The Mistake

The Morning After

I own nothing! J.K.Rowling owns everything!

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Hermione wound her way through the castle, pausing every so often to make sure there wasn't another student about to round the corner and spot her. When she finally reached the portrait of the Fat Lady she thought she'd leap and shriek for joy, but decided that would be a rather bad idea.

"Baubles." She said to the Fat Lady, as soon as there was a gap in the portrait hole Hermione darted through it, muttering a "Thank you" as she went.

She sprinted as fast as she could through the common room, not wanting anyone to be able to pick up on the fact that she hadn't changed and that she had been out all night, and dashed up the steps to her dorm without making too much noise. She stopped at the door of her dorm and bent over, catching her breath, before opening the door as quietly as she could and tiptoeing to her bed. Once on the bed, she closed the curtains and reached under her pillow to grab her pyjamas, which she then changed into. She peaked her head out of her curtains to check if the coast was clear before making her way over to the loo.

Once the door had closed she slumped against it and rubbed her eyes, before trying to pinch herself, hoping and praying that this was a dream. A very messed up dream. No such luck. All it had managed to accomplish was making her arm slightly more red. After a couple of minutes of just sitting there, Hermione got up and walked over to the sink, she got her toothbrush and toothpaste out, lifted her arm and... scrubbed her teeth like there was no tomorrow. She wanted every bit of evidence on him gone. When she decided her mouth was appropriately clean she started washing her face, but she decided that she felt too disgusting. Stripping down she threw herself into the shower and blasted herself with scolding hot water, hoping that it would burn away any trace of him and melt any hint of her sins. She felt filthy. She rubbed herself raw and even then still wasn't happy as the love bites he left were still obvious.

Eventually, Hermione got out of the shower, dried herself off and put her pyjamas back on, before walking out of the loo and into the dorm. She was quite surprised by what greeted her on the other side of the dorm.

"Took you long enough." Parvati complained. "I bet there's no hot water left."

"You know that isn't true, Parvati." Hermione replied, thankful that her pyjamas were long-sleeved and had a collar that hid the bites on her neck. "Hogwarts has an endless supply of hot water. And besides, I wasn't in there very long." Although, she was confused as to why the girls were up before 8:30 on a weekend.

"You've been in there for at least 45 minutes, Hermione!" Lavender complained. "You don't honestly expect us to be able to pull ourselves together and look perfect before breakfast now, do you? I mean we only have 45 minutes!"

"What? Breakfast ends at 10:30, it's only 6:30 or something..." Hermione trailed off at the furious expressions on their faces.

"Hermione, it's 9:15." Lavender narrowed her eyes at her. "Did you do this so I wouldn't look pretty and perfect for Won-Won? Are you trying to steal him from me!?" She shrieked.

"Dear Merlin, no." Hermione rubbed her ear, trying to sooth it. "I'm not going to try and steal him from you. You can keep him." Lavender glared at her suspiciously. Hermione rolled her eyes at this and pushed past both of them, made her way to the bottom of her bed to open her chest and got out a random set of clothes that she would wear today. She didn't feel the need to impress anyone. The person she'd had a crush on had gone and snogged himself another girl, and quite frankly she was full of so much self-loathing that she didn't think she deserved to have any boy pay her any attention. Although, having McLaggen pay her attention was probably a much worse punishment... she probably deserved that torture.