──⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ── HERMIONE P.O.V ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
"Now, after that excellent class that obviously held everyone's full attention, we head to the Great Hall," says Hadrien.
"After the..." I begin, my voice tired.
He doesn't let me finish.
"Incredible. Wonderful. Brilliant. Excellent History class," he says, absurdly cheerful, while swinging his arm and, unfortunately, mine along with it.
I look at him with all the hatred I can gather right now.
Which is quite a lot.
"Absolute, indescribable suffering and torture... I need food," I hiss under my breath, cutting him off before he can keep enjoying his own existence.
Hadrien puts on an innocent face, as if he hadn't just mocked one of the worst academic experiences of my life, and merely whistles softly as we keep walking toward the Great Hall.
"Co-co-correct," he blurts out suddenly.
No.
Not that word.
"Don't say it. Not now. Not later. Not ever again. Do you understand?" I hiss at him, practically at the back of his neck and ear.
I unhook my arm from his and grab his hand hard.
"Ow, ow. Okay, okay. I understand. Bad timing. Tough crowd," he says, suffering for his stupid little joke.
I sigh and loosen my grip. Then, almost without thinking, I end up threading my fingers through his.
Hadrien turns a little toward me.
And just keeps looking at me.
I don't look back at first. I keep walking. I keep looking ahead. I keep pretending I don't notice anything.
Until the steady look on my face starts to feel too obvious to ignore.
I turn my head at last.
I find him staring at me with the strangest expression.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing," he answers too quickly.
He keeps looking at me for half a second more. Then he murmurs, very quietly and completely serious.
"How lewd."
I make a strange noise. Something between a "what?" and a threat.
He coughs into his free hand and immediately looks away.
"Nothing, nothing. Inside joke."
I keep staring at him for another second.
It does not improve anything.
"You're insufferable," I mutter.
"Yes," he says without a trace of shame.
And he keeps walking beside me, our hands still linked, as if he hadn't just said something completely absurd and left me with even more questions than I already had this morning.
•••
We sit down to eat and, this time, I decide I need real energy. I choose something heavier, a bit greasier, and I do not feel guilty about it in the slightest. After surviving Binns, I think I earned it. I leave my Potions book open on the table at a random page, more out of habit than necessity. Reading something simple while I eat seems like a better idea than listening to Ron inhale food as if he were making up for lost years.
Seamus and Dean drift off a little with some other Gryffindor boys. Harry stays nearby, Ron too, of course, and Neville remains there as a quiet presence, more observer than real participant in the conversation.
Mira and Padma, to my mild surprise, sit with us at the Gryffindor table without much fuss. Parvati doesn't even seem to notice that this could be considered odd.
I glance around for a second and lower my voice.
"Is it okay for them to sit here?" I ask, looking at Hadrien. "I mean... aren't people supposed to sit at their own table?"
Hadrien looks up from his plate with that expression of his that says are you seriously asking me this right now.
"Does it matter?" he says. "There's no feast, Dumbledore isn't giving a speech, and no one is signing a constitution. Look at the other tables."
I do.
He's right. There are mixed groups here and there, a Ravenclaw talking to two Hufflepuffs, a pair of Slytherins at the far end of another table, and several older students clearly sitting wherever it suits them as long as there isn't any official drama.
"It's not forbidden," Hadrien finishes, as if closing a very simple case.
Padma looks around too, considers it for two seconds, and nods.
"That makes sense."
"Besides, if we get thrown out, we can always pretend it was Parvati's idea," Hadrien adds.
"Hey!" she protests.
"Yes, it was my idea," she says one second later, perfectly calm.
Meanwhile, Ron has miraculously come back to life the second he saw food. His plate is already full, his second goblet poured, and he has an almost spiritual expression of reconciliation with the universe.
I watch him for a moment.
"Impressive," Hadrien murmurs, looking at him too. "There are magical plants with less recovery capacity than you."
Ron doesn't even look up.
"Shut up."
"No, seriously," Hadrien continues. "I think if they buried you with roast potatoes, you'd rise again in three days."
Harry lets out a short laugh.
"That sounded disturbingly possible."
