A Certain Amount of Sense

Chapter 5

Hermione was crying in her bed. She sat, sunk low into a mass of pillows, with knees bent and arms flung over her eyes. Potions had been the last class of the day, and though everyone was down at dinner now, she had pulled the curtains of her bed down, giving her complete privacy. The dead run she had made from the dungeon classroom to her bed had turned her sobbing into syncopated gasps for breath punctuated with the occasional hiccup.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god….” she repeated over and over in her head. She couldn’t believe what she had just done. She had slapped a teacher! And not just any teacher, she had slapped Professor Snape! She thought back to all the wrongs she had ever committed against the man: setting his robes on fire, stealing the Polyjuice Potion ingredients from him, disarming him in the Shrieking Shack…. But in all those instances, she had had a good reason, or at least what she had thought was a good reason at the time, to do those things. But this….

She could not possibly justify it, but back in the classroom, when she had looked down upon him, just before she had hit him, she had felt a rush of power. As if she had tapped into some mystical female energy, the same which must have coursed through the veins of Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and Aphrodite herself. It was glorious and intoxicating. For that brief instant of time, she knew she had him in her thrall. That he was hers to do as she would. And what had she done?

She gasped and sat up suddenly as it hit her. Oh dear god, she was going to be expelled for sure!

“Oh, bloody hell!” She had also forgotten about the condition of her hand when she had used it to support her upright position. Her left arm gave way and she collapsed upon it, producing another swear. She lay that way for a few moments, biting her lips, until she could manage the pain. Then, she slowly rolled onto her back and reached for her wand.

“Lumos,” she uttered and looked properly at her hand for the first time. It was not a pretty sight. Most of the blood had dried, and she was able to clean it off along with the smaller shards of glass. There remained one larger piece that appeared to have embedded itself quiet deep into her palm. Bracing herself, she pulled it out and gasped from the pain. Fresh blood spurted from the wound. She quickly transfigured a bowl to catch the blood and some bandages to dress it with. Thankfully, no major veins or arteries had been severed, although she didn’t know if there would be any nerve damage. Her fingers were certainly starting to feel numb, but she wasn’t sure if that was from the tight bandaging or not. Experimentally, she dragged them across her right forearm. It was like the touch of a foreign object, or another person.

Instantly, she was brought to remember Draco Malfoy touching her. Her frame shuddered and tensed at the thought. She had not known what her body was capable of, had not known that it was possible to feel so aroused by something her mind was so disgusted by. She felt betrayed by her own senses.

It was maddening, and it was frightening. Hermione prided herself on being a young woman of intelligence and discipline. After all, hadn’t she been the one to figure out the Devil’s Snare and potions logic puzzle in the first year? And who else had discovered the identity of the monster from the Chamber of Secrets or figured out that Lupin was a werewolf and that Rita Skeeter an Animagus?

But none of that mattered anymore. All of that, all of the studying, all the “books and cleverness” had been useless when it came to what Malfoy had made her feel this afternoon. She felt something else now, and it was so strong, she almost couldn’t recognize it. Shame.

It sat thick and heavy in her stomach, and the gravity of the emotion pulled at all her thoughts until she could feel nothing else. It was probably the first time in her life that her mind could be described as blank.

While she sat there in her stupor, she slowly became aware of the fact that someone was knocking on her door. Quite insistently, in fact.

“Hermione! I know you’re in there! It’s me, Ginny! Hermione, won’t you let me in?” Numbly, Hermione made her way to the door and unlocked it.

When Ginny heard the almost imperceptible click of the door unlocking, she flung it open and almost gasped at the change that had taken place in her friend. She had obviously been crying, the bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked face attested to that. And though she couldn’t see it at first, she smelled blood. She spotted the bandages around her hand; she must have cut herself somehow. But there was something else that frightened Ginny even more than injury. It was in there, in her eyes—an unfocused glaze—a lack of awareness that she had never seen Hermione without. It scared her a little, to think that something could have happened in Hogwarts that had reduced a Gryffindor prefect to this. At the same time, another part of her recognized that this is what she must have looked like after the times Tom had possessed her. Something inside of her clenched preemptively; were the walls of safety and security that she had struggled so hard to erect after her first year about to crumble?

