Lost and Found

Chapter 3

A long, hot soak: that was what she needed. The last twenty-four hours had been the weirdest ever, and Hermione had seen some pretty weird things in her nearly six years at Hogwarts.

Almost all the weird things were connected with Harry, and this was no exception.

Normally Hermione loved the Prefects bathroom for the different colours and scents of the bubblebath that came out of the taps. It made her feel very feminine. (She always wondered if the male prefects indulged the way she did. Not that she was ever going to ask.) Tonight, however, she hadn't bothered to fill the giant bath with zillions of bubbles.

"Boy trouble, is it?" said Moaning Myrtle cheerfully, as cheerful as Myrtle ever became.

"Oh hullo, Myrtle," Hermione sighed and sunk lower so that the water came up to her chin. Complete escape wasn't possible, not when Myrtle haunted the castle's plumbing.

"I can tell," said Myrtle knowingly as she floated over the surface of the water. "I can always tell. I was interested in a boy once, but Olive Hornsby took him away from me."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said almost automatically. It was best to humour Myrtle, particularly when you were trapped in the bath with no quick way to escape.

"She was very nasty about it. 'You never showed the slightest interest in him,' she said to me, 'so how was I to know?' And then she laughed at me and said he was better off with someone who cared about him." Myrtle paused to sniffle loudly, than said, "But I did care, I just didn't...just couldn't..."

Myrtle was blubbering now. Since she was a ghost, you couldn't even offer her a tissue. You just had to wait her out.

"Ooooh, there are lots more fish in the ocean," giggled the mermaid in the portrait on the wall. "Some of the prefects that come in here are simply divine. Why, earlier this evening--"

"You're forgetting that I'm dead, aren't you?" sobbed Myrtle, floating over to the portrait and glaring at the mermaid, who was still giggling.

Hermione took the opportunity to get out of the bath and wrap herself up in one of the enormous, fluffy bath towels while the 'girls' bickered.

At least the tiff between Myrtle and the mermaid was a welcome diversion from her own problems. What was she to do? No matter what happened, it seemed that she would end up hurting a friend, maybe more than one, and at least one friend whom she wanted--hoped--would be more than a friend.

Those thoughts were still haunting Hermione as she pulled on her clothing, wrapped herself in her dressing gown, and then sat one of the marble benches lining the wall of the bathroom to brush out her hair.

She saw a glint of silver on the floor. Lying under the bench was a silver hairbrush. Curious, she picked it up. It was solid silver, by the weight of it, and there was a family crest engraved on the back. Old wizarding family, she guessed.

"Just missed him, didn't you?" Myrtle said, gliding over to where Hermione was holding the brush with a very puzzled expression. She pointed at the mermaid, saying, "She was silly as usual."

"Ooooh, he's a cute one," giggled the portrait. "And no fish tail on that one either."

Now Hermione recognized the crest. Having so much money makes you careless, she thought, and arrogant and... She dropped the hairbrush like a hot potato. It made a sharp clink on the marble floor. Shaking her head, she picked it up. She was being silly and should just take it to the school Lost and Found in the morning.

That was the sensible thing to do, after all.

She put the brush in her pocket and stood up. For some reason, the normally sensible Hermione Granger found that her heart was pounding and her face was flushed as she headed for the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you, Harry." Ron paused, waiting for an answer. "Harry?"

Harry and Ron were playing a game of wizard chess. There are now few other people left studying in the common room.

"Huh?" Harry looked down and wondered how long he'd held his knight above the board. He was about to make a move, except he forgot where. Ron clearly remembered.

"If you put your knight there, then I'll take him with my bishop."

"Er, right. Um, then I'll put him...here," Harry said, now waving the knight toward a different corner of the board. It was useless to pretend to play chess, he realised. He was just hanging around in the common room hoping that Hermione would return soon, after all.

"NO!" Ron, who took the game far too seriously, yelled as he motioned the piece away. "Once I move this pawn, you're trapped."

Harry was saved (if that was the right word) by a very loud 'Hrumph' from Ginny as she flounced down onto the couch next to him.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ginny said angrily.

"Playing a game of chess, if you don't mind," replied Ron grumpily. "Now, Harry, the only place you can-"

"Harry knows what I'm talking about." Ginny glared at Ron.

Harry once again marvelled at the change in Ginny since the start of the school year. Quiet, mousy Ginny had become, well, fierce. There was no other word for it.

"Get stuffed, Gin. We're playing a game here."

"Malfoy's up to something and you'd better watch yourself," Ginny continued, ignoring Ron's face growing red.

Harry reckoned that he should listen to what she had to say; he owed her that much. In fact, he owed her a lot more.

Who would have believed how Christmas term turned out? Harry certainly wouldn't have predicted what had happened, nor the role that Ginny played in saving his life.

All summer Harry had dreamed of Hermione. They wrote letters weekly, even while Hermione was being dragged all over Europe by her parents. At the end of the summer, they finally saw each other for one glorious week at the Burrow. And Harry could finally express the feelings that had been building in him all summer, feelings that were better shown with a kiss than with a piece of parchment. He remembered their first hasty kiss in the narrow stairway going up to Ron's room. He remembered their second, longer kiss out in the garden. And the third (even longer) one in the orchard. Damn. He remembered every single kiss.

