Dancing with the Green Fairy

The following morning Hermione woke up with the hangover from hell. Her hands hurt when she dressed. The scratches the asphalt had inflicted in her abrupt landing the previous night made her hands sore and tender. In the shower she had discovered that the girl staring back at her in the mirror not only had the red eyes and tired look that just screamed mid- week party student but she also had red scratches on her nose and forehead.

I look like hell, she thought to her own reflection.

Going to French class in her state would be an experience enough to make even Dante turn and start running in the other direction. She felt nausea quiver in her stomach. She had to sit down. Honestly, what had she been thinking, drinking that much wine? Not to mention that she had committed burglary and fled from the scene of the crime on a flying magical scooter, singing like she thought she was the new prima donna at the opera. She was quite certain that her sudden singing talent had been entirely imagined.

When she came out in the kitchen Monique put down her yogurt carton and gave her an amused stare. "What did you do, practise Kung Fu?"

"I had a little accident with drop and pop, that's all. I must have been a little uncoordinated. Can you turn that blasted wireless down a notch, pretty please?" Hermione muttered.

"Aha, we are having a little hangover are we?" Monique shook her head in mock concern and pity, but the grin on her face revealed that she found Hermione Granger with a hangover extremely amusing.

Hermione just fetched a large glass of water, and fighting the nausea she tried to look unconcerned, as she leafed through the Daily Prophet. Monique continued to glance at her with a lingering smile. Today the wireless was playing an annoying pop hit by Tipsy Spares.

Was she bewitching her radio against her, Hermione wondered?

"Are you going to tell me what you did all night? You didn't get home until two o' clock, at the earliest," Monique pestered her.

"Were you watching out for me?"

"No, of course not. I was sleeping soundly, at least until some vandals started to knock the dustbins around in the back yard again. It made a horrible noise as you can imagine."

"Blasted vandals," Hermione muttered.

"Maybe when you are in a better mood you will tell me all about it?"

Pigwidgeon tapping softly on their kitchen window saved Hermione from Monique's further enquiries. Hermione went over to open the creaky dirty old window to let him in. She detached the letter from Ron. Then she gave Pig some Italian smoked ham she found in the refrigerator. She wasn't sure if owls liked ham but it was all they had. Luckily, Pig found it quite tasty and gobbled it all down.

Hermione my love!

I'm sorry you miss me and that your flat is cold. I miss you too a lot, but you'll soon be home and we can talk and you can tell me all that has happened at the university. I'm not so much for writing things down. I like more talking face to face. Kissing face to face is even better actually, he- he.

Things at the Ministry is kind of slow, but at least I'm getting to know a few people here that are fun and not so old and boring as the usual crowd. We go to lunch together and talk. It is pretty much what keeps me going through the day. This guy called Sebastian is really into Quidditch, I think he knows everything about every game ever played. Then there is a guy called Henry and a girl called Mary. They are both very nice. Mary is a junior assistant and she is really ambitious. She reminds me a little about you, but sometimes she gets a little Percy on us when she talks about her future plans at the Ministry. Then we just tune her out and talk about Quidditch.

It is really lucky I have these people, otherwise I would go nuts here. Ginny and I play a lot of Quidditch in the evenings though. That always helps taking my mind off things.

Oh, and Harry came to see me. He is still not allowed to tell me where the Auror academy is, but he says it is unplottable anyway. He is wearing Muggle clothes so I guess it is hidden somewhere in a Muggle city maybe. He had the Auror emblem and it was pretty wicked. He is only a private though. They don't let him skip ranks just because he is the famous Harry Potter. They seem awfully strict, but some of the things they learn are pretty damned cool.

I swear I'm going to quit this stupid job at the ministry as soon as I can. It will break my dad's heart though. Especially after the way Percy turned out.

I guess you are sitting there in your crummy old apartment studying all through the nights without ever looking up from the books. I know it is what you love to do, so I won't say anything about it, but if you ever feel like loosening up a little, it won't kill you, you know.

I'll see you soon.

Million kisses,

Ron

Not unless you pop and drop and forget to Apparate properly in the end. Hermione wasn't sure she liked Mary very much. But it was stupid of her to be jealous. She had after all gone to a party with three guys. She could feel for Mary too. Poor girl being bludgeoned with Quidditch talk just because she had some ambitions in life and wanted to talk about them.

