The Gloriana Set

Annoying, but Occasionally Useful

Hermione strode along the corridor to the Potions dungeon on Wednesday night, dressed in jeans and a red jumper, her hair bristling with aggravation. She had spent hours preparing for that night's PORN session on Charms. The dust-up with Astoria and the second encounter with Malfoy had rattled Hermione, driving her back to her studies and PORN with an intensity that startled her friends. She still carved out time for Ron, however, aware that only a few days remained with him. Ron was developing a line of mischievous quills that wrote improper phrases into students' notes or randomly broke out into song, and Hermione was helping him perfect the charms. One must be supportive, after all.

Hermione had also been anxiously awaiting McGonagall's response to her attack on Astoria; she fully expected Astoria to report her and was prepared to accept any consequences. She even drew up a list of appropriate punishments, such as marking papers for professors or writing essays on violence as a social problem. But it was all for naught. Instead of informing a teacher, Astoria went around telling people that Hermione had lost control of her wand, which absolutely nobody believed. So now the story sweeping the castle was that Astoria and Hermione had been dueling for Theo's affections. Which made even less sense than the truth, in Hermione's opinion, and the truth was ridiculous enough. Theo found this rumor quite amusing and began referring to himself as "the spoils of war."

It was all terribly embarrassing. Obviously, there was a middle ground between bookishly prim and bat-shit crazy that other witches seemed to navigate with ease, but Hermione had never been good at finding a happy medium. So she'd been counting on her Wednesday PORN session to present a calm, academic persona to balance out her recent ... ah ... spirited behavior.

But then that son-of-a-banshee Ernie Macmillan called an emergency prefect meeting Wednesday night to discuss his accursed Halloween Festival, stealing away half of Hermione's group and forcing her to cancel PORN. Worse, Slughorn had learned of the cancellation and asked Hermione to oversee a "special detention" in the Potions dungeon so he could go schmooze at some Ministry event.

Hermione was livid; she'd spent over an hour creating 57 little origami shapes, each one representing a different charm, and all for nothing. And now she had to waste time disciplining rule-breakers. Honestly, why couldn't people just behave themselves? If those were the Squeaky Mice down there in the Potions dungeon, fresh from their latest prank, they were going to regret the day they received their Hogwarts letters. Malfoy had been entirely too easy on them; they'd find her less accommodating, let's see how they liked writing 6-foot essays on ...

The dungeon door was ajar, which meant the students were already inside, probably trashing the place and plundering Slughorn's stores again. Hermione charged forward and slammed open the heavy door with enough force to rattle nearby tables and stools.

She halted in the middle of the room, mouth open, for instead of a pack of schemy little badgers, the dungeon held only two students: both tall and hulking with comically small heads on their muscled shoulders. They were the former Slytherin Beaters who had injured Malfoy, still serving their twice-weekly detentions until Christmas.

The two huge boys leaped to their feet at Hermione's entrance, eyeing her warily. Nobody knew who had choked them on the pitch (except Neville, Ginny and Malfoy), but Hermione's name had been whispered. She stepped forward and the boys cringed slightly, backing away. Hermione rolled her eyes. Obviously, she wasn't going to hex them now.

With an effort, she recalled their names. "Mr. Bloom, Mr. Pratt, sit down, please." The two instantly obeyed.

Hermione set her bag on Slughorn's desk and eyed them thoughtfully. Despite Malfoy's protests that night in the infirmary, Hermione had gone to McGonagall the following week anyway, demanding to hear the school's response to Malfoy's injury and the death threats. The Headmistress' answer had been less than reassuring: Bloom and Pratt had simply sought payback for years of Malfoy's bullying in Slytherin House, and the death threats had been a crude effort to scare Malfoy off the team. Hermione had sniffed skeptically and hounded McGonagall with questions until the Headmistress tossed her out of the office, along with a veiled warning about using her wand "responsibly."