April Fool's Day

kyc639

Rating: PG
Genres: Romance, Humor
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 11/05/2004
Last Updated: 19/05/2004
Status: paused

Another challenge response. April Fool's Day approaches in Harry's seventh year, and the boys are excited. But Hermione seems a bit out of sorts... Paused while I find some inspiration

Chapters

1. Part I

2. Part II

1. Part I

A/N: I own nothing but the sarcasm in my head.

Here’s a short fic dedicated to my wonderful beta, Tawny Spitfyre, who issued an April Fool’s challenge. Oddly enough, even though this ficlet is dedicated to her, it hasn’t been beta’ed by her, since she already working on 18,000 words I cobbled together into sentences. Thus, any errors in grammar and spelling are my own (and that of Microsoft Word).

**************

April Fool’s Day - Part I

“Do you know what next week is?”

I looked up from my breakfast to regard my best friend. He had that rather manic glint in his eyes, the one that usually ended up with us fleeing from Mrs. Norris in the dead of night, and I was instantly wary. I stole a quick glance over at my other best friend to see if she noticed it as well. Hermione seemed to have come to the same conclusion, for her response was a simple disapproving shake of her head and to snap her Daily Prophet back up.

Which, of course, left it to me to respond. “Uh…next week?” It was too early for Easter holidays, we were in-between Quidditch matches, and I couldn’t think of any projects that were due. I shrugged. “April?”

Ron shook his head, obviously disappointed with me. “No!” he said rather vigorously, causing me to involuntarily lean back a little. “It’s April 1st!”

Well, that cleared it right up then. “Ah, of course. Y’know, it usually comes by this time of the year.”

“Yes, it’s strange that way,” Hermione chimed in from my side. I turned to look at her, and I noticed her wearing a mischievous smile. “It’s almost as if there’s some sort of cyclical pattern, like time has somehow been separated into twelve groupings that repeat over and over.”

I suppressed a chuckle. “Yeah…and if only there was some way or some thing that kept track of it all,” I said.

Hermione suddenly turned to me, her eyes wide in mock excitement. “You mean…like a calendar?”

I gripped her melodramatically by the arms. “Yes! That’s exactly it! We. Must. Find. One!”

We both turned to look at Ron, who’s face had soured considerably. Of course, seeing that destroyed any resolve to be serious we may have had, and Hermione and I broke down into fits of laughter. After a moment, I managed to regain my breath. Still chuckling a bit, I asked Ron, “All right, what’s so important about next week?”

But Ron tilted his chin in the air and looked off to the side. “Nothing, never mind.” I would have felt bad if not for the clump of scrambled eggs that hung from his chin. As I was already vulnerable to laughter, I couldn’t help but laugh again, and Hermione quickly followed suite.

After another moment I gathered my wits, such as they are, though my chest hurt a little from laughing so much. “Okay okay, I’m sorry for teasing.”

“Yes, I am too,” Hermione said. He looked at us dubiously. “Really, we are. Honest.”

“So, what’s next week? What so special about April 1st?” I asked, hoping to get him back on track.

Ron gave us a final glare before that glint returned to his eyes. “C’mon! I would have thought you two, of all people, would know! I mean, Hermione’s a Muggleborn, and you were raised by Muggles! April 1st? April Fool’s Day? Ring a bell?”

Hermione sighed and returned to her paper, obviously able to predict what Ron had in mind. I, on the other hand, did my best to mask a grimace. Yes, April Fool’s Day, how could I forget? Growing up with the Dursleys, I always played the ‘Fool’ in Dudley’s pranks. Dudley, not being the brightest Lumos on the wand, usually had pranks that went:

‘Hey Potter. I won’t hit you today,’ he would say.

Then I would say, ‘Thanks!’

Wham!

‘April Fool’s Day!’ and he would laugh manically, repeating the same complicated trick throughout the day.

Ah…memories. Anyways, I guess I must’ve spent too much time tumbling painfully down memory lane, because I was a little startled when Ron spoke up: “Right Harry? Harry?”

I looked up. “Huh?”

Ron shook his head in exasperation. “I said, ‘right Harry?’”

