Time for a Change: Collecting Ingredients

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story. Everything except the story idea itself belongs to JK Rowling.

Time for a Change
Chapter Two
By: Lori Finnegan
2006

Pansy had managed to avoid Hermione's Gryffindor friends so far that day, but as it was nearing bedtime, she was forced to retire to the Gryffindor Common Room. She hoped, as she told the password to the Big Fat Lady in the painting, that she could sneak by everyone in the Common Room and quietly go to Hermione's room without anyone bothering her.

But that wasn't the case, unfortunately. The Gryffindor common room was packed with giggling Gryffindors. Pansy's stomach turned and the frown on her face deepened. Immediately, heads turned to the doorway to see who had entered, and she was greeted with a chorus of “Hey, Hermione!” to her displeasure.

She put on what she believed would be a good Hermione smile, and gave them a short wave. “Hi, everyone.”

“Hermione! Over here!”

Pansy turned to see Ron and Harry sitting in front of the fire place on a red rug. They were engaged in a game of chess. Ron had about twice the amount of discarded pieces than Harry did. Feeling incredibly unlucky, she walked up to them and tried to smile. “What's up?”

Harry looked up at her. “Nothing really. We were tired of doing homework so we took a break. How was your detention with Snape?”

“It wasn't so bad. We made the potion, and he gave us a C. It could have been worse.”

“Geez, Hermione,” Ron said. “You getting a C… I never thought I'd see the day.”

“Yeah, well, you did,” Pansy said, getting bored with this conversation already. “Hey, I'm kinda tired. I think I'm gonna turn in early tonight.” She took a step away from the chess board.

“Wait, Hermione,” Harry said. “We were gonna go to the Great Hall and get some ice cream in a little bit. You wanna go with us?”

“Naw,” she replied. “It's been a long day. I'm just going to turn in.”

“Suit yourself,” Ron shrugged. “We'll see you tomorrow for breakfast.”

Pansy tried her best to smile at him. “Sure thing! Goodnight!” And then she turned around, determined to get to Hermione's room before she had to stop and socialize with anyone else.

And she made it.

“Hey, Hermione,” said Lavender Brown, who sat on one of the five beds in the room surrounded by her homework. “How was detention with Snape?”

Did all Gryffindors find it necessary to chit chat about stupid things constantly? “It went fine,” she said. “I'm really tired, though. It's been a long day.”

“You're telling me,” Lavender agreed. “I haven't had this much homework since finals last year. It's taking me a while to get back into the swing of things.”

“Yeah,” Pansy said, trying to end the conversation. “Do you mind if I just go to bed? I have to get up pretty early in the morning and work on one of my homework assignments.”

“Oh, no, go ahead,” Lavender said. “Don't let me keep you. I'll be quiet here, just doing my homework, anyway. Good night!”

Pansy opened up Hermione's drawers and pulled out a nightgown. She quietly changed, slipping on the nightgown and then climbing into Hermione's bed. Even though it was early, and if she was in her own room she probably would wait a while to go to bed, she was sincerely exhausted. All of the planning and the stress of having to pretend she was someone else was enough to tire anyone.

She pulled the curtains around the bed, and then climbed beneath the covers. It only took a few minutes before she was out cold.

____________________________________________________________ .

Hermione, on the other hand, was up quite a bit later trying to explain the Transfiguration concept to Draco so that he could finish his essay.

“You see?” she said from the chair next to Draco's bed. “It's the property of the wood that makes it so difficult to change it into metal. If it were anything else, it would be a much simpler spell.”

Draco had his hand in his hair and his quill between his teeth as he stared down at his essay. He took the quill out and pressed it to the parchment. “I think I see what you're saying,” he said. “But even though it's more complicated, why does the spell have to be three times as long?”

“More complicated spells obviously have longer incantations, Draco,” Hermione explained. “It's common knowledge, so I don't think it's necessary for you to explain it in your essay.”

“Ah,” he said, but still looked slightly confused. “Let me try this out.” He picked up his wand and pointed it at his large wooden dresser. “Arbor actaeon lamina,” he said, flicking his wand.

Hermione watched as the dresser turned into a black wood with metal handles. “No, no, no,” she said, saying a simple spell and returning the wood to its original state. “You can't use such a short spell for such a complicated transfiguration! Didn't you read the text on this issue?”

Instead of getting upset, Draco grinned an evil grin. “Careful, Pans. You're starting to remind me of Granger.”

Hermione sat back down in her chair. It was far too early for anyone to get suspicious of the switch.

“Don't look so pale!” he exclaimed. “I was only kidding. No way would I actually think you were like that mudblood.”

Draco always had a way with words. He always knew exactly what to say to make Hermione feel like complete trash. “Never mind,” she said, trying to shake it off. “Just watch and learn.” She started out with the same spell Draco had said, but kept going for several sentences until flicking her wand at the precise moment, and that's when the dresser changed to a sleek silver metal, the handles also made of the exact same material.

“See,” she said as he gawked at the furniture. “You also have to get your timing right. It's a skill, let me tell you.”

“Turn it back, and let me try again,” he said as the initial shock wore off.

