Chapter 5

On Sunday Morning Hermione was up early since she didn’t want to miss Harry. On her way down to breakfast she decided she would pick up some breakfast for him as she was sure he wouldn’t want to eat in the Great Hall. Everyone would be talking about him. She spotted Ron at the breakfast table he was sitting next to Fred. So, Hermoine sat down next to George. Ron still looked mad and even gave her a dirty look.
“You believe him, don’t you?” Ron said.
“Yes, I do, he’s our friend why should he lie to us Ron?” Hermione replied still a little shocked that Ron seemed to believe Harry wanted to be a champion.
Ron just gave her a dirty look again and finished his breakfast.
“Are you two finished?” Ron asked his brothers, ignoring Hermione’s existence.
“I’m not, but you two can go on I will catch you later.” said George.
So, Ron left with Fred.
“Have you seen Harry yesterday?” Hermione asked George as soon as Ron and Fred were out of earshot.
“I’ve seen him, but he didn’t really want to talk to anybody, and he went straight to bed.” George replied after he took a sip of his pumpkin juice.
“I’m just shocked that Ron seems to think that Harry lied to him.” Hermione said.
“You know he’s just upset. He will come around when he’s ready.” George replied.
After they both finished their breakfast and Hermione had packed some toast for Harry they went up to their common room. On their way up George broke the silence that had fallen over them.
“You look way to concerned Hermione. You know Harry will somehow manage what they will throw at him. Like he always does.” He said with a smile on his face.
Hermione saw that it was a forced smile, but she was happy that he tried to cheer her up.
“Thank you, George, but I think they wouldn’t had changed the rules if it hadn’t been necessary. I’m still shocked that they force him to compete.” Hermione replied after a short pause.
Hermione saw that George wanted to say something, but they had arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady, so their conversation had to end. Hermione who crawled first through the whole immediately spotted Harry in the common room. She quickly said goodbye to George and went over to Harry to take him on a walk around the lake.

The next week was horrible. Hermione knew that the attention wasn’t on her but even whilst being around Harry she couldn’t ignore how hateful all the students looked at Him. She understood the frustration that the Hufflepuff students must have felt because Harry kind of took the attention off their champion. It was nothing new that the Slytherins didn’t like Harry but what shocked Hermione the most was that even the Ravenclaws were mad at Harry.

