The Hogwarts Lonely Hearts Club

A Shield of Parchment

It hadn't been a good day for Hermione Granger, and she only had herself to blame.

At least, this is what she told herself as she stomped into the Great Hall for dinner that night. She hadn't known what she had been expecting, really, but now she saw how silly her best hopes had been. For to anticipate an immediate reply from Harry Potter seemed to Hermione like the stuff of nonsense, now that she thought about it. People didn't have much time for her in person so why would it be any different via letters?

It reminded Hermione of the fraught nature of 'friendships' and 'being liked', which is why she normally left such things to other people most of the time.

But she had got it into her head that Harry Potter would like her, that her first letter - which she had enjoyed writing very much - would prompt him to pen an instant reply. Indeed, she half-expected to have a letter in her hand by the end of the morning break period, or by lunch time at least. She was that keen for Harry to talk back to her that she convinced herself that this was his sentiment too.

So her mood at being letter-less by the end of the day's classes was quite a sour one. And sour would soon become grumpy, which would give way to feeling sorry for herself, as she considered all the circumstances in what she hoped was a rational manner, but was probably done in a bitterness of spirit, through no fault of Harry's own.

At first, Hermione told herself that Harry might not have had time to read the letter yet, or maybe that he hadn't been able to finish it. She'd written quite a bit more than she'd intended, after all. But as the day wore on, this sensible idea was replaced by the scathing notion that he didn't want to read it. That maybe he'd been offended by her use of his owl, or some other equally preposterous reason, and had changed his mind about being her penpal entirely.

Which is what made Hermione's mood a grumpy one for the middle of the day. She snapped at Lavender Brown for going on about that stupid Ball that might not even be happening during Herbology, then tried to confiscate a pack of Exploding Snap cards from a couple of Second-Years because they were exploding too loudly, before topping it off by nearly getting maimed in Care of Magical Creatures, as she was too distracted to have the patience to bow properly to a hippogriff, who then proceeded to try and stomp on her head.

And the icing on the cake was that she'd only earned ten House points all day, which was a record low for her and the stupidity of the reason rankled with her sensibilities. It wasn't helped when she saw a significant jump in the increase of gems in the Ravenclaw Hourglass, accompanied by a whisper that Harry Potter had been outstanding in a Defence Against the Dark Arts class, by conjuring a fully-corporeal Patronus, which not only accounted for the leap in Ravenclaw points but made Hermione cross and jealous, as that was a spell she couldn't do yet.

Harry Potter was being all sorts of irritating to Hermione today, whether he knew it or intended it or not.

When she caught herself thinking that, Hermione felt immediately guilty and chastised herself for being so silly. This was her fault, for suddenly expecting a sea-change in how someone might view her, without any real reason for the polar shift. And Harry couldn't be blamed, either. He was quiet, reserved, if he was going to reply to her letter he'd likely make it something more considered and cogent, unlike her multi-page ramble. To expect him to reply so quickly was dumb ... to expect him to reply at all wasn't much more sensible.

And so it was that Hermione slunk into dinner feeling very sorry for herself. After all her fanciful build-up, the reality was very much a let down, and Hermione rather thought that she should have expected that. She slid quietly into a seat on the Gryffindor bench and looked around the room. The other schools were dining with them this evening, and Hermione noticed the sullen face of Viktor Krum angled in her direction. She wished he wouldn't look at her, but he did tend to do that a lot.