Rating:
PG-13
House:
Schnoogle
Characters:
Hermione Granger Severus Snape
Genres:
General Romance
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 10/03/2003
Updated: 10/17/2003
Words: 94,798
Chapters: 20
Hits: 77,297

Ordinary People

Hayseed

Story Summary:
How do ordinary people cope with their extraordinary circumstances? A SS/HG romance that strives for realism.

Chapter 08

Posted:
10/07/2003
Hits:
4,022

Vampirism and French sadists make strange bedfellows---

"We look like Muggle drug addicts," Severus complained as Hermione tied the rubber tube around his upper arm.

She poked his inner elbow, looking for a vein. "If you'd let me take a whole pint at a time, your arm wouldn't look nearly as bad, you know." Finding one, she smiled and jabbed the syringe neatly into his arm, smile widening as the attached test tube began filling with blood.

"I think you enjoy doing that," he said as she pulled the needle out and slapped a piece of gauze over the tiny wound. "You missed your true calling in life, Hermione."

"Mediwitch?" She stuck a stopper in the tube and put it in a nearby tray.

"Vampire."

Hermione had made only one attempt to teach Severus how to draw her blood after she'd figured out the process herself. After he'd left no fewer than five bruised puncture marks on her arm and had yet to hit a vein, she'd told him off and proceeded to continue to do it herself. He hadn't ever offered to do it again and now he left all the 'blood duties' to her.

That was a month ago. Since then, they'd spent nearly every night in their makeshift laboratory, squinting at blood cells and platelets, trying to find something that remotely resembled one of their theories. Blood sample after blood sample taken from their arms and hands. Severus was right. They did rather look like junkies with particularly wicked track marks. Worst of all, they had almost nothing to show for four weeks worth of efforts.

Christmas had come and gone. She'd spent her vacation having snowball fights with Harry and Ron and the few other lingering students in the daylight and pouring over lab notebooks and microscope slides at night. Her parents had dutifully owled her a Christmas present (a rather nice jumper that Hermione doubted she'd ever wear) but otherwise had not made a single noise about the fact that she'd not gone home for two years running. Sometimes she wondered what her parents told her other relatives about Hermione's absence from their Christmas tree. Usually, though, she didn't care. Either that or Severus would unknowingly distract her from her maudlin thoughts with a potentially interesting sample or passage from a book.

They'd begun researching the older forms of blood magic intensely. Recent spells involving human blood were difficult to find--most of them were very Dark, after all--so they'd turned to the older texts. Which meant old medieval Latin and Middle English and High German and many, many headaches. She and Severus spent at least as many nights curled up in front of a fire trying to piece together eight-hundred year old spells out of crumbling books as hunched over their microscopes.

"When do you think you're going to have to do this again?" Severus asked testily as she taped the gauze expertly to his arm.

"Not for another week, I don't think," she replied absently. "Although if you're feeling squeamish, I can just take my own."

He frowned at her and poked at the gauze. "And tell me again why we're the only two donors in your mad little scheme?"

She rolled her eyes--he always asked her this after she'd had to stick him with a needle. "Would you like to explain to the headmaster why we're taking blood from people? Or perhaps you're prepared to ask Harry Potter for a sample of blood and promise it won't fall into the wrong hands?"

"But you've stuck me with that thing four times this week!" he protested, toying with the edges of the surgical tape.

"Are you whining, Severus?" she asked in return with a little laugh. "I would have thought you considered yourself above whining."

"I would have thought you considered yourself above such petty remarks, you little brat," he said in a rather petulant tone.

"No, Severus," she said complacently. "Draco Malfoy is a little brat. I'm merely the pain in your ass." She gave him a bright smile and patted his arm.

"Crudity is ignorance's self-defense," he said, standing up and turning back to his microscope.

"Don't be so self-righteous, Professor. Only yesterday I heard you call the headmaster, what was it, a shit-licking son of a whore? I didn't quite hear you clearly and I know his back was turned." Hermione picked up her latest sample and placed it in a cooler. They'd gotten another one when they'd begun accumulating magical samples.

"That ... that ... Albus," Severus said with grit teeth. "He's given me the midnight patrols for the next two weeks. I'm afraid I'll have to cut my evenings rather short. No one was willing to switch with me." He'd been able to make sure he was assigned either the early evening or obscenely early morning patrol shifts for the past two months so he and Hermione could research uninterrupted, but apparently that little luxury was to be taken away.

