Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover
Harry, Ron, and Hermione spread out as they wandered around Diagon Alley, pretending to be window shopping while they were actually looking through the shop windows for any witch who was wearing the same ugly, pink robes that Hermione was currently wearing. After a few minutes, Ron spotted the walking fashion emergency, known as Miri, browsing the shelves in Flourish and Blotts.
"You two wait here, I'll be just a moment," Hermione promised after they regrouped. It was decided that the method of least time-traveling impact would be for her to simply walk up to Miri, hand her the note, and leave as soon as possible. Harry and Ron nodded as Hermione walked into the store.
Miri herself, the presumed shady criminal, was nose-deep in a book on magical baking methods. She seemed, in every respect, like one's kindly old neighbor who brings you cookies when she's made extra and feeds your owl when you're out of town. It truly did seem as though you could not judge a book by its pink, lacey cover.
"Miri?" Hermione said as she approached. The woman looked up and smiled at the sight of her new friend from the apothecary.
"Well hello, again! We keep running into each other, don't we?" Miri said.
"Yes, I suppose we do. I actually came to find you on purpose. Somebody gave me this note, and I think it was meant for you."
Miri's eyes grew wide for a moment, as she quickly snatched the note out of Hermione's hand. She seemed to notice how odd and suspicious that made her look, however, as she quickly regained her composure with a big grin and a fake chuckle.
"Sorry about the mixup, dear. I appreciate you tracking me down like this."
"It's no trouble. I'd better get going now, but you have a lovely rest of your day-"
As Hermione turned to leave, a still-grinning Miri quickly moved to block her path.
"Leaving so soon? You must allow me to buy you a butterbeer as a proper thanks!"
"Oh, that sounds lovely, but I don't want to impose. It was really no trouble…" Hermione attempted to walk around Miri, but the older woman blocked her once again.
"Nonsense! It's no imposition at all. You simply must allow me to buy you a drink at the Leaky Cauldron," Miri insisted as she grabbed Hermione's arm a little too tightly and began to drag her toward the door. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione could see a strand of blonde hair turn brown and curly. The polyjuice potion was wearing off.
In a panic, Hermione tried to pull her arm away, but Miri's grip only tightened. It seemed as though criminals don't particularly like it when random strangers intercept their secret messages.
"I- I just remembered… I have to go…" Hermione stuttered.
Miri ignored her and dragged her outside into the cold London air. Hermione looked around for Ron and Harry, but they were nowhere in sight. Had Miri's friends gotten to them? Could they possibly know about the mixup, or that Hermione's friends were involved?
Suddenly, Hermione shrank nearly 6 inches, causing her to stumble and trip over robes that were too long for her. She fell into Miri, who finally looked back to see that she now held the arm of a 12-year-old girl with bushy brown hair.
"What?" Miri said, more confused than anything as this was just about the last thing she expected to happen. She didn't have much time to process things, however, as a big snowball flew out of nowhere and hit her in the back of the head. The impact caught her off guard, causing her to finally let go of Hermione's arm.
Hermione turned to run but tripped again on all of the extra fabric bunched by her feet, and this time Miri wasn't there to break her fall. She landed on the ground hard, and immediately felt someone dive on top of her, placing a hand firmly over her mouth. Thinking it was Miri, Hermione went into a panic and tried to squirm out of her attacker's grip.
"Hermione, it's us!" Ron whispered. It was then that Hermione noticed that the hand was Harry's, and that she was under the invisibility cloak with her friends. Harry and Ron had transformed back into their first year selves as well, and must have used the cloak to hide.
A dumbfounded and panicked Miri was now frantically looking for her former captive, but there was no way she could see them beneath the cloak. Her strange behavior was starting to garner attention from other shoppers, and as one kind-looking gentleman went to inquire about whether she was okay, Harry, Ron, and Hermione took their opportunity to sneak out of Diagon Alley, through the Leaky Cauldron, and back to the alleyway where they had first arrived.
"What a psycho," Ron noted once they were finally safe.
"She has a really strong grip, I'll bet she makes a wonderful henchwoman," Hermione noted as she rubbed her arm where it had previously been in Miri's grasp. She was surely going to get a bruise there.
"I'm just glad you didn't get kidnapped," Harry said. "And that we finished our shopping."
"Yeah, I have no idea how we would have gotten back to school if you'd been murdered by that crazy woman," Ron teased.
"Me too," Hermione agreed, ignoring Ron. And with that, Harry and Ron grabbed Hermione's hands and allowed their friend to transport them back to the Shrieking Shack.
"Oh, I'm so glad you're back, Harry. The castle can be such a lonely place, you know, and nobody ever thinks to come visit me. Nobody except you, Harry."
"Yeah… Er, great to see you again, Myrtle," Harry replied. He, Ron, and Hermione found themselves hiding out in Myrtle's bathroom yet again. They had spent some time there brewing the polyjuice potion they'd used to go and buy their ingredients from Slug and Jiggers, and now that they had those ingredients, this lonely and always-empty bathroom seemed like the best place for them to attempt to make their very own Sorcerer's Stone as well.