“Uh, sure. Right, Ron,” I replied absently. Though I didn’t actually know to what I was agreeing, I could tell by Ron’s triumphant face and Hermione’s slightly downcast one that I had inadvertently taken his side in one of their many arguments. I wasn’t too concerned about what I had done, though, since those two fight all the time about the smallest things. No doubt it had something to do April Fool’s Day.

“So, what do you think we should do?” Ron asked excitedly.

I shrugged. I imagined copying Dudley’s idea and slugging Malfoy, but that probably wasn’t a smart idea. A fun idea, but not a smart idea. “Dung bombs in Snape’s office?”

Ron actually looked disgusted by my suggestion. “Are you kidding me? This is our last year! Our last chance to pull a grand prank, better than anything Fred or George have ever done! And all you want to do is set off a couple of lousy dung bombs!? What are you, a Hufflepuff?”

I raised my palms in surrender. “All right, all right. We’ll think of something ‘grand.’” Though, I personally doubted that we’d be able to top Fred and George’s dramatic broom flight to safety, their portable swamp, or the firecrackers they set loose throughout the castle.

We bandied about ideas for around ten minutes until we hit upon a pretty good one. It took another ten minutes until we had a full-fledged prank in mind. Now we faced a different kind of problem. “So,” I said, “how are we going to actually carry out the plan?”

Ron’s previously excited face deflated a bit. “Well…” And we both sat stumped in silence. Our brainstorming had dwindled into passing sprinkles.

“I’m sure there must be a way,” Hermione said rather suddenly from beside me. I actually jumped a little; in all the excitement of devising the prank, I had forgotten that she was still sitting there as she hadn’t spoken a word the whole time.

“What way?” Ron asked eagerly.

“Well, I don’t know-”

“Humph! Great help you are-”

“-but I’m sure I know a place where we can find a solution,” Hermione continued loudly, speaking over Ron’s interruption.

I grinned at her. “And does this place contain large amounts of books and will likely require a clandestine visit to the restricted area?”

Her only response was a small smile and her own glint in her eyes. Leave to Hermione to get a glint from thinking about the library.

******

Alas, what started with such great promise of fun quickly deteriorated into boredom; I should have know involving Hermione would significantly lower the fun quotient. But even as the three of us spent our Saturday afternoon inside the library, I didn’t mind so much. Hermione rarely comes out with us, at least not unless one of us (and by us, I really mean me) is considering doing something stupid and dangerous. But ever since Voldemort met his sticky end – I stabbed him with a pointy stick – she hadn’t had as much reason to join us in all the rule-breaking fun. So it was nice being able to play with Hermione, even if it was in the library. Oh, and it helped that it was raining outside.

Ron, however, was having less of a good time. He slammed shut the book he was looking through and growled in frustration, causing Hermione to look sharply up at him and huff in annoyance. And wonder of wonders, this caused another fight between the two:

“I still don’t understand why we have to look through all these book!” Ron whined.

“You wanted a ‘grand’ prank, didn’t you?” Hermione countered. “Grand pranks take careful planning and execution!”

“Pranks are supposed to be fun Hermione. I wouldn’t call what we’re doing fun at all!”

“Do you think Fred and George just woke up one morning and thought, ‘gee, let’s make a swamp today?’ Of course not! They had to research and put some hard work into it, something you know nothing about!”

“What? I know about hard work! Just because I’m not like you and…”

At this point, I stopped paying attention and tuned them out. From prior experience, I knew this would go on and on and on and on until one of them finally has enough, runs out of things to say, and just leaves. Besides, my neck was starting to hurt – it was a bit like watching a Muggle game of tennis, back and forth and back and forth. Honestly, sometimes I can’t understand why those two are still friends, the way they fight. It was like fire and ice, they were such opposites. No, wait. Fire and ice cancel each other out, so I need an example where they explode…something like cats and dogs, or newt eyes and…and…man, I should’ve paid attention more in Potions. What the heck explodes when it touches newt eyes? Starts with an ‘L’…lavender? Maybe if Snape was a better teacher I’d actually learn something; as it is, half the time I’m too busy glaring at him to pay attention. Stupid Snape. Wonder how he’d like it if I –

“Harry?”

I jumped a little, startled out of my thoughts. “Huh?”

“I said, you can go too if you like,” Hermione said a bit stiffly.

