Hermione and the Watch Part 2 (Patreon)

Hermione flicked and swished her wand as she carefully pronounced the words the book had shown her after figuring out the last half dozen counterspells in the annoyingly complex book. She smiled in relief as the red text that was making the green text so damned hard to read vanished. “Finally!”

Harry snorted. “Finally we’re done or finally this gives us another part of the spell to copy books or finally another spell to figure out something on one of the other pages by animating the picture or making hidden words show up or maybe a spell to reverse the text we found on the last page.” 

Hermione opened her mouth to tell him that it was just another piece of the puzzle then realized that she might actually have the answer to the whole damned puzzle. She sent her wand on the table then reached over and grabbed her bag..

Harry asked as she started riffling through her bag, “What are you looking for?” 

“This,” Hermione replied as she pulled a plastic purple compact out of her bag.

“How does makeup help us?” Harry asked, thinking about the time he’d seen a spy on television use a compact to see a laser. “Why do you even have a makeup case?”

“For the mirror,” Hermione replied as she flipped the compact open then positioned the mirror inside so that she could read the inside cover of the front of the book. She smiled as she saw words in the mirror that weren’t visible in the book. “Gotcha!” She quickly copied the words on her notes.

“What made you think of using a mirror?”

“Your comment about reversing things made me remember the introduction to the book where the author mentioned mirrors revealing illusions. They also mentioned not finding the answer at the end of the book so I figured I’d check the beginning. We’ll probably still have to look through the rest of the book to find the wand movements, but it’s a start.”

“That reminds me…” Harry grabbed the book and flipped it open to the picture of a bird in a windstorm. “Hit it with the animation charm and watch the stick near the bottom of the picture.”

Hermione picked up her wand and cast the animation charm on the picture which caused the colorful bird to fly around, the leaves to flutter, and the various branches to spin and swirl in the storm. “What about it?”

Harry pointed to the wand like stick he was talking about. “Everything else is being blown around in the wind, the stick is moving the wrong way half the time.”

Hermione watched the scene play out again, carefully watching the stick that Harry had pointed to. She was a little surprised that Harry had noticed and remembered the stick moving strangely though she probably shouldn’t have been considering he was an excellent Seeker. She pointed her wand off to the side and copied the movements of the stick, they certainly felt like they could be wand movements and had a decent flow to them. She pointed her wand at the magazine she’d borrowed from Lavender’s nightstand then flicked and swished her wand as she said, “Liber geminae!”

Harry was faintly surprised when a duplicate magazine cover appeared in a puff of smoke. “I wasn’t actually expecting that to work, for a given value of work.”

“To be honest, I wasn’t either,” Hermione admitted as she studied the cover of the magazine. “I’m going to need to practice that a bit more.”

“I’m sure you’ll get plenty of practice but I’m getting hungry.”

“I have to agree,” Hermione agreed as she glanced toward the stairs. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into closing your eyes?”

“Do I have to?” Harry asked, hoping she’d let him look but willing to close his eyes if he had to.

Hermione asked, “Five seconds?”

“Three?” Harry asked as he closed his eyes and started counting.

“Deal,” Hermione said playfully as she, grabbed her watch then slipped out of her chair and ran for the door.

Harry opened his eyes as he reached three and watched his friend running toward the stairs with her cute behind and legs on display. ‘Yeah, sorry Ron, you can’t have her.’ He waited until she was up the stairs then stood up and readjusted himself. ‘Thank Merlin for thick robes.’ He headed for the stairs so he could grab his books and morning supplies while Hermione got dressed, her red silk knickers still in his back pocket.

0o0o0

“Start,” Snape snapped as he put his wand back in his robes after unlocking the supply cabinet.

Harry smiled as everyone froze in place, including Snape. He glanced over at Hermione who was pulling her hand out of her robe pocket where she’d stashed the watch. “I could get used to that. Still, we’re going to have to be careful of Snape.”

Hermione studied the sneer on the frozen teacher’s face. “Agreed.”

Harry glanced over at Draco, who had a smug look on his face. “We should kick Draco in the balls.”

“Any particular reason or are you just channeling Ron?” Hermione asked with annoyance as she glanced at Ron.

“I just wanted to test to see if there were any side effects,” Harry lied, knowing she’d see through it.

The edges of Hermione’s mouth twisted up into the barest hint of a smile as she pictured kicking Draco in the testicles for all the times he’d called her a mudblood or some other idiotic wizarding saying, still hitting him right in front of Snape wasn’t the best place for testing things, no matter how satisfying it would be. “Right, read the directions, Harry.”