"Thanks," Ron says, mouth half full, offended but still eating. "I'm delighted you're all making fun of me."
Harry takes a little while to speak, but in the end he does, looking more or less at his plate.
"Binns is boring."
"That's putting it mildly," I mutter.
"No, listen," Harry says, thinking about how to put it. "I'm not saying the subject is bad. I'm saying I don't know how he manages to sound like he isn't even interested in teaching it."
That snorts a laugh out of me. "Thank you. Exactly that," I say.
"I'm still convinced he died in the middle of a lesson and never noticed," says Ron.
"That's not impossible. And you're probably right," Hadrien murmurs.
Parvati, Lavender, Mira, Padma, and I gradually pick the conversation back up without really noticing.
Lavender says she hated History of Magic from the very first minute. Parvati says she tried to resist and lost the battle by minute eight. Mira, unsurprisingly, doesn't seem resentful toward the subject itself, only toward the format of slow death.
"The history was interesting," she says, cutting off a piece of bread. "The problem was the voice. I feel like if he'd kept talking like that for another five minutes, I would have turned into a chair."
"That would explain quite a lot about the classroom furniture," says Hadrien.
"Hey, at least I managed to get a bit of sleep in before Astronomy tonight," Ron comments, as if that were an achievement worth celebrating.
"I told you to pay attention and not fall asleep. What are you going to do later if you don't understand anything?" Harry scolds him.
And on that point, I agree. At the very least, he could read his damn book, considering he bought it.
I turn a page in my Potions book and, before I think too much about it, return to something useful.
"After Herbology we should go to the library," I say. "We need to look up *Tergeo* for Charms, and the sooner we do it, the better."
Parvati and Lavender look up at the exact same time.
"Today?" they both ask.
"Yes, today," I answer. "If we leave it, it'll pile up with everything else and then the stress starts."
"You've got a point, but is it really necessary right now? I mean, it's only a not-that-hard assignment," Hadrien murmurs.
"Thank you. And yes, it is. It's better to get things done early than do everything at the last minute... which you enjoy far too much."
"Seriously, Hermione?" says Ron. "Already?" he adds, with reluctance and mild annoyance. "Can't you, I don't know, take it a little easier? It's the first day!" He waves his arms around and speaks louder than necessary.
I decide to ignore this troll.
It clearly works, because he snorts, drops the subject, and goes back to eating.
Mira immediately perks up at the idea.
"I'm in," she says. "And I can ask if any girls from my house want to come too. I'm sure someone will be interested. Like a study group."
Padma nods.
"Yes. It makes sense to do it today. No point wasting time."
"I'm going too," says Hadrien before anyone asks him. "I want to see what the library is like."
I look at him.
"Do you want to see the library, or do you want to rummage through books you shouldn't be touching?"
Hadrien shrugs.
"Why choose? Besides, if they're in the library, I assume they expect someone to touch them."
That, unfortunately, also makes sense. In his own twisted way, but sense all the same.
"Merlin, I'm surrounded by bookworms," says Ron.
Lavender doesn't seem too convinced about giving more hours of her day to anything academic, but Parvati is already halfway in just because Mira looks excited and because, honestly, the idea of going to the library with new people sounds quite a bit less terrible than going alone.
And just when the conversation starts to settle, two older redheads appear again as if they were a particularly aggressive form of fate.
They drop down near Harry, fill their plates with spectacular confidence, and begin eating as though they had very much been invited from the start.
"Well, well," says one of them, looking around. "Our little survivors."
"How moving to see you still conscious," adds the other.
Ron is already looking at them with preventive hostility.
"Don't start."
"We're not going to do anything," says Fred.
"Yet," George finishes.
Harry smiles.
"So how was your first day?" Fred asks, as if he truly cares.
"Cried yet?" George adds.
"I had a nice nap, if you're so desperate to know," says Ron.
"Ah, yes," Fred says with completely fake seriousness. "Binns. Our old ghostly version of a sleeping draught."
George nods.
"Excellent class for sleeping, planning pranks, doodling nonsense, or, in extreme cases, sneaking off."
"You skip classes?" I ask before thinking about whether I actually want the answer.