The two women stared at each other for another moment before younger reacted and threw her arms around the elder. The unexpected move triggered yet another burst of tears from Hermione. Without knowing it, Ginny began channeling her mother as she comforted Hermione with the same motions and words that she had been the recipient of so many times. Eventually, the sobs became whimpers, and finally even those turned quiet. Ginny led her to her bed, and they sat down side by side on the edge with her arm still draped over Hermione’s shoulder.

“Hermione…what happened? We noticed you weren’t at dinner, and then Parvati came and told us what happened in Potions class. Harry and Ron wanted to check up on you, but you know they can’t come up here.” Ginny paused as she tried to think of what to say next. She spoke the next few words carefully and clearly. “Why didn’t you come down for dinner, Hermione? What did Snape say to you after class? And what happened to your hand?”

Hermione looked up and withdrew her hands from her face with a sharp intake of breath. She turned, and it was as if she was seeing Ginny for the first time.

“Oh Ginny,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “I don’t know; I don’t know what’s happening to me!” Her eyes were wide with fear. Ginny gathered her into her arms again. She recognized panic when she saw it.

“Shhhh, it’s okay, Hermione. It’s going to be okay.” Ginny could see that Hermione was too exhausted to deal with anything else right now and let her fall back onto the bed. She stood up, pulled the blankets over her shoulders, and smoothed back the soft, brown hair. Hermione had curled into a fetal position and was already breathing evenly, well on her way to sleep. Ginny closed the curtains around her bed and quietly walked out, closing the door behind her.

When she turned around, she jumped in surprise as a house elf apparated with a pop in front of her.

“You is Miss Granger’s Wheezy?”

“What? Oh, yes. That’s me. Shhhh, you have to be quiet. She’s sleeping.”

The house elf looked anxiously at the door and back to her.

“Oh, what to do, what to do?”

“What’s wrong…um, what’s your name?”

“Oh, you is such a nice Wheezy. Dobby is telling us all about you. Bompwee is so happy to meet you, Bompwee is.”

“Thank you, Bompwee. Now is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh, if only Wheezy could. Bompwee is supposed to give this letter to Miss Granger, but Bompwee is afraid Miss Granger will give Bompwee clothes!” Ginny almost laughed at this.

“It’s okay, Bompwee. I’ll take the letter and give it to her when she wakes up. Will that be all right?”

“Oh yes, Miss Wheezy. Thank you Miss Wheezy. Bompwee is ever so gracious.” The house elf handed the note to her and disappeared before Ginny could ask who had sent the note. She inspected the scroll. It was wrapped with a silver ribbon and sealed with green wax. The stamp on the seal was clearly the Slytherin emblem. Snape! Who else in Slytherin would have the authority to send a note by house elf? But what did he possibly have to say to Hermione that couldn’t wait until she served detention that night? And why send a letter when he could have just as easily summoned her to him? Eyeing the scroll in question, she wondered if the contents would give her a clue as to why she had found Hermione the way she did.

She debated whether to open it or not. Eventually, curiosity and concern won over and she cast the same spell Umbridge had used to read Harry’s letters without breaking the seal. Well, she wasn’t the youngest of seven Weasleys for nothing. Opening it, she recognized the same handwriting she had seen in Potions class for the last five years.

Miss Granger,

You are excused from tonight’s detention. (Ginny gasped.) Furthermore, I have removed you from the regular Potions classes and have enrolled you in an advanced auto-tutorial course which should allow you to finish the usual two year program of study in only one.

I find no reason for the events that transpired this afternoon to be made public knowledge. I trust that you will agree with me in this regard and choose not to disclose any possibly damaging information.

Signed,

Prof. Severus Snape

“Well, if anything, now I’m even more confused,” thought Ginny. Seeing as how the addressee was soundly asleep and would not be waking up anytime soon, she pocketed the letter and went down to find her brother and Harry, thinking that she could just deliver it the next morning.