“What are you going to do?” Harry asked as he looked at the directions on the board.

“I’m going to make an outline, then I’m going to compare the directions on the board to the book then I’m going to see if the Slytherins have extra notes or books in their bags.”

“Really?” Harry asked in surprise.

Hermione glanced over at Neville who had a terrified look frozen on his face. “The Slytherins consistently do better in potions than they should, given their general poor showing in other classes, I doubt it’s just his unfair grading. I mean Crabbe and Goyle make Ron look like a rocket scientist, if Snape gave them extra instructions they’ll have notes.”

“That implies they can read, something I’m still not sure is true. Sadly I doubt McGonagall would do anything even if we waved evidence in her face about Snape rigging the system,” Harry complained as he grabbed a piece of paper and his writing supplies from his bag.

“We’ll see,” Hermione replied as she started working on her own outline.

Harry spent the next couple minutes writing notes then scowled as his quill tip snapped from putting too much pressure on it. “The next time we’re back in the muggle world, I’m grabbing a couple pens and a notebook or three, I’m tired of using a quill.”

“Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?” Hermione asked as she compared the directions between her potions book and the instructions on the board.

“Just because I’m used to it doesn’t mean using a quill isn’t an outdated stupid tradition. Hell using a fountain pen would be an improvement,” Harry complained as he grabbed a new quill and started writing again.

“I would be nice if they allowed fountain pens.”

“We’ve had to get used to a lot of things haven’t we?” Harry asked darkly.

Hermione turned to look at Harry. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s start with having a homicidal defense teacher every year other than third and even that one is debatable during the full moon, mix in the shit from the Daily Prophet and top it off with having more bad teachers than good ones.”

“You’re the one that took Divination,” Hermione pointed out reasonably.

Harry sighed in frustration. “It’s not just Divination, I could forgive that, it’s probably hard to find someone with actual talent. It’s the fact that no one has fired Binns or Snape or managed to get a decent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to last longer than a year.”

“I can’t disagree with you there,” Hermione admitted as she closed her potions book, having found nothing different between the list of instructions. 

“I don’t suppose you have a suggestion for dealing with the Daily Prophet’s slander?” Harry asked hopefully as he glared at Seamus.

“I’d say sue them, but I have a feeling Fudge would just wave his hand and make it go away,” Hermione replied with a touch of annoyance as she thought about Harry’s joke of a trial.

“Probably,” Hermione admitted as she walked over to the nearest Slytherin’s bookbag and started to carefully look through it.

“We could always just burn it down,” Harry suggested, only half joking as he thought about the various idiots that had been staring at him all morning thanks to the Prophet’s lies.

“I don’t think that would go over well, besides there are potions that force the truth out of people, even if we had an ironclad alibi, Fudge would blame us.”

“We’re going to need to start a list of things to work on researching.”

Hermione perked up. “Research?”

“A decent amount of the Death Eaters managed to weasel their way out of prison, there has to be a way to defeat the potion.”

“Sirius said they bribed their way out,” Hermione reminded Harry as she moved to the next bag, looking for something incriminating.

“I’m sure that was involved but there has to be a reason they don’t just dose everyone beyond the ministry being corrupt. Mundungus is a career criminal, he probably knows all the tricks.”

“He’d also rat us out in a heartbeat,” Hermione pointed out.

“Point.” Harry paused as he glanced at Malfoy and realized there was something wrong with his expression. “Weird, that’s not his usual smug expression that’s the same expression he had when he was gloating about his father pulling crap, his I know something you don’t know look.”

“What do you mean?” Hermione asked as she turned to look at Malfoy. “Looks like his normal smug expression to me.”

Harry frowned as he looked around the room and actually got a chance to study the Slytherins without them glaring back or Ron or Snape distracting him. “It’s more than that, they all look smug. Well, other than Crabbe and Goyle but they always look a bit vacant.” He pointed at the various Slytherins. “I mean take a minute and actually look at their expressions, they look like this is a walk in the park.”

Hermione rolled her eyes as she started carefully putting everything back in the girl’s bag. “They’re Slytherins, it’s not like he’s going to fail them.”

Harry shook his head. “It’s more than that, other than the polyjuice you brewed back in second year because you’re a genius, have you seen a harder potion than the Draught of Peace?”

