It was the strangest week of Hermione's life so far. That included the week in which she found out that she was a witch and went shopping in a district that was still cobbled and had a bank run by Goblins. In spite of the strangeness of Hogwarts in general, somehow Harry Potter managed to outstrip it all.
She spent several hours that first night getting whacked on the head with her wand, which did nothing but gross her out. And then her sleep wasn't exactly restful because for some reason (she couldn't think why) her dreams kept being plagued by strange boys hitting her with penises—odd that.
Hermione was grateful that Blaise had apparently decided to adopt her, since she would have been horribly lost trying to find the Great Hall in time for breakfast. She had just about learned her way from the tower, but this had absolutely nothing in common with that path.
"You waited for me?" she asked him as he walked her through a solid wall that turned out not to be.
"Yes." He turned around in a circle and then opened a door and stepped out onto a landing she'd never seen before that had only a staircase going up. She could see over the edge of the rails down to the entrance hall a hundred feet below.
"Not that I'm complaining, but why?" This was getting more and more surreal. Not only was she walking through an M C Escher painting, but the boy had offered her his arm like some sort of gentleman.
"Because I'm a nice guy?" Blaise gave her a half grin. "No, seriously. You're new to the house and as one of Hari's friends, I feel a certain obligation to help someone who has been forcibly dragged into his sphere of insanity."
"I think you mean 'influence'."
"No, I don't." Blaise patted her hand where it rested on his arm. "You're going to have to get used to the fact that the boy who is sort of in charge of Slytherin instead of Daphne—if he bothered . . . or even knew—has a certain . . . warping aspect. Things don't work quite right around him. And he's decided to infect you. The least I can do is help you find your way around."
"Uh . . ." she watched as they emerged from a doorway she'd never seen in the entrance hall. They had been walking upwards the entire time. "Thanks?"
"Besides," he added. "My mother would kill me if I were anything less than a gentleman to a young lady." His smile was as close to roguish as an eleven-year-old could manage, white teeth flashing in the dark tan of his face. He gave a half-bow and opened the door for her.
Hermione found herself blushing slightly for no reason as he ushered her to a seat in the clique.
"Good morning, student," offered Hari. He hadn't looked up from his bowl. "I trust you are ready to tackle the day without using a penis?"
"What?" snapped Pansy.
"Do you really want to know?" hissed Daphne.
"Probably not."
"Thought so."
Blaise gave Hermione a look of confusion at her mix of flush and green. "Will I regret asking?"
"Yes." Hermione covered her face with her hands. "I regret knowing. And I can't forget it."
"Alright then." He began to fill a plate.
"What are our classes?" Hermione asked. "Today, I mean. I know there's Defense this afternoon, because it's with Gryffindor. But what else is there?"
"Double Transfiguration before lunch," grumbled Tracy. "Twice the time for me to hear from McGonagall that I should be able to get the mouse into teacup already."
Hermione's mouth had barely opened when Hari's chopsticks smacked her in the forehead. She had a momentary flash of disgust before realizing it wasn't her wand. "What?"
"If you want to help someone, less lecturing and more helping," he advised. "Try asking to see what she does and offering advice based on that."
"You mean like you do?" she growled.
"No." He placed his bowl on the table and watched it vanish. "For one thing, you won't be hitting her with a penis." She twitched. "But also, you're teaching something she has a grounding in." He paused. "Though maybe you shouldn't? It'll just be more things I'll have to have her unlearn when I teach the rest of them."
"Do. Not. Ask." Hermione glared around at the rest of the people who in one day somehow moved in and taken the position of 'people I talk to' which was closer to friends her own age than she'd ever had. But she wasn't going to answer questions about that statement he'd made.
"Didn't plan on it," muttered Tracy. "I don't think we want to know."
"Good. So, after Defense?"
"Hm? Oh!" Blaise nodded. "Right. We've got free period and then dinner and Astronomy at midnight."
"One day, I'm going to level that tower just so we don't need to take the class again," Hari commented. "Blow that fucker to pieces."
Hermione looked aghast. "Destroy part of the school?"
"Of course!" Hari looked surprised. "Why not? Anyway," he suddenly grew more serious, "we need to break you of thinking that things like that are important. If I didn't worry about your virtue, I would send you to spend time with Uncle Hidan and Uncle Kakuzu."
