Not In Kansas Anymore

Chapter Twelve: The Holly Before the Holidays

Firmly Hermione snapped her book shut and said sternly, without looking up from her desk, "Don't even think about it Mr. Weasley."

Adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses a red haired boy turned to face his teacher. "Yes Professor Granger."

Hermione looked at the boy and examined his superior tone. "You now owe me an essay on manners and how they can be expressed in numbers, and in addition to that Gryffindor looses thirty points for your attitude." Some how it gratified Hermione a bit to see Percy's child getting his due, he was exactly like his father.

Disgusted the boy looked as though he were about to dig himself deeper when the bell rang, it relieved Hermione not to have to dock any more points from her own house. She watched as her third hour class left and waited patiently for her fourth. Flicking her wand words spread across the board, precise instructions for her seventh years, she needed to go get ingredients to use after lunch for sixth years.

Two Ravenclaw girls greeted her politely as they walked into the classroom and she walked out. The loose black robes she was wearing fluttered vaguely as she walked down the stairs to the dungeons, the temperature dropping with each step.

She went to the door to the classroom and entered discreetly, nodding to Draco as she edged along the back of the class to his office and private stores. His lecture droned on. "You are going to attempt to make a Swelling Solution, though I doubt that most of you are capable of such a petty feet, you are the most pathetic class of second years I have ever seen."

*

Hermione nodded to Harry and edged toward the back of the classroom that adjoined to Snape's office. She heard the explosion of Goyle's cauldron, the spatter of potion over the class, and the screams of students caught in the spray. It was the perfect pandemonium, and she slipped unnoticed into the dank haunts of the office.

Ignoring the gruesome things alighting the wall she dashed to his private cupboard behind his desk, it was unobtrusive but even from a meter away she could feel the spells he had placed on it. Sighing she muttered six different unlocking spells before one or maybe a combination of two popped the lock. Running her hands over dusty labels Hermione was sorely tempted to take more than the bison horn and boomslang skin but she thought her robes would already be full enough without other forbidden ingredients.

Quietly Hermione replicated the locking spells to the best of her ability and sidled back into the bedlam of the potions' class. Catching Harry's eye she nodded her success and he smiled a bit, probably relived he wasn't risking punishment for naught.

Hiding the jars in her robes proved to be more taxing that she had expected, and she didn't hear all of what Snape had to say, but she did notice him sneer at Harry. She didn't know whether to be thankful he didn't note her absence or to be indigent Harry was taking blame for her ingenious plan.

*

The jar Hermione wanted was on the top shelf and she had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. Precariously she clutched at the jar and managed to pull it off the shelf. It was a small jar of preserved holly syrup, and though not necessarily dangerous it was very expensive and the spoonful she dished out on to her ritual disc would coast her a handful of Galleons.

Leaving the way she had come she nodded her thanks to Draco, who seemed quite oblivious as he was shrinking the nose of a small boy with a nose currently like a watermelon. Smirking, Hermione remembered a very similar boy with a nose of fruit-like proportions, she walked back up to her fifth floor classroom and entered to see her seventh years working quietly.

They were working quietly but she was willing to bet they hadn't been prior to her entrance. Even her best students were only about a paragraph into the assignment. She had been gone long enough for a diligent worker to have plowed through six or seven word problems and have each answered in her six minimum sentences.

Settling the clay disc on her desk she leaned against the edge and asked conversationally, "Who was the look out?"

*

A folded note landed on her desk, squarely in the middle of her essay. Taking a brief glance at the perfumed pink paper Hermione concluded Draco was going through an identity crisis, he was the only person in the class she really knew. The Ravenclaws were congenial with her but for the most part they were standoffish with her because they had decided she had no right to be smarter than them.

Looking back over her shoulder Hermione saw him staring intently at his book but his gray eyes were not moving across the page. They hadn't actually been on talking terms with each other, partially because of their argument the previous night, and partially because one very ignorant Ronald Weasley had threatened to punch in Draco's nose if he 'bothered' Hermione again.

The note shocked Hermione a bit and she scanned it because if she knew Draco it was likely to combust if she didn't. Looking up to make sure Professor Vector was otherwise busy Hermione cracked the folds open and the perfume grew stronger. Wrinkling her nose Hermione looked at the green ink of Draco's handwriting, as she read each word it was magically erased and then the paper crumbled to ash.

Brushing the ash on to the floor where it would mess nicely with the dust on the stone she repeated the equation Draco had given her, '3nails + 1cross=' for a long moment Hermione did not quite know the answer to this little riddle. She hated it when Draco proved to be smarter than her.

Absently working on her class assignment she repeated the cryptic message to herself while calculating the exact ratio of pie to the circumference of a person's heart number.

It hit her like a metaphorical ton of bricks. Writing on her own piece of parchment she solved the equation.

3nails + 1cross = 4givness.

She tossed the paper over her shoulder to Draco, he read it and it promptly melted over his hands afterward. Forgiveness was easier to stomach with a dose of your own medicine.

*

The smoke rose in clouds and Hermione decided that once this class was complete she was going to have to spray some perfume around. Her sixth years coughed but stopped when they saw her eyes glittering at them menacingly. In her quite serene voice of utter control she said, "Now, add the drop of holly syrup to you candle and count the number of flames that ignite." She gave them a moment to do so before carrying on. "Subtract the number of flames from your heart number and you should have your total number. If you've achieved a zero you'll need to see me after class so we can schedule a time for you to attempt this again."

