Life at Hogwarts settled into something much more comfortable for Hermione than the first couple of months had suggested her magical education was going to be.
Every lesson she was learning something new, something exciting. She consistently mastered spells and potions and knowledge faster than everyone else in her year, but, with Harry's presence beside her, had learnt to hold her tongue, at least a little bit, when it came to sharing that knowledge with her classmates.
Harry's rescue of her from the troll after that disastrous charms lesson had caused, if not a proper friendship, then at least a mellowing and politeness with her fellow Gryffindors. Lavender and Pavarti included her in the occasional conversation at night in their dorm room. And while she could tell that Ron still didn't think that much of her, he at least managed to keep his thoughts to himself.
Everything change, every small difference, now meant that her time at Hogwarts was enjoyable rather than the torture that it was threatening to become, was down to Harry.
He was her constant companion. He was there beside her in every class and at every meal. They walked from one class to the next side by side and, though she was the one doing most of the talking, they talked all of the time. Not that Harry really ever said anything about life before Hogwarts, but Hermione held out hope that that'd change in time.
She'd been hoping that he'd become her homework and study partner too, but that hadn't happened yet. Thinking about it, she wasn't sure where he was doing his homework. It wasn't the library or the common room. She would have suspected his dorm room, except that Neville was adamant that Harry only turned up there just before curfew, and that was only to go straight to bed.
Harry's disappearances were the one big mystery that plagued her thoughts as the weeks progressed steadily towards Christmas. As soon as the last class for the day was finished, he'd rush off and disappear for the rest of the night. Occasionally, he'd reappear for dinner, before once more vanishing. Every time he did, her frown grew steadily deeper.
She'd tried following him to see where he disappeared to, but not once had she ever been able to discover his secret.
She knew that it all came down to his innate shyness. He absolutely abhorred being stared at. Every time that he noticed someone staring or pointing, he'd scowl, try to flatten his hair over his scar and shrink within himself while increasing his pace to get out of sight as fast as possible.
Unfortunately for Harry, while his fame as the Boy-Who-Lived had faded somewhat within the walls of Hogwarts, he'd managed to make himself even more famous in his short stay in the castle. But then, battling and defeating a twelve foot mountain troll and becoming the youngest Seeker in a century (and an amazing one at that), would tend to do that.
All that aside, there was one more thing that Harry had done that was even more momentous, at least in Hermione's eyes. He'd become her friend. Her best friend. Her first friend ever. And she cherished him for it.
She tried to not boss him around or tell him what to do like she had done with all of the other kids who'd she'd tried to befriend in her schools before Hogwarts. Honestly, she did. But this hiding himself away was starting to become too much.
Before the Christmas holidays started, she vowed to find out where he was going. She knew that it wasn't healthy to be constantly hiding away – and with how much she had hidden away behind books over the years, she knew exactly what she was talking about. No, as far as Hermione was concerned, he needed to be with people to get over his fears and, as his friend, she was going to help him do it.
Besides, she really wanted a study partner.
-oOoOo-
"Righto, chaps, put your trowels in the corner and any leftover dragon dung back on the heap. First lesson back after the break, I want a three foot essay on the different types of fertilisers useful for growing common household plants and the merits and disadvantages or using each one," Professor Sprout instructed as she tugged off her thick dragon-hide gardening gloves.
Eyeing her partner, Hermione darted off to follow the Herbology teacher's instructions. Ordinarily, she'd write the essay requirements in her diary, but with only two days left of the term, she just didn't have time. She'd just have to rely on memorising Professor Sprout's instructions for now.
As expected, Harry left Greenhouse One before she'd even made it back to the table to collect her books and bag. This time, though, he didn't have as much a lead on her as usual.
With a rush that nearly knocked Ron into the pile of dragon dung near the door, Hermione raced out into the wintery grounds. A lone set of footprints in the snow marked Harry's passage back towards the castle and Hermione set off after him.
