Chapter Summary: We've got a lot of time to kill between the quidditch match and the Easter holidays (several weeks to be exact) but the book skips over it. So I'm filling in the gaps. Pansy is still licking her wounds from the last time Hermione got the better of her. Will she be able to settle the score against our heroine.
--- Begin Fic Here ---
Madam Pomfrey was the aged witch who ran the hospital wing. Though she had a stern voice, she was always kind to her patients and hadn't met a magical ailment that she couldn't cure. Hermione had never seen her in person before but had heard all about her from Neville as he had been to the hospital wing more times than the rest of Gryffindor House combined.
"You again?" Madam Pomfrey said as Hermione and Ron carried Neville in. "What has Mr. Longbottom gotten himself into this time? Oh never mind, I don't want to know, just put him over there. I'll get to him in a moment." She gestured to one of the beds. "And here, let me fix that up." She pointed her wand at Ron's nose and before he knew it, the blood had disappeared and his nose was completely healed.
"Wow, thanks!" Ron said as he and Hermione laid Neville in the bed.
"You better be glad that's all you got, Weasley," came a drawling voice from across the room. Malfoy and his cronies were also in the hospital wing. He was getting treated for a black eye. "A few more minutes and you would have ended up like Longbottom."
Ron made a motion like he was going to attack Malfoy but Hermione stopped him. "Come on Ron, let's go to dinner. Harry's probably waiting for us." She turned to the school nurse. "Will Neville be okay?"
"Of course he will dear. Just leave him there," Madam Pomfrey said huffily as is if she found the notion that she couldn't handle one unconscious student ridiculous.
"That's right, Weasley. Listen to your little muggle girlfriend and run away," Malfoy taunted as Madam Pomfrey tried to tend to his eye. This time it was Ron who had to hold Hermione back.
"If you don't shut up I'm going to end up popping your eye out instead of healing it," the nurse warned Malfoy.
"Do it," Hermione snapped. "It'd make him look a whole lot better."
-----
"How do Fred and George keep getting into the kitchens without getting caught?" Hermione said taking some custard from Ron. There was a huge celebration party going on in the Gryffindor common room after dinner.
"I don't know," Ron shrugged. "You'd think someone in the kitchen staff would notice food going missing. They say they've been doing it for years. I guess they've got a system."
"Oy, where's the guest of honor," Fred Weasley came up to his brother.
"Hmm, I don't know," Ron said looking around. "When we didn't see him at dinner, we thought he was with you."
Fred shook his head. "Nope, he went to put his broom away and that's the last I saw of him."
Hermione and Ron exchanged a look that made it all too clear they were both thinking the same thing. Had Snape attacked Harry after the game? Without a word, they both took off for the portrait exit.
"We should have stayed with him," Hermione said frantically as they started down the corridor. "There's no telling what could have happened after the game. Snape could have gotten him alone. Dumbledore left right after the game. Oh Ron what are we going to do?"
"First, you are going to calm down," Ron said shortly. "We'll head out to the quidditch field and see if he's still there. If he's not…" Ron trailed off as they headed down the stairs.
"If he's not?" Hermione asked finally.
"We'll find him.' Ron said determinedly.
Hermione bit her bottom lip. She didn't think she could handle anymore stress that day.
-----
Ron and Hermione checked the quidditch field, locker rooms, broom shed, and all of the surrounding area. There was no sign of Harry. It was getting dark now.
"We've looked all over, Ron. We should go tell Dumbledore," Hermione pressed.
"How, we don't even know where Dumbledore stays in the castle," Ron reasoned.
"Well then, we should go to McGonagall," Hermione insisted.
"Oh alright, let's…" Ron was staring at the castle. "Wait a minute… I think… I think that's him. Look, he's heading back from the broom shed. Why didn't we see him before?"
Hermione grumbled. "He's probably been out flying around this whole time, while we've been down here worrying."
"You might be right. Well at least he's okay. Look, Hermione, let's not tell Harry that we were so worried about him. He's had enough stress. Alright?"
Hermione was about to protest but she stopped herself. She supposed Ron had a point. They ran to the castle.
"Harry, where have you been?" Hermione started when they caught up with him.
Ron gave her a dirty look as if to remind her of what he had just told her not five minutes before and she promptly shut up.
"We Won! You Won! We Won!" Ron shouted. A broad smile had replaced his previous strained look as he started to tell Harry all about the fight in the stands and the party that awaited him in Gryffindor Tower. Harry didn't seem interested in any of this. He looked flushed and out of breath. Instead of going with Ron and Hermione back to their common room, he dragged them to the nearest empty classroom and shut the door behind them.
