With O.W.L.s coming up, D.A. meetings, sneaking away from Umbridge's wrath, her prefect duties, and trying to keep up with her social life, Hermione was feeling a little overwhelmed. She knew that she could take a breather if she wanted to, but she couldn't find it in herself to do so. She kept feeling the pressure to be perfect.
"You need to slow down," Ron said.
"And he knows that means you won't have time to proofread our papers," Neville added.
"Can't." Hermione didn't look up from her book. "I'm busy."
Neville shook his head. After five years of dealing with Hermione and her need to be prepared for exams months in advance, he knew that she wouldn't be coherent for a while. He took the liberty of filling up her plate and setting it within easy reach of her.
"Thanks Neville," Harry said.
They were all aware of Hermione's propensity to forget to eat. They were equally aware of the fact that she was the best chance they had at passing all their O.W.L.s. She needed to be awake, and not in the hospital wing, for things to work out.
Slowly, they managed to coax the book out of her hands. It was a team effort, and Ron held onto it. He wasn't likely to forget to give it back to her, since he didn't read much if he could avoid it. It just wasn't enjoyable for him.
Hermione ate hungrily, once she took the first bite. Her body knew what it needed. And though she wasn't the best at remembering to take care of herself, she could count on the boys to at least make sure that she ate enough to keep herself from fainting.
Lunch ended soon enough and they were headed off to defense. Hermione was pestering Ron about getting her book back, but he didn't particularly want to give it back before they got to class.
"Hermione," he said, "I'll give it back. But can't you just enjoy the walk without freaking out about O.W.L.s?"
Hermione knew he was right. As much as she hated to admit it, all her friends were right to be worried about her. Even Padma was concerned. That just showed how bad things were getting.
"Alright," she said. Her voice was probably a tad grumpier than it needed to be. "I'll expect it back the minute we get to class."
Unfortunately, she sort of forgot about that the minute they got back. Umbridge was waiting for them outside the classroom, looking for people. She took Harry off to her office for a few minutes, and came back scowling worse than ever.
Hermione had to suppress a shudder. She wanted to run out of class screaming. But she wasn't about to give Umbridge the satisfaction. Especially when Umbridge hated her simply because her parents were muggles.
She sat down at her desk, her jaw clenched. She sat there, silent for the whole lesson. It was a very silly lesson, consisting of notes and readings from the ministry approved text. She was sure that Umbridge was setting them up to fail.
She was so glad for the end of class. She was even happier that Harry had managed to keep his mouth shut. But he still had detention. Which was horribly inconvenient.
"Are you sure it's just detention?" Hermione pestered on her way to the library.
Harry shrugged. "It's never just detention with her. But I doubt she'll do anything rash."
Hermione shuddered internally. She refrained from doing so where Harry could see her. She really didn't want to deal with his concern for her, when she was worrying about him.
"I hope not," she whispered, more to herself than anything. "We're still on for the meeting tonight?" she asked.
"If you think I'm about to let a little thing like detention stop me from coming, you don't know me very well," Harry said.
Hermione had thought that everything was going okay. Harry had come from detention, after making several stops and detours along the way to make sure that he wasn't being followed. But then the doors shook, and they had to take several preventative measures to keep from being caught.
Everyone was scrambling, trying to get out of the way of Umbridge's wrath. She wasn't a pleasant person under good circumstances. In ones such as that, it was best to avoid her completely. But it wasn't quite possible.
They were caught and herded into the great hall. Dumbledore was there, and confronted Umbridge, which resulted in some circumstances very unfortunate for the students. Dumbledore was gone, and in his stead Umbridge was appointed headmistress.
"This is worse than being stuck in Merlin's pants," Ron complained.
"Considering that he's been dead for a long time, I doubt that," Harry said.
"It's still a bad thing," Neville mumbled.
"Shush," Hermione muttered. "You keep talking and we're going to get into trouble."
Of course, she was right. Umbridge arranged detention for them the following day. It was Saturday, which made it easier for her to schedule, and more annoying for them.
Hermione was silent as they walked up to Gryffindor tower. She knew what the next day would entail, mostly due to Harry's detentions. And it scared her. But she knew who was responsible, and felt confident that Marietta Edgecomb would get her comeuppance.
Viktor, I need to talk to you, Hermione wrote.
What's wrong? Came the almost instantaneous response.
Hermione took a deep breath. She knew that she needed to stay calm. If she wasn't she would slip into English and while Viktor was very confident in the language, it would inform everyone of what she was doing.
Umbridge caught us. We have detention tomorrow.
She exhaled as she knew that Viktor was reading her message. She watched as letters flashed across her skin before disappearing. It seemed that Viktor was having a hard time thinking of words to say.
Don't worry. I'm coming, he wrote eventually.
Hermione had a hard time breathing at that. She didn't want him to get into any trouble. And she didn't want him to have to miss a game. She hadn't been paying attention to the schedule, but she knew that they had a few games scheduled for that month.
Don't worry too much. I'll be fine.
She was lying. She knew it. She was fairly certain that Viktor knew it. But she wasn't about to tell him to come rescue her. There were tons of other people who needed help. And she wasn't about to let them face whatever Umbridge had in store for them alone.
A/N: I'm writing the next chapter now. I already started. I was going to include it in this one, but I figured it would take forever to write and read. Some of you might not mind that. I wouldn't but I wanted to get this posted.