Mirabile Visu

Sometimes, she thought she could kick every single male in Hogwarts over the Forbidden Forest and straight to London, by way of Edinburgh. Could they, just for once, think with their brain? And not their stomach? Or much, much worse?

She huffed and walked around in the snow, kicking around clumps as she circled the castle over and over, thinking of new ways to make their lives a living hell.

" 'Oh, but I'm so hungry, 'Mione!' " she mimicked angrily, putting her foot through a small hill of snow. " 'But, but, it's so hard, Hermione! You're the smart one, Hermione, you're supposed to help us!' " she snarled. "Stupid boys with their stupid games and stupid lack of attention span. You'd think I had nothing better to do than tutor boys too lazy to take notes! UGH!"

She plopped down on a large stone, breathing heavily. Part of her wanted to cry badly, and part of her wanted to just pack up and leave, and NEWTS be damned. She was tired, and what she really wanted was a good soak and a footrub. She stuffed her hands into her scarf, letting a few tears freeze on her face.

She heard an indistinct grunt in the background. She turned her head around, shielding her eyes.

"Oh, hello, Goyle," she said stiffly. "I didn't meant to disturb you." Damn! The last thing she needed was a confrontation with an pureblooded ass. "Yunsitngnagvstn," he said quickly, not looking at her.

"What?" she asked crossly, furrowing her brows. He cleared his throat and lifted his head a little.

"You're sitting on a gravestone," he clarified, pointing to her seat. She yelped and lept off, catching her foot on a gnarled root and went sprawling into the snow. She looked up, her face stinging from the sudden blast of cold. God, now he's going to run off and tell Malfoy. Wonderful. JUST wonderful.

Instead, he looked around furtively, approached her, and without further ado, hauled her out of the snow and set her upright.

"Whoa!" she yelped as he set her down. He looked like one of the stone figures she now noticed, grave and grey. Excerpt his teeth were chattering. Without thinking, she took her scarf off and wound it around his neck.

"There," she said. "For helping me up."

"Thanks," he mumbled, then found a stone without a dead person under it and sat down.

She watched him look around the graveyard, eyes flitting over the mausolea and skirting over the small markers.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"A graveyard," he muttered.

"Thanks for the tip," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I meant what for?"

"For dead people, most likely," he grumped, looking at her blankly.

"As opposed to the ones for the living, right?" she said sarcastically, tugging her hat over her red ears. To her surprise, he laughed, and not in a grunting, surly fashion.

When his laughter subsided, he sighed a little. "Why are you here?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Um..." she stuttered, not really wanting to tell Goyle that she was plotting different ways to bring about the end of the male gender. He put his hands up placatingly.

"You don't have to say," he said. "I was just curious."

She hesitated for a moment, then crossed the few feet between them and sat down next to him. "I was just blowing off steam," she whispered, looking at her kneecaps. "It's really loud in the Gryffindor Tower. They're all just so... so..."

"Loud?" he prompted, grinning at her chagrined face. "Hey, it's usually snarky in the Slytherin Common Room."

"You guys are good at that," she said absentmindedly. "Well, most of you. At being snarky. I don't mean that in a bad way, but some of the Gryffindors wouldn't know intelligent humour if it bit them on the nose."

"Yeah, said Goyle, "I've noticed that too. Granted, a lot of the Slytherins wouldn't either. Or Hufflepuffs, or even Ravenclaws. Sometimes it's like a lost art or something."

"Why don't you ever talk like this in class?" she asked. He shrugged, rolling his huge shoulders and nearly knocking her off the rock.

"Life's a lot easier when people think you're stupid," he replied after a while, tugging at his sleeve. "I mean, I'm not smart, really, but the better you do, the more they expect from you. I don't want to be bothered."

They sat for a while, Hermione kicking up snow and Goyle staring off into the distance.

"So why are you here?" she asked, looking at him carefully. His face remained passive, but she could see his eyes dance as he struggled to come up with a good answer.

"Sometimes," he began slowly, "I don't want to be stupid. I don't want to be a Slytherin. I don't want to be a wizard. Sometimes, I want to be somewhere else, someone else, and here, I can be anyone I want. I can say what I want to see, walk how I want to walk..." His voice trailed off as he considered the skyline. He sighed.

"Sometimes, I just want to talk. And here," he continued, suddenly smiling cheekily and gesturing to the whole yard, "I have a captive audience, right?"

Hermione's startled laughter rang in the cold December air, weaving through the trees and scampering through the frozen fields. Gregory laughed too, deep and rumbly.

"Oh," she giggled, wiping a tear from her eye, "I needed that."

"Needed what?" he asked, confused.

"To laugh," she said, smiling at him. "Laugh because I wanted to."

"Oh," he said softly. "Yeah, I think we all need that, huh?"

She nodded, and then got off the rock. She began to walk through the gravestones. Gregory walked next to her, listening intently as she rattled off facts about all the names she recognised as they wandered lazily through the sea of concrete and marble. Goyle made noises of interest, stooping down to look closer at some of the markers and pointing out things he had noticed on his many trips before. They walked, and talked, and wondered about the people buried there.

"I don't recognise that name," she muttered, pointing at a small cherub standing at the very end. She read the inscription in the cherub's outstretched hand. "Stanislav Jure Knezevic, born... I can't see the date, it's too faded. Stanislav Jure Knezevic, something something, Mirabile Visu."

"I wonder who he was," said Gregory, scratching his neck. "I don't recognise the name."

She hmphed, then turned around.

"Good Lord, the sun is setting," she coughed. "We have to go back in."

"Yeah," he grumbled, "I guess we do."

They stood and looked at one another for awhile, not saying anything. Gregory turned to go, leaving a wide path in his wake.

"Hey Gregory!" she called. "I'll see you in Potions!"

"Yeah!" he shouted back over his shoulder. He stopped for a moment, then turned to look at her.

"Hey Hermione!" he yelled. "I'll be wanting to be someone else on Tuesday, after dinner, around old Kaur's statue." He nodded to her, and then trudged off, slowly stooping his shoulders and making his knees knock.

"Old Kaur's grave," she whispered to herself, and smiled. She had told him of Gobind Singh, a Sihk guru who had given all his male and female followers new surnames. The males were Singh, which meant lion. The females were called Kaur. Princess.

She turned and went the opposite way, knowing that the falling snow would cover her and Gregory's trails.

Until next Tuesday.