Only then did I notice that Ron wasn’t at the table anymore. He must’ve taken off while I was deep in thought, revising Potions. For a second I considered escaping as well, but it only took one look at Hermione’s frown to convince me to stay. “No, I think I’ll stay,” I said, giving her a smile. She gave me a half-hearted smile in return and nodded before turning back to her book. With a silent sigh, I returned to mine. We spent the hours leading up to dinner looking through various books. And while a part of me rebelled at the thought of spending that much time in the library on a weekend, strangely enough I still had fun.

2. Part II

Here’s the second part; probably one more chapter left. Again, this is unbeta’ed (I can’t afford two betas), so my apologies for any grammar errors. I will say that sometimes you might find a few run-on sentences. Those are probably purposeful (at least that’s what I’ll claim), since my inner monologue doesn’t always use proper punctuation.

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April Fool’s Day - Part II

Unfortunately, the fun did not last long. April Fool’s Day was fast approaching, and the three of us still hadn’t found the information necessary. Okay, okay…Hermione hadn’t found the information we needed; Ron and I couldn’t find any books in the library that had suggestive pictures; we suspected they were all carefully protected in the Restricted Section.

Anyways, Hermione was really on tear. Despite that fact that we had classes and that she had Head Girl duties, Hermione spent almost all of Sunday night and Monday in the library, feverishly looking for the information. She did, of course, have the benefit of having already finished the homework due for the rest of the year, but I was still getting a little worried about her. Monday afternoon, after Hermione had shoo’ed Ron and I out of the library for being disruptive, I decided to bring up the subject of Hermione’s seeming obsession with Ron.

“Hermione’s been acting odd lately, don’t you think?”

“Hm? Odd? Odd how?” Ron replied. I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t noticed anything; this is Ron we’re talking about, after all.

“Well, ever since we devised the prank, she’s been a little obsessed with it, don’t you think?”

“How do you mean? Is it the way she spends all of her time in the library? Or maybe how she yells at us for not working hard enough? Cause no offense, but that sounds like typical Hermione to me.”

I shook my head. “It’s not really what she’s doing as how she’s doing it.”

“Huh?”

I gave a small sigh. Ron was great if you wanted to know who had the league record for scoring in the 1854 Quidditch season, but ask him if he noticed anything odd about his best friend of seven years, then forget about it. “Never mind,” I said.

“Already have,” he said cheerfully. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together excitedly. “Now, I wonder what’s for dinner…”

*********

So, clearly asking Ron was an exercise in futility. My next choice would have been Hermione’s other closest friend, but since that was me, no luck there. I suppose I could have asked Lavendar or Pavarti, or even Ginny, since as girls they were likely to be more observant about feelings and junk. But if I asked Lav or Pavarti, I’d have to endure the obligatory fifteen minutes of teasing while they proclaimed that I was having a secret affair with Hermione. Ginny would have been okay, once she stopped blushing (why she still does that, I’ll never understand), but then I’d have to deal with a jealous Neville, who would be on my case about why I was talking to her. I swear, I thought I was insecure, but Neville definitely wins that title hands down.

So that left just me. Well, I was used to being the last one standing, so to speak, so I should be able to handle this. The problem was, I didn’t even know if there was anything that needed to be handled, or whether or not this was just an ‘off’ couple of days for Hermione.

I decided to do a little investigating – Hermione would have been proud if she knew that for once, I didn’t act without a little forethought. I spent the rest of the day carefully watching my bushy-haired best friend. From the outside, she seemed to be in typical bookworm mode – sequestered in the library, surrounded by her beloved books. The only thing out of place was the fact that she wasn’t doing homework or studying for a test. Instead, she was researching a prank with the same amount of dedication that she gave to OWLs. It was downright weird; this was Hermione we were talking about, little miss follow-the-rules herself. There was definitely something afoot.

I decided to tackle the issue head-on at dinner that night, though to be honest, I didn’t really know any other way – Hermione was the one who came up with the clever schemes, and I couldn’t very well ask for her help. It took a bit of poking and prodding to get her to leave the library (and I mean that literally - I had to annoy her until she relented) and come down for dinner. At dinner, she wolfed down her food, obviously eager to get back to the library.

“Hey hey, slow down Hermione,” I said in as light of a voice as I could. “You’re almost as bad as Ron.”

“Hey!” Ron said indignantly from my side. I looked over at him and pointed out that he had food hanging from his chin. “All right, fair enough,” he said, returning to his dinner.