They both look at me at the same time.
"Hermione," Fred says, as if I've failed him personally.
"What an ugly word," George adds.
"We strategically withdrew," Fred continues.
"For highly creative and much more productive purposes," George finishes.
Hadrien and Harry laugh together this time.
"But skipping class is wrong. And what about your grades? And the points we lose?" I ask.
"Oh, don't worry, Granger. We make them back just fine. And I didn't know you were our mother," says Fred with offensive politeness.
"What my brother is trying to say is that that isn't your problem," George adds, pointing at me with a chicken leg.
Ron makes a face.
"They're insufferable."
"Clearly hereditary," I mutter.
And then Percy appears.
I look at him for a second longer.
He's tired. Exhausted and still operating on pure discipline.
Ron notices too, but that doesn't stop him from being Ron.
"If he were a little cooler or a lot less unbearable, people would like him much more," he mutters.
The twins hear him immediately.
"Correct," says Fred.
That wretched word again... The corner of my eye twitches.
"On that, for reasons I fail to understand, we agree," adds George.
"Percy has the charisma of a printed school regulation and a boring spokesman," Fred concludes.
"And the appeal of a badly sculpted statue," George finishes.
Harry chokes a little on a laugh.
Percy turns his head just enough, wearing that look that says I know they said something about me, but I didn't quite catch what.
The twins smile at him like two perfect criminals.
"Good morning, model prefect," they say in unison.
Percy ignores them with what is probably learned familiarity. It reminds me a little of me when Hadrien is being impossible.
A little.
He keeps walking, sending a supervisory glance over half the Gryffindor table, checking that no one is setting anything on fire and that the first-years are still alive.
He doesn't get very far.
"Well, look at that," says a familiar voice.
Imogen appears at one side of the table with that calm of hers that always seems one step away from total exhaustion. She looks at Fred first. Then George. Then Percy, whose face is already saying please, no.
"The two people most hated by the castle staff..." says Imogen, half dead in the eyes.
Fred smiles. George does too.
Very bad sign.
"What a warm way to greet us, Fairfax," says Fred.
"Yes, we can practically feel the affection," adds George.
Imogen doesn't blink. She lets out a short sigh and rubs lightly at the bridge of her nose, as if the two of them have already consumed years of her life before she's even opened her mouth.
"On my way over here I saw Filch cleaning up some foul-smelling disaster near the North Wing," she says at last, looking from one to the other with an irritating calm. "All I ask is that, if you're going to do something like that, don't leave evidence."
She pauses briefly and folds her arms.
"It's already enough that I have to take points from Gryffindor because of you. And, please, it's the first day. Wait at least a week before you start your nonsense. Prefects need some peace too."
The twins look at each other as if they've just heard a surprisingly reasonable criticism.
"That is surprisingly fair," says Fred.
"And extremely useful to know," adds George.
Percy closes his eyes for one second. Just one. The sort of gesture that probably means he has already accepted that this is his life and he cannot change it.
Imogen looks back at the whole table, now in prefect mode again.
"You've got a few minutes before your next class. Don't set anything on fire and, please, try to get to Herbology on time. We get plenty of complaints because first-years keep getting lost on the way to the greenhouse."
"Far too many demands for one day," Ron mutters.
"And yet here we are," says Imogen.
She leaves with Percy shortly afterward, and the table relaxes again.
Lavender is the first to speak, of course.
"I like her," she says, looking toward where Imogen went. "She's terrifying, but I like her."
"That kind of person is always likable as long as they're not after you," says Parvati.
"Or as long as they don't catch you running down a corridor without permission," Padma adds.
Mira, who has been absentmindedly poking a piece of food with her fork for a while, looks between us and changes the subject.
"Are all the ghosts that... normal? I mean, Nick is odd, Binns is sleep-inducing, and the Grey Lady looks like she could judge you in seven languages with that cold elegance."
"I saw the Fat Friar and liked him," says Parvati. "He smiles a lot."
"Too much," Lavender corrects. "I liked him, but he also gave me the impression that he could forgive you absolutely anything."
"That sounds pretty good, actually," says Hadrien.
