Hogwarts Oneshots

Fighting For First Place (Hermione Granger)

HIYA! As per usual, constructive criticism is welcome and encouraged, alongside requests for characters and/or tropes.

This week's character is everyone's favourite smart girl, Hermione Granger. This time I'm going to use another OC (Alicia Mulligan).

Happy Reading!

----------------------------------------------------

"My name is Alicia Mulligan, and this is the story of how my life changed for the better. Our entire time at Hogwarts, Hermione and I had been fighting for top marks in every class we had together. It started part-way through our first year, when I was the first to cast the severing charm (diffindo) and she didn't talk to me for weeks. I guess it was a friendly rivalry. Oh! That's her calling me now. I best go, or she'll have my head. I'll leave you in the hands of the writer now. Bye!"

-----------------(4th year)-----------------

"Hey Granger!" Alicia yelled across the crowded hallway. "I'm so gonna cast the banishing charm first!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "In your dreams, Mulligan."

Alicia grinned and ran to catch up with her best-friends, Mandy Brocklehurst and Isobel MacDougal. "For crying out loud, just tell her you like her already," Isobel said, shaking her head.

Alicia choked on the breath she was taking. "Sorry, what?"

"You heard me. Tell her you like her already."

"I don't like her. She's a stuck-up know-it-all who thinks she's better than everyone else. How could you think I like her? Preposterous." Alicia rolled her eyes, but it was stuck in her mind all day. In charms she failed to cast the banishing charm, and in potions her Pepperup Potion would've exploded had Mandy not been there. Of course, reader, you understand what happened to Alicia. She was slowly realising that her friends had a point. Those butterflies in her stomach whenever Hermione spoke weren't anything to do with their rivalry, but how smoothly the Granger girl spoke, with as much confidence as the professors. It was how her brown curls tumbled down her back. It was those chocolate brown eyes in which she lost herself any time she looked.

A few hours later, Alicia was sat in her dorm staring at an open book. On the pages, the words had managed to morph into an image of Hermione Granger.

Mandy looked over at her friend, slightly worried, and took off her headphones. "Alicia? Are you alright?"

Alicia looked up with a start. "Huh?" She realised what had been said. "Oh, uh, yeah. Why?"

"You've been staring at the same page for an hour. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Mandy, I'm fine. I'm just a little distracted, that's all."

"What's up? Maybe I can help?" Mandy suggested.

"It's just..." Alicia sighed, and Mandy nodded in anticipation. "It's just, I can't stop thinking about what Isobel said earlier."

"Was it the grades thing? I can talk to her about it?"

Alicia shook her head. "No. The thing she said on the way to charms. 'Tell her you like her already.' I've been thinking about it all day, and it's bothered me that much that the words on the page aren't in rows anymore; they've morphed to form her picture."

Mandy's mouth fell open. Their room-mate, Padma, walked over. "Did I hear that right? Alicia Mulligan, the smartest person in Ravenclaw, is in love with her rival - Hermione Granger, the smartest person in Gryffindor? Oh, Rowena, I need to tell Parvarti and Lavender!"