"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asked immediately after he shut them in. "What happened? Did Snape try something after the game?"
"It's more than that; I saw Quirrell and Snape in the Forbidden Forest. He practically threatened Quirrell if he didn't help him steal the Sorcerer's Stone."
"You were in the Forbidden Forest?" Ron said. It seemed that this was the only part of the story he had registered.
"Ron, are you listening to me?" Harry asked exasperated. "Snape threatened Quirrell!"
Hermione dropped down in a nearby chair in shock as she half listened to Harry. Things seemed to be getting worse. Not only was Snape trying to get the Sorcerer's Stone and kill Harry, he was now threatening other professors. It all made sense of course. There had to be other things guarding the stone beyond the three-headed dog, most likely a barrage of spells and enchantments. What if there were already other professors in cahoots with Snape? Harry had overheard Snape telling Quirrell to think about "where his loyalties lie." Did that mean that the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor was only one of a few still against Snape?
"So you mean the stone's only safe so long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?" Hermione finally asked, voicing her fears.
"It'll be gone by next Tuesday," Ron quipped in a hopeless sort of voice.
"That's not funny," Hermione said irritably. "This is serious. Now I really think we should go to Dumbledore."
"And tell him what?" Harry asked in exasperation. "We still can't prove anything. You should have seen Quirrell in the forest Hermione. He was stuttering even worse than normal. He's terrified of Snape. He'd be too afraid to back us up if we went to Dumbledore."
Hermione was about to argue further but at that moment, Peeves the Poltergeist burst through the door. "Ooooo, ickle firsties!" he cackled.
Harry sighed. "Come on let's get out of here. We can talk about this later." The trio retreated as Peeves started to toss chairs around the room.
-----
But it didn't matter how many times they talked about it, the conversation just kept going in circles. Hermione insisted the best choice of action was to go to a professor or the headmaster, or writing to Nicolas Flamel himself, or even the Ministry of Magic, but all of these options had the same flaw. They didn't have proof and furthermore they were beginning to wonder who they could trust.
Harry was content to wait until they could get more information and Ron sided with him but Hermione was almost frantic with worry. What if Snape tried to kill him again? Sure it would be difficult to do within the confines of the castle, but it seemed as if Snape was becoming desperate and that meant he might try anything.
There next Potions lesson proved that Snape's hatred towards Harry had doubled. It was like a public torture session. Snape was even ignoring Neville's consistent incompetence to pick on every little thing Harry did, even if it wasn't wrong. In his opinion even the way Harry diced his toadstools was grounds for public reticule.
"That was an absolute nightmare," Harry griped as they exited the potions class after what seemed like an eternity. "Is this what I have to look forward to the rest of the year?"
"At least when he's ridiculing you, he's not trying to kill you," Hermione said.
"Oh aren't we a bright little ray of sunshine!" Ron said rolling his eyes. "Do you have to keep bringing that up?"
"Do you think it'll go away if I hush up? We have a serious problem here and I think we need to do something about it" Hermione said, launching into her fourth argument with Ron for the day. Ever since the night of Harry's last quidditch game, they had been arguing a lot about what to do. They were of course both concerned about Harry, but seemed to show it in different ways. Ron preferred being loyal to whatever Harry decided and not questioning it. Hermione wanted to do what was best for Harry even if he didn't think it was the right idea.
Hermione had realized that Ron never really got over the fact that Harry was famous which is why he always went along with whatever Harry said. Hermione however, didn't see Harry as just a famous wizard anymore. She still thought he was extremely unique but after being friends with him for several months now, she felt more comfortable around him and knew that she could speak her mind and not have to worry about losing his respect or friendship.
"He's such a lap dog and he doesn't even know it. It's not like Harry asks him to agree with everything he says," Hermione thought to herself as she continued her fight with Ron.
"Why do you have to be so disagreeable?" Ron was saying.
"I'm not being disagreeable; I'm being realistic," Hermione retorted.
"Will you two stop already!" Harry said finally. "I think the best thing we can do now is go and see Hagrid."
"Hagrid?" Hermione and Ron repeated simultaneously, forgetting their argument.
"Yeah, maybe we can get more information about the Sorcerer's Stone; find out what else is protecting it beyond Fluffy. Maybe then we can get an idea of how much farther Snape has to go before he can get the stone. We'll go see him during our break this afternoon."
"Good idea," Ron said immediately.
