An Unbreakable Vow ~ Harry Potter

xii - in which hermione grows a beard

The first Hogsmeade trip was on the horizon. Valerie busied herself with untangling the knots in her long hair, wincing as she pulled the brush back through the offensive strands. Also, may I add, with no shortages of grunts and sounds.

"What's the ruckus?" Hermione questioned, making a face when she walked in on Valerie brushing through a knot with a squinty face.

"This — stupid — knot — won't —" Valerie grunted, finally throwing the brush on the floor, just short of Hermione's foot.

Hermione yelped and jumped out of the way. "Well, keep it in here, okay? I don't want you bruising my foot."

Valerie grinned sheepishly, holding her hands up in surrender. "I'm done now, don't worry. Don't leave without me, too! Last time I had to walk with Ginny and Neville."

Hermione just shook her head and kept the door open for Valerie. Valerie picked up the brush and carefully set it on the counter, running behind Hermione. She picked out a light sweater and pants, finally throwing her Gryffindor robes on top for the finishing touch. She made sure to snugly tuck her locket into her shirt and called out, "Wait for me, Mione!"

Valerie rubbed her arms to stay a little warmer. It was colder than she had expected. Fred and George were running ahead of them, whooping and hollering about Zonko's Joke shop ("I just know that he'll love our new product!"), and Hermione was trudging next to her. Ron and Harry had run ahead, talking about Quidditch. Hermione had shot Valerie a look and they both shrugged.

"So...?" Valerie started, her feet crunching in the leaves strewn over the stone walkways. "I"m looking forward to going to Honeydukes. They said they came up with a new product. What was it called...?"

Hermione's eyes lit up, and she tapped her head as if looking in some internal store to find what she needed. "I remember! It was called the 'liquid rainbow'! They developed it to simulate the feeling of whatever you love when you eat it. It even shows you a snippet of your favourite thing while you eat it! It consists of a mini chocolate broomstick filled with rainbow creme. I read in the reviews that it was amazing!" Hermione was practically stumbling over her own words now. "I also wanted more fizzing whizbees. My parents asked me to send some, since they liked them so much last time. They're muggles, but..."

Valerie had spaced out, which she often did when Hermione started diving into her book knowledge. It's not that Valerie found her conversations with Hermione boring, it was that she simply didn't know when to stop talking. One weakness her friend had was that she could not pick up on social cues. Haven thought about Honeydukes. She loved the whimsical feel of walking into a place filled with magical candy.

She felt a little pang. Her father had apparently loved chocolate frogs, and Honeydukes had been the place where he had tried his first one.

Hermione nudged Valerie, snapping her out of her daydream. Valerie stumbled and tripped on a big tree root, shielding her fall with her hands and coming up with scraped wrists and hands. Hermione kneeled down next to her with a concerned face. "I'm so sorry! Did you get hurt?"

Valerie showed Hermione her scraped hands and watched as Hermione waved her wand quickly in front of them, making the cuts slowly disappear. "There you go," Hermione said. "I was probably boring you, wasn't I?" she sighed.

"Maybe a little," Valerie said with a bit of a guilty face, feeling her healed hands. "Where did you learn that?"

"Madame Pomfrey," Hermione responded, smiling. "I was curious about healing small injuries, and she taught me a little."

Valerie leaned on Hermione for support and slowly got up. They continued on towards Hogsmead, now so far behind that the rest of the class was a blur, and Professor Snape was grumbling something about "incompetence," "If you were my students," and such, and shooing them along.