All Dressed up to Play

    Hermione woke up in a cold sweat for the third night running. She couldn't quite figure out what was happening to her, but her dreams were becoming too realistic for comfort. If she closed her eyes she could still see the images as if they were burned into the inside of her eyelids. She knew what she thought she was seeing, but she just didn't want to believe it. This was the second time she had had this specific dream. Being the logical thinker she is though, she just wrote it off as working too hard. For surely she couldn't actually be "seeing" things. Divination was a false magic. No intelligent witch or wizard actually paid much heed to it. But these dreams were so real...

    She shook her head and straightened out her hair. She was just scaring herself. It was just a dream. Nothing more. Looking at her clock, Hermione sighed, exasperated with herself. It was still only 2AM. What was coming over her? Shaking her head again and clearing the strange dream from her thoughts, she lay back down and almost immediately drifted back to sleep.

* * *

    Harry sat in the Great Hall across from Ron, waiting for Hermione. It was almost time for their fist class of their seventh year and she still hadn't come down to breakfast. It wasn't like Hermione to oversleep. He was just about to get up and run bajck to Gryffindor Tower to find her when Ron seemed to read his mind.

"I'm sure that she'll be here in no time. I mean, Hermione wouldn't miss class. Even if it is a Double Potions with Slytherins," he said, scowling down at his schedule.

Harry couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, what kind of idiot made it that our very first class had to include both Snape and Malfoy?!?"

    The two laughed again, but Harry couldn't get past the uneasiness he was feeling. Why was Hermione running so late? Just as he decided he had had enough of waiting for her, Hermione burst through the doors of the Great Hall and ran to the Gryffindor table. She took an open seat next to Ron, across from Harry and smiled up at the two of them slightly flushed from her run.

"Sorry guys, I guess I overslept a bit. It's funny, I go from being up every hour or so from bad dreams to getting up an hour later than I meant to."

"What kind of bad dreams?" Ron inquired, the concern obvious on his face.

"Oh it was nothing, I've just been overworking myself recently."

    Hermione shot him a convincing smile and it was obvious that the subject was closed. She and Ron lapsed into a conversation as she buttered a couple pieces of toast and ate them. Harry, however, noticed little of what was said. His mind couldn't quite grasp the change there had been in Hermione since the previous school year. It had only been three months since he had last seen her, but she had changed so much. She was now sporting a full hourglass figure and her uniform was a little tight around the chest. Her formerly frizzy hair had changed to beautifully bouncy curls that bounced against her shoulders while perfectly framing her heart shaped face and beatifully full, dark lips. Her lashes seemed to be longer and darker than Harry remembered them and her eyes were the color of honey.

    Harry suddenly blinked, realizing that he had been, in fact, ogling one of his best friends who, in turn was giving him a very odd look. He shot her a goofy smile and glanced down at his watch. It was almost time for class. If they left right away they could probably make it to the dungeons just before Snape. He relayed this to the other two and they nodded and scooped up their things before running out of the hall and towards the potions classroom. Despite the mad rush they were in, Harry couldn't help but notice how enticing the blush that formed on Hermione's cheeks was. He quickly averted his gaze to the floor and kept moving while mentally reprimanding himself.