"Good boy… here's a doggie treat," Hermione laughed mentally.
-----
After lunch, Hermione went to her dormitory, plopped down on her bed and pulled the diary from beneath her pillow so she could write in it. It was a great way to relieve stress, especially considering all that had happened in the past few weeks. Not only did she have Harry to worry about, but her father had written her recently to remind her that he expected her to receive top marks on her final exams. In the letter he wrote that there would be no way to avoid showing her marks when she came home for the summer and that he hoped to see numerical proof of how well she was doing.
She hadn't told her parents anything about the Sorcerer's Stone or Snape, so they had no idea how much pressure she was under already. Even if she did, she knew her father wouldn't see that as an excuse to let her studies suffer. "You can't go around worrying about other people's problems. You have your own life to worry about and right now your life is studying," she imagined him saying if she told him about how she was concerned for Harry's life.
Also she knew that her parents might yank her out of Hogwarts if they felt she was in danger and despite all that was going on, leaving the castle was the last thing Hermione wanted. She was so much happier than she'd ever been. The thought of losing her new friends, even Ron, was devastating.
So she let out her emotional baggage in her journal. She only wrote when things became far too stressful for her to keep it bottled up inside. She didn't think Harry could take her breaking down into tears again, and she often wondered if that's why he bought the journal for her to begin with. When she wrote, she pretended that she was writing a letter to Harry, it made more sense than writing to a book. Besides, Harry had told her to use it in situations when she felt she couldn't talk to him, so it was only appropriate that he be the one she pretended to write to.
She pulled out a quill and ink bottle from her school bag beside the bed and tapped the cover of the green book with her wand, "Imperamora." Then she turned to the back page and wrote "Harry and Hermione Friends Forever."
The words shimmered for a second and then faded from view. New words appeared in her handwriting. "Hello, Hermione: Your Diary is Now Unlocked," along with a list of options she could choose from to find old entries.
She turned to a blank page, dipped her quill in the black ink, and began to write.
"Dear Harry,
Being your friend isn't easy. I've gotten used to you being famous, and stares following us wherever we go, but I guess there are still some aspects of your life that I will never get used to.
I wish I could be as calm as you are about someone trying to kill you, but I can't. I'm so worried and scared for you. I guess I should be scared for myself too. What if Snape came after me because I'm your friend? But that doesn't seem to bother me as much as the thought of you getting hurt or killed. You've been lucky up until now, but that's all it's been; luck. I just hope that"
"Hermione," Lavender came through the door. "Harry sent me to come fetch you," she sounded as if the idea of being Harry's messenger girl both disgusted and amused her.
Hermione sighed. She hated being disrupted by her roommates while writing in her diary. "Why didn't he just come up here himself,' she muttered as she slammed the book shut.
"Duh, he's a boy," Lavender said as she sat on her own bed. "He can't get past the spell at the bottom of the stairs."
"Oh that's right," Hermione had forgotten about the self-renewing spell that prevented boys and girls from going into each others dormitories. She'd heard some of the older students knew how to get past it, but this seemed to be a very well kept secret.
Hermione grabbed her bag, out of habit more than anything else, and headed down the stairs to meet Harry.
When she was sure Hermione was gone, Lavender grabbed the diary off of the bed. She pulled out her wand, "Imperamora," she whispered. The book opened again but the pages were completely blank again. She had hoped that since she had caught Hermione off guard, she would be able to see everything in the diary. Lavender was completely unaware of the special properties of the small green book, but she and Parvati knew it was her diary and were hopping to learn more about Harry by reading it. So far, they had no luck in figuring out how to read it.
-----
Harry, Ron, and Hermione marched across the courtyard to the familiar hut.
"So how are we going to get Hagrid to tell us more about the stone?" Hermione asked as they walked.
"We'll just ask him," Ron said matter-of-factly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, brilliant idea."
Harry ignored them. He knocked on Hagrid's door. "Hagrid, it's us."
There was no answer; not even the familiar booming bark of Hagrid's large dog, Fang.
"Where could he be?" Harry had never known Hagrid not to be in his hut on a Friday afternoon.
"Maybe he's out doing his game-keeping duties," Ron suggested.
"That doesn't explain why Fang isn't there," Hermione said.
"Maybe he's out running an errand for Dumbledore," Harry said as they started back to the castle. "Hagrid told me once that Dumbledore had him run important errands. We'll try back again tomorrow."
