More Precious Than Gold

Hermione yawned, blinking the sleep out of her eyes as she looked over Snape's syllabus. It seemed pretty standard; nothing too difficult for her, as usual. One potion, however, caught her sandy eyes. The Putus Unda Potion, a bit difficult to make but rarely used by anyone by shop keepers and some Aurors.

An idea flared in her mind. Since her first confrontation with a bigoted Pureblood, there was something she had wanted to do, but the oppurtunity had never presented itself. Now, perhaps, she would get her chance to prove her point.

Harry and Ron, who had somehow managed to get O's on their Potions on their OWLs, looked at her for a moment, then at one another rather nervously. The light sparking in her eyes usually meant Hermione was having one of her rare moments of pure adrenline and rebellion; she was planning something. Harry shrugged, and Ron sighed internally. Whatever it was, he comforted himself with the thought that it would probably be interesting, at the very least. The boys prepared themselves to be roped into Hermione's scheme, but weeks went by, and she never uttered a word to them about any plan.

Hermione toiled endlessly, in secret, in a small, forgotten dungeon room, perfecting the potion. She had a plan, and in order for it to work, she had to properly prepare and brew the potion to perfection. She removed a metal nail file, carefully sharpened to a thin, razor edge, and after testing the potion's makeup, pricked her finger and squeezed a drop of blood into the potion. It remained crystal clear. Hermione smiled.

The next morning, she appeared at breakfast looking as if she'd been attacked by doxies and then run over with a cement truck. She had bags under her eyes, she was pasty skinned, and her hair was a glorious mass of wire, uncerimonously smashed into a bun atop her head. She smilled crookedly at Ron and Harry, and then took her place between them, eating her toast and smirking to herself.

"Hermione, you look like you had a rather long night with one of Hagrid's pets," commented Ron as carefully as possible, afraid of setting off the small, zombie-looking girl sitting next to him. She shrugged and then grinned rather wickedly.

"Hermione, are you okay?" asked Harry cautiously. It was rather strange to watch Hermione devour food at a rate normally associated with Ron. Ron himself seemed rather stunned at the amount of food Hermione was inhaling.

"Tell me, Harry," said Hermione pleasently, "what's more precious than gold?"

"What?" asked Harry, thrown off by Hermione's strange question.

"What's more precious than gold?" she asked again. Harry looked to Ron for help, but Ron only shrugged and looked at Hermione as if she'd finally crossed the line between pure genius and insanity. Hermione chuckled, then slung her bag over her shoulder.

"Potions," she said cheerily, and then began to walk off to class.

"Is she skipping?" asked Ron incredously. And indeed, on this crisp November morning, Hermione was skipping to the dungeons. Harry and Ron hurried to catch up with her, their confusion growing. They'd never seen Hermione quite like this.

If they had known what Hermione was planning to do in a few minutes times, they may have decided to skive off of Potions.

++++

Hermione hummed to herself as she expertly mixed together moondew and bowtruckle sheddings, then carefully poured a small amount into her merrily bubbling cauldron. Snape did his normal swoop and dive over her work, but Hermione completely ignored him, singing ever louder.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," he snapped. Hermione stopped singing loudly, but continued to murmur to herself. As Harry watched his potion turn an interesting shade of orange, Hermione's question began to run through his head. Hermione rarely left off an explanation when she couldn't elicit an answer from someone, and her pseudo riddle was eating away his brain as he tried to figure it out. What was more precious than gold, to Hermione? It didn't seem like one of her more logical questions. Ron, who was absentmindedly stirring his cauldron, appeared to be contemplating the same thing.

Pansy's shrill voice cut into his inner thoughts. "Merlin's Beard," she said in a dramatic stage whisper, "look at the Mudblood! I guess she forget to put her face on today!" Harry's stomach twisted; he thought it was a bit ludicrious, seeing as Pansy probably kept the teen witch cosmetics company in business, considering the amount of makeup she caked on her face every day. Hermione twitched her head over to Pansy, gave her a glare that would have made Molly Weasley proud, then returned to her potion. She carefully ladled out the clear, thick potion into a glass bowl. She smiled in satisfaction as it shimmered properly, emitting slight rays of rainbow light that danced upon her pale face. Ron and Harry felt a surge of pride; even trampled and worn, she still managed a perfect potion.

"Well, Pansy," said Draco in a carrying undertone, "it's not suprising that the Mudblood would look like hell. I mean, considering the dirt in her veins-"

A shriek erupted from Hermione's throat. In one swift move, she yanked Draco by the hood if his robes and yanked him forciably to her desk, slamming him down onto the hard surface.

