herself when Harry only gave a gruff "G'night" before parting ways for the boys' dormitory when Romilda made a rather shameless request to now be carried up the girls' dormitory stairs because her 'leg was twingeing again'. Clearly, she thought Harry saving her from a botched spell-casting meant she had him round her finger. Hermione snorted. Didn't the girl even know the stairs were enchanted to prevent boys from going up them?
She slept peacefully, without nary a care of the people-with-names-beginning-with-R-in-this-world.
Until, unfortunately, the next morning at breakfast.
Breakfast at the Gryffindor table had already taken on the air of something like a hostage negotiation, with everyone taking very small, very specific baby steps throughout the meal to keep the whole table from blowing over. Parvati of course sat next to Lavender, though now on the same side of the table as Ron, who then sat next to Harry, who was next to Hermione. Neville sat across from Hermione, and then going back the other way was Ginny, out of place as the only younger year in the mess, sitting across from Harry and next to Dean, her boyfriend, who was next to Seamus, with an empty seat next to him for the odd days Padma sat with them, or from time-to-time, Colin Creevey, who was charmingly oblivious to the entire situation around them and only wanted to 'Hang out with my mate Harry for a bit every now and then', which Harry tolerated on the condition his camera remained safely ensconced in Gryffindor Tower.
And that was just the seating arrangements, never mind the conversations.
The important thing is that it worked. Somewhat. Mostly.
Hermione was bustling through her bag looking for A Modern Take on Ancient Runes when she bumped into someone. Which, yes, she was looking at a book not the space in front of her, but the seat – her seat – should have been empty, and so no harm done.
"Oof! I feel like I was just hit by a hippogr...ANGER! Oh my god, I didn't see you there somehow, I'm so sorry, I guess I'm in the way! I'll be out of your seat in just a moment."
"Good morning, Romilda," Hermione replied as neutrally as she could. "I see you're doing better, were you able to make it to breakfast on your own?"
"Yes, thank you," Romilda chirped. "Sorry, I know this is your seat and all, I just needed to get close to Harry for a minute."
Lavender snorted into her toast. Hermione ignored her, whatever Lavender found so funny this morning didn't interest her a teeny tiny jot.
"Thank you, again, Harry, for rescuing me last night," Romilda gushed far more loudly than necessary, leaning over towards Harry and clearly bothering the poor boy who just wanted to eat his breakfast before Potions in peace. She almost knocked over his pumpkin juice with her display, thank goodness nobody at the table had any parchment out. "I really appreciated it."
"My pleasure," Harry replied, doing his best to be polite. "Hopefully you won't need any further rescuing tonight."
"Oh goodness, I should hope not," Romilda replied with a gasp. Then she smacked her forehead. "I'm such a ditz, I almost forgot. You dropped this last night."
Hermione choked. Romilda pulled out a very familiar red-and-brown quill not just from beneath her robes, but beneath her, her... well, that was no place to keep a quill, for any number of reasons ranging from nib to tail.
"Oh, I wondered where I had put that," Harry said with no small amount of relief as if witches pulling writing instruments from between their bits-and-bobs was an ordinary occurrence not worth mentioning. At least he wasn't inadvertently feeding her ego, Hermione supposed.
"Spent ages this morning looking for the bugger. Thanks, Vane."
"You're welcome, Potter." They stared at each other for a second longer than strictly necessary. Romilda slowly stood up, patting down her robes as she did so. "I'll see you later then." She looked up at the rest of the table and fluttered her fingers in a way Hermione assumed she found endearing but to be honest wasn't. "Bye, everyone."
"See you, later," Harry replied automatically, reaching for his pumpkin juice.
A moment passed.
"Harry," Ginny said at last.
"Yes?" Harry stopped to ask before turning back to his juice.
"Why did Romilda have your quill?"
Harry gave a sheepish grin after a moment's hesitation. "My 'saving people thing' got to me last night. Hermione was there, she can tell you the rest. Guess I just dropped it in the rush."
Everyone turned to Hermione. She paused. Technically, she hadn't been there except for at the very last minute, and certainly not for Harry's heroics that she was absolutely convinced were a silly girl's attempt to manipulate her best friend, even if she couldn't prove anything exactly. And she certainly didn't see anything with the quill, misplaced or otherwise.
