DirtCatharsis

Chapter 1

Parvati Patil fluffed the satin robe that would have served as her ball outfit dejectedly. "What's the point of having a May Day Ball if no one's been asked?"

"Morale," Hermione replied, a hint of dryness in her voice. She slammed her book closed. Discourses in Wizarding Literature just couldn't hold her attention with her roommates making such a racket.

Lavender Brown dumped her makeup into a box. The distinctive blue and silver cases of Coven Girl made an alarmingly large pile that threatened to spill over the sides. Parvati reached over and snagged one from the pile. "Lavender, love, you can't throw out your Blemish-Banishing Foundation!"

"I can, and I will," Lavender said pettishly. "Along with Lovespell Lip Gloss that I wouldn't waste on Seamus Finnegan if he was the last boy on earth!"

Hermione stilled Lavender's hand as she prepared to toss the last compact on the pile. "Wait a tick," she said. "Is that Enchanted Eyes number six?"

Lavender nodded. "Cinnamon Swirl Butterbeer."

"Oooh," Hermione said. "I like the effects on that one. Close your eyes and you see a roaring fire at a cozy inn."

"What possessed you?" Parvati asked Lavender. "Everyone knows you're a Summer. You can't wear browns."

The corners of Lavender's mouth turned down. "I know. I was a fool. I thought if I made myself over, Seamus would notice. Bloody hell--any boy would notice!"

"They're none of them noticing," Hermione said. "This stupid feud is ruining the whole school!" She took the Enchanted Eyes compact and flipped it open. She brushed the sparkling cinnamon-colored makeup onto her lids with clumsy fingers. The image of a roaring fire in late fall, complete with the smell of wet leaves, woodsmoke, and spiced cider overwhelmed her until she snapped her lids open. "This is ridiculous," she said. "We ought to be doing something, not just sitting here moping about like hens in a wet coop!"

That night at dinner, she and Ginny Weasley talked about the feud in low tones. The boys, of course, all huddled together, excluding the girls and plotted in urgent, hushed voices. Hermione looked over the dining hall. The Ravenclaw boys were similarly arrayed, casting glances at the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. Her gaze traveled to the Slytherin table and settled on a bright head in the middle of a knot of dark heads and green jumpers. One of two causes of this whole bloody mess.

Draco Malfoy caught her looking and sneered. Beside her, Ginny tensed. "Bloody stupid git," she muttered.

Hermione's hand fisted in her lap, and with careful deliberateness, she uncurled her first two fingers and brought her hand up sharply, flipping Malfoy the double-digit Muggle salute.

His pale eyes clouded over in confusion and a mouthed "mudblood" was all he awarded her before turning back to his cronies.

"Stupid prat doesn't even know when he's being insulted," Ginny muttered. She herself was fond of using the gesture, ever since Hermione had first done it to tease Harry Potter, and the two had to explain to the Weasley children exactly what the gesture meant. After that, Ron had taken the concept and Ginny had run with it, having inherited at least some of their father's appreciation for Muggle inventions. Hermione drew the line at teaching either one of them serious vulgarity, but Ginny was wearing her down.

"Herm," Ginny said, nudging her elbow into Hermione's side. "Look at that." She jerked her head towards the other end of the Slytherin table. The Slytherin girls huddled together, looking as dejected and fed up as the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff girls did. Even Pansy Parkinson hunched over, her bony shoulders and twiglike arms radiating despair. Millicent Bulstrode silently shredded a heel of crusty bread, shooting visual daggers at Goyle. Millicent was not a pretty young woman, but after spending the Christmas holiday at fat camp, she'd shed some pounds and come back with a new haircut. She'd even worn makeup--or had until the Feud escalated so high that she'd abandoned the practice, along with most of the female population of Hogwarts. With flatteringly cut robes, makeup, and a new hairstyle, Millicent had taken on an attractiveness that could be described as handsome, or possibly striking, although that adjective usually described what Millicent was doing rather than how she looked.