"No," I mutter without looking up from my book.
Mira smiles.
"I still like the idea of ghosts wandering around here as if it were completely normal. That alone already seems beautiful to me."
"Beautiful" was not the word I used when one of them went through a wall right in front of me," says Lavender.
"Nor mine when Binns started talking," I add.
That gets a laugh out of Parvati and Mira.
An older Ravenclaw walks past our table, sees Mira and Padma sitting with us, arches an eyebrow, and keeps going without saying a word. Mira follows her with her eyes for a second and then returns to the conversation as if nothing happened.
"Have any of you actually gotten lost yet?" she asks.
"Not yet," says Harry.
"I'm really scared of getting lost," Neville murmurs for the first time in quite a while.
"I'd get lost without a problem if Hermione weren't here," says Ron, pointing his fork at me. "Or Hadrien. Or some adult. Or a portrait. Or anyone."
"How comforting to know you have so much faith in your own abilities," says Hadrien.
Harry smiles. Neville does too.
The conversation continues a little longer with comments about professors, staircases, portraits that talk too much, and a very quick anecdote from an older Gryffindor girl who overhears Lavender talking about ghosts and cuts in just to tell us how, in second year, Peeves threw ink all over a prefect.
We pay a great deal of attention.
"Peeves?" Harry asks.
"The poltergeist," says the older girl, as if that explains everything. "If you're lucky, it'll take him a while to find you."
That does not sound reassuring.
At all.
•••
When we finally leave the Great Hall, the group starts to come apart.
The twins vanish off on their own. Lavender, Parvati, Mira, and Padma linger a little behind, talking among themselves about the library, about some Ravenclaw girl who is "definitely coming," and about whether it's worth carrying books all over the castle or if it would be better to go back for them later.
In the end, almost without trying, only five of us are left.
Harry. Hadrien. Ron. Neville. Me.
The corridor feels strange without all the noise of the Great Hall behind it.
"Well," says Ron, shoving his hands into his pockets, "if Herbology turns out to be another class worth dying of boredom in, I'm throwing myself into the lake."
"First you have to find your way to the lake too," says Hadrien.
"Thanks for the confidence."
"You're welcome."
We go down a staircase, turn into a narrower corridor, and hear it before we see it.
A bang.
Then a high-pitched, unpleasant, far too happy cackle.
Then a shriek.
We stop almost at the same time.
"What was that?" Harry asks.
I don't get to answer, because when we peer around the next stretch of corridor, we see him.
He's floating sideways in the middle of the staircase, a jug in his hand and an expression of pure indecency on his face. A third-year boy is trying to dodge past him while climbing with an armful of parchment. Peeves dumps water over him with excellent aim and then lets out a hideous laugh.
"Faster, faster, soggy brat!" he sings, sliding along the banister as if the whole castle were his personal toy.
The boy yells something back that I can't make out.
Peeves sticks out his tongue, goes straight through a suit of armor, reappears on the other side, and smacks him lightly on the back of the head with the empty jug before taking off again.
The portraits on the wall are beside themselves.
"Peeves! Filthy beast!"
"Come back here, you floating degenerate!"
"Get off my staircase!"
A witch in one portrait changes frames just to keep shouting at him from closer up. An enormously fat knight leans half his body out of his painting, pointing at him in outrage. Another literally runs from one portrait to the next as if chasing the whole scene across the wall.
We stand there watching him from a distance.
At this point, honestly, I no longer know what to think about anything.
"We live here," Harry murmurs.
"How awful," I say.
"I don't like this at all," says Ron.
Peeves streaks past the stairwell again, upside down this time, and throws the rest of the water at two older students who were only trying to come downstairs.
One of the portraits notices us watching and, without anyone even asking yet, shouts.
"It's Peeves, of course! The scourge of this castle, the enemy of order, the shame of this castle!"
"And the most stable source of entertainment we've had in centuries," grumbles another portrait, much less indignant.
"Is he always like this?" Neville asks quietly.
"Hmph. It could be worse," replies the witch in the nearest portrait with complete seriousness. "Today he's only soaking students."
That does not sound good at all.