Seeing her quarry taking the steps to the side door two at a time, she lengthened her stride, only to stop dead just inside the door. Once again, he'd disappeared. The corridor in front of her was empty. But this wasn't she first time that she'd followed him.
With her bag bouncing awkwardly at her side, Hermione raced through the corridors that she'd seen Harry take on every other occasion.
As she burst out of the side corridor, she peered across the crowded hall and up the stairs that led to Gryffindor Tower. Each black cloaked figure was quickly assessed and discarded when they were all discovered to be missing a shock of messy black hair.
Knowing that there was no way that he would have been able to climb the stairs and disappear before she'd exited the corridor, she turned her attention to the crowd in front of her.
A mass of black cloaks swirled in front of her. She searched through them all, quickly discounting and ignoring the blue edged cloaks and the handful of yellow and green trimmed ones in favour of the red-trimmed Gryffindors.
Her eyes darted backwards and forwards and then, in a sudden break in the crowd, she spied a small, lone figure standing at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him watching the crowd. His head swivelled to either side as he took a slow step away from the stairs and closer to the wall behind him.
A sudden flurry of movement hid Harry from her for no more than a couple of second, but it was enough.
A soft huff of annoyance escaped her as she realised that in those precious few seconds, Harry had once again disappeared. She darted her eyes up the stairs, but he wasn't there. Rising up on tip-toes, she once more scanned the hallway, but he was nowhere to be found.
There were no classrooms nearby. No doors of any description at all that he could have disappeared into.
Fixing her eyes on the last place that she'd seen him, Hermione marched straight across the hall to stand at the foot of the stairs. She turned around and tried to mimic the last movements that she'd seen him make.
He'd been moving this way, she remembered, as she copied the steps that he'd been making towards the wall.
Looking around, she frowned once more. The only object of interest anywhere nearby was a suit of armour standing in the middle of a tiny alcove just to the side of the stairs. Hermione stared at it, her teeth beginning to chew on her bottom lip as she thought.
Glancing around at the thinning crowd behind her, Hermione did the only thing that made any sort of sense to her – she ducked in behind the statue. And gasped. There, in the gloom from the shadow cast by the stairs, was a tiny door.
A lop-sided grin broke out on Hermione's face.
-oOoOo-
Dumping his bag, Harry plonked himself down on the coil of rope that had become his seat any time that he came down to his cupboard. With a soft sigh, he pulled the small wooden bench that he used as a desk closer, using one hand to prevent the spare quill and ink bottle that he kept on it from rolling off.
With practised movement, Harry pulled the parchment that he used to note all of his homework on and wrote down the latest assignment from Professor Sprout, along with the date that it was due.
A sudden burst of light shot his head up and he blinked rapidly at the silhouette standing in the doorway.
"So this is where you're always disappearing off to," Hermione's voice stated.
"H...Hermione?"
He watched slack-jawed as she strode in, closed the door behind her and looked around her. After a moment's inspection, she grabbed an upturned bucket, frowned at it, dragged it over closer to where he was sitting, before promptly plonking down and locking her eyes on him.
"Hermione?" he tried again through a mouth suddenly gone bone dry.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Um, what are you doing here?" he asked the first thought that popped in his head.
"I wanted to find out where you're always going. So, I followed you," she replied happily.
Harry continued to stare at her as she looked around the tiny cupboard.
It was only a couple of metres long and about half that wide. For now, it was tall enough to stand in, but Harry knew that it wouldn't take much growing before he'd need to stoop if he tried to stand up. Apart from the coil of rope, stool, bucket and a small box, currently filled with rolls of parchment, the cupboard was bare. A single torch that Harry'd appropriated from an unused classroom provided the only light.
"It's a bit ... dim and dusty in here, isn't it?" Hermione asked.
He shrugged, not sure what to say.
Idly, he wondered if simply ignoring her would make her go away. This was his special place. His place to escape to and to be alone in. He'd never considered sharing it with anyone. But then, a cupboard was the one place that no one ever wanted. That's why he'd been given one all those years ago.
