Monday, September 29, 1944
9:02 P.M.
Hermione arrived at the Head's common room before Voldemort did.
Dippet had told her the password was, ironically enough, 'Time.' When Hermione had come upon the customary Head Boy and Girl dorm entrance, she had suffered through three duelling challenges before Sir Cadogan finally relented and let her inside. Considering that, this year, she had gotten the reject knight as a portrait hole protector versus the entirely agreeable 'Ten Lords A-Leaping' painting she and Draco had had the year before, Hermione concluded that her luck just might be running out.
Hopefully, she'd have just enough left for whatever more went down that night.
She sighed and padded across the wooden floor, automatically making her way toward her favourite leather sofa, tucked away in front of the crackling fireplace. Massaging her temples, she sank down into its soft, cool material, her mind still whirling from the day's madcap events: From getting imploded to a speck and careering fifty years backward in time, to being re-crowned Head Girl of Hogwarts, to actually seeing the back, but not more, of the dark head of the twentieth century's most feared Dark Lord at the Slytherin table during the Welcome Feast.
A sudden chill rushed down her spine, and Hermione forced herself to study the differences between the Head dorm that she remembered and this current one.
Quite honestly, not much had changed, she realized as her eyes skimmed over the gaping, much-utilized fireplace, the four-piece leather den set (a divan, a plump, spacious armchair, a footrest, and the three-person sofa on which was lounging), a small, transparent coffee table behind her sofa but between the divan and the armchair, the small, square worktable in the far corner of the room, and, finally, the same ceiling-high west window, the stark outside darkness contrasting sharply with the dim light thrown off by the crackling fire.
Grinning contentedly, she glanced down and noticed the crisp but alien blue and bronze gleam of the scarf lying on the seat beside her. The colours were so completely opposite the red and gold to which she had grown accustomed like they were a second skin, but even so...
Hermione knew that Ravenclaw would align perfectly with her studious side, and, judging by the cheers which had greeted her arrival at the table, it seemed that she would align quite well with the Ravenclaws as well.
To no one's surprise, Draco had been sorted back into Slytherin. Harry, too, had joined Draco in the House of Snakes, which Hermione had also almost fully expected, and Ginny...
Well, Ginny's placement had been a bit of a shocker, but now, as Hermione reflected on the qualities of her friend, she could understand the Sorting Hat's reasoning. Ginny had the crucial ability to invent quips with the best of them, she could be sly, cunning, and sarcastic if she wanted to be, and she had seen her share of dark times...
After Ginny had been sorted into Slytherin, Lavender later claimed that she had had to stupefy Ron to keep him from screaming like a madman and leaping out into the Great Hall to manually rip the Sorting Hat to shreds. Ron himself had been willingly placed into Gryffindor, and Lavender had gleefully skipped to the Hufflepuff table the moment her House had been announced. After the temperamental redhead had accepted that his sister and best friend were now in the house he most detested - or at least attempted to – he had seemed to be fairly content with the situation.
Which left Hermione with nothing more to consider save her own plan for the rest of the school year – a plan that had taken a very abrupt detour after she had been appointed Head Girl, with Lord Voldemort as Head Boy.
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Misunderstood Maledictions | Tomione
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