I looked back at Hermione; she looked tired. “Hermione, you’re working yourself crazy. Take tonight off, let’s relax, go for a walk or something.”

Hermione gave a wan smile. “I can’t…there’s still a lot to do in order to get the spell ready. It’s rather complicated.”

“I know, but you shouldn’t be-”

“Harry, that’s enough,” she interrupted. “If I have to remind you, this was your idea in the first place.”

“Yeah, let her work,” Ron said. I ignored him.

“That’s all well and good, but-”

“But nothing. If I don’t get the spell ready in time, then we can’t carry out the prank!”

“Yes, I know,” I said reasonably. I was worried; Hermione was starting to get all worked up. “But I don’t like the idea of you working yourself to death.”

“You don’t ‘like?’ This was your bloody idea in the first place!” she said loudly, getting to her feet. “First you say I don’t know how to have a good time, and when I try, it isn’t good enough for you!” And with that, she stormed out of the Great Hall.

I sat stupefied for a moment. This was not at all what I thought would happen. Yes, maybe an argument or two, even raised voices, but I never expected that Hermione would explode, much less so suddenly like that.

“Whoa,” Ron said quietly. “What the hell was that?”

I shook my head slowly. “I have no idea.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that angry before,” Ron said.

“Yeah.”

“I mean, maybe with Umbridge or Snape, but man, she was furious.”

“Yeah.” All righty Ron, I got the picture. Hermione’s mad.

“She’s been mad at me before, but never like that! What did you do?”

“I dunno.” Boy I wish he’d shut up.

“Did you see her face? I thought she’d explode from-”’

“Okay okay,” I said irritably. “I get it Ron, she’s mad.”

“Really mad,” Ron pointed out helpfully.

“Really mad,” I parroted.

“And it’s your fault.”

I sighed. “And it’s my fault. I just don’t know what I did.” I looked over at Ron, hoping for some brilliant insight into Hermione’s behavior, but instead of a thoughtful-looking Ron, I got a gleeful-looking Ron. “What are you so happy about?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I guess I’m not used to her being mad at someone other than me,” he replied with a big smile. “I guess this is how you must feel, right?”

“Yeah, just replace ‘happy’ with ‘annoyed’ and you got it.” After a second of silence, I asked, “Do you think I should talk to her?”

“Better you than me. Good luck mate; I’ll send out a search party if I haven’t heard from you in a couple of hours.”

Ah, that’s Ron for you. Ever helpful.

***********

Finding Hermione was an easy task, if you had the Marauders Map that is. Yeah yeah, I suppose after seven years I should know her well enough to know where she’d run off to, but Hogwarts is huge – she could be hiding in any number of girls’ bathrooms. Looking at the map, though, I was a little surprised to see which bathroom she’d hidden herself in. Walking quickly, I soon found myself in front of the door, which was unsurprisingly locked. I knocked gently.

“Hermione?” No response. “C’mon Hermione, I know you’re in there. Let me in.”

“Go away Harry!”

“Please?”

“No!”

I sighed and pulled out my wand. “I’m going to unlock the door then. I hope you’re decent.” With a quick wave of my wand, the door unlocked. This, in my opinion, was a good sign – Hermione could easily have used a complicated locking spell on the door that would’ve taken me several minutes to break. Slowly, I opened the door and found her sitting against the far wall. I walked in and closed the door behind me. We sorta stared at each other for a few a while; I was waiting for her to say something first, even though I knew that I should probably start. After it was clear to me she wasn’t going to say anything, I decided to take another approach.

I broke eye contact and moseyed around, looking at the bathroom. “Last time I was in here, there was a gigantic troll lying on the ground. I wonder what they did with him. I hope they were nice - I owe that troll a lot.”

“You ‘owe’ that troll?” Hermione asked, with just a hint of disbelief in her voice. I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist asking about that.

Still not looking at her, I said, “Yeah. I mean, if it weren’t for that troll, I would never have met my best friend.” After a second, I managed the courage to look at her. “At least, I hope she’s still my best friend.”

For a minute she didn’t respond, which made me think that things weren’t going well at all and that I might have to resort to begging. But finally she sorta half-smiled. “Of course we’re still friends.” I sighed in relief. We resumed our staring contest for a few seconds, until…

“I’m sorry,” we both said in unison. That prompted a few chuckles and effectively broke the tension. “May I?” I asked, indicating the piece of empty floor next to her. She nodded, and I sat down beside her.