Hermione paused as she considered his question. “No, I’ve read about harder potions, Felix Felicis is supposed to be extremely difficult to make.”

“No idea what that is,” Harry admitted.

“Basically liquid luck,” Hermione replied as she stood up and looked around the room, trying to see what Harry could see or thought he could see.

“That would be useful. Either way, there’s a world of difference for most of us between reading about a potion and being able to make it. They look like they’ve been told to brew a potion they’ve already made.”

She shook her head. “That would be illegal, you can’t use magic over the summer…” she trailed off as she realized most of the dark families wouldn’t give a damn about the law and probably had ways around the ministry’s monitoring system.

Harry smiled grimly. “Exactly, they don’t care. Hell, I bet Snape gave them a study sheet at the end of last year with all of the potions we’re going to brew on it.”

Hermione shook her head. “That would be a rather large list.”

“Not if you only included the potions between now and the holidays. What do you bet that he gives them another list at the start of the holidays?” Harry asked growing more annoyed with Snape as he realized just how badly the bastard had been screwing them without them even realizing it. Sure, some of the Slytherins probably hadn’t put in enough effort to truly capitalize on their families being criminals, but he had a feeling that most of them had been practicing over the summer.

“I’m not taking that bet.” Hermione wasn’t sure how they’d slipped things past the ministry but she was going to talk to Sirius about it when she got the chance. “Either way, nothing we can do about it now.”

Harry glanced at his notes then read through the instructions again just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. “Are you almost ready to unfreeze things?”

“Might as well,” Hermione replied as she walked back to her desk. “Put your notes away, you can always pull them out once you have your ingredients, bringing notes isn’t actually against the rules.”

“A knut says he complains,” Harry muttered as he put his notes away and did his best to move back into the same position he’d started in.

0o0o0

Hermione scowled at McGonagall. “What do you mean there is nothing you can do? You’re the Deputy Headmistress!”

“Professor Snape is in charge of Potions, I can’t just overrule him without proof,” McGonagall replied.

Harry snapped, “We have proof!”

Hermione gestured angrily at the sample of Draught of Peace that she’s set on the professor’s desk. “We managed to save a sample of Harry’s potion before Snape vanished everything in his cauldron, test it and grade it.”

“While I believe you, he’d claim that the extra sample came from your cauldron.”

“He has a copy of my potion unless he’s vanished that as well,” Hermione snapped, thoroughly disgusted with the entire situation. She scowled. “So he gets away with it?”

“Try to remember there are more troubling things in the school than Professor Snape, I’ll talk to him about Harry’s Potion.”

“You’ll talk to him? That’s it?” Hermione looked at McGonagall with a look of disbelief and betrayal as her last hopes and illusions shattered. “We bring you a potion sample as proof and that’s all we get?”

“It’s not that simple, he has a cover he needs to maintain,” she argued.

Harry fingers went white as he tightened them into a fist. “I don’t give a damn about his cover, if he wants to keep it maybe you should try calling him on being a piece of shit.”

McGonagall said, “That’s enough Mr. Potter, he’s still a Professor. I’ll talk with him.”

Hermione briefly considered tossing her prefect badge at her formerly favorite teacher then decided that she might as well keep it even if it was next to worthless as you could only take points from your own house. “Let’s go, we’ll send a letter to Dumbledore.”

McGonagall sighed in frustration as two of her favorite students left. ‘One damned day Severus, you couldn’t even behave yourself for one day!’

Harry waited until they were out of McGonagall’s office and away from the portraits on the wall before he whispered, “We might have to talk to the twins.”

“What?” Hermione asked warily as she thought about the sign she’d seen on the common room wall offering money for testing dangerous products.

“If we can’t get Snape to behave through legitimate channels then we’re going to need to get creative.”

“What were you thinking?” Hermione asked warily.

“You mean beyond the fact that Ron should have came with us?” Harry offered dryly. 

“Yeah well, you can’t exactly expect Ron to delay stuffing his face,” Hermione said with a sigh.

“Are you still mad about History?” Harry asked.

“He’s going to have to learn to take his own notes eventually,” she said firmly.

“We could always just get him a quick quill,” Harry suggested with a shrug.

Hermione shook her head. “Then he wouldn’t learn.”

“He’s not exactly learning now,” Harry pointed out as they started walking toward the great hall. “As for Snape, he has to eat eventually.” He dropped his voice to a whisper so that his voice didn’t carry, “We grabbed more than one sample of the Draught of Peace, some of which were a little off, we might as well use him as a test subject.”