The letter didn't improve Hermione's mood. Not that she thought much really could at the moment, but usually letters from Ron always cheered her up. Was it the fact that he wasn't sitting at home pining for her while she was away that made her disappointed? Wasn't it really a good thing that he got on with his life and made some friends at the Ministry? She took a sip of water and felt the nausea coming back again with full force.

Hermione put on her robe and gathered up her books to leave. Halfway to the door she heard Monique's amused voice from the kitchen, "Not dropping and popping to school today?"

"Well, if you'd like for me to vomit all over the façade, that's fine by me," she muttered to herself, not loud enough for Monique to hear. She banged the door shut behind her.

Walking down the west wing corridors of Isobel D'éry Hermione met René who was standing outside a door looking around at the people passing. He looked as if he was keeping a watchful eye on something, but when he saw Hermione he flashed a bright smile at her.

"Hello Hermione! Did you get home all right yesterday?" He looked as fresh and well groomed as ever in his black suit and neat white shirt. There was not a trace of hangover in his eyes. "I guess not," he said after taking a closer look at her face. "What happened?"

"Eh, well, I made a little artistic landing when I got home."

René raised an eyebrow and peered at her scratches, but just then Soren apparated in front of them with a popping noise.

"Wow, I didn't think you could apparate inside here," Hermione said.

"You're not supposed to," Soren answered. "What happened to your face?"

"We have been practicing breaking a few anti-apparation spells just for fun. Since we are learning the theory anyway," René filled in.

"Gaspard teaches you how to break spells?" Hermione said quickly to steer the subject away from her little apparation accident.

"No, not really. Actually I don't think he would like it if he knew, but since the stuff he teaches can be used for that too we thought we might give it a try. Contrary to him we like to apply our theory in practise sometimes. Using the techniques for solving the equations and looking in a few books he might not have mentioned in class, and extrapolating a little we managed to trick ourselves around the spell in the school halls."

"Isn't that illegal?" Hermione asked.

"Weren't you the one who just apparated inside a Muggle apartment and asked a Muggle to use his wine opener?" René asked and grinned at her.

"And when he asked you who you were you said you were the little Green Fairy," Soren said.

"Oh, well." Hermione felt herself blush. Her stomach was upset again and her headache pounded so she felt sure the other two must be able to hear it.

"You were mad!" Soren said, his face full of admiration. "My mates at my flat thought it was the coolest thing they had ever heard. I think they all want to marry you."

"Raving!" René said, grinning broadly.

Then he held a piece of parchment in front of her. "So what do you make of this, Green Fairy?"

Hermione looked at the parchment. It was full of equations in a small and neat handwriting. It appeared like some sort of matrix of sine and co-sine functions.

"What is this?"

"It is the harmonics of the spells that protects the staff room and the headmasters office. We can gauge the frequencies by using our wands and the Harmonicus spell."

"Only trouble is it will take us forever to crack it using brute force," Soren added, "there's just too many of them."

"If we could only simplify the expression somehow, to narrow down the possibilities."

Hermione looked at the parchment. She felt the pounding headache and utter blankness in her mind. Did they expect her to crack the problem standing here in the corridor? She had enough trouble not throwing up all over René's white shirt. She felt like she had to sit down soon or she would fall down. Her legs felt weak. Well, sines could always be turned into co-sines with half-pi displacement. She racked her brain to try to come up with something, anything. She wasn't sure why but somehow it felt un-cool to admit she had no idea how to solve it. It seemed she wanted to impress her new friends. Stupid thing really. It was like the wine opener all over again, and that had done her a lot of good. Now Sorens had told the story to his mates. Soon the whole school would know about it.

Then again.

"Well, the co-sine is the derivate of the sine, so why don't try to convert the equations to differential equations instead, then you get a matrix of exponentials that maybe you could solve."

"Wow, you can do that? That's really tricky!" René said.

"I would never have thought of that," Soren said, peering over René shoulder staring at the equations.

"I need a quill," René said.

"I have to go," Hermione said, "I'll se you guys later, okay?"