She sighed, loading up the centrifuge with a few thawed samples. "Don't worry. I can always go back to Delacroix's treatise and see if I can make any headway."

"I always thought it rather ironic that his name translates to 'of the Cross,'" Severus said with a smirk, looking up from his notes. "After all, he was one of the more ruthless Dark wizards of his time."

"The personal anecdotes he relates in his work are of a particularly gruesome nature," she replied. "Especially the ones in which he uses entrapment spells to capture and coerce young women into having sex with him." She shivered a bit. "Do you know I was actually glad when I found out that he was tortured and slaughtered by Philip II?"

"An apt ending," he agreed mirthlessly.

Their conversation ended as they both returned to their individual projects. Hermione adjusted her eyepiece slightly and peered down the scope, looking first at one blood cell, then another, pausing here and there only to make a note of something interesting.

It had taken them a week at least to learn how to properly operate their instruments. And then another week analyzing the Muggle blood so they knew what not to look for. Detailed parchment drawings had been tacked on the walls and the previously dusty blackboard was now covered with scrawled equations and chemical formulas. They were looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack and they both knew it.

Severus, she knew, was still hoping to find some sort of alien cell floating around in their bloodstreams. She, however, was looking at the blood cells themselves, hoping to find an anomaly of some sort--something inherent to the structure of her and Severus' cells not present in the dozens of Muggle diagrams now framing her workbench. Their disagreement added perspective to their research, though--looking at the same picture from slightly different angles was bound to be useful. Eventually.

Three hours later, Hermione leaned away from her scope, wincing as her neck popped and rubbing the small of her back ruefully.

"It's late," Severus said, tilting back in kind and sighing deeply.

"Yes, it is," she agreed, yawning.

Severus raised his hands to his eyes, scrubbing them fiercely. "I'll say good evening, then, Hermione. Unless you've found something of interest--little magical fairies dancing on white blood cells, perhaps?" he asked snidely.

"I'll let you know," she retorted. "How's the quest for your mythic magical amino acid, then?"

"Ten Galleons, girl," he snapped. "Ten Galleons says my theory works out and yours is utterly and completely wrong."

Hermione stood up and thrust out her right hand. "Deal!" They shook on it. "Good night, then, professor. I'll see you tomorrow evening?"

He shrugged. "My rounds start tomorrow. How about we just spend tomorrow translating and I'll see you the next day?"

"Right." Hermione picked up her bag and left the lab with a jaunty little wave.

----------

Hermione stretched out in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room as close as she dared, eyeing it suspiciously for stray sparks and pops. The house-elves were, in deference to the colder-than-usual January weather, building all the fires to epic proportions. But she was grateful for both the warmth and the light the dancing flames provided as she tried to make heads or tails of the portion of Delacroix's manuscript she was considering.

Most of his text was worthless. Severus had been right--Delacroix was a wizard of spectacularly Dark proportions, but Hermione was getting better at reading in between the lines of his script and was actually learning a fair amount about the scope of blood magic. The Darker edge of the spectrum to be sure, but learning nevertheless.

For instance, she'd managed to puzzle out that many of Delacroix's entrapment charms were blood-based. Not all of them. Some of them, in fact, bore an uncomfortably striking resemblance to the Imperius Curse. But he'd mentioned at least one that involved the blood of the maiden in question.

The current passage she was struggling through was recounting his triumphant victory over one of his enemies by using his blood to place a curse on his name. Most of it was bragging blathering nonsense, but he was describing enough of the actual spell that it was worth translating.

Impatiently, Hermione flicked her fuzzy hair over her shoulders, wishing for the millionth time that it didn't escape every hairstyle she attempted to put it in, and bent over the pages more deeply. Swinging her legs up in the air and crossing her ankles demurely, she grinned, sure her figure painted a perfect picture of a studious schoolgirl. Reading the diary of a long-dead sadist.

"Whatcha studyin', Hermione?" Neville asked as he passed through the room.

"Just some extracurricular stuff," she replied evasively, hoping he wouldn't persist. "What about you? Off on a date?"

He grinned and swept his hands through his hair. "Is it that obvious?"