The silence stretched and Harry, starting to feel even more uncomfortable, began fiddling with his bag. He had homework to do. Maybe, he thought, if he simply got to work, she'd take the hint? Unfortunately, he knew that there was no chance of that happening.
"Why here, Harry? Why do you hide out in here?" Hermione suddenly asked.
Knowing that she'd only keep asking if he didn't answer quickly enough, Harry sighed, looked up at her and promptly dropped his eyes.
"It feels ... comfortable, familiar," he said quietly.
Peeking up through his eyelashes, he saw Hermione's eyes widen and then narrow.
"What does that mean, Harry? How could this feel familiar?"
"I used to have a place ... like this ... at ... home," he said quietly. "No one really ever bothered me when I was in there."
Hoping that that was enough to answer her somewhat awkward question, he decided to try distracting her. Delving into his bag, he took out his half-finished transfiguration homework, rummaged through the box of scrolls until he found the correct one and set them both up on his 'desk'.
Flicking his eyes backwards and forwards between the two parchments, Harry tried to settle his mind on where he was up to.
"Is that your transfiguration homework?" Hermione asked. "I finished mine last night. But why do you have two? You're not cheating are you, Harry?"
Harry skittered backwards until his back was flush against the wall at the force of her high-pitched accusation.
"Of course not, Hermione, this is how I always do my homework!" he desperately tried to defend himself.
Two quick hands flicked the parchments off of his desk into her hands. Harry watched as her eyes darted backwards and forwards across the two essays, comparing them both.
"Both of these are in your handwriting, aren't they?" Hermione asked slowly, peering at him curiously. "But this one," here she flourished the already completed homework, "is good. I mean, really good, Harry. Why are you doing it again?" And here she looked back at the half-finished parchment, eyes narrowed once more. "And this time worse? You'd be lucky to get a pass if you handed this one in."
Inwardly, Harry smiled to himself.
"That's how I always do my homework," he told her without thinking.
Once again, Hermione looked down at the two parchments in her hands.
"Which one were you going to hand in?" she asked suspiciously.
"Um," Harry began, not sure what to say.
"You weren't going to ... You were, weren't you?" and this time she looked horrified.
Suddenly, she threw the two pieces of parchment down and reached into the box. Fishing out one at random, she opened it, darted her eyes across it, scowled at him and grabbed another. By the time that she'd seen half a dozen, Harry knew that he was in trouble.
"Charms. Potions. Herbology. Every subject's in here. All the homework we've had so far this year. Done perfectly," she spluttered. Then, in as anguished a voice as he'd ever heard her use, she pleaded with him, "why?"
Dropping his head, Harry knew there was no getting out of this. Hermione was his ... friend. He'd never had one before. He loved having someone who wanted to be around him, who wanted to sit next to him in class and at lunch, who was happy to know him and to talk to him. There was no Dudley here to chase her away. And as much as he wanted to push her away, to keep his secrets, he knew that he couldn't lie to her. Not about this.
"It's just how I've always done my homework ... even back in the muggle world," he tried to explain. "It was always just ... better ... at ... home if I made sure that my cousin Dudley got better marks than me."
Harry watched Hermione's mouth open and close as though there were too many thoughts running far too quickly through her head for any one of them to have a chance to escape out of her mouth.
"So you deliberately get worse marks than you could?" she finally asked.
Harry nodded.
"But your cousin's not here," she pointed out.
"Won't make any difference," Harry shrugged. "My Aunt and Uncle will still compare our report cards and expect Dudley's to be better than mine, no matter what the subjects are."
"But that's ..."
Whatever it was, Harry never found out. Hermione suddenly snapped her mouth shut, snatched up the two transfiguration scrolls, grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him to his feet.
"Come with me," she ordered.
The fierce expression on her face instantly destroyed any thought that he might have had about disobeying.
A