A number of groans went up from the class and six students crowded her desk to see the log she kept of appointment times. Mentally she shrugged; maybe they weren't ready to be doing advanced romanticism with a living medium. She looked the successful student over; they were adding their character numbers to their totals to see if they had balanced evenly. She supposed most of them would, it wasn't really that hard, you just had to know when to add and when to subtract and then finally how to chart your findings.

The bell rang and Hermione announced before sweeping out ahead of her students, "Those of you who were successful take ten points and then write out a fluctuation table to be due at the beginning of class Tuesday." There were more groans.

Glad to have a free period of plan time Hermione went to the staff room where she thought she might have left her grade book. She silently cursed herself for misplacing it so close to the holidays when she was going to leave to go stay at the Burrow.

The gargoyles whistled at her as she swept past them, both of them had lemon flavored soap bubbles spray from their mouths. The battered book was just where she had thought she'd left it and she walked to it, opening the cover to see the grades she had just entered the night before.

"Holly syrup?" drawled a sarcastic voice from the door.

Stiffening Hermione said, "You scared me Draco!"

Suppressing chuckles at the sight of Hermione Granger standing on a chair Draco repeated, "Holly syrup?"

Climbing down from the chair gracelessly Hermione said, "Advanced romanticism with a living medium."

Sliding into a chair by the fire Draco said, "Poor dears, and you just had to use holly syrup?"

Sheepishly Hermione said, "I wanted to see if the effects would differ from cherry extract."

"I'll give you difference, its about forty Galleons of difference."

Cringing Hermione said, "I'll pay you back next paycheck."

"Nah," said Draco leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes, "I don't use the stuff that often anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," yawned Draco.

Shrugging Hermione left the room, changing the flavor to evergreen soap before leaving.

*

The water was slowly cooling in the dim light of the parlor, and Hermione gave a slight shiver every time she plunged her hand into the sudsy water. The room was quaint and small, and Hermione strongly suspected dear sweet Molly had barricaded her in here alone so Ron would stop staring.

It was taking more patience than Hermione had anticipated to escape Molly Weasley's prying eyes and overly alert ears, she now understood why her children deliberately sneaked about behind her back. Hermione had expected to escape for long enough to enjoy London a bit, get out of the house, and maybe hop on down to the bookshop three blocks over. Thanks to Molly Weasly none of this had happened and she was beginning to get thoroughly bored with the summer.

The fact was nobody, save Bill, seemed able to escape her. Sure she'd seen Fred and George go off and forget what they were doing for an extended period of time but they eventually came back, she'd tasted some of the tea it often took Ron hours to brew, and she'd been around long enough to know Ginny took marathon pee breaks. But the fact was nobody could escape the wraith of Molly Weasley and her quest to keep all of her children virgins. (Hermione suspected she'd already failed, on several counts.)

Flexing her pruned and lemon scented hands Hermione moved her rage around listlessly on the grimy wooden floorboards. She just needed to get away from the cleaning or she'd develop a chronic addiction to soap.

Rashly Hermione tiptoed to the parlor door and poked her head out of it just enough to see that Sirius had finished the hall and to hear that Molly was on a tirade and would be for several hours at this rate. Hermione plotted carefully, she knew exactly what to do...so she did.

Taking her shoes off so as not to squeak on the floor she summoned her money bag from her room, figuring there was so much magic in the air that no Ministry wizards would notice one extra spell. Holding the pouch to her chest to keep it from jingling she slid down the banister stealthily.

This was it, the home stretch, Hermione passed by a mop and bucket, past the troll leg umbrella stand, past the molding pile of rags, and reached the door.

Hoping Molly wouldn't notice she'd left she opened the door and inhaled the first breath of air that didn't have chemicals in it.

*

The owl landed on her plate at breakfast, it surprised Hermione a bit, she'd gotten her paper earlier and hadn't been expecting anything so she opened the letter cautiously in case Fred and George had decided to test another product on her. When no green wax flowed over her hands Hermione let out a breath, the green wax had stuck under her nails for three and a half weeks.

Hermione took out the letter and read it concernedly, it was in Ginny's round angelic script and carried quite disturbing news...or disturbing in the perspective of a twenty-two year old.

Hermione-

Don't bother coming to the Burrow for Christmas unless you want to spend it with Harry and Ron drinking away all their troubles. Mum and Dad have decided Charlie needs to be visited (I think there's a side stop involved in there some where and that's why we're not invited). So they left the house to Ron and he owled Harry and my flat seems to be having a pest problem.

As I was getting to I wanted to ask if you mind me bunking with you for a bit, at least until your term starts again, it'll be miserable with just Drunk and Deliriously Drunk?

-Love Ginny

P.S. Fred and George are going to America without use. Can you believe them?

Hermione didn't have any odd misplaced desire to spend Christmas with Harry so she wrote Ginny to come and stay at Hogwarts. She didn't think Dumbdlore would mind, he was gone for the second week in a row, confined to his bed with a hot water bottle and lots of potions from the fretting Madame Pomfrey. Inwardly Hermione sighed; it was going to be a very long Christmas.