Then it all fell apart. In Diagon Alley, they met Viktor Krum who had just come to England to play Quidditch for the Montrose Magpies. And Krum thanked Hermione for all her help over the summer in finding him a place to live and invited her to visit and ... then he kissed her.

Harry was horrified. Once they were alone back at the Burrow, he had yelled at Hermione: "You mean all this time you've been writing to me, you've been writing to him too? How could you? I bet you met him on holiday! You did, didn't you?"

Oh, Harry was enraged alright. He was mad on the train ride to Hogwarts; he was mad during the Sorting Ceremony; he was mad the next day... and the next. Because Hermione wouldn't apologise. No, she actually defended Krum, said he needed help finding a place to live because his English wasn't that good. Ha! Harry thought.

After that, things became tense. Harry couldn't kiss Hermione any more without thinking about Krum and that kiss (okay, it was more like a peck on the cheek, he had to admit much later) in Diagon Alley.

Maybe that's why he got involved with Cho at the start of term, Cho who looked so sickly and claimed to have given up Quidditch to study until late in the night for her NEWTs. Who knew that she had become a vampire over the summer while doing a summer program on dragon-care in Romania? Well, maybe Hermione would have figured it out. Yeah, she probably would have, except Hermione wasn't speaking to him by that time.

Harry found himself even more irresistibly attracted to Cho and this time she finally seemed attracted to him. Only it wasn't him she wanted. Ginny figured it out, though, and that night in November she had it out with Cho, threatened her with a fistful of garlic as Harry lay bleeding at the top of the Astronomy Tower. Cho turned into a bat and flew away. The first bite wasn't fatal; it took several (of course, Hermione would have known that), so Harry recovered, and had been wearing a garlic amulet ever since.

And Ginny. Well, the funny thing was that Ginny seemed to think she was his guardian angel or something ever since. She just wouldn't leave him alone.

"Where is your head tonight?" Ron said angrily.

Harry looked up, his concentration broken, to see Ron putting the chess pieces away. "I'm gonna go get something to eat. Oh, and I declare myself the winner and Supreme Ruler of the Universe--not that you'd notice."

"Didn't you just eat?" Harry shook his head in amazement. Ron's appetite knew no bounds this year.

"Seamus grabbed most of it to give to Lavender. She's probably snogging with him out of gratitude right now. Disgusting." Ron made a face and stood up. "Besides, what I really want is a ham sandwich. Can I borrow the Invisibility Cloak? I'm done for if Filch catches me."

Harry waved a hand at Ron, who scampered up the stairs of the boys' dormitory while Ginny started into Harry again.

"I saw Malfoy in the hall tonight and he's definitely up to something."

Yeah, thought Harry glumly, I know what he's up to. But how could she? How could Hermione kiss him like that and then turn around and--it was simply unthinkable, inconceivable and nonsensical.

"And the Slytherin girls have been nastier than usual to Hermione, so I think whatever Malfoy's up to, it involves Hermione," Ginny said in a calculating way.

Harry marvelled at how much Ginny seemed to know about the ins and outs of school social life. He took a deep breath and said, "Look, can I ask you something?"

"You want a sandwich?" Ron blurted out as he headed through the portrait hole. He had returned from their dormitory and now had the Invisibility Cloak bulging under his shirt. "I'll grab a couple of loaves of bread and some ham. Be right back."

"Sure," Harry shrugged. "See you later."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hermione opened the door. She had stood for an age on the inside of the bathroom, hand poised over the doorknob, waiting...

She quickly stepped into the corridor, looking both ways to see if anyone was coming. She had just closed the bathroom door with a click when Draco Malfoy appeared wearing a blacker-than-night velvet dressing gown. Hermione silently cursed herself for closing the door too soon. She'd need to say the password to get back inside.

Draco saw her and broke into a very evil grin. Hermione flushed. She didn't know why; she should yell at him or something.

"Great minds think alike," he said smoothly, closing in on her. "Enjoy your bath?"

Hermione just stood there with her mouth open. Was she angry with him? It was all of a sudden hard to tell.

"You knew I'd come, didn't you?" Draco smirked. "I'll bet you were waiting for me to show up. Well, here I am."

She raised her hand as Draco drew close, his eyes not leaving her face. She ought to slap him, she really should.

Two things happened so suddenly that Hermione never knew if she would have slapped him or not, given enough time.

"Setting a bad example, aren't we?" came the sharp voice of Professor McGonagall. "Even prefects shouldn't be out after hours. And Miss Granger. I am truly disappointed."

Hermione started and looked away from Draco to the stern face of her Head of House, wearing a tartan-patterned dressing gown and a hair net.

In that instant of confusion the second thing happened: Draco kissed her. He took her shoulders in his hands, pinned her against the wall and kissed her--hard.

Professor McGonagall gasped and there was another sound, the sound of a loaf of bread dropping to the floor.

In fact, after Malfoy left, shooed away by the professor, and Hermione dazedly started back to the common room, there was a loaf of bread right there on the floor near the Prefects bathroom. How very odd.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Ron burst into the common room for the second time that night, yelling, "Harry! You're not going to believe this!"

~*~*~*~*~*~