"You get used to those comments," interjected Blaise. "Hari is normally pretty polite. And then sometimes he'll curse a streak so blue a sailor'd blush."
Hari grinned. "And my dad said I shouldn't spend time with Uncle Kakuzu."
"I'm sure he was right," replied Daphne, her voice dry.
"Eh. I'll see you in class."
X
X
Things continued much like that for the rest of the week. Her nights were a mixture of being beaten about the head with a piece of wood she kept remembering as being genitalia and just not sleeping well. Her days were classes and school work, both of which were much harder without her wand. She had yet to manage a single spell.
Thursday night—technically it was Friday morning, but she hadn't slept and was coming to the decision that until she slept, it wasn't the next day yet—she managed to levitate the pebble out of sheer anger. It got easier; each time she managed, Hari swatted it out of the air and told her to do it again without being mad. She didn't manage that, but she did hit him in the face with the rock once. He didn't seem to realize, which only upset her more.
His name was another thing she had to get used to. For some reason, his group of friends called him "Hari". It took her a few days before she found herself doing the same, though she had no idea why.
Come Friday morning, she was sitting at the table with the rest of the people who were her not-quite-friends (and Pansy, who was still rather cold towards her. But she treated everyone like that, so Hermione wasn't too worried) and working to levitate a fork so she could try and fling it at Hari.
"Granger!" a voice shouted directly behind her. The fork, which had been wobbling, stopped moving as she shrieked.
When she whirled around, Professor Snape was standing there, hands on his hips and glaring. "I'm going to ask you a simple question, Granger. While you could no doubt give me a lengthy answer, please confine yourself to the minimum verbiage required to communicate with me. Why have you scored no points this week?"
Hermione blinked. "What?"
"You are trying too hard to comply with my instructions, it seems. While I appreciate the brevity of your statement, it has failed to convey sufficient information." Snape sighed. "Granger, I know you're bright. I also know you have a fine memory and working ears. Therefore, I shan't repeat myself." He glared at her some more.
"I heard you, Professor," Hermione replied. "But I'm not sure I understood it properly."
"Ah. Perhaps I need to put it more simply?" Snape sneered at her. "What is the reason that you have not had any house points given to you this whole week?"
"Um . . . because I haven't earned them, Professor?"
"Yes, Granger. I am cognizant of that. Now can we get to the heart of the matter? WHY?"
"Because I haven't cast any of the spells in class, sir."
Snape twitched. "POTTER!"
Hari looked up, eyes closed. "Yes, Professor?"
"This is your fault!" declared the bat-man. "I don't know exactly what or why, but this is your fault! She's spending time with you." He threw his hands up in the air. "Next, Miss Granger here will tell me you took her wand away from her or something equally ridiculous."
Hari smiled. "Wow, Professor!"
"What?"
"You got it exactly right!"
"I what?"
"Well, pretty close anyway."
"Wait. What?" Snape paused. "No. No, no, no! You did not take away Miss Granger's wand. That did not happen!"
"I didn't."
"Good." Snape sighed.
"She gave it to me and doesn't want it back."
Snape let out a scream of anger and whirled to look at Hermione again. She was half-cowering. When she didn't say anything, Snape snarled, "Well?"
"Um . . ." Hermione looked down, blushing. "I don't want to talk about it, Professor."
"Potter," said Snape in a suddenly calm voice. "Give Granger her wand back."
"NO!" shouted Hermione.
Snape stared at Hari. "HOW? How did you take the highest-scoring student in the history of the school and completely destroy that?"
"Talent?"
Snape's shriek of primal rage rattled the tableware and caused several first years (and some NEWT Potions students) to wet themselves. He threw his hands up in the air, then turned away and stomped out of the hall.
Hermione glared at Hari. "Did you just make me a major aspect of a Professor's meltdown?"
"Nah," Hari waved a hand dismissively. "He's just upset. He hasn't tried to kill anyone, so he's not at meltdown level yet." He shrugged. "I mean, I've only got my dad and Uncles to go by, but meltdowns usually involve lots of corpses."
"This is not making me feel any more comfortable here."
"I'm sorry?"
The rest of the group shook their heads.
