Breaking Barriers

"Swish and flick," Hermione said, holding Ron's wrist, waving it around much like Harry had when he'd first gotten his wand.

Ron was pouting. "Hermione, this isn't working."

"Just think of Wingardium Leviosa; it's exactly like that." Hermione was getting fed up and Ron still wouldn't listen.

"Like that will help."

Harry had already mastered the charm and was absentmindedly doodling his name on a piece of parchment. Meanwhile, Professor Flitwick was watching the class intently, noting Hermione's easy use of the charm on a rather large and heavy feather that was now floating a couple feet above her head.

"Miss Granger, would you come up to the front and show the class your Levitatia charm?"

Hermione turned slightly red and nodded. She brought the feather up to Professor Flitwick's small podium and, pointing her wand at the feather, clearly said "Levitatia," giving her wrist a slight flick upward. Nothing happened. The feather lay unmoved and untouched.

"Perhaps a little more flick of the wrist, Miss Granger," he suggested.

She tried again but with no success. Draco, lazily playing with his own wand, muttered the words and the feather glided towards the ceiling. The rest of the class started in amazement. Draco never was one for charms.

"Thank you, Miss Granger." Professor Flitwick was still looking upwards at the feather, almost forgetting to dismiss the class.

"Hermione, are you ok?" Ron asked, bumping into a smirking Draco.

"I'm...I'm fine." If it had been any other student no one would have taken any notice, but Hermione was one of the more serious people when it came to her work, and there was no doubt in Harry or Ron's minds that she was clearly not fine. Neither Ron nor Harry wanted her to dwell on it, knowing she would beat herself up emotionally.

"Let's have lunch," Harry said.

"It was probably just your wand," Ginny suggested later that night in the common room.

Hermione shrugged. "I guess it's possible."

There was still doubt in her voice as she said good night. The two boys soon followed, heading up to their own room.

"What do you think happened?" Ron asked when he and Harry were alone in their dormitory.

"I dont know, but it obviously wasn't Hermione's fault. Maybe Ginny was right about her wand." Harry shrugged and climbed into bed, Ron following suit.

The next morning Ron and Harry could hear Hermione's laughs ringing in the corridors and assumed she had come to believe Ginny's explanation.

"Let's just hope Mr. Ollivander never hears of it. He'd probably die of shock at even the mere mention of a wand of his malfunctioning," Ron joked, biting into an apple.

"Or hearing of someone almost breaking their wand in half," Hermione retorted, referring to the incident with the Whomping Willow in their second year.

Ron went red in the ears as students around them chuckled.

"Hey mudblood, did you finally find something you couldn't learn in a book?" Draco suddenly appeared behind them, closely followed by Crabbe and Goyle.

"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry warned, his hand wrapping around his wand just in case.

"My wand wasn't working," Hermione said quietly, almost sounding like she doubted it herself.

"Right," Malfoy snorted and joined the rest of the Slytherins at their table. Hermione's eyes began to water as she buried her nose in Perfect Charms for Prefects. Seamus, who was sitting to the right of Ron, looked at his watch.

"We should get to potions," he said to the three. Ron groaned, grabbing his bag and following Hermione, who followed Harry, down to the potions dungeon.

"Go to your cauldrons," Snape snapped as soon as the students had entered the room. For the past two weeks Snape had been droning on and on about several different potions, but he said they were too complex to begin right away, and instead made them take notes.

As Ron went to stand by his cauldron he said, "I never thought I'd be glad to be doing potions. My hand was starting to get a cramp from all that writing." Harry and Seamus nodded in agreement.

"Come on!" Snape barked. "Cut your dragon's liver into pieces. Smaller pieces, Potter!"

"I trust you know all the proper ingredients, Weasley?"

Ron gulped as Professor Snape reached to look at his blank page, but sighed with relief when a Slytherin called Snape over for help.

Hermione started to whisper her list of ingredients to Ron and Harry, who had mysteriously forgotten to write it down themselves.

"A pinch of salt and a couple beetle wings, then stir," Hermione read, stirring almost feverishly with her other hand.

"Why doesn't mine look like hers?" Ron pouted. His potion had turned an odd plum colour while others around him were a bright red.

"You didn't add the salamander tails," Harry said, pointing to a small pile of tails lying near Ron's cauldron.

"Mr. Weasley," said Snape as he rounded towards them, "perhaps you'd like to test your potion for the class?" He eyed the salamander tails, still sitting on a desk, happily. Ron cleared his throat nervously, but ladled a bit of his potion into a cup Professor Snape had handed him. He immediately felt the burn in his throat of a potion gone wrong, all the way down to his toes. At first, Ron didn't even think anything was happening until he looked down at his hand which was now tinted purple. The Slytherins burst into laughter, Professor Snape cracking a smile.

"Go up to the hospital wing, Mr. Weasley. Maybe that will teach you to pay more attention in my class." Ron glared behind his, now blue, eyelashes and made his way to the door.

"Now, Mr. Malfoy would you like to show the class how the potion should be?" Professor Snape was now standing next to Draco's cauldron, checking off ingredients to make sure everything was in order. Draco smiled an almost Snape-like smile, and began to pour his potion into a cup. After he took a drink, the class watched intently to see what would happen. Nothing did. The smirk on Malfoy's face faded when he realized his potion hadn't worked.

"I don't know what went wrong, sir!" he pleaded to Professor Snape, who was looking as though someone had just thrown him an unwanted birthday party.

Snape had a permanent look of disgust on his face as he said, "Mr. Malfoy, I expected more from my best student." He glided away, checking the other Gryffindors' and Slytherins' potions.