"Only to those of us that know you spend every minute daydreaming about lovely Miss Weasley," Hermione said, returning his grin.

"Ginny and I are headed out to the lake this evening--the moon sparkling on the ice is spectacular. And I got some stuff from the kitchens earlier," he confided, holding up a basket she hadn't previously noticed. "It'll be fun."

Hermione furrowed her brow. "Uh, Neville, you do know it's about fifteen degrees below zero, don't you?"

"And you're supposed to be so brilliant--ever heard of a Warming Charm?" he asked teasingly.

"Have fun, then, and don't do anything that would make her older brother mad," she responded. "Well, not too mad, that is."

"What's going to make me mad?" Ron asked as he wandered back into the room, broomstick slung over his shoulders and dripping sweat. Quidditch practice must be over, she reflected.

"Neville's got a date," Hermione teased with a big grin.

"Whoo," Ron said. "Big news. Hey, Neville, when are you going to make my sister an honest woman and marry her, anyway?"

Immediately, the handsome boy's face flushed. "Well ... I hadn't ... uh ..."

Ron laughed and whacked his shoulder. "Aww, I was just teasing you, Neville. She's only in her sixth year, anyway. Mum would absolutely shit if she came home with an engagement ring."

Neville let out a whooshing breath of relief. "Well, I didn't want you to think that--"

Interrupting him with a wave of his hand, Ron hit his shoulder again, although this time it was much more of a pat than a whack. "Neville. You're better to Ginny than all of her brothers put together. You love her and she loves you and more to the point, we all know that. Don't sweat it, my friend. And now," he said in the guise of a radio announcer, "I should go away and shower, to the benefit of all. Neville, go on your date; Hermione, resume cramming knowledge into that big head of yours."

She tossed a balled up sheet of parchment at his head as he walked up the stairs of the boys' dormitory. Neville picked up his picnic basket and headed out the portrait hole.

Harry was the next one to come through the Common Room, possibly sweatier than Ron. He must be tired, she thought, he hadn't even bothered to carry his Firebolt on his shoulder, letting it just drag behind him instead.

"Rough practice?" she asked lightly, pulling herself away from the parchment again.

"You have no idea," he said, dropping the broomstick entirely. "I'm going to go get cleaned up. Maybe I'll drown in the shower," he said, perking up a bit.

"Nah ... Ron's in there and he won't let you kill yourself until after the Slytherin match," she said cheerfully, looking back down on Delacroix's treatise as Harry moved painfully toward his dormitory.

Maybe this would be easier if the evil bastard had better handwriting, Hermione thought to herself, trying to determine whether a particular letter was an 's' or a 't.' With a little sigh, she scribbled down what the word would translate to in either case and hoped that it would become clear from context later. And why did he decide to write in old French instead of Latin anyway? He was twelfth century--everyone halfway intelligent wrote in Latin back then. Not to mention that Hermione's medieval Latin was a thousand times better than her medieval French. She considered with an odd feeling of irony that Delacroix's sadism had extended, then, to modern times.

"'And then I cursed his pony ...'" she read out loud. "No, that can't be right. He wasn't that crazy."

"Whose pony did you curse, love?" Ron asked, coming down the stairs and shaking his wet hair at the same time.

She jumped, startled at his sudden appearance. "I'm translating something," she explained. "And I don't think I'm doing a good job of it."

He walked over to the fireplace and leaned over her, squinting at the parchment. "What language is that?" he asked. A droplet of water fell from his hair and splashed on the text.

"Ron!" Hermione squeaked indignantly, blotting the page with her sleeve. "Get away from that! It's a nine-hundred year old text!"

Eyebrows raised, he backed away obediently. "What are you doing with it, then? I don't think old Pince goes handing out ancient bits of parchment to students. Even you."

"I didn't get it from the library," she replied primly. "I'm working on it for ... uh ... I found it in an old used bookshop that didn't know what it was."

"Uh-huh," Ron said, disbelieving. "Old bookshop. Right. Fine--you don't want to tell me." But he sounded more than a little hurt.

Hermione winced. "I'm sorry, Ron. It's just, this isn't really school reading, you know."

"What's it about, then?" He warmed a little at her apology.

She wondered for a moment whether or not to tell him. But this was Ron. He would never be suspicious of her motives. "Well ..." she hedged. Now or never. "It's the diary of a twelfth century wizard named Delacroix," she said in a rush. "More or less."

