***
Hogwarts gleamed like a
beacon
beneath the starry sky, and Hermione Granger hurried up the steps
into
the warmth and light. She stood for a moment in the Great Hall,
feeling
the heat slowly penetrate her body, then removed her scarf and
watched
the ice crystals slowly melt into water and drip onto the floor. It
was
the coldest night she could remember. Hogwarts had experienced an
unpleasant
cold snap immediately following Christmas break, and the short, icy
days
and long, frigid evenings were beginning to run together in a
frostbitten
week. The giant squid was hibernating deep at the bottom of the
frozen
lake; Professor Sprout was sleeping in the greenhouse, so that she
could
cast Heating Charms on her precious plants; Filch was constantly
patrolling
the castle, attacking sleet with a vengeance; students were
cautioned
to be careful of frostbite when traveling out-of-doors.
So, of course, Harry had
decided
that it was a wonderful night to visit his godfather. Sirius had
been
doing some work for Dumbledore, which involved a great deal of
traveling
in Animagus form and sleeping outside without the comforts of
lodgings,
but when the cold snap hit, Dumbledore booked him a room at a
Hogsmeade
inn. He’d been staying there for about a week, but Harry hadn’t yet
seen
him.
The journey to Hogsmeade
hadn’t
been bad – the secret passage under the one-eyed witch was far
enough
underground to be insulated against the cold, and they slipped into
Honeydukes
with no problem. Sirius was using a simple Glamour charm when he
ventured
into the streets in human form, but he barely needed it – two years
after
leaving Azkaban, he was hardly recognizable as the hollow-eyed
fugitive
from the Daily Prophet. They’d ordered dinner and Butterbeer
at
the Hog’s Head, began talking, and stayed too long. By the time the
three
had risen from their chairs and said farewell to Sirius, Honeydukes
was
closed. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had walked from Hogsmeade to the
castle.
It was lucky, Hermione
thought,
that they hadn’t been missed. On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly
surprising.
The weather was forcing everyone to stay inside, and the common room
was
crowded with students basking near the fire. When someone was
missing,
they were assumed to have fled to a quieter place to
study.
"Come on, we’d better get rid
of
this wet stuff and get up to the common room," Harry said, wringing
his
soaked scarf. "I can’t believe we’ve been gone so long – with our
luck,
McGonagall will be looking for us right now." His feet made
squelching
noises as he walked from the Hall, leaving a trail of sleet in his
wake.
Hermione and Ron followed
quickly.
They were halfway to the common room when the former stopped short.
"Oh,
no," she exclaimed. "I just remembered – Filch is probably after us
already
– there’s snow all over the Great hall. You two go on – I’ll just
use
a quick Scouring Charm, it’ll only take a minute." She rushed off,
leaving
the two boys staring at her. "If you two come with me, it’ll just
make
Filch mad at all three of us!"
She reached the Great Hall in
record
time, and was just casting a Drought Charm on the first puddle of
muddy
sleet when a grating meow made her turn sharply. Mrs. Norris
was
standing directly behind her.
If Hermione had ever
seriously
considered Avada Kedavra, it was then. She hadn’t as much as lost a
point
for Gryffindor all year – but Ron had already received a detention.
And
Filch would take one look at the mess and indict Ron and Harry along
with
her, and that could mean another detention for them, which could
mean
the loss of his Ron’s Prefect badge – the badge Ron was so proud of,
that
he’d worked so hard to win – and it would be all her
fault.
But Hermione followed her
better
instincts, turned reluctantly away from illegal curses, and only
gave
Mrs. Norris a steely glare and muttered "Defricio!" to the
next
pile of slush.
"Ah. Miss Granger. How
charming
to see you."
Not Filch, but Snape.
Hermione
cursed herself.
"Doing a bit of cleaning? How
magnanimous.
I’m sure Mr. Filch would love to know that you’re delighted to help
him.
Or perhaps you were cleaning up after someone else – someone like
Potter
and Weasley. Just what were they doing to get so filthy?" He didn’t
expect
an answer, and Hermione didn’t give him one. "Sneaking out, perhaps?
Endangering
your lives by frostbite? Ten points off Gryffindor. Ten points
apiece."
"No, professor, it was just
me,"
Hermione said quickly. "I had to go out to the Astronomy tower – I
thought
I’d left my dragonhide gloves there – but they weren’t there, they
were
in the common room." She produced the offending articles from her
cloak’s
pockets, but Snape wasn’t convinced.
"Then a double detention,
Granger.
For – yes, I think that’s about right. Lying, showing contempt for
Hogwarts
rules, and besmirching the castle. To be served Saturday
night."
* * *
Saturday night, Hermione was
engrossed
in hating sugar quills.
They were the double bane of
every
Hogwarts professor. It wasn’t a proven fact, but anyone who had ever
taught
knew: besides being temptingly sweet and ridiculously fragile, the
quills
promoted inattentiveness in class. They dripped onto papers; stuck
pages
of textbooks together; and left permanent sticky marks on
desks!
