Brighter Than the Sun

Chapter Fifty-Six

"I should've called him an arse," I told Hermione when she showed me her teeth. "He has no right to say something like that to a student."

"Can vyoo vix it?" Hermione asked.

"I've never had to fix something like this before," I said. "I don't want to make anything worse. It's better for me to take you to Madam Pomfrey."

"Vut wha' vout fotions?"

"I didn't want to go to stupid double Potions anyway. Come on."

Madame Pomfrey gave Hermione a mirror and started Shrinking her teeth, instructing Hermione to say "stop" when they had Shrunk enough. The process was slow but that was probably for the best; that way Hermione didn't end up with teeth that were too large or too small because they'd Shrunk too quickly and she hadn't had time to say stop.

However, when Hermione's teeth had returned to normal size, she didn't tell Madame Pomfrey to stop for another few moments, when her teeth had become smaller than usual. Madame Pomfrey wrapped up the spell and sent us on our way.

"Does it look okay?" Hermione asked, baring her teeth.

"It looks different," I said. "A good different. You won't get in trouble with your parents, though, will you?"

"No," Hermione replied. "It's true that they wanted me to do it the Muggle way — braces and all — but they won't mind much."

"Do you like it?"

Hermione grinned with her newly-sized teeth. "Absolutely."

"We should be getting back to Potions, then," I said reluctantly.

"Actually... what if we just... didn't?"

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow at her in disbelief. "Hermione Jean Granger, the enemy of Procrastination and Skipping Class, wants to procrastinate and skip class?"
"It's just one class," Hermione promised. "And we won't do it again unless it's an emergency."

In the end we skived off all of double Potions, allowing two hours of quality relaxation. We headed up to Gryffindor Tower and let Jab and Crookshanks out to play in the Common Room for a bit, talking about books and classes and whether we should take the Girl Squad idea Lavender and Parvati had proposed seriously.

"It would be nice to be able to talk about periods without it getting awkward," Hermione reasoned.

"And those two know what's going on at Hogwarts. They hear every rumor, whether it's true or false. That couldn't hurt."

"Yes, it could help Harry in some way."

"And the nicknames are cute."

"The Jab ones, or the — "

"No, the Jab names are the code names. The nicknames are the ones like Ash, Mione, Lav... those."

There was a nice long silence in which I scratched Crookshanks behind the ear as he passed, causing him to purr.

"Go down a bit," Hermione said. "Right under that cartilage is his sweet spot. Scratch him there and he'll love you forever."

"Will you love me forever, Crookshanks?" I asked the cat, scratching him where Hermione had pointed. Crookshanks only responded by purring more loudly. "Yes you will."

"What're you doing?" Asked Ron, coming in.

"Making Crookshanks love me forever," I said.

"You two skived off and didn't tell me?"

"You could've joined us but you stayed with Snape and cussed him out."

"What did we miss in class, Ron?" Hermione asked.