The eyebrow went up again. "Delacroix?" Ron asked evenly.

She nodded.

"Never heard of him. Is it interesting?"

Hermione let out a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. Good old Ron. For once she was grateful that he'd never actually opened any of their History of Magic textbooks. "Hard to translate," she said truthfully. "His handwriting is terrible, and it's written in medieval French, besides."

Ron shrugged and sat down on one of the vacant chairs, propping his legs over the arm. "Sounds like a blast, love. Let me know how it turns out."

"Is Hermione boring you with schoolwork again, Ron?" Harry asked, looking much better as he came down the stairs. His glasses were still slightly fogged from the heat of his shower.

"Not by half," he replied blithely. "You're looking human again."

"Nearly," Harry said, plopping down in a nearby chair. "But it won't last long. This is going to be an early night for little Seekers named Harry."

"You are still a bit short, aren't you?" Ron asked, smirking. At five-foot-five, Harry was still the smallest boy in their year. By now, even formerly tiny Colin Creevey from the sixth form was at least three inches taller than scrawny Harry Potter. Even Hermione was taller, clocking in at an unspectacular five-foot-seven.

Harry glared back at him. "Shut up, Weasley," he said good-naturedly, stifling a sudden yawn.

She lost track of their banter after that, absorbed in her work. But it only took her twenty minutes of translation to throw down her quill in disgust.

"What's gone wrong now, 'Mione?" Ron asked, breaking off their conversation. "Whose pony have you got now?"

"Pony?" Harry asked, mystified.

"Listen to this--'His child, blood of his blood, came to me and offered himself of freewill to me. And I took his blood, blood of my enemy's blood, and consecrated it and dashed it upon the rocks. My enemy is no more.' It doesn't make any sense. What the hell does 'consecrated it' mean? He's even cryptic in his own journal. Sadistic old bastard," Hermione grumbled, momentarily forgetting she was ranting to an audience.

"What, are you reading old Snape's diary or something?" Harry asked with a gleeful grin.

"No, stupid," Ron said cheerfully, "she's reading some twelfth century whatsit. He sounds weird, Hermione. What's all that with the blood?"

"I need to know what he did with it," she said. "What he did with the child's blood. It's important."

"Sounds like really Dark magic to me," Harry said thoughtfully.

"Of course it is," she replied, impatient with their ignorance. "That's beside the point."

Both Harry's and Ron's eyes opened wide. "What's been going on with you lately, 'Mione?" Ron asked.

She affected ignorance. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't give me that," he said, anger beginning to show on his face. "You know, this is the first time I've seen you in the Common Room for more than about thirty seconds since October. And you skipped out on the last Hogsmeade weekend. We barely even saw you at Christmas. And now you're studying Dark magic?"

"I'm not studying Dark magic," she said, frustrated. "I'm studying blood magic. It just happens that a fair amount of it is tied into Dark spells. What, do you think I'm going to become a Death Eater or something?"

Harry blew out a sigh. "Of course not," he replied. "It's just ..."

"Just what?"

They exchanged a look. "You're different lately, is all," Harry said. "More ... preoccupied."

"Saints preserve us," she said dryly. "Hermione's got a secret. Whatever will we do?"

"We care about you, 'Mione," Ron said plaintively. "We're just worried about you."

"There's no need to be," she replied sharply.

"You'd tell us, though, right?" Harry asked, looking unnecessarily worried. "You'd tell us if there was something wrong?"

She looked back and forth between the pair. Surely they'd lost their minds. "Of course I'd tell you."

"You didn't tell us how you got hurt," Ron said darkly. "Back in November, when you missed two days of class and came back all banged up."

"For Merlin's sake, Ron, I was forbidden to talk about it. Dumbledore threatened to expel me!"

He looked taken aback. "What?"

"She's telling the truth," Harry broke in. "He did."

Ron stood suddenly, rounding on his best friend. "She told you?" he cried.

Harry was visibly uncomfortable. He shifted in his chair. "Well ... she didn't tell me. I was kind of, sort of there."

Face contorting with fury, Ron threw his hands in the air. "I don't believe this! My best bloody friends, lying to me!"

"Ron!" Hermione cried, shocked. "We aren't lying to you! Didn't you just hear me say we weren't allowed to mention it?"