Ron keeps staring at Peeves in silence for two seconds more.
"I don't want to sound dramatic," he says at last, "but I think they ought to kill him again."
"He isn't alive," I answer automatically.
"Then they should kill him twice."
Hadrien blows air out through his nose and gives him a light pat on the shoulder.
Peeves, fortunately, decides he's had enough fun with that stretch of corridor and darts off down another passage, leaving behind water, shouting, one thoroughly drenched third-year, and several cases of collateral damage.
We remain still for half a second more, still tucked into the corner of the corridor.
"Well," says Harry in the end. "That was... something."
"Yes," I murmur. "Further proof that Hogwarts needs regulation."
Hadrien only sighs. I can't tell whether it's resignation, fondness for the chaos, or both at once.
We continue downstairs after that, with rather more caution than I'd like to admit, and the farther we get from the inside of the castle, the more the air changes.
First it cools.
Then it grows damp.
And when we finally turn toward the grounds and I see the Herbology structure in the distance, I forget almost everything else for a few seconds.
I wasn't expecting that.
The enormous greenhouse stands outside the castle as if someone had decided to build a garden inside a cage of glass and iron far too beautiful to make sense. The structure has two levels, upper walkways, curved panes of glass, dark columns, and long ribbons of hanging plants trailing down from above as if the whole building were alive and growing in silence.
The light filters through the glass and turns green-gold in some places. There are low fountains, stone paths, long worktables, pots everywhere, vines, flowers, small shrubs, common plants and others that clearly are not. Some leaves tremble on their own. Others seem far too attentive for my liking.
The whole place smells of damp earth, clean water, sun-warmed leaves, and something sweeter I can't identify right away.
After History of Magic, I was expecting another closed classroom.
Not... this.
"Oh," says Harry, very softly.
Yes.
More or less exactly that.
Ron lifts his head, genuinely impressed.
"Wow. It's beautiful."
We all nod almost by reflex.
We walk toward the entrance, and the closer we get, the more details appear: moisture on the glass, wrought iron in sweeping curves, leaves curling around the upper railings, small side rooms linked to the main greenhouse, and a gentle warmth you can feel the moment you step through the door.
Inside, it's even prettier.
We walk slowly between stone paths and long tables crowded with pots. To one side there are large blue-petaled flowers that turn slightly as we pass, as if following us with their gaze. Farther along, a plant with round leaves slowly opens when the light touches it, and when Ron leans in a little too close to look at it, it snaps shut with offended speed.
Ron jumps.
"I didn't do anything."
"That's exactly what a guilty person would say," Hadrien mutters.
Harry smiles, looking at another pot where several white flowers all bend in the same direction, as if whispering among themselves.
"I swear they're talking badly about us," says Harry.
"We deserve it," says Hadrien.
Neville, on the other hand, doesn't seem frightened. He looks at a low plant with fine leaves that shrink whenever a drop falls on them from a vine above.
"I think some of them react to movement," he says quietly, more to himself than to us.
To my left, an orange flower opens its petals with almost theatrical slowness and releases a sweet, warm scent that is far too pretty to be entirely trustworthy.
"If something here tries to eat me, I want you all to look after my rat Scabbers and tell people I died fighting," says Ron.
"Fighting and not screaming like a little girl?" Hadrien shoots back.
Ron glares at him.
"Don't start."
"Oh, come on. Time will prove me right. Remember this conversation," he says, laughing with complete ease.
Harry crouches a little to look at a trailing plant that has wound itself around the edge of a pot. One of its tips moves lightly in the air, feeling around as if searching for something to cling to.
"This is incredible," he says, almost under his breath.
Yes. It is.
After Binns, after Peeves, after lunch, and after everything else today, walking in here feels as though someone has opened a window inside the world.
Farther ahead I see another open door leading into an inner room even fuller of green, and just as I'm about to point it out, a warm, firm, thoroughly awake voice reaches us from somewhere among the tables.
"Ah, very good. You're here."
At last. Something alive that isn't a plant.
"Ah, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter, please don't touch the plants. Some of them can be dangerous," says the voice, with a warmth that doesn't quite hide the warning.