Millicent caught Hermione looking--the second Slytherin to do so, and Hermione was surprised to see a resigned tightening at the corners of the other girl's mouth, as if she knew what Hermione was thinking, and shared her thoughts. Put the lot of them in a great bloody cauldron and make pie filling out of them and we'd be better off, she seemed to be thinking. Shockingly, or not so shockingly, Hermione agreed.

The sympathetic connection was broken--much to Hermione's relief--when one of the first years came running into the hall and handed Dumbledore a note. There was a rush of activity at the teachers' table, and simultaneously, they rose and bustled out, leaving the students alone. Privately, Hermione thought this was a bloody stupid mistake.

"Oh, Merlin's trousers," Ginny muttered next to her as her suspicions were realized.

As a single unit, the Slytherin boys rose from their table, drawing their wands. "FOOD FIGHT!" Goyle screeched, and the mashed potato bowls on the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables exploded in a rain of sticky starches. Shrieks of dismay erupted from Lavender and Parvati as shrapnel of mashed potato splattered onto their robes and in their hair.

The Gryffindor boys leaped to their feet and sent a volley of vegetables at the Slytherins, taking out a few Ravenclaws in the process. The Ravenclaws retaliated with a rain of roast beef that struck its targets with wet splats.

Hannah Abbott of Hufflepuff leaped to her feet and was smacked with a glob of potato for her troubles. As she staggered back into her seat, a rain of peas dotted the white mass sliding down her shiny hair. Hannah burst into tears. The Hufflepuff boys heaved handfuls of dinner rolls at the Ravenclaws and Slytherins, not even bothering to use magic to do so.

Harry seemed to be currently removing green beans from his ears while casting a cauliflower-ear spell on Draco.

Ginny snarled. "I'd like to take those two and knock their bloody stupid heads together. Can I afford another detention?"

"You've already had two this term. Don't push things." Hermione glanced around the room. Some of the Ravenclaw boys were sneaking out the door. She also saw the Slytherin girls getting up from their table. Normally, she'd suspect the Slytherins of unhesitating assistance to their boys, but she couldn't shake the look of fed-up despair on Millicent's face.

Ginny flung down her serviette. "This is bollocks. I'm going upstairs. Would you mind if I borrowed that enchanted radio of yours? I've still got about eight inches on my Current Affairs essay for Muggle Studies."

"Go ahead," Hermione muttered absently, as darts of asparagus sailed between them and committed squishy hara-kiri against the stone wall behind them. Across the room, Pansy Parkinson was helping Blaise Zabini up from where she'd wiped out on a gravy spill. Blaise rose stiffly, and exited the hall with a minor limp and a majorly bruised dignity. The Slytherin boys were too absorbed in their stupid feud to notice their housemate's distress.

Hermione rose and crossed to the Hufflepuff table. She sat down next to Hannah and started pulling globs of mashed potato from the other girl's hair. Hannah leaned into her touch with a resigned sigh.

"Bloody stupid boys and their bloody stupid feud can just toss off," Hannah muttered.

As Ginny was storming out of the dining hall, she caught a glimpse of Hermione gently tending to Hannah's hair. A few of the Hufflepuff boys had temporarily stopped their war to watch the girls pull peas out of Hannah's blouse. And a few of the Ravenclaw boys paused to glance at the way Blaise Zabini's gravy-soaked shirt clung to her chest.

Ginny filed that bit of information in the back of her mind. A glimmer of attention from the boys carried a lot more significance these days and she hoped it would prove useful somehow.

She was leaving Hermione's room with the enchanted radio when she saw the pack of Ravenclaws, hands loaded with the distinctive brown and green of dungbomb wrappers, emerging from the Gryffindor showers. "No," she muttered, breaking into a run. "Oh, bloody hell, no!" She arrived just in time for every one of the toilets to flush and the smoking rain of dungbomb to explode out of the shower heads.