René waved goodbye to her without speaking. He was staring in concentration on the parchment in front of him, lost to the world. Soren turned and smiled and then turned back to look at the parchment. Hermione left them standing there, pleased she had been able to say something that at least seemed intelligent. She was sure it would prove to be a dead end, but then again those two were not supposed to crack anti-apparation spells all over school. If they were found out they would almost certainly be expelled. She would not have wanted to be party to that.

How Hermione managed to get through the French lecture she would never know. Luckily the lecturer rarely asked any questions and since the class was so large she was sure that as long as she didn't snore loudly she would no be noticed. She felt her eyes droop several times and she was appalled at her own behaviour. She always paid attention in class and she would be prepared and attentive. Today she didn't take a single note down.

By midday, she managed to eat some lunch, and things begun to feel a little better. The potions lecture went well enough and although she didn't make any notes she managed to pay attention to most of the things said.

Dragging her feet up the stairs one step at the time, leaning on the railing, she finally was on her way home in the afternoon. She had sworn to herself to be a nice girl many times and never party during weekdays. When she finally mounted the last step, her forehead felt sweaty and the one vision swimming before her eyes was that of her bed and perhaps another very cool and large glass of water.

When she opened the door, she heard voices. Oh no, Monique was having some friends over. If they were going to play that wireless on top volume it was going out the window, there was no question about that. But the radio wasn't playing. Instead she heard Monique ask in an admiring and somewhat breathless voice, "It is true you faced the Dark Lord the first time when you were only eleven years old?"

"Harry!" Hermione called and ran to meet him. He had been standing there with an awkward grin on his face trying to answer Monique's questions, no doubt the very same questions people always asked and the ones that made him most uncomfortable.

"Hermione!" he said, and his grin widened to a genuine and broad smile. He spread his arms out and they embraced in a big hug.

"It is so good to see you Harry! When did you get here?"

"Oh, just a few minutes ago. I figured you might be home by now, but you seem to be having a busy day." He held her shoulders at arms length and looked at her. "What happened to your face?"

"She had a little apparation accident," Monique said, grinning. "By Merlin, Hermione, I can't believe you never told me you know Harry Potter."

Harry laughed and said, "Maybe she didn't think it was such a big deal."

"Of course it is a big deal," Hermione said, "Harry, you are my very best and oldest friend next to Ron," she said and hugged him again. "I never go around bragging about you like some celebrity thing though," she added, turning to Monique with a grim look.

"That's all right," Harry said. "It's not all bad." He flashed Monique a smile and she beamed at him as if she was a fourteen-year-old girl at a rock concert meeting the star of the band.

Hermione realised Harry did indeed dress in Muggle clothes. He looked quite good actually in black jeans a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket. It matched his thin body and very dark hair that still was unkempt and stood up in the back after all these years. He also had the same round glasses he had had the first day they ever met on the train to Hogwarts. Or maybe they were not the same pair, but they looked exactly like they always had.

"So how are things at the academy?" Hermione asked, putting her arm around Harry and gently steering him out to her room, away from Monique.

"Oh, very interesting, although I already know a lot of the stuff they are teaching us."

"Of course you do! They should let you skip a few years."

"Maybe, but it is good to learn everything from the ground up. There are big holes in my training. Everything was so improvised in the war and the years with the Order, not to mention the DA. That was just me winging it." He smiled at the memory. Then he sat down on her bed, looking around her room with interest. "It is pretty cosy in here. You seem to have a nice little place with Monique, although it is awfully small if you don't mind me saying so."

"Yes, and damp and impossible to ever get clean. But I was lucky to find it. It is near to the university too."

"The way you apparate I'd say it is good it is within walking distance," Harry laughed.

"Oh, give me a break! It was only a little mishap. I can't believe how people keep nagging me about my apparation all the time."

"It's because all you ever do is read books and study. You should get out and do practical stuff sometimes, loosen up."

"I was getting home from a party all right? And I was quite pissed hence my apparation was a little off balance. So don't worry about me being loose."

"Oh, really? Does Ron know?" Harry raised an eyebrow at Hermione.

"Do I need to ask his permission? I expect I'll tell him all about it in my next owl." An edge had come into Hermione's voice and she had raised it a notch. "Why? You don't think I'm cheating on him are you?" she blurted out.

Harry shook his head, "No, of course not. Are you crazy? I didn't say that did I? Why on earth? I mean, I think it is fine you don't study all the time and that you make some new friends here. It is quite all right."