The two of them pull their hands back at once, as if they had never been about to do exactly the foolish thing they were about to do.
"Are they really dangerous?" Hadrien asks.
"She already said so," I answer.
Professor Sprout finally appears from between two cultivation tables. She has her hair pulled back, a thoroughly kind and peaceful face, and worn green gloves stained with damp earth. She takes them off as she walks toward us, and a soft, rounded little laugh escapes her, the kind that doesn't sound forced.
"Don't worry too much," she says. "Most of the plants on this floor are quite harmless. At worst, you might walk away with a good scare... or a few marks on your hands, if you're unlucky."
"Don't scare us like that!" Ron protests.
Sprout smiles a little more.
"Ah, but that's precisely the point, Mr. Weasley. With plants, it pays to be cautious. Not all of them are harmless, and not all of them appreciate being touched without permission."
Hadrien claps once, brief and satisfied.
"I deeply respect the teaching method."
Sprout laughs again, this time covering her mouth lightly with the back of her hand.
"Ohoho, young man... that silver tongue isn't going to earn you extra points with me."
This cannot be real.
I blink.
Did she really just say that to him?
Hadrien glances at me sideways and winks, as if he has just received a formal invitation to keep being unbearable.
Of course.
Naturally that only encourages him more.
He inclines his head very slightly toward Sprout, with a courtesy so polished it's almost offensive.
"Then I shall limit myself to telling the truth, Professor. You have a dangerously youthful spirit."
Sprout doesn't lose her smile. If anything, it broadens. The happy lines at the corners of her eyes deepen.
"And you, Mr. Granger, talk far too prettily for someone who probably still can't tell a mimbulus root from a jumping nettle."
Hadrien places a hand over his chest, wounded with utterly fake dignity.
"What an elegant way to dismantle a gentleman."
"You'll learn to survive it," says Sprout calmly. "Assuming nothing stings you first."
I look at Hadrien. Then at Professor Sprout. Then back at Hadrien.
I do not know what exactly I am looking at.
I only know that I have just witnessed my eleven-year-old brother compliment a Herbology professor as if he had lived through three marriages, two minor wars, and a long diplomatic career, and instead of telling him to be quiet, she seems sincerely amused.
Sprout finishes setting her gloves down on the table, watches him for one more second, and shakes her head ever so slightly, amused.
"Oh, all right. One point to Gryffindor for the remark. But only one, and not because it worked."
Hadrien smiles with utterly indecent satisfaction.
"Of course not, Professor."
Why are we here?[1]
No, worse.
Why did that work?
Ron is staring at him too now, with a mix of bewilderment and personal betrayal.
"It isn't fair," Ron mutters. "I get threatened with plants, and he gets points for talking funny."
"Because you look like you're about to stick your hand into something poisonous," says Harry.
"You're hardly innocent yourself, Harry," Ron shoots back.
"Ron, if I were the professor, the first warning of the day would go to you too," I say.
"I didn't even do anything," Ron protests.
"Not yet," I add. "And Hadrien looks like he's about to inherit a plantation."
That gets another laugh out of Sprout.
"You're quite a lively little group," says Sprout, still smiling as she leaves the gloves on a nearby table.
Lively.
Yes. Well. I suppose.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
4769 Words.
A short chapter. By my standards, at least 😮💨📖
Honestly, I'd be much more peaceful if I resigned myself to writing short chapters like half the world on this damn site 💀
But no. My brilliant, utterly useless brain prefers to torture me alone rather than do the exact same thing I hate seeing others do 🤡
Damn my nobility, my principles, my unhealthy need for consistency, and this ridiculous obsession with complicating my own life 😭🙏
So here we are. Again. Me fighting with myself over decisions a normal person could resolve in five minutes 🫠
✨━━━━━ ✦ WEEKLY GOAL ✦ ━━━━━✨
💎 180 Power Stones = 📖 1 extra chapter next week
✨━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✨
Note:PLEASE DO NOT REACH 180😭😭🙏 LET ME PROCRASTINATE A LITTLE LONGER, I'M BEGGING YOU.
[1] Just to suffer...