The whole ‘We all hate Harry thing’ was taken to extremes on Friday. The Gryffindors and Slytherins were waiting for Professor Snape in front of the classroom. Hermione saw that the Slytherins were wearing some kind of badge. They looked a bit like the ones she created for S.P.E.W. Malfoy came to her and Harry as he spotted them.
“You like our new badges, Potter?” Malfoy asked Harry loudly, so everyone heard him.
Now Hermione saw what was written on them ‘Support Cedric Diggory – the real Hogwarts champion!’ “And look they can also do this” Malfoy added whilst pressing his badge into his chest. Now the badge said ‘Potter Stinks’. The Slytherins now were laughing.
“Oh, you’re really funny.” Hermione said to Pansy Parkinson who was nearly dying from laughter.
“You want one Granger?” Malfoy asked now his attention was on her. “But please don’t touch me. I’ve just washed my hand and I don’t want to get it dirty with Mudblood.” Malfoy quickly added.
Which was a mistake. Harry now was furious. He took out his wand and pointed it at Malfoy. Hermione tried to stop him, but he didn’t listen to her. Harry was the first to fire a spell at Harry and Malfoy quickly replied with another one. Unluckily Harrys spell hit Goyle and Malfoys spell hit Hermione. She could feel her teeth growing and screamed in horror and pain. Ron came to her and tried to take her hands of her face.
In this moment Professor Snape showed up and asked them what had happened. Of course, Malfoy got to explain first.
“Potter hit Goyle with a spell. Look Professor.” Malfoy said.
Snape quickly took a glance at Goyle and said. “Hospital wing, Goyle.”
Ron next to Hermione now angrily said, “Malfoy got Hemione.”.
He once again took her hands off her face to show it to the Professor. Through her tears Hermione saw that Professor Snape was looking at her.
“I don’t see any difference.” He said.
That was too much for her. She broke away from Ron, who was still holding her, and ran up the stairs on her way to the hospital wing. She heard the argument that now started behind her, but she didn’t care. For once she didn’t care that she was basically breaking a school rule.
Hermione still blinded by her tears didn’t see the person standing in front of the stairs to the first floor. She ran straight into him and she fell to the ground as she wasn’t expecting anyone to be out in the hallway around this time and the person she ran into was quite massive. At first Hermione couldn’t see who it was. She just saw the hand the person was offering her to get up. She grabbed it and the person pulled her back on her feet. Hermione quickly tried to dry her tears as her vision still wasn’t clear. Then as she finally realised into whom she had bumped into she froze. It was Viktor Krum. The Bulgarian quidditch player Ron worshiped. Hermione tried to say something, but she couldn’t firstly because her teeth were way too long to properly open her mouth and secondly because she was left speechless. He was standing way too close to her.
“Are you okay?” He asked with a heavy accent.
Hermione was able to nod. Then she quickly turned around and ran up the stairs and left behind a confused looking Krum. As she arrived in front of the hospital wing, she nearly ran into another person. This time it was George. He was just about to enter the hospital wing himself. He turned around to her and said.
“oh Hello Her – ahhh what happened to your face.”
As Hermione couldn’t explain anything due to the state of her teeth George shook his head and pushed her into the hospital wing.
“Madam Pomfrey I have another patient for you.” George said aloud and then he whispered to Hermione. “You know I’ve just saw Goyle but you definitely look worse” He was smiling and Hermione would had screamed at him if she had been able to.
Madam Pomfrey came to her and said. “Oh la-la what do we have here?” She led Hermione to one of the beds and shut the curtains around the bed. “What are you still doing here Mr. Weasley?” Madam Pomfrey asked George.
“I saw Hermione in the halls, and I would like to stay if this is okay.” George answered with an uncertain look on his face.
“I don’t mind do you Mrs. Granger?” Madam Pomfrey asked.
Hermione shook her head as she was kind of happy that she wasn’t alone. “Well then, please hold this” Madam Pomfrey said and handed Hermione a Mirror. “I will have to shrink your teeth please let me know when they are at their original length.” She added and pointed her wand at Hermione’s face. It hurt a lot, but Hermione was relived as she finally was able to talk again. After Madam Pomfrey was done and had told Hermione that she should sit for about five minutes before she could leave, Madam Pomfrey went back to Goyle who was the only other person who occupied a bed. “What happened?” George asked as soon as Madame Pomfrey was out of earshot.
“Malfoy happened, I don’t know if you had already seen them, but the Slytherins created a badge on which they show which Hogwarts champion they support and which they hate. Malfoy also insulted me once again and Harry lost his temper and tried to hit Malfoy with a spell. As you can see, he hit Goyle and unfortunately for me Malfoys spell hit me.” Hermione answered calmly.“But what were you doing in front of the hospital wing, George?” Hermione added.
“Well, we have a free period and like I said I already saw Goyle running into the hospital wing.” George answered.
“But that doesn’t explain why you were in the first floor especially alone.” Hermione proceeded to ask.
“Okay I will tell you but please don’t get mad at me. You know that me and Fred are still working on new products for Weasley’s wheezing wizards.” George said.
“Yeah, sure you’ve told me during the summer break.” She replied still waiting for the part she was supposed to get mad.
“Well, to test if the products we have to test them on us and so we sometimes need some bandage stuff. Since we prefer not to go to Madame Pomfrey every time, we have something, you know.” George said with a guilty look on his face.
“You wanted to steal from Madame Pomfrey?” Hermione asked in a low voice looking shocked at George.
“I mean we will need the bandage stuff anyways if she puts it on us or we do doesn’t really matter does it?” George replied.
Hermione couldn’t answer him as Madam Pomfrey came back to them.
“You can go now Mrs. Granger, you should be fine. If there are any problems, you know where you can find me.” Madame Pomfrey said.
“Thank you for your help, Madam Pomfrey, I really appreciate it, have a nice day.” Hermione said and left the hospital wing with George.

Hermione wanted to pick up the conversation she just had with George again but as she saw that Viktor Krum was standing in the corridor in front of the hospital wind. As he saw her and George coming out of the hospital wing, he turned around and walked away.
“Wasn’t that Krum? I wonder what he is doing around here alone.” George said whilst staring at Krum. Hermione wasn’t able to answer him as her thought were running wild. ‘Why would George steal something from the hospital wing and think that it was okay?’, ’What will happen if she misses the rest of the potion lesson, will she get detention?’ and ‘Was Krum waiting in front of the hospital wing for her? And when why would he do something like that?’. Krum wasn’t here for a long time, but Hermione had seen him in the library. He was always surrounded by girls. Hermione decided that she didn’t want to go back into the dungeons. So, she followed George up to the Gryffindor Tower. Neither she nor George have picked up their previous conversation.