She sighed. “I’m sorry for yelling at you Harry.”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “It’s my fault, Hermione. I shouldn’t have…” And then it occurred to me that I wasn’t exactly clear on what I did wrong. Oh, no doubt it was something horrible to provoke such a reaction, but I just wasn’t sure what it was. “Er, Hermione? Don’t hex me or anything, but what exactly did I do?”

Hermione chuckled ruefully. “Oh Harry. You didn’t do anything. I was just being stupid.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said absently. Something she had said during her tirade at dinner was bugging me. What was that? What did she say…

Oh yeah! “Hermione?”

“Hm?”

“When did I say that you don’t know how to have a good time?”

Her face colored a little and she looked down. “Well, technically you didn’t say it, but…”

“But?” I prompted.

“You agreed when Ron said it,” she finished softly.

I squinted my eyes, trying to remember when that happened. I drew a blank. “When was this?”

She was still looking down. “At breakfast, when Ron first mentioned April Fool’s Day.”

At breakfast? I honestly couldn’t remember. I thought back, wishing I had a pensieve with me. And then, I remembered. “Ooooohh! No no no Hermione. It wasn’t like that at all,” I said in a rush.

She didn’t look up, but she sorta tilted her head so she could see me out of the corner of her eye. “No?”

I shook my head. “No, not at all. I was distracted; I didn’t know what I was agreeing to.”

“Distracted?” She sounded dubious. “Distracted by what?”

I decided to be honest, since it was important that she believe me. “When Ron mentioned April Fool’s Day, I was reminded of how I spent April Fool’s Day back with the Dursleys, with Dudley. The memories are not…pleasant.” I left it at that – I was going to be honest, but I wasn’t interested in opening up that can of worms.

“Oh.”

I watched her face closely, seeing if she believed me. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe you,” she said finally. “So…you don’t think I’m boring, then?” she asked, almost hesitantly.

“Of course not Hermione. You know I think you’re perfect just the way you are.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to lie to me just to make me feel better. I know that you all think I can be boring at times, always reading and studying.”

“All right, I’ll admit that the library isn’t my first choice for a place to have a good time, but reading is what makes you you. If I took reading away, then you wouldn’t be the Hermione I know, and I wouldn’t want to change you in any way.”

Her face colored again, and she looked away. “You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“No, I’m being honest!” For some reason, it seemed very important that she understand. “I wouldn’t change a thing!”

She gave me a sideways look. “Not even all the nagging to do your homework?”

I grinned. “Hermione,” I said. “If you didn’t nag me to do my homework, I’d still be in third year.” She chuckled, and I smiled at hearing her laugh. “Hermione,” I said quietly, sincerely, “I’d be lost without you.”

She met my eyes, and I couldn’t look away. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling at that moment, but I knew that what I said was true: I would be lost without Hermione to center me. Eventually an awkwardness descended upon us, and I broke eye contact first.

“Well.”

“Well,” she agreed.

“We should get back; Ron’s probably thinking that you turned me into a lizard or something,” I said.

“Yes. And we still have some finishing touches to put on the spell.”

We looked at each for a second and smiled, the awkward moment over. Then we scrambled to our feet, off to the library. Again.

**********

A/N: Hello! Hope you enjoyed. I know many of you are wondering what the prank is…I promise you’ll see it next chapter! Oh, and this is the first time I had Hermione run off in a tizzyfit, and not Harry.

Warning: just a little rambling ahead. Nothing related to the story, so feel free to skip.

[rant] Monday night (5/17) umbra_dea sent me a PM letting me know that I was actually plagiarized! Besides the expected anger, I was a bit conflicted, I mean, someone actually thought my stuff was good enough that it was worth stealing! But on the other hand, someone also thought I was obscure enough that no one would catch him.

But what really bugged me was this guy’s profile (on FF.net). Completely immature, swear words and misspellings all over the place. Frankly, I was horrified that someone who read the original on portkey might think that that was actually me!

Fortunately, as of last night, my story was removed. I did see someone left an anonymous review calling out the plagiarism, so thanks to whoever that was.[/rant]