Snape’s Bane and Hermione’s Troubles
—Hermione PoV
Previously in my time at Hogwarts I would find myself faced with many trials, both big and small. The Troll, the third floor corridor, the bloody Basilisk petrifying me for crikes sake. But never have I met someone as resolute as Harriet Melody Potter. Whenever she applies herself she flourishes through both willpower and talent I honestly admire and fear in equal measure. Fear more so due to the trouble it brings her than anything else, and now I’m bearing witness to just such a feared occasion.
“Potter, I’m not taking that disgusting mess of a broth you somehow brewed into being. Vanish it and make it again.” Scowled an honestly enraged Snape as he glared down at the small girl with the fury of a thousand suns.
The girl in question however held a forced smile that screamed pain to me as she pushed forward an honestly normal vial of potion she had whipped up alongside Neville - mostly by doing all the work from what I can tell due to his nerves making anything he brews a wreck and a half - towards the Professor. “No, please Professor Snape,” She spoke in an utterly sickening sweet and pleasant tone. “I insist you give it a second glance.”
Gritted teeth flashed a sinister snarl as he practically growled down at her. “I am not taking your half witted attempt at a Deafening Draft you insufferable dunderhead.”
“And here I thought you’d be able to point out what exactly is wrong with it first?” Harriet taunted back with eyes alight with vicious humour. “After all you are a Potions Master are you not?”
Fuming a very painful shade of red he snatched the potion from her hands with an acidic. “Fine!” And glared intently at it as he raised it between his charcoal eyes. Uncorking and sniffing it he swivelled it around and watched as the viscous ooze swelled and calmed passively in the flask. Shaking from what I could only assume to be literal and unbridled rage he turned back to Harriet and spat. “Acc- Outstanding, work Potter! There!” Slamming it into a small box besides his desk he stormed off to the far end of the room and loomed over Ron’s bubbling orange mess of a potion.
“You utter fool! Ashbeak Ashes go before the Furblug’s Venom!” Vanishing it with a flick of his wand he bellowed. “Twenty points from Gryffindor!” And went off to sniping away at other Gryffindor’s with a brutal vengeance.
Sliding back into her seat just on the table besides mine and Parvati’s I shoot her a look and she smirks back.
“It was worth it.” She reassures me as she sits back and relaxes whilst Snape becomes ever the more closer to the impression of a starving vampire hunting for Gryffindor house points rather than blood.
While most of me was annoyed at her bullheaded stubbornness in pissing Snape off in an ever so blatant but simple way another greater was satisfied seeing him losing an argument with her for once. The two clearly hate each other for some Merlin forsaken reason I can’t even comprehend let alone understand. But actually using his job against him is something rather brilliant, a rare showing of the intellect she typically stifles behind a façade of naïveté.
She’s sharp, a kind of witty cunning that is matched only by her bullheaded selfless streak. If it wasn’t for that latter aspect I don’t doubt she’d be in Slytherin, and probably a very different person as a result. Not that she isn’t changing, steadily over time. Physically less so but puberty seems to finally have kicked in and she’s developing emotionally by leaps and bounds weekly.
Is it strange to consider things from such a third person, out of context perspective? For me, not really. More so the normal than anything, like I’m a character in a book. I always adored literary analysis in my free time, my mom tried more than once to become an author before settling down as a dentist in the end and her love of books just passed down to me naturally. People usually get turned off by my analysing them too much but I’ve gotten less vocal about it over the years.
Harriet has always puzzled me though, so contradictory and vague. The only glimpses I got below that weren’t when she was in a funk. Or just recently when the arguing between me and Ron set her off. The thing is it’s rare she loses her composure, but now she’s growing more assertive of herself instead. Both curious and nice to see happening. Though practically forcing Snape to give her an Outstanding might be a tad much.
I relay as much once the long drawn torture of a class ended, with Snape dragging Ronald and Neville off to a sudden detention. Hopefully it’s not too bad… maybe. “Seriously Harry, did you have to push him like that?” I whisper feverishly into her ear as I rush out after her in the surprisingly empty corridors. It’s a free period now for both of us so we have the time to discuss this in full.
Raising a single querying eyebrow and with a slight twitch of her lips she whispered back. “Yes. I’m long done with his blatant discriminatory behaviour, and this.” Eyes glimmering darkly in the dim dungeons candlelight she finished. “This is war.” Well things just went from bad to worse. “Speaking of…” Reaching into her cloak she fumbled for a bit before fishing out a thick small tome marked with the Hogwarts Crest.
“What’s that?” I inquire, my curiosity overtaking my reluctance as she gently handed it to me.