She tried not to think of the
fun
that Ron and Harry must have been having in the common room as she
scrubbed
harder on a gluey spot. Snape was infamous for his horrible
detentions,
and this one was a classic. After Christmas, the students –
especially
the younger ones – had attacked their holiday sweets with a
vengeance,
mostly in class, and the desks were coated with a sugary substance
that
undoubtedly came from sugar quills.
Snape had, therefore,
assigned
her the hideous task of scrubbing every desk in Professor
McGonagall’s
Transfiguration classroom until each was cleared of sugar. And
scrubbing
them by hand. No magic. Just to make sure, he’d confiscated her
wand.
She hated sugar
quills.
Hermione spent a few moments pleasurably imagining a very painful
death
for whoever invented them. Being stabbed through the heart with his
creation
seemed about right.
Ron had always considered
sugar
quills the perfect gift for her. He’d given Hermione a whole box
every
Christmas since first year. This year, he’d snuck them into her bag,
and
reveled in her confusion when she found herself writing with spun
sugar
rather than eagle feathers. He and Harry once challenged each other
to
a quill-eating contest. They’d both been violently sick after
dinner,
but the look on Ron’s face when one of the sugary feathers tickled
the
back of his throat was priceless.
She hated sugar
quills.
And she hated Valentine’s
day,
for that matter, Hermione thought, as she found a crumpled heart on
the
ground. It read, Will you go to the dance with me? Colin. The
dance.
It was coming up, as Parvati bemoaned daily, and no one showed any
sign
of asking her. "It’s just disgraceful," Lavender had said at lunch
the
week before. "Here we are, three charming girls, and there
are
boys absolutely withering without partners in this school –
and
we haven’t been asked!"
Unfortunately, Malfoy had
been
close enough to hear. "Well, no one’s going to invite Gopher
Granger,
are they? Except – maybe – a weasel?"
That was how Draco had
received
charming tufts of green fuzz on his ears, and how Ron had received
his
detention. But Hermione still didn’t have a partner.
She hated sugar quills.
Maybe,
just maybe, someone would have taken a hint and asked her to
the
dance tonight. She’d certainly made it blatant enough last year. But
with
the detention, her nice invitation was out of the question. Ron was
probably
sitting in the common room now, trying to pick the prettiest girl to
be
his partner.
"Hermione?" a voice
asked.
Or maybe he
wasn’t.
She jumped. "Ron! But –
you’re
not supposed to be in here, don’t use any magic or you’ll get a
detention
too. I told you what I went through to keep you and Harry out
of
this. Snape’s just dying to grab that prefect badge. Why
aren’t
you in the common room with Harry?"
"Common room life?" Ron asked
urbanely.
"It got old. What’s a Saturday night, after all, without Hermione
nagging
you to study?"
She threw him a glare. "Are
you
going to be useful, or are you going to demonstrate your
wit?"
"I thought you didn’t want me
to
be useful."
Hermione attacked the eighth
desk.
"Where is Harry, anyway?"
"In the broom shed." Hermione
raised
an eyebrow. "De-icing his Firebolt. He said he was busy. Don’t look
at
me like that."
"I’ll look at you any way I
want,
Ron Weasley!" Hermione blushed. She hadn’t meant for her retort to
sound
like that. She managed to cover her embarrassment by
scrubbing
on a particularly stubborn stain.
She hated sugar
quills.
When her face was pale enough
to
turn around, Ron was gone.
Some day, she would hunt for
every
sugar quill in the wizarding world. And very, very slowly, she would
crumple
them into fragments, until only miniscule grains of sugar were
left.
Another spot. She could have
sworn
that desk was clean a moment ago. "I – hate – these – bloody
–
stupid things."
Hermione had never sworn
aloud
before, and hearing the word echo around the empty classroom gave
her
a curious sort of satisfaction.
"Miss Granger!" said a
falsetto
voice. "I am shocked and appalled at your language. Twenty points
from
Gryffindor!"
How did he do
that?
Ron was standing behind her again, doubled over in laughter.
And the ninth desk,
miraculously,
was clean. But there was a perfect, whole sugar quill lying on it.
And
when she looked at it incredulously, it flew into her
hands.
"Um, Hermione?" Ron asked
hesitantly,
finishing the Banishing charm and tapping the tenth desk with his
wand.
"Well – what I was wondering was – I mean, I don’t have a partner
yet,
and we’re running out of time – and so I think so we may as well –
that
is to say – d’you want to go to the dance with me?" With a flourish
of
his wand, he finished the task.
Hermione suddenly realized
that
Snape was nowhere in sight. And her job was done. And she might
never
get her wand back.
She realized, just as
suddenly,
that she didn’t care.
It was amazing how much she
loved
sugar quills.
A/N: Happy birthday,
Sugar
Quill! I know I could have improved this plot bunny somewhat, but I
didn’t
want to risk it hopping away! Wishing you a very happy birthday and
a
wonderful year, with many, many more birthdays to come!