-----
It seemed that wherever Hagrid had gone, he was going to be away for a while. The trio tired all weekend to find him, but he was nowhere on the grounds. During the following week, they did see Hagrid once, but when they went to his cabin at the end of the day, he was gone again. They decided to wait until they saw him again at the high table during one of their meals and then they would know whether or not he was back. In the meantime, their schoolwork had reached an all time high and f they didn't have time to think about the Sorcerer's Stone or Snape for a while.
After a long night of studying in the common room with Harry and Ron, Hermione went up to her room, prepared to collapse in her bed. It was just after midnight and when she opened the door to her dormitory, she expected to be greeted by the sound of Lavender's snores. However, both of her roommates were wide awake, standing at the window.
"What's up?" Hermione asked sleepily.
"There was some weird noise. We both heard it; it woke us up. We think it came from the forest."
Hermione stepped up to the window. She didn't see anything unusual about the forest but something did catch her attention. From their window she could see Hagrid's hut. The lights were on inside. That must have meant he was back, but for how long?
Parvati and Lavender headed back to bed. "Oh well." Parvati yawned. "I hope whatever it is, stays in the forest. You'd think we'd have enough to worry about without having to live beside a forest full of goodness-knows-what."
Hermione headed for the door.
"Hey where are you going?" Lavender asked sleepily.
"Oh, I forgot something," Hermione said vaguely.
Hermione rushed down the stairs to find Harry and Ron and tell them what she had seen. Maybe they would be willing to sneak out and talk to Hagrid now. It wasn't the kind of thing she thought they'd object to. She had left them only 5 minutes beforehand but they were already gone. The common room was dark and completely empty now. Hermione made her way to the stairs leading to the boys' dormitories, but no sooner had she gone through the door was she forced backwards.
"I forgot about that stupid gender repelling spell. I'll never get up there." Hermione was about to head back to her own dormitory when she got an idea. She didn't need Harry and Ron. She could sneak out and talk to Hagrid on her own. She already had her wand; it would be a piece of cake. It wasn't like she hadn't done it before.
She grinned mischievously to herself. "Hermione Granger; rebel, rule breaker, and all around bad girl." She marched purposely towards the portrait door and pushed her way through.
The castle seemed completely empty. Even the pictures were unusually still. It only took her few minutes to reach the main doors of the castle. She hadn't run into a single teacher or ghost on the four flights down. As she stepped out into the courtyard she noticed that the moon was completely covered by clouds, making it unusually dark. She used a simple spell, "Lumos," and a beam of light appeared at the end of her wand. Hermione walked quickly across the soft wet grass towards Hagrid's hut. She hadn't thought it would be this easy.
Suddenly, there was a loud growl. Hermione jumped. There was a rustling sound in the trees nearby. Hagrid's hut was right next to the Forbidden Forest and from the sound of things, something was about to jump out. Hermione paused for a moment. Should she continue towards Hagrid's house and thus towards the forest? There was another growl, and then suddenly a flash of light from out of nowhere. Hermione immediately turned and bolted towards the castle. She didn't stop running into she was safely inside again.
"Hermione Granger; scared, simpering, coward. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all." She headed back to Gryffindor Tower.
-----
"You did what!" Ron almost chocked on his toast. "After all the grief you gave us about sneaking around late at night. I can't believe you."
"Oh shut it Ron. I was just trying to see if I could talk to Hagrid; that's all," Hermione grumbled. "I would have done it too had it not been for that whatever-it-was in the forest. Now I know why it's forbidden. I could have been killed!"
"Not a rare event here at Hogwarts though," Harry said with a grin. "If a week goes by when I'm not almost killed, I begin to worry."
"That's not funny," Hermione chastised.
"Hello Hermione," said a harsh voice behind her that could only belong to Pansy Parkinson. "You look well rested this morning."
"What do you want?" Hermione said coldly, not bothering to turn to her.
Pansy leaned in closer and began to whisper. "I just thought you'd be interested in my latest hobby, photography. I got a very good picture last night." A piece of paper fell in front of Hermione, it was a wizard's photograph of the Hogwarts courtyard. It seemed that it had been taken from far above but you could clearly see Hermione's likeness moving stealthily around next to the forbidden forest, lighted wand in her hand.
"How did you…" Hermione started breathlessly.
"Last night was our astronomy lesson but it looks like the stars weren't the only thing out that night. You shouldn't have been skulking around the Forbidden Forest with all that racket going on down there. I go to take a picture of whatever beast is lurking around, but all I see is a little bushy-haired, muggle-born, witch. I wonder what Professor McGonagall would think of her prize student if she saw this."