“The rules book, or well something like that. The actual titles really long and boring, so I just call it Snape’s Gospel.” Harriet chirped as she gently took my arm and dragged me into a small empty classroom along the potions corridor. Gesturing to a pair of untouched chairs lying randomly in the room she then plucked a note off of one and read it idly. Brows furrowing she sighed and turned to me. “Since when did you get a Time Turner of all things?”
“What?” I squeak out as I snatch the note out of her hands. It was short and written in my own handwriting, yet I never remembered writing it. A headache already growing at the back of my mind as I quickly berate my future - or past would it be - self for breaking the rules of time travel for some ungodly reason. But then I read it in full.
To myself,
This is weird but uh… Harry is right? She’s being an idiot with her plan for Snape but I’m - we’re really bullheaded at times. Especially about studying… so uh, listen to her and schedule stuff with the turner better. Ok?
Sincerely Hermione.
What? I crumple the note up in my hand. Why? How? What? Question flood through my mind incoherently before I find myself sat in a chair. Opposite Harriet, who’s staring at me inquisitively.
“Look, I know this is going to be weird but why do you have a Time Turner?” She softly asked as my thoughts calmed down somewhat. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it, but I did, and yet at the same time it’s Harriet and she’s… well she’s my best friend. Ronald also wouldn’t be bad but he hasn’t ever really gotten the need for subtlety, or secrets, so he’d lead to everyone learning about it in no time flat. But Harriet… she can keep a secret.
A faint memory of back in first year flashes back to me, cries burning my face as I ran from class only to be stopped by a forceful hand on my wrist. Black hair and steady eyes cutting into me as she just let me calm myself down. A few other similar occasions when the insults and slurs batted around the halls got too much also flash by, a steady calming weight in the form of a too small girl holding me as I cry paired with them. Harriet can keep secrets, she’s kept mine.
“I got it for my studies, to let me take every elective.” I answer numbly as she sighed.
“Ok, that’s fine. But why wouldn’t you think to tell me about this? So at least I can help you get by without drawing attention or overwhelming yourself again.” Asked a now gentle again Harriet, her words comforting yet cutting at the same time. Alluding back to prior discussions we had before, about how sometimes my anxieties push me to try and do too much, with too little breaks. It’s a bad habit, but with Harriet as a minder of sorts rearing me in it helps a lot.
“I w-was thinking about it.” I lied with only a little hesitation, her eyes narrowed but she shrugged.
“Whatever now let’s jump back an hour so we don’t break reality alright?” Ah yes! The note, the whole thing started the conversation but I need to leave it here in the first place. I guess it would also be a good test run with the turner since I haven’t actually used it yet. Fishing the necklace out of my robe I went up to Harriet and hooked it around both our necks, the canon extending automatically to fit. One turn, one hour, nothing more or less.
One turn and one very disorienting trip later we had arrived in a classroom full of two chairs and no note. One conjugation and written record later and we left the room together, best to prevent an accidental paradox.
“Anyway,” I begin after a good minute of walking around the empty castle hallways. “What was this book about again?”
Blinking sheepishly at me her mouth rounded into an o as I lifted it into her sight again. “Ah, Snape’s Gospel. It’s the rule book for Hogwarts, determines what constitutes House Point gain or loss and detention granting to the appropriate registration Wards.”
“I didn’t think you knew those existed.” I admitted almost awed, they were only mentioned a few times in past editions of Hogwarts a History and even then only in passing.
She simply shrugged in reply. “I found out from a book on registration Wards when I was looking into circumventing the trace. Which is surprisingly easy to be honest.”
“That’s illegal!” I hissed as she rolled her eyes again.
“So is brewing Polyjuice potion, besides trouble likes to find me so being able to use magic wherever I want would come in handy.”
That’s… true, she does have a bad habit of ending up involved in things she probably shouldn’t. And if Black decided to attack her after the year ends… “Fine, but I’m doing this too then.”
“Sure, I’d need your help anyway, since you need to layer three Trace obscuring Wards on top of each other to break its connection to your wand.” Absentmindedly admits Harriet as she skipped up a few steps off the first of the moving staircases and onto the central platform in the middle of the tower.
Following after I remark. “That’s it?” Trace obscuring Wards are easy, so much so they’re only covered in fourth year Ancient Runes and Charms. Layering them together might be difficult but if you simply used Doorling’s Principle around doubling the scale to prevent interference then it should be fine. Tricky to find a classroom large enough but not too hard.