Now though was not the time to breathe oxygen on Romilda's poorly veiled attempt to start a fire among the gossips at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Yes, it's alright. She just wanted to get a rise out of us this morning, I imagine," Hermione said at last. "Don't pay her any attention."
"I think she only wants to get a rise out of Harry," Parvati added not-at-all helpfully before she and Lavender burst into another round of giggles. Ron gave Harry an uncertain smile, the type that said he wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he was offering his support to Harry anyway. Which, she could admit if somewhat grudgingly to herself, was good even if she didn't feel like acknowledging it at right this moment.
"Why do you think it was in her, you know, though," Ginny went on, not letting this blasted conversation come to an end. That sent Lavender off into another storm of giggles and Hermione turned to glare at the girl, noting that Ron had also gone pink, though Harry at least apparently had no interest in the goings on, having returned to his breakfast with gusto.
"Her Witch's Wear," Ron blurted, then looked appalled at having done so. Lavender and Parvati absolutely lost it at that point and Ron turned a darker red still. Even Neville let out a snicker and Ron slunk down in his seat as Lavender annoyingly cooed over him and the conversation finally died the death it deserved in favor of teasing Ron and his endless caché of antiquated "Mollyisms".
All was good again.
Until apparently that very same evening, when for however much Romilda oh-so-sincerely-hoped she wouldn't need rescuing again, she somehow had tricked Harry into being in a confined and cloistered space with her yet again. She would have gotten away with it too, if Hermione hadn't expected such a ruse and started her patrols a half hour before curfew started – Vane, she could admit, was not the type of adversary to allow herself to be caught twice the same way, so Hermione would have to stay one step ahead of her in order to protect Harry from his own good nature.
Case in point, "I'm not going to abide bullying, Hermione," Harry declared, face taut in grim determination as he helped put his quidditch jersey over Romilda's suspiciously jumperless shoulders. Rearranging his outer robe and carefully checking Romilda's upper body over for injury once more he turned back to Hermione. "Last year was bloody awful, and if I find out that the Snake Squad have taken to ambushing younger students and vanishing their clothing in abandoned classrooms as a normal thing because they can't rule the roost anymore, then I'm going to put a stop to it." He paused, gesturing toward the dark-haired, doe-eyed little liar. "Vane... and anyone else, don't deserve this."
It was an extremely specific form of bullying for the likes of Malfoy, Parkinson and their other hangers on to suddenly be involved with, and not really their style, but Hermione reasoned discretion was the better part of valor, especially when Harry was in his justice-seeking element.
"All right, then?" Harry asked the wolf-in-wizard's-clothing.
"Absolutely wonderful now, thanks," Romilda said, sounding every bit the demure and dainty victim Hermione was every bit as sure she wasn't. She stretched her arms out and gave a pathetic little squeak of a moan, arms bare above her head as Harry's sleeves pooled loosely around her shoulders and the hem rose up, though thankfully Harry was sufficiently taller than her that Romilda would gain no real traction through such a manuever. "This top's a little tight though! I don't think I could play quidditch in it, not like you do, Harry."
Oh, really, as if Romilda wasn't completely swimming in the thing! That was enough of that. "Curfew is about to start," Hermione informed the shirt snatcher with great relish. She gave the two an equally bright smile of her own. "Let's get back to the dormitory, so you can give Harry back his outfit. As you say, it doesn't really work on you."
Romilda thankfully did not object to that, though she did try and trick Harry with a side-eyed pout and a quiet-but-not-too-quiet grumble 'that's not what I said, is it' as she nonetheless began the trek across the castle. Hermione kept the pace up, keeping an eye out for any attempts to 'slow down' as Harry followed behind the two girls at about ten paces, to 'watch their backs' in case anyone came to have a second go.
Romilda did look a little too pleased with herself at all the looks she got when she marched through the Common Room, and Hermione cursed herself for not foreseeing this, the girl flashing Harry's jersey on her chest like a beacon for the whole world (or at least, whole House) to misconstrue. Ginny caught her eye and looked absolutely furious from her seat on the sofa closest to the central fireplace, and even worse Dean apparently noticed the fiery glare his girlfriend was giving the younger girl and was now looking a little stonily at Ginny, not that Ginny seemed to notice. Hermione groaned, she would have to explain the situation to both of them before anyone got the wrong idea.