He calmed slightly. "I just thought you would tell me anything," he said coldly.

Harry sat upright in the chair, surveying the Common Room, making sure it was empty. "Would it make you feel better if we told you now?" he asked.

"It might," Ron said quietly, calming further.

"Well sit down and be quiet, you great stupid prat," Harry hissed. "If anyone hears us talking about it, we'll be dead for sure."

With only a slight pause, Ron complied, sitting obediently back in his chair, giving his friends a steady look.

Hermione rolled the parchment back up. She would get no more accomplished tonight. Tonight was now about Ron. "Well, I had that detention with Snape, you remember," she began.

"Sort of," he said. "You'd pissed him off in class."

"Yeah. Anyway, he was walking me back from detention and we ran into Harry, standing all alone in the hall," she continued.

"Boy, Snape must've been furious," Ron said. "Why were you there, Harry?"

"I can't really remember," Harry admitted. "My memory's not very reliable from that day. Madam Pomfrey said the trauma caused short-term memory loss and it never really came back. I do remember Snape and 'Mione standing there, though."

"Trauma?"

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Hermione said with a bit of grin. "So Harry and Snape proceed to have this absolutely bizarre conversation in which I learn that Malfoy and two other Death Eaters are standing in the hallway holding Harry captive." Ron's eyes and mouth were as round as the letter 'o.' "Long story short, Malfoy put me and Snape under Cruciatus. I passed out and they Stunned Snape, making off with Harry. I woke up in the Infirmary a lot later."

"They Stunned me, too," Harry admitted. "Although I did catch a glimpse of the Portkey they used to remove me from the castle right before it happened."

"Snape thought he knew where they had taken Harry," she said, picking up the thread once again. "And I made him take me with him, sort of. So we Apparated to this abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere."

"You have an Apparition license?" Ron asked, impressed.

"Well, not exactly ..." she hedged. "But I do know how to. That's not part of the story, Ron."

"So where were you during all of this, Harry?"

"I was in said abandoned shack," Harry said. "With You-Know-Who."

Ron's jaw dropped.

"Oh, come on," Harry said, taking in Ron's expression. "Where else would a bunch of Death Eaters have taken me? Anyway, he was using Cruciatus mostly. I don't know how long that went on--I was in and out. And then, all hell broke loose."

Ron's eyes flicked to Hermione. "You and Snape," he said.

She nodded. "I was the diversion so that Snape could sneak into the house under a Concealment Charm. The wards were too strong to break, so we just got them to open the door for us. I guess Snape got into the room with Harry and You-Know-Who without much of a problem. I was taken in after they'd roughed me up a bit."

"I do remember that bit," Harry said, interrupting her. "I was shocked. There you were, all tied up, telling the Dark Lord to go to hell. It was brilliant!" He flashed her a quick grin.

"You insulted He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Ron breathed.

"Well, only a few times," she said with a proud smirk. "And then he handed me over to Lestrange, who I highly suspect is one of the crazier Death Eaters. He's the one who had a knife and that's where most of these came from." Hermione pulled up her blouse to reveal the still angry-looking scar marring her belly.

"How did you get loose?" Harry asked her. "I could never figure that out."

She laughed. "The best explanation I have is that I just got mad. So when Nott started taking off my ... uh ... well, you know," she said with a blush. "I kicked him in the face and started thrashing around. Somewhere, Lestrange cut my ropes loose and I attacked him. It was more luck than anything else. And that's when Voldemort started shouting."

"Snape's Concealment Charm must have faded, then," Ron said, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Right in one," Hermione replied. "So all the Death Eaters went running to take care of him and I followed them with the knife I nicked off Lestrange when I knocked him out. It was awful. Harry was laying on the ground all bloody from the Cruciatus and Snape was hiding behind a chair, dodging three different curses at once. And in the middle of it all was You-Know-Who, tossing out the Killing Curse. So I figured, what the hey, I've got a knife, right? And You-Know-Who can't be so invincible that knives don't work against him, right? He wasn't paying any attention to the little girl in the doorway, so I took him fairly by surprise when I tackled him."

"You stabbed You-Know-Who?" Ron shouted, on his feet.

"Shut up!" Hermione said. "Do you want the whole castle to know?"