“Yeah, typically Wards are designed that layering the same multiple times makes it pointless so they don’t bother. But the Trace obscuration one is designed opposing that idea in order to make it seem impossible to break.” The staircase we stood on now halted itself before the portrait of the Fat Lady, a hissed murmur from Harriet and we stepped through it.
“Ok… but what was that? You didn’t say the password.”
She shrugged again. “Turns out Parseltongue can be used as a skeleton key inside of Hogwarts, it’s simpler than trying to remember the passwords all the time.”
Really? Thinking on it some more it does seem like something Salazar Slytherin would’ve done, for efficiencies sake or to allow his kin greater privilege than the rest of the school. “That would’ve certainly helped out last year.” Was all I said in the end.
“Yeah, plus the portraits are great at spying on people.” Remarked Harriet as she dumped her bag besides a plush couch and nestled herself into it. “But we’re getting sidetracked again, I need your help in my war against the sinister snipping Snape.” She finished dramatically as I rolled my own eyes and took a seat opposite her, closer to the fire.
“Yes, now you say that…” I’m not calling it Snape’s Gospel, I decide immediately. It’d be rude for the book. “Book, has the specifics on how he can give and take points right? But didn’t last year you say the system is ‘utterly bolluck’s’?”
“Yes and yes. It’s stupid, but it matters to Snape and so we can use that.” Eyes glinting sinisterly she chuckled before flipping it open and skimming through its pages. “If we manage to avoid any, and I mean any, possible way for him to take points from us how mad do you think he’ll get?”
This is a really bad idea, I remind myself again. “Yet what about the others? Neville’s likely to get a heart attack if Snape gets any fiercer.”
“Hm, that’s true.” Contemplatively she goes and stares into the fire for a bit. Eyes lost in thought as she hummed quietly to herself. “Then again, if I get the entire year in on it…”
Well fuck. Sighing outwardly I fix her blatant look of determination with a serious narrowed one. “Harriet, you can’t just escalate your issues away. It’ll only make things worse.”
She looked at me oddly, or well maybe not even at all, her eyes still had that odd haze to them. As if her mind was someplace else. Even though she still eventually answered. “Plan C it is then, how many years do you think I can convince to go on strike?”
I’m unashamed to say the ‘Snape’s Gospel’ I flung into her face struck home. Pushing her backwards as she flipped over the back of her chair and onto the floor behind it.
Hissing something she clambered back upwards, remarkably unharmed as per typical of a magical humans body. “That smarts.” She commented dryly as she rubbed the bruise back of her head.
The sudden burst of bubbling frustration fading I paled drastically. “Are you alright?” I hurry out of my seat and over to her, scanning her up and down first with my eyes and then my wand. Missing her soft smiling as I did so whilst I fretted over her.
“I’m fine Hermione, I probably was just way more focused on getting back at Snape than I should’ve been. I’ll put my plans on hold for now then.” She suddenly says as I’m just finishing up another medical charm giving me a weird reading. Now what was purple-beta-orange again? Nothing on the standard list of ailments, and some just keep giving me vaguely bad stuff. I think purple might be dark magic contamination so is it the scar? Probably, considering the readings are all weird.
No wonder Madame Pomfrey always kept her in the ward for days on end, she probably couldn’t ever get a clear reading due to its existence. As I snap out of my thoughts I look at her distant expression again with contemplation. She’s certainly thinking quite a bit lately, I tend to fall into feverous rants but it seems she just shuts down when thinking deeply about things. Probably puberty, or general interest about things. Maybe she’s finally deciding to actually be interested in her grades for once after the past two years of crazy.
“Hermione?” She suddenly turns to me and says. “I need to go for a bit, I have some thing’s I need to go over for Defence.”
“Oh,” I didn’t think we had any summer work from last year since Lockhart lost his memory but she might just be reviewing stuff. “Ok, I’ll probably go to the library until our…” Suddenly extended free period due to unintentional time travel isn’t exactly the best way to put it. “Next class comes round.”
Nodding she hefts her bag over her shoulder and waves at me. “See you in Defence then.” Before leaving the common room. Oddly enough as she left I got the idea she was thinking about something again, probably her defence work.
Ah! I haven’t finished reading this years assigned Transfiguration book’s first edition version yet! Worries and fretting fades from my mind as I rapidly sprint up to my dorm room. Harriet’s oddities forgotten for now.
-Omake 5-
Harriet: Let’s have a quick chat about Snape!
Hermione: Time Travel!
Harriet: Parseltongue passwords!
Hermione: Warding!
Harriet: We really got sidetracked didn’t we?
Tamelyn: Don’t worry I have even more stuff to distract you with.
Harriet: … Damn it.