"Can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to visit," Ron muttered sarcastically. Myrtle's face wrinkled up in anger.
"Nobody asked you, Weasley!"
"Ron wasn't trying to hurt you!" Hermione interjected quickly, shooting Ron a disapproving look. "He thinks you're a wonderful person. In fact, he was just saying how more people ought to try and get to know you, weren't you, Ron?"
"Er… Yeah."
"Oh, don't lie to me! Nobody ever wants to talk to poor Myrtle! Everyone has better things to do than to worry about me!" Myrtle's voice was getting louder every moment.
"Myrtle, please! We're very happy to see you," Hermione said quickly. It was no use.
"I'll bet you think this is funny! Pretending to be my friend while you snicker about me behind my back!"
"No, really-"
"How dare you try to humiliate me? Being dead is hard enough!" Myrtle let out a long, high-pitched cry and dove head-first into a nearby toilet, splashing water onto the floor. Hermione shot Ron a look.
"What? We got rid of her," Ron pointed out.
"Yes, but you made her cause a scene. We don't want anyone to know we're in here, and you've got her alerting the whole castle," Hermione said.
"If anything I drove people even further away from this place, nobody wants to be in here while she's in the middle of one of her tantrums."
"He's got a point," Harry said. "I certainly don't want to be in here. Anyway, what's our first step?"
"According to my research, the first step is called 'nigredo,' also known as the blackening," Hermione explained. "We begin by cleansing our ingredients, cooking them in intense heat until they turn black."
"Mercury, Sulfur, and Silver? We're going to cook those until they turn black? How do we do that?" Ron asked.
"We start by placing the ingredients in this cauldron," Hermione explained. She had asked to borrow a cauldron from Dumbledore himself, as they needed one that was especially heat resistant if they were even going to make it past the first step in the process. Harry and Ron added the Sulfur and Silver to the cauldron, and Hermione added in the Mercury. "And now we have to conjure up a magical fire of intense heat, and keep it burning for at least 3 weeks."
"This is going to take forever, isn't it?" Ron asked.
"And be incredibly dangerous," Hermione agreed. "People will have to keep their distance from a flame this hot. I really hope Moaning Myrtle is enough to deter people from coming in here…"
"Wait. Why don't we do this in the Room of Requirement?" Harry pointed out. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of this before. Ron and Hermione felt equally as stupid. Apparently being in their first year bodies was making them think more like their first year selves than they realized. Were they regressing, or was the stress of everything just getting to them? Either way, they needed to find a way back to their own time before they went completely crazy.
"Right. Let's pack this up and move to the Room of Requirement, then," Hermione said as the three of them began to grab their materials and head for the door.
"I knew you didn't want to spend time with me!" Myrtle whined from behind them. She had reappeared just in time to see the three first years running off, not wanting to stick around any more than their other classmates did.
"Race you there," Ron muttered under his breath. Hermione didn't even try to reprimand him this time as all three of them took off at a run to escape Myrtle's wrath.
Later in the Room of Requirement, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were once again adding the ingredients to their borrowed cauldron. Hogwarts had created for them the perfect secret potions laboratory, complete with fireproof surfaces and proper ventilation.
"Okay, the first thing to do is light a fire. Incendio," Hermione said, waving her wand at the fuel source beneath their cauldron. An orange fire appeared, the flames licking the bottom of their latest brew.
"No offense, Hermione, but that doesn't seem like a dangerously intense flame to me," Ron pointed out. Harry had to agree.
"Well, we're not quite done yet. Now we have to enchant it, which is the tricky part," she explained. "But first, let's set these up."
Hermione gestured toward some heat shields the Room of Requirement had supplied for them. With her direction, Harry and Ron positioned them around the cauldron to help block some of the heat from the intense flames they were about to create. They left one portion uncovered, and placed one shield a few feet away on another table. This one they all ducked behind as they readied their wands.
"Okay, now this is a non-verbal spell used to increase the heat intensity of a flame," Hermione explained. "I think it will take all three of us casting at once to make the fire as hot as we need it. All you need to do is focus on a stream of hot air starting from the tip of your wand, and fueling the fire."
"Let's do it," Harry said, eager to get the process started. He just hoped this crazy plan of Hermione's actually worked.
Ron nodded in agreement. Hermione took a deep breath.
"Alright then, ready your wands," Hermione said. "On the count of three. Three, two, one, now!"
Harry focused on the tip of his wand, just as Hermione said. He could feel the energy of the heat bursting out of his wand before it was absorbed by the flame. Almost instantly, even with the heat shields in place, the room began to feel very warm.
"That should do it," Hermione said. "Head for the door, I have one last finishing touch to make."
The three of them headed for the exit, Harry heading into the corridor with Ron right behind him. Immediately, he could feel how much cooler the air was now that he was away from the intense flames they had just created. Hermione followed them out, but before closing the door all the way, she turned toward the cauldron, and pointed her wand at the fire.
"Engorgio!" she exclaimed. The heat immediately became all the more intense. Harry could feel his face burning for a moment before Hermione quickly slammed the door shut.