Abashed, Ron sat back down.

"I distracted him," she continued. "That's where most of my bruises came from--he was trying to throttle me. And then I think Harry woke up and hexed the two Death Eaters still cursing Snape. Voldemort passed out and we Portkeyed back to Hogwarts. End of story."

"You stabbed You-Know-Who?" Ron repeated, still apparently in shock.

"Yes, Ron," she replied gently. "And when we got back, Dumbledore was furious with me and Snape for playing vigilante heroes. That's why I had to serve detention and that's why he swore us to secrecy. Are you satisfied?"

"But you stabbed--"

"Ron, it was nearly three months ago," she said, impatience beginning to stir.

"And here I thought you'd gotten in trouble for whopping Ernie MacMillan or something," Ron said faintly. "Merlin, 'Mione, when you decide to go for something, you don't do it by halves."

"Sorry to ruin the fairy tale, Ron," she replied in the lightest tone she could muster. "So, how's your latest girlfriend doing? What's her name? Leticia or something?"

"Patricia," he said absently. "But Hermione, I can't just go from 'Oh, Ron, I attacked the Dark Lord with a knife three months ago' to 'How's your girlfriend' like that. Give me a minute."

She cocked her head, taking in his shocked expression. "Take your time, love," she said. "I've got all night. Delacroix and his damned 'blood of his blood' can wait."

"A landmark occasion," Harry said sarcastically. "Hermione Granger puts her friend above her book."

That earned him a friendly elbow jab as soon as she could get close enough to administer it.

"I'm sorry, Hermione," Ron said suddenly. Apparently it had sunk in. "I had no idea ..."

"There was good reason for that, Ron," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "But I must admit, I feel better for having told you." On impulse, she wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him a quick, friendly hug. "Friends?"

He returned her hug. "Always."

----------

Breakfast was much less awkward today. She and Harry and Ron were a tightly-knit knot, comfortably ensconced at one end of the table. She and Ron were currently teasing Harry about the longing gazes he was sending toward a shy-looking sixth year of the Ravenclaw variety.

"Go on, Harry," Ron urged. "Ask her out. She'd never turn down the famous Harry Potter!"

He blushed. "But I don't--"

"It'll be perfect, Harry," Hermione cried, clapping her hands together. "She's one of the shortest girls here that's actually gone through puberty! A match made in heaven."

The blush deepened. "Hey!" he said.

"Can't blame a girl for telling the truth," she retorted with a gleeful grin. "I just calls 'em as I sees 'em."

"As if our Hermione here has room to talk," Ron said, turning the tables on her without a beat. "When's the last time you went on a date that didn't involve a library trip?"

Her mouth dropped open. "I ... you ..." she stammered.

"No, dear," he continued playfully. "We've never gone out. You're entirely too good for me. Besides, I could never measure up to the inestimable Viktor Krum."

"That was three years ago," she hissed. "And we only went out once!"

"You need a man, Hermione Granger," Ron said with a cheeky smile. "Or a woman, as the case may be."

"Ooh ..." she fumed.

Across the table, Harry was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. "So that's the source of the tension between you and Millicent Bulstrode!"

It was her turn to blush. "I can't believe that you would insinuate--"

"There's a match!" he cried. "I mean, you've already become intimately acquainted with her cat, so you two would have plenty to talk about."

"So that's why you're hesitating with that Ravenclaw," Hermione retorted viciously. "You're still hung up on Goyle. I know our second year you found it fascinating to be in his shoes, as it were."

Harry gaped soundlessly for several moments, unable to find a good reply.

"Brilliant, 'Mione," Ron said, clapping her shoulder. "I think today's match might go to you."

She grinned at them as she dug into her bowl of oatmeal.

"Oh, look," Ron continued, glancing upward. "Post's here."

As usual, Hermione paid it little interest. But a relatively large envelope landed beside her bowl with an audible clunk.

"Whatcha got there?" Harry asked.

She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It was awfully heavy for a letter. "Don't know. It's not marked," she replied thoughtfully. Slitting it open, her eyes went wide. "Oh, shit!" she cried, dropping the envelope on the table and dashing out of the Great Hall, even forgetting her books.

Ron picked up the discarded envelope and goggled as ten gold pieces rolled onto the table. "Who's sending her money?" he wondered out loud.