X
X
Week after week of classes continued apace. Hari frequently skipped classes without apparent pattern (except for History, which he just skipped) and explored the castle instead. It frustrated Hermione that he didn't seem to fall behind anyone despite his only occasional attendance. He usually showed up to Potions because there was always classwork, but he had a knack for failing to be present about half the time theory was the topic of the day—except for those times he didn't. Hermione had pressed him for his reason and had been thoroughly distracted by his discussion of a minor aspect of transfiguration that had been discussed and by the time she remembered her question, he had disappeared. Again.
Hermione was working hard at the theory and homework parts of her classes. It wasn't that she had neglected them before, but now they were her only chance of passing a class, so she was working to squeeze the best possible grades out of each of them instead of working to demonstrate her total command of the topic. It came as a pleasant change to Professors who had resigned themselves to seven years of tome after tome on simple questions and multi-volume responses to more complex matters.
Slytherin had settled a bit—in as much as it was possible for the house to settle when its power structure was in shambles. The elder years were trying to get something resembling command of the house back. While they might have individual power, the sort of rule that they had expected to enjoy during their tenure as upper years was gone with their leadership. The younger years were only mildly better off. The thing was that above first year, power structures had sort of settled and so everyone was scheming to get ahead. It didn't help that the students were in their most impulsive years—plans might be poorly thought out, but enough of them working against each other made for an admirable amount of chaos. The Weasley twins were failing to help by making sure that they pranked Slytherin upper years on a regular basis.
Daphne found that Hermione was a strange addition to her little fiefdom. She hadn't planned to be queen, but was going to work with it. The newest addition to Hari's orbit had an independent streak, but was uninterested in power. The combination meant that while she didn't fit into the model of a Slytherin house, she also was pretty much removed from the possibility of involvement. Plus, Hari was slowly teaching her how to teach, and Daphne was glad of Hermione's memory and sharp mind to help understand their classes.
Blaise had continued his interactions with Hermione as they had been. He was courteous, gentlemanly, and mildly roguish. The overall result was a gallant young man who flirted outrageously—technically it wasn't flirting yet, but he was practicing to improve his skill for when it would be. He apparently had made a sort of game of seeing if he could get Hermione to blush at least once a day—only sometimes by embarrassment.
X
X
"So, Christmas is next week." Pansy had somehow found that she had the duty of introducing topics to Hari when they needed to be. Holidays, for example, were a complete mystery to him.
Hari didn't look up, but made a 'go on' motion with his chopsticks.
"I think all of us are going home to our families," prompted Pansy.
Again, only a motion.
"And while we may have become . . . fond of you, against our better judgement, our parents might not be so happy to see you."
Another motion.
"And Hermione said that she would invite you, but she's going to be going to her grandparent's house and they won't be ready to deal with 'something like you'."
Motion.
"What Pansy is trying to get through to you, Hari," said Millicent, fed up, "is that we will all be going home. You will not be coming with us. We are making sure you understand that. And that you will not be upset or surprised."
"Oh." Hari paused in his eating. "Alright then."
"You could sound a little upset." Tracy pouted.
"I could do many things." Hari finished his meal and set his bowl down to let it vanish.
"Whatever," grumbled Pansy. "He's informed."
"Will you be going home for the holidays?" asked Hermione. "I don't think anyone brought it up."
"Nah. We don't celebrate Christmas."
"Technically, we don't either," pointed out Daphne. "The muggleborn do, true, but most Wizard families stick with Yule or something similar."
"But we do the tree-and-gifts thing," noted Tracy.
"Well yes," Millicent replied. "They're fun."
"Gifts?" asked Hari.
"Traditionally, gifts are exchanged," said Hermione.
Hari nodded. "Alright then. Hello Professor."
Snape had walked up behind Hari. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. "Potter," he began. "Please fill out the form required to visit your family over the upcoming break."
"No thank you, Professor."
Snape sighed. He had already begun to resign himself to having Potter around for what was usually a peaceful period in the chaotic year. The fact that this was no doubt penance for his many bad deeds did not in any way make it better. "Alright." He turned and walked off. He did, however, take forty points from a first year Hufflepuff for being "too happy". It wasn't his best work, but when she burst into tears, it made him feel a little less like he wanted to strangle someone.
X
X
"Good bye, Hari," said Hermione.
"Continue your exercises," he instructed as he watched the first year Slytherins board the train. "I expect progress when you return."
"How do I progress?" snapped Hermione.
"By going forward?" Hari absently backed away from her random swipe with a book and returned to the castle.