This went on for another hour until Draco could do the transfiguration on his own, and by this time, it was almost eleven o'clock. It didn't matter for Draco, because he could sleep in the next morning, but for Hermione, she had a lot of work ahead of her.

“I'm going to go to bed, Draco,” she said, when Draco had begun to confidently write his essay. “I've got a lot of homework of my own to do tomorrow.” And this wasn't a lie.

“Okay, thanks for helping, Pansy. Merlin knows I needed it.”

Hermione nodded to him. “No problem. Good night.” She picked up her things and exited the room. Tutoring Slytherins turned out to be quite similar to tutoring Gryffindors. Perhaps they weren't as different as she initially thought they were.

___________________________________________________________________

Harry Potter and his best friend Ron Weasley sat in the Gryffindor Common Room until nine o'clock in the morning waiting for Hermione to come out of her room so that the three of them could go to breakfast together. But they had been waiting for about an hour, and Ron was starting complain about starving to death, he was so hungry.

“Okay, fine,” Harry agreed, getting up from his place on the couch. “We'll go without her. I just hope for your sake she's not mad about it.”

“She won't be mad,” Ron said as he hopped up from his spot. “She understands how hungry I get.”

“Yeah, right,” Harry rolled his eyes.

Just as they were about to leave, several girls emerged from the girls dormitories, and the boys turned to look to see if Hermione was included among them.

She wasn't.

“Hey, Lavender,” Harry said, and all three girls turned to look at them. “Have you seen Hermione?”

“Oh, she's long gone,” Lavender informed. “She went to bed early last night and got up early this morning. She left the room at seven saying she was headed over to the library to study.”

Ron pushed the door open, and he and Harry stepped out into the hallways. “Figures,” he said. “Typical Hermione behavior if you ask me.”

__________________________________________________________

Hermione had sneaked into the Great Hall early that morning, grabbed some toast and an apple, and ate it on her way to the lake just to the south side of Hogwarts. She was looking for the egredior plant which was usually found in murky water. Hermione suspected that she may have to get dirty to retrieve the specimen.

She walked along the edge of the water until she came to an area that led off to a small pond that looked very murky and swamp like. She cleared away a spot in the grass and sat down, taking her book out of her bag and flipped it open to where she had it book marked. “Here we go,” she said, her finger pointing to the picture of the small curly leaf.

She knelt next to the water, and looked over into the murky mess. It was almost impossible to see anything. Taking a deep breath, she rolled up her sleeve and plunged her arm into the water. When she drew her arm back up and out, her hand held a mucky mess of leaves and mud.

“Ugh,” she groaned as she opened her hand and searched for the tiny leaf. “Here it is!” she exclaimed, plucking it out with her fingers. “Perhaps I won't be so unlucky after all!”

____________________________________________________________

Pansy was feeling incredibly hopeless. She had been up since six o'clock in the morning and had only found two items on her list by nine. This wouldn't seem so bad if she didn't have twelve more to find. That and she had been walking around the forbidden forest for almost an hour and hadn't found a nitor mushroom yet.

“These things just don't exist!” she said in frustration, kicking a nearby tree with the toe of her shoe.

“Well, you better git out of `ere young Hermione, or the werewolves'll be getting' ya.”

Pansy fought the urge to groan. She turned around to see Hagrid, along with his dog Fang, in the forest along the same path she had been on. She knew that Hermione and her stupid friends were `friends' with Hagrid or whatever, but right now she didn't have the patience for pretending.

“Um, hi, Hagrid. I'm just looking for something for a potion spell that we're doing in class next week. Snape says we have to get some of our own ingredients.” And only half of it was a lie.

“Why, that's strange,” Hagrid looked perplexed. “Since when is Snape sendin' `is students to the Forbidden Forest?”

“He didn't,” Pansy quickly covered. “But I couldn't find it on the regular grounds so I thought I'd give it a shot out here.”

Hagrid and Fang started coming closer to her, and she realized that he wasn't going to leave her alone. “You know, you shouldn't be out `ere all alone, Hermione.”

“I know,” she played along. “But it's daytime, and I was staying close to the edge of the forest, so I didn't think it would be so dangerous.”

“It's dangerous at all times of the day,” Hagrid informed her. “So you best be gettin' on your way, I tell ya.”

Pansy sighed. “Okay, I'll go look over by the lake some more, I guess.” She hiked her backpack over her shoulder and walked past Hagrid and back to the beaten path. “See you later, Hagrid.”

`Geez,' she thought as she walked back to the opening that led back to Hogwarts. `It's so not easy to avoid people when I look like Hermione.'

__________________________________________________________________

Harry and Ron had spent the entire morning lounging around the Gryffindor Common room going back and forth between homework and breaking for board games, when they realized that Hermione had never come back from her study session at the library.

“It's almost lunch,” Ron said, looking up at the grand clock above the door. “She must have some really horrible Arithmancy report to write or something like that.”

“Probably,” Harry agreed, but he still worried. He had noticed that Hermione had been a little withdrawn since her potions disaster yesterday. “I think I'm gonna go check on her. You stay here and finish your assignment. Then we'll start on the next one when I get back.”