Hermione was speechless.
"You can keep that copy, Hermione. I took the liberty of saving the negatives." Pansy stood straight again. "By the way, it's really nice of you to offer to do all my homework for the rest of the year. I'll be sure to give you all my assignments tonight at dinner." And with that she strolled off.
"Did that just happen?" Hermione stammered.
"I didn't know that girl had it in for you like that," Harry said amazed. "What are you going to do?"
"Well I'm not going to do her homework for the rest of the year; that's for sure." Hermione said angrily.
She stared down at the image of herself, walking cautiously around the outskirts of the forbidden forest. It was obvious that the picture was taken late in the evening, you could see the lights on in Hagrid's cabin and the darkness that surrounded everything except her small lighted area. Where had Pansy gotten such a sophisticated wizard's camera? All the ones Hermione had seen were black and white.
She was tempted to let Pansy go show the picture to McGonagall rather than being blackmailed, but she knew that would never work. Being out of bed after the established curfew was the deputy headmistress' least favorite infraction of the rules. She had recently taken 40 points from Hufflepuff when she caught a fifth year student from that house trying to sneak out to meet his girlfriend. The Gryffindors would kill her if she got in trouble. They only had a slight lead over the Slytherins in the house cup.
Unsure of what to do, Hermione finished her breakfast in silence. Every now and again, she would glance over at the Slytherin table and see Pansy grinning at her.
It was like that the rest of the day. Every time Hermione saw the hard-faced, Slytherin girl; she would grin mischievously or laugh with her friend Millicent.
"Oh how the mighty have fallen," Pansy said as she passed Hermione in the hall after lunch. "I'll be sure to get you that homework tonight."
True to her word, at the end of dinner that night, Pansy walked up to the table and dropped a stack of books right in front of Hermione, causing the bowl of pudding she was eating to topple to the floor.
"I forgot to mention, I have a lot of backed up work that I haven't had a chance to get to," she said coolly. "Make sure you have it to me by tomorrow."
Hermione was fuming now. "I can't believe that girl! If she thinks I'm just going to let her manipulate me, she's got another thing coming. I'll show her. She'll rule the day she messed with this Granger."
Harry had never seen her quite this angry before. "Hermione, you can't transfigure her. That would make McGonagall even angrier."
"I'm not going to transfigure her," Hermione said. "I'm going to beat her at her own game."
"How?" Ron asked from the other side of Harry. "Are you going to get a camera and take some incriminating pictures of her?"
Hermione ignored the question. "Harry, can I borrow your invisibility cloak?"
"Uh…" Harry thought about this. He'd never even let Ron borrow the cloak, but the look in Hermione's eyes told him that "yes" was the only answer he was allowed to give, so he nodded. "Sure, what for?"
"If sneaking out at night is what got me in this mess, then sneaking out at night is going to get me out of it." Hermione said matter-of-factly.
It was clear that Harry had no idea what this meant, but he nodded in agreement anyway.
-----
"Here," Harry handed Hermione the folded invisibility cloak.
It was nearing midnight and most of the other students had gone to bed. The ones that were still in the common room took no notice of the clandestine transaction that took place near the portrait entrance. Hermione had her school bag with her and it would have been obvious to anyone watching that she was about to head out of the tower, but usually this action alone didn't attract attention. Many students snuck out of bed after hours, especially the Weasley twins. As long as they didn't get caught, or didn't get the house into too much trouble, people overlooked it.
Hermione tucked the cloak under her arm. She would put it on when she was outside the portrait so no one would see. Harry had made it clear that he didn't want the other students knowing he had the cloak.
"I hope you know what you're doing?" He said with a hint of nervousness in his voice.
"Don't worry. I'll be back in an hour or so. Wait up for me, will you? Where's Ron anyway?"
"Asleep already. Something at dinner didn't agree with him I think."
"Well maybe he should stop eating everything," Hermione snickered. "I'll see you." She pushed through the portrait exit. As the picture of the fat lady swung into place, she threw the invisibility cloak over her and started down the hall slowly.
Harry and Ron had always given her grief about the fact that she read so many books, but this time her book knowledge would come in handy. Although she had never visited the living area of any of the other houses, they're locations weren't a huge secret. All the information about the exact location of each house was detailed in "Hogwarts: A History." The only tricky part would be getting into the house, but she had a plan for that.
