Hermione Granger and the Philosopher's Stone (Completed)

Chapter 12 - Nicolas Flamel

It had now been almost two weeks since Hagrid had let slip Nicolas Flamel's name, and they were still yet to find any more information about anything related. Hagrid was refusing to talk about it anymore, and they hadn't picked up any new leads. Harry was adamant that he had heard it somewhere, and Hermione thought she might have done somewhere as well.

However, on their last search of the library before the Christmas holiday, they still hadn't found anything and, for once, Hermione was stuck. He wasn't in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, or Notable Magical Names of Our Time, as well as Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. She wandered up and down the dusty shelves, wondering every so often about sneaking into the restricted section, which so needed a signed permission slip from a teacher to enter, a thought that would've never crossed Hermione's mind a few weeks back.

After about an hour, Harry was sent from the library by Madam Pince, the incredibly strict librarian who treated the books like her children, and after about five minutes Hermione and Ron decided to go as well.
"We should've found something by now" she said, voicing her frustrations for the first time "What if we missed something? What if I-"
"Hermione" Ron interrupted "don't worry. We didn't miss anything. You're the smartest person I've met, you would've noticed"
"R-Really?" she stammered. Ron nodded "Th-Thanks Ron, you're smart too"
"Not as much as you" he said smiling. They met up with Harry and Hermione walked to lunch in a stunned silence.

You will keep looking while I'm away, won't you?" asked Hermione the moment they sat down "And send me an owl if you find anything"
"And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is," said Ron "It'd be safe to ask them."
"Very safe, as they're both dentists" said Hermione sarcastically. Ron grinned sheepishly at her. Hermione just smiled.

***

The Christmas holidays were very uneventful. Within seconds of her and her parents entering the house, Hermione started talking very quickly about her two new friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Despite them being genuinely pleased for her, Hermione thought that her parents might have got bored of hearing about them by the end of the month long holiday.

She had no idea what to send them for Christmas, so just sent them both sweets. She was ecstatic to find, on Christmas morning, that there were two gifts for her that weren't from her parents. Both Ron and Harry had bought her books, and Hermione spent the rest of the day practically bouncing off the walls. She used up a lot of paper writing almost daily letters to Ron and Harry, and was always pleased to see Hedwig, Harry's snowy owl or one of the school Tawney owls that Ron used.

The day before she went back to school, Hermione received a letter from Harry that intrigued her. Apparently, someone had given him a cloak of invisibility that used to belong to his dad, but didn't leave a note or anything. He seemed to have used it to sneak out of the common room at night three times in a row, but he was rather vague about the reasoning behind the rule breaking. Hermione decided not to ask, as it seemed to trouble him quite a lot.

Soon enough, Hermione was back in the Gryffindor common room, talking to Ron and Harry. She had just started lecturing Harry about rule breaking ("If Filch had caught you!") before seeing the look on Harry's face and stopping abruptly. Unfortunately, neither of them had found out anything about Nicolas Flamel, and the three of them were back to scanning the shelves during breaks in lessons. Harry had even less time to help, as the next Quidditch match was approaching so, what with homework and Oliver Wood's almost daily practices, he had almost no time at all.

During one of these times, Hermione was sitting in the corner of the room, playing wizards chess with Ron. It was almost exactly the same as muggle chess, just the pieces were alive and kept giving contradictory advice, which made it very hard to concentrate. Hermione was appalling at wizards chess, and Ron, who had been playing it for all his life, was completely thrashing her. Hermione looked up to see Harry rush into the common room, still covered in mud and looking very worried. He sat down next to Ron, who didn't stop looking at the board.
"Don't talk to me for a moment, I need to concen -" he finally noticed Harry's expression "What's the matter with you? You look terrible"
"Snape's refereeing our match" Harry whispered "Wood told us just now"
"Don't play," said Hermione instantly
"Say you're ill" suggested Ron
"Pretend to break your leg," Hermione said
"Really break your leg," said Ron, earning him a scowl from Hermione
"I can't" said Harry. "There isn't a reserve Seeker. If I back out, Gryffindor can't play at all"