Harry fell silent and stared at the floor. Then he studied her dirty old window with interest, without looking her in the eye. The silence grew awkward. Hermione felt stupid for what she had said. It was almost as if she had a guilty consciousness. Well, she was guilty of being a bad student today, but there was really nothing she had done that she needed to apologize to Ron for, nor explain to Harry. She was in her full right to have fun every now and then, and they had both urged her to.

So, why did things feel so delicate then?

"Do you think they will ever find Voldemort?" she said, to change the subject.

"I really hope not," Harry said darkly, "I don't much look forward to my final showdown with him. The more he hides the more he looks like a coward and he looses followers."

"But he is not dead is he?"

"No, I expect he is out there as usual biding his time. Of course nowadays most people seem to think that is all history and Voldemort is no real threat to anyone. I've noticed that most people say his name quite freely. I guess that should be a good thing really."

"Yes, but what about this Nation of the White Mind thing. What are they up to?"

"They claim to be a respectable political movement. No one believes them of course at the Auror academy, but then again we don't have that much respect in many circles do we?"

"Well, you realise they did do some bad things in the war don't you Harry? It was just like the last time, killing without trial, using unforgivable curses."

"They had too," Harry snapped.

"Yes, Harry, I'm not saying it wasn't justified, but you do realise some people felt the Aurors were becoming a threat in themselves, don't you?"

"Well, I can see that maybe. It's just that this Nation of the White Mind is using it for political purposes. I'm sick of hearing it. How the Aurors are a nation within the nation."

"Maybe they are a legitimate political movement," Hermione said.

Harry got up from the bed and started to pace back and forth in the room impatiently. "It is just a little strange how there are so many former Death Eaters in that legitimate political organisation, and how they somehow seem to have connections everywhere while they so fervently attack the corruption within the Ministry. And just by coincidence all the ideas they advocate and the laws they 'help' to pass are anti-Muggle or serve to restrict to opportunities for Muggles and Muggle-borns. Of course they claim to not be terrorists like the Death Eaters and they are so appalled by Voldemort and his followers," Harry said the last with a grimace on his face like something was smelling, "It is just that we must address the problems and costs of integrating all those Muggle borns into our wizard community," he continued in a mock drawl, reminding Hermione about Draco Malfoy, "Maybe it is time to pass restrictions on the number of Muggle born wizards we should admit to Hogwarts every year. Merlin it makes me sick to hear it!" Harry was pacing back and forth and he was getting himself quite worked up. "Hermione you are Muggle born, you of all people should realise what they are saying."

"Yes Harry I do," Hermione said, "But they have a right to have these opinions, it doesn't make them criminal. We are living in a democracy aren't we?"

"They are Death Eaters, or I'll eat my wand," Harry said, beating his fist into the palm of his hand. "Don't tell me you don't believe that too."

"Well, I think I do. Although they make it really hard to prove the way they always stay within the respectable and reasonable. If you go around calling them Death Eaters you make the Aurors look bad. That's exactly what they want."

"I guess," Harry muttered, sitting down. "I've always had a bit of a problem with my temper and my hero complex, I'm quite well known for it," he added quietly.

"Your hero complex saved my life already in the first year, so you won't hear me complaining," Hermione said.

"Oh yes, that blasted troll. And you did always try to hold me back and make me think. If you hadn't I would have been dead already, so I owe you too."

"Those were the times Harry." Hermione smiled at him.

"Dark times, but you and Ron made them a lot brighter."

The sat in silent recollection perusing old memories together the way only old friends can. Suddenly Harry jumped up silently and quickly like a panther and stood still by the door. He listened for a second with a tense look on his face. Then his face relaxed and he looked at Hermione and winked, then smiled with a smug expression.

"She is really rather pretty that roommate of yours," he said in a loud voice. "Do you think she would say yes if I asked her out?"

"I think she would fall on her back if you as much as winked at her," Hermione muttered.

Harry jumped out of her room and pretended to collide with Monique outside. She was apologising and then he apologised. Harry proceeded to chat her up in a low silky voice. Hermione couldn't hear what they were saying, but Monique sounded very breathless. Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed. Then she lay back on her bed at last and rested.