"Wha?" spluttered Draco. Snape started toward her, but Hermione fixed him with a look that caused the room's temperature to dip a few degrees.

"No," she breathed. "No, he has to learn. I won't hurt him, but he needs to realise a few things beforehand."

She grabbed the back of Draco's neck and forced his face into the bowl of the potion. For one brief moment, Ron was afraid that Hermione was going to drown Draco, until he saw that his nose was an inch or so from the surface of the liquid.

"What is this potion, Draco?" Hermione wheezed.

"Let go of me, you freak of nature!" screamed Draco, turning red as he struggled against Hermione's suprisingly strong grip.

"What is it, Draco?" growled Hermione. Draco seemed to shrink. Harry saw Snape's look of suprise, and wondered why Snape never said a thing. Confusion flickered on the faces of every student in the stuffy room.

"It's the Putus Unda Potion," scowled Draco, his feet kicking out an uneven rythm on the floor.

"Good, you can answer questions," said Hermione. "Let's try another one. What does Putus Unda Potion do?"

Draco gasped, then choked out another answer. "It reveals whether something is tainted or dirty."

"Well done, Draco," said Hermione. Harry blinked when he realised that Hermione was referring to Malfoy by his first name.

"One last question," she said, "and then I'll let you go. What is more precious than gold?"

"What?" shrieked Draco. "How in bloody hell am I supposed to know that?"

"Language, Draco," retorted Hermione, not easing her iron grip one bit. "I'll ask you again; what is more precious than gold?"

"I don't know," gasped Draco, squeezing his fists in fury. He yelped when Hermione produced the nail file and waved it in his face. Hermione gently put the handle into the hand that was holding Draco down, and cut her finger open.

"Professor Snape," she said conversationally, "what happens if something pure is dropped into the potion?"

"It remains clear," Snape said, unnerved.

"Did you hear that, Draco?" asked Hermione, and Draco bobbed his head. Hermione held her finger above the bowl and let a droplet of blood fall into the bowl. There was a burst of shimmery, rainbow light, and the potion swirled, but remained clear.

Draco looked at her strangely, but offered no resistance as Hermione took one of his hands. Hermione nicked his finger and squeezed it. The entire class watched as the drop slid down the side of the bowl and tumbled into the bowl. There was another flash of light, but the potion remained clear.

"More precious than gold," mumbled Draco.

"Truth," said Hermione, standing up and releasing Draco, "is more precious than all the gold in your father's Gringotts vault." She sat back down and stared at the wall. Draco snarled as he sat up and glowered, towering over Hermione. He spat out several threats. Hermione didn't bat an eye, only shifted a bit to look him in the face, hands planted on her waist.

"Really, Draco," she said calmly, " I thought you were intelligent enough to think for yourself, instead of spouting the random nonsense your father spits out. Apparently, I was mistaken."

The rest of the class rushed by in a haze. When it let out, Hermione trotted out, looking pale but truimphant. Harry and Ron scooted out to intercept her. Snape sat, rooted at his chair, trying to comprehend the idea of a feral Hermione.

"What were you thinking?" demanded Ron, torn between anger and concern.

"Apparently, I wasn't," said Hermione dryly, a small small gracing her lips. Ron and Harry goggled when they realised that Hermione had planned the entire thing out, down to her looking worn out, so Pansy and Draco would pick on her. "Brilliant," breathed Ron. "You didn't go mad at all, you only pretended to, didn't you?"

"Well spotted, Ron," she murmured, very pleased with herself. "I had to start a fight somehow... I figured I'd just scare everyone into a state of shock. It's going to be hell trying to get my hair to detangle, though," she laughed, patting her messy brown hair. Ron laughed, but Harry just looked at her strangely.

"Why?" asked Harry. A small group surrounded them in the hall, a mixture of Gryffindors and Slytherins.

"Because," said Hermione, "it's the truth, right? I proved something today. My blood is just the same as Draco Malfoy's; his is no purer than mine. No one can dispute what they saw today. Not truthfully."

"You think that will matter to them?" asked Ron darkly. Hermione looked around. Confusion painted the faces of a few Slytherins, and they walked in small groups, shooting looks at Hermione. Harry noted that they weren't looks of hatred, but looks of almost wonderment. One small Slytherin boy, after asking a hushed question to one of the older Slytherins, began to inch his way towards Hermione, shyly but with a hundred questions demanding to be answered on his face.

"I think it might," breathed Hermione, rainbows dancing in her eyes.

The small cut on her finger burned, more precious than gold.

Fin.