She hurried down the stairs as quietly as possible until she reached the first floor. Then she made her way to the dungeon level. There were no other students, teachers, or ghosts about as she wound her way through the labyrinth of corridors and classrooms. The castle looked different at night and for a moment she was afraid she wouldn't be able to find the Slytherin house entrance but after several minutes of running her hands along the cold walls, she found it. It looked just like the rest of the dungeon walls; dark, damp, and bare, but the stone felt slightly different, almost less solid, and this was all the indication that she needed. The Slytherin common room was just behind that wall. Now to put her plan into action.
She pulled out her wand and pressed the tip against the stone wall. "Quakus Thunderous." In response there was a loud thud as if someone had slammed a giant steel mallet into the stone wall. It even knocked Hermione back a few paces. The stone wall seemed to be unaffected though, as she knew it would be. Hermione wasn't trying to break into the common room; that would be impossible even for her. She just hopped she could get someone's attention.
A few seconds later the stone wall slid open and Draco Malfoy stuck his head out to look around. "What the devil is going on out here?"
He couldn't see Hermione, who was standing only inches away from him with a wide grin on her face. Her plan had worked. Satisfied that no one was outside, Draco turned to reenter his common room, and Hermione slipped in behind him just before the stone wall sealed itself again.
The Slytherin common room didn't look nearly as comfortable as the one in Gryffindor tower. The walls and ceiling were the same dingy damp looking stone that comprised the rest of the dungeon level and everything about the room seemed dark and depressing. "No wonder Slytherins are always so foul tempered," Hermione thought to herself. "If I had to live here, I'd be in a bad mood too."
She looked around the common room and saw that most of the Slytherin first years still seemed to be up. Pansy was telling her group of friends about how she had trapped Hermione into doing her homework for her.
"And that stupid little mudblood couldn't do anything about it," Pansy was saying. "She thinks she's so clever."
"I am clever, you twit," Hermione thought to herself.
She looked at the two corridors that led to the boys and girls dormitories. She didn't know which corridor to try so she decided to rely on the gender repelling charm that was supposed to be in all the houses. Hermione started down the right hand corridor and was immediately pushed backwards. She tried not to stumble and lose the concealment of the invisibility cloak.
"Okay, not there." Hermione crossed the common room to the left hand corridor amidst gales of laughter from the first-year Slytherin girls. She was careful not to bump into Malfoy and his friends as they headed towards the corridor she had just tried.
The left-hand corridor didn't repel her and she started past the doors until she saw one marked "First Years." She risked pushing open the door herself, figuring that the girls were all in the common room. She was right, the room was empty. Hermione threw off the cloak and began to hurridly hunt around the four-poster beds in the room. Finally she found what she was looking for, camera negatives, lying one of the nightstands. She held them up to the candlelight and saw a miniature version of herself moving around near the forbidden forest. This was it.
Hermione searched the rest of the nightstand but found no other copies of the picture. Then she saw Pansy's bag sitting by the bed and found a copy in there. She shoved the picture and negatives in her own bag and then pulled out all of the books that Pansy had given her earlier that day. She put these on the nightstand with a grin. Then she picked up her bag and threw the invisibility cloak back over her.
Back in the Slytherin common room, Pansy and her knot of friends were still talking. They were the only ones left. Hermione paused at the exit. She couldn't just open the door or they would know someone was there.
"So Pansy, why don't you show us this picture you have," one of the girls said finally.
Pansy stood. "I have it in my bag; come on, I'll show you."
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Not only did this mean she could leave without being spotted, but Pansy's statement confirmed what she had hoped which was that Pansy didn't have any of the pictures or negatives on her. Hermione had gotten them all. She decided to make her escape while the common room was empty. She made a bee line for Gryffindor Tower where Harry was still waiting for her.
-----
"I still can't believe you actually pulled it off," Harry said at breakfast the next morning.
"I can't believe you broke into Slytherin House," Ron added in awe. "You could have taken us with you. I'd have liked to pay Malfoy a visit."
Hermione was about to explain that her plan wouldn't have worked with them tagging along but at that moment Pansy, red with anger, stormed up to the Gryffindor table. "I don't know how you did it…"
"Did what?" Hermione looked up at her innocently.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. You broke into my room. You stole those pictures."
"I have no idea what pictures you're talking about, Pansy. How could I have broken into your room? I can't even get into your house, now can I?"
"You think you're so clever, but I'll get you; just you wait." Pansy stomped off.
"Ooo, I'm shaking in anticipation," Hermione giggled as she returned to her food.
"Granger, 1; Parkinson 0," Ron laughed. Harry and Hermione joined in.