Hermione spent the rest of the evening doing her Homework. She didn’t dare to go down in the Great Hall to have dinner. Luckily Ginny knocked on her door after dinner time. She came in the room of the fourth year- girls and sat down on Hermione’s bed and said “The boys told me what happened. I’m so sorry Hermione. I brought you a sandwich I figured you would be hungry.”.
“Thank you, Ginny, Madam Pomfrey was able to shrink them to their original length. I just didn’t have the energy to face everyone.” Hermione replied before she started to eat the sandwich.
 She was starving and was happy that Ginny brought her something to eat. Hermione realised that she hadn’t talked much to Ginny since the beginning of the year. The extra amount of Homework they had to do this year and then the fact that Harry got somehow chosen as a Hogwarts champion claimed most of Hermione’s focus and time. She noticed that Ginny looked as concerned so she asked “How are you doing Ginny? We hadn’t had time to talk much since the start of the year.”.
“Yeah, well school is going well. I’m a bit concerned about how Harry will be able to keep up with the task of the Triwizard Tournament. However, I hope you can enjoy your dinner Hermione. Good night.” Ginny replied and before Hermione could say anything to comfort her, Ginny was out the door. Hermione knew how much Ginny used to like Harry. She swore to herself that she would take more time to talk to Ginny.

The next day Harry told Hermione everything about how Rita Skeeters interviewed him, and he told her about the letter he had received from Sirius. They immediately began to plan how they would make sure that the common room was empty for Harry’s meeting with Sirius.

If Hermione had thought two weeks after Harry had the interview with Rita skeeters the Hogwarts students especially the Slytherins loved to tease both about the content of the interview. As Rita skeeters made it seem like Hermione and Harry had some type of romantic relationship Hermione got teased this time as well. This and the fact that Harry and Ron were still not talking to each other nearly made Hermione lose her mind. She tried to convince Harry to just talk with Ron again.
Harry now joined her often in the library. She knew that it wasn’t Harrys favourite place to hang out, but he needed to learn the Summoning Charms. And she wanted to help him with that. If only Viktor Krum wasn’t around that often. He seemed to spend a lot of his time in the library as well. Which in theory wasn’t a problem but as he always had a group of girls around him. They were way to loud.

Hermione and Harry spent the time after the Friday afternoon lesson in the library.
“Do you want to go to Hogsmeade tomorrow?” Hermione asked Harry.
“Yeah sure. But didn’t you want to go with Ron?” Harry replied.
“Well, I thought we might meet him in the Three Broomsticks” Hermione said.
Harry looked at her in disbelieve and just said “No”.
“Oh come on Harry, your behaving really child..” Hermione said before Harry interrupted her “Okay I will come but I won’t meet Ron and I will wear my Invisibility Cloak.” Hermione wasn’t Happy about that, but she accepted his conditions. As Harry kept on working on the Summoning Charm Hermione’s thought started to drift off.

Backflash of Hermione about 13 days ago

After she helped Harry plan on how to keep the common room empty for his meeting with Sirius she went to the library. She chose one of the most hidden tables in the library. As she wanted to be left alone after her teeth incident the day before. She had already worked on her homework for some time when she heard footsteps coming her way. Hermione looked up and saw that it was Viktor Krum. She was surprised to see him. He stood there a bit unsure looking.
“Hello, my name is Viktor Krum.” Viktor said with his heavy accent.
Hermione smiled a little and answered, “Hello my name is Hermione Granger. Do you want to sit down?”
He smiled at her and sat down opposite of her.
“So are you okay again?” He said whilst he pointed at his teeth.
“Yeah, Madam Pomfrey healed me” Hermione replied.
”And who is your boyfriend the one with the red hair?” Viktor asked next.
Hermione let out a little laugh. Viktor though George was her boyfriend or maybe he just confused the words and only meant to aske who the boy presumably her friend was.
“He isn’t my boyfriend. But he’s George Weasley. He’s the brother of my best friend Ron.” Hermione said.
“Oh I just though as he was with you and you two look so, how do you say it, friendly together.” Viktor replied. “Have I seen you before, outside of this school?” He added.
“No. I don’t think so” Hermione replied.
“Oh well. I hope is okay if I stay here? Here the girls can’t find me I hope.” Viktor asked.
“Yeah, no problem.” Hermione said.
With that their kind of strange conversation ended. Viktor pulled out a book from his bad and Hermione tried to get her focus back on her homework. It was a bit hard as shed looked up every few minutes to look if he was actually sitting across from her and she didn’t just imagine that.

End of Backflash

Harry snipped his finger in front of her face.
“Hermione are you listening to me?” He asked.
“Uhm No, I’m sorry Harry what have you said?” She replied still a bit confused as she was so deep in thoughts, she totally ignored her surroundings.
“I asked if you wanted to go to dinner.” Harry said still a bit confused about Hermione’s behaviour.
“Yeah sure, let’s go we have studied enough for today.” She said and they started to pack their stuff together.