Hermione shook her head. “Tempting, but people would blame the house elves.”

“I guess we can save that for a last resort,” Harry agreed as he watched the walls to make sure they weren’t coming up on any portraits that would report them to Dumbledore. “Do you have a better idea?”

“I have a couple, but I want to talk to Snuffles first, see if they’re viable…” she trailed off as they went around the corner and saw other students coming their way. “Either way, let’s get something to eat, we can meet up after Defense.”

“Good idea,” Harry agreed as he watched two of the people turn around and quickly leave when they spotted him. He scowled which caused the other second years to sort of side step to the edge of the hallway while trying not to be noticed, it would have been funny if it wasn’t so the story of his life. At this rate he wasn’t sure how he was going to get through the rest of the day without shouting at someone for looking at him like a lunatic.

0o0o0

Harry almost fell out of his chair when everyone froze in the middle of Defense. “Are you sure we can’t poison her?” If looks could kill there would have been a flattened toad sitting in the professor’s chair right about then.

Hermione glared at the vile woman wearing the god awful fluffy pink cardigan. “Don’t tempt me. Vile despicable woman.”

Harry took a breath and let it out, glad that the frustration and rage he’d been dealing with since potions was slowing ebbing away, probably the quiet or the fact that he could relax with Hermione for a bit before having to deal with his current frustrations. “I guess I should have expected this, my morning was fantastic so fate is balancing the scale, first potions and now this bitch.”

Hermione got up out of her chair and pulled Harry into a hug. “Better?” she asked, having stopped time to help him deal with his justified rage at the… creature masquerading as an educator. 

“Yes,” Harry admitted as he buried his face in her hair.

Hermione held him for a couple of minutes… “Better?” she asked as his breathing slowed down and he melted into her, all tension gone.

“Getting there,” he offered. “We have 24 hours, right?”

Hermione giggled. “I don’t think you want to sit like this for a full 24 hours.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” he replied with an open smile that she couldn’t help but respond to.

“How about we go sit outside and read a little?” she asked.

“That actually doesn’t sound half bad,” Harry said. “I have a book on how they make chess sets that I was planning on looking into to figure out how Ron has jinxed the pieces on my side, because I just can’t buy him beating me every single game.”

“Are you seriously accusing Ron of working hard enough to figure out how to jinx a chess set?”

“It’s chess?” Harry asked with amusement. “But no, I’m suggesting that Arthur works in the department of Misuse of Muggle artifacts and that he brought home a rigged chess set, Ron always insists on using his chess set after all.”

Hermione shook her head “Remember first year? If he didn’t know how to play, we’d never have gotten past McGonagall’s  trap.”

“Point,” he admitted with a shrug. “Still an interesting book. It’s on the suggested reading list for advanced Transfiguration because of the animation charms used.”

“Oh? I might have to borrow that after you’re done,” Hermione replied, happy that Harry was reading some advanced books, even if they were about chess.

“Never change, Hermione,” he ordered, with a fond smile. “Now let’s go and relax somewhere more pleasant.”

“Library?” Hermione suggested, then jumped a little as she felt his response and remembered the dream he had mentioned. “Maybe later, how about the common room?”

“It gives us a chance to relax a bit,” Harry replied as he reluctantly took a step back so they could leave. 

Sadly the door to the common room was sealed, thankfully, there were a number of empty classrooms and an hour of reading and relaxing was enough to restore their equilibrium and ready them to face the toad demon once more. 

The last ten minutes of class with Umbridge ranting about how Defense Against the Dark Arts should be left to the professionals i.e. the ministry, had Hermione reconsidering Harry’s idea. Thankfully they managed to get out of there without detention and more than twenty lost points but it was a narrow victory and had required them pausing time twice to curse loudly and throw things so they could calmly smile at the ‘esteemed’ educator. 

Ron shook his head as they walked away from the Defense classroom. “I don’t know how you do it mate, but damn.”

“What?” Harry asked absently as they made their way through the hallway toward the great hall to grab dinner.

“I was expecting you to explode, call the bitch a liar, maybe stick the sword of Gryffindor through the roof of her mouth,” Ron said before pausing, “OK, maybe that last bit was wishful thinking.”

“It’s probably in Dumbledore’s office, so yeah, wishful thinking.”

‘We could probably fly up and crawl through the window, I need to check on how wards react-’ Hermione’s mental plans were cut off as Ron cut in cheerfully, “Enough about that, let’s go eat.”