Jörmungandr

Just Butterbeer, No Firewhiskey

Her trunk was filled with mud. Fresh from the Greenhouse inventory and mixed with mossy loch water judging by the smell. Watery and shlopping up to the brim and destroying a hundred galleons worth of books.

"Oh dear, little mudblood," came a voice behind her, "It looks like you've had a bit of an accident."

Hermione sighed. "Yeah looks so, Greengrass." First thing in the morning was not the time to hash this out. She should wait until after breakfast at least when she would be contentedly stuffed with food. "Good thing I'm a witch." She flicked her wand. The mud vanished, her books and parchment stripped themselves of filth, and settle back in neat and—

Her trunk exploded in glitter.

Gold flecks swamped her, getting in her clothes, face, hair. Nose. Coating every single one of her books with a sparkly gold mess. She sneezed a great bellow, causing the glitter to scatter again.

Before returning to her like she was magnetized.

Flint winced at her apologetically. Macmillan let out a huff and left the room. Neris rolled her eyes and kept reading cross-legged on her bed.

Greengrass laughed high and light, "Oh! That's right. You are a witch!" She tapped her hands together, "I apologize. I must have forgotten."

"Brilliant," Hermione muttered and returned to the bathroom to shower. Again.

(She may have left a questionably legal hex on her belongings, but no one had tripped it when she returned, so there was no proof.)

She scrubbed herself hard in the shower. Raw to red and a dozen finites. There were still little gold specks in her hair after the third wash when she called it a draw, unwilling to waste more of Riddle's conditioner. Who knew when she would be able to get more.

Hermione missed breakfast, and she did not think about killing Greengrass once.

But torture...

____

Professor Loris looked at her scowling face and sparkling hair with an expression he probably reserved for rabid carnivorous plants. "Er... Hermione, dear. It is good to see you are doing better. Ms. Macmillan has been moved to the alternate sixth-year time slot and will be serving detention this weekend. Has she apologised yet?"

"Yes," she practically growled. Hermione didn't want to drag this out, make it a whole thing. It would be better to just force everyone to move on. "She has done that. Apologised... That is."—Goddamnit. She was such a terrible liar—"Macmillan has apologised to me... Yes."

You're a terrible liar. Tom Riddle said in her head with all the finesse of a bloody cricket bat.

There was a certain clarity to mistakes.

Like a tower bell that rang out and reverberated through a city, muffling all sound other than itself. In all things that had already happened, there was a crystallization when Hermione understood the exact effect of a certain cause. A satisfaction even. Seeing the dominoes fall along their route until the inevitable end. She had thought advanced Legilimency would be a good offering, show him magic that he hadn't known. Get him to see her as valuable.

Hermione should not have shown bloody Tom Marvolo Riddle how to throw thoughts at people.

He would never be out of her damn head! Like a dog with a bloody bone. If he distracted her enough that her grades dipped, screw the stone, she would carve him like a cadaver.