27. Lost My Mind

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"And now, I've lost my fucking mind, and there's no fucking time. I can't believe I'm actually meant to be here. Trying to consume, the drug in me is you. And I'm so high on misery, can't you see?" ~ The Drug In Me Is You, Falling In Reverse

After breakfast on Sunday we take the time to write a letter to Percy, as Sirius suggested, asking how Mr Crouch is doing. And then we decided to visit Winky and Dobby in the kitchens - long story short, it resulted in Hermione insulting them after we tried to ask about Crouch. 

Thankfully, at breakfast the next day, Hermione's sour mood as burnt out, and Ron's dark prediction of the house-elves spiking Hermione's food out of anger proves false. 

When the owls arrive, Hermione looks up expectantly. 

"Percy won't have had time to answer yet," Ron tells her. "We only sent Hedwig yesterday."

"No, it's not that," Hermione says. "I've taken out a new subscription to the Daily Prophet, I'm getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins."

"Good thinking!" Tay comments, watching the owls above. "Hey, Hermione, I think you're in luck."

A grey owl is soaring through towards Hermione. 

"It hasn't got a newspaper," I say slowly. "It's - "

I trail off as the grey owl lands in front of Hermione, followed by four barn owls, a brown owl and a tawny. 

"How many subscriptions did you take out?" Harry asks, seizing Hermione's owl before it's knocked over. 

"What on earth - ?" Hermione cries, taking the letter from the grey owl to read it. "Oh, really!" she splutters, going red. 

"What's up?" Ron questions. 

"It's - oh - how ridiculous - " she thrusts the letter at me, and I see that it's not handwritten, but composed of plastered letters that seem to have been cut from the Daily Prophet. 

You are a WickEd giRL. HaRRy PottEr desErves BetteR. gO Back wherE you cAME from mUggle. 

"They're all like it!" Hermione says desperately, opening one letter after the other.  "'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you...' 'You deserve to be boiled in frog-spawn - ouch!" 

She has opened the final letter, and yellowish green liquid smelling strongly of petrol gushes over her hands, which begin to erupt in large yellow boils. 

"Undiluted Bubotuber pus!" Tay says, picking up the envelope and smelling it. 

"Ow!" Hermione cries, tears beginning to form in her eyes as she tries to rub the pus away with a napkin, but her fingers are so thickly covered in painful sores that it looks as though she's wearing a pair of thick gloves. 

"You'd better get to the hospital wing," I say, as the owls surrounding her take flight. "We'll tell Professor Sprout where you've gone."

"I warned her!" Ron says as Hermione hurries out of the hall. "I warned her not to annoy Rita Skeeter, we both did. Look at this one - " he reads out one of the letters Hermione left behind. "I read in Witch Weekly about how you are playing Harry Potter false and that boy has had enough hardship and I will be sending you a curse by next post as soon as I can find myself a big enough envelope. Blimey, she better watch out for herself."

Hermione doesn't turn up for Herbology. As Harry, Tay, Ron and I leave the greenhouse for our Care of Magical Creatures class, we see Draco, Crabbe and Goyle descending the stone steps from the castle. Pansy is whispering and giggling behind them with her group of Slytherin bimbos. Catching sight of us, she yells. "Potter, have you split up with you girlfriend? Why was she so upset at breakfast?"

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