Ron nodded, not seeming concerned, and Harry got up from his spot on the floor. He left the common room and made his way down to the library. When he went inside, he couldn't find Hermione anywhere. After leaving the library, he decided to check the Great Hall to see if she had decided to go to lunch on her own.

He walked through the main doorway, and spotted her eating alone at the Gryffindor table. She didn't even notice him until he sat down in the seat across the table from her.

“Harry,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Ron and I were just wondering where you had run off to all morning. You usually sit and do homework with us for a while on the weekends, so I was just making sure everything was all right.”

“Oh,” Hermione said. “I've just got a load of homework, and I needed a lot of concentration so that I could finish it all today.”

Harry smiled. He knew that at times that he and Ron could be distracting to Hermione's usual study habits. “It's okay,” he said.

There was something strange about Hermione, Harry noticed. It was almost like she seemed absorbed in something. Like she had nothing to say to him, like she usually did. He watched her sitting there, twirling her fork in her noodles and looking down at her text book. He wondered if something was going on that she wasn't telling him about.

Harry stood up from the table. “I'll go get Ron and tell him we're eating now. See you in a few.” And he was off before she had a chance to reply.

Pansy sat there at the table, watching Harry Potter rush back out of the Great Hall doors and she rolled her eyes. It was impossible to escape from those two! No matter where she went, or what she tried to do, they always caught up with her.

Luckily, she had found her mushroom along the lake shore, and several other ingredients. In fact, she only had three left to find before her search was over. She only wished Hermione was having the same amount of luck that she had been having. That way they could boil the potion tonight and be well on their way to changing back to their normal selves.

Unfortunately, for now, she was going to have to eat lunch with Harry and Ron.

Hermione had gotten her lunch from the basement of the Great Hall, and taken it back to the Slytherin common room. She was beginning to find the room as a nice, quiet place to relax, unlike the rowdy bunch of Gryffindors she usually hung around with in their common room.

At noon on that Saturday, she was the only one there. She suspected that most of the Slytherins were locked away in their rooms or eating at the Great Hall. It didn't matter though. All that she wanted was a few minutes to sit in silence and think things through.

Just as she had gotten comfortable on a leather couch with a good book, the dungeon door creaked open and Draco's white-blond head appeared.

So much for silence.

“Hey, Pans,” he said, taking a bite of the pink cupcake that he held in his hand and flopping down next to her on the couch. “Why weren't you at lunch? I went early and got first pick of desserts. There's still an hour left, if you want to go.”

“I picked something up earlier,” Hermione said as she looked back down at her book, trying to give him the hint that she wanted to read. “Don't worry about me.”

She could hear his fingers tapping on the back of the couch.

“Hey,” he said, “Did you get your homework done this morning?”

“Mostly,” she said. Actually, she had found almost all of her ingredients for their potion, and only had two more to look for that afternoon. “I'm just taking a break and resting my brain before I have to get back at it.”

Draco wrinkled his nose. “And you're doing this by… reading?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed lowering her book slightly so that she could look at him. “Haven't you ever relaxed with a good book?”

Draco looked away from her. “Can't say I have, actually…”

“Oh. Well, you should try it sometime,” she suggested. “It really does calm the nerves.”

“Oh.”

When he was quiet, Hermione began reading again, and the two of them sat there on the couch in silence.

He nudged her leg. “Hey, are you seriously just gonna sit there and read like that?”

“Why wouldn't I?” Hermione wanted to know, lowering her book once more to look at him.

“You're just more quiet than usual, that's all,” Draco said. He looked away again.

Hermione had never seen this side of Draco before. Since she had changed places with Pansy, he had been nothing but nice to her. Well, except for the part about calling her actual self names. But he really did treat Pansy with respect. Before yesterday, Hermione would have doubted that he even had it in him at all.

“You're usually telling me about some guy, or where you're going out at night, and what went on with this or that…” he went on. “Lately, you've just been doing your homework and not saying much of anything.”

Hermione had to stop herself from gaping at him. Well, for one, she didn't realize that Pansy was… that outgoing. And she also didn't realize just how much Draco seemed to care about someone other than himself. “I've just had a lot of homework lately, that's all,” she said, trying to spare his feelings.

It was quiet for a while until Draco got up from his seat and sat down on the edge of the coffee table and closer to Hermione. “Are you going to Hogsmeade tomorrow?” he asked.

Oh, crap. With everything that had been going on lately, Hermione had completely forgotten that tomorrow was the first trip to Hogsmeade for the year. She tried not to look like she had forgotten about it. “If I can get my homework done,” she said.

“What's with you?” Draco wanted to know. “I've never once known you to miss a Hogsmeade trip.”

“I just have a ton of homework this weekend,” Hermione explained. “I'll probably go though. Don't worry.”

“Okay,” Draco said, but when Hermione looked at him, he looked bummed… like he had been looking forward to this for a long time or something.

“Hey,” she said, wondering if he had always been like this or if it was something new. “I'll go start my homework right now so that we can go, okay?”

Draco smiled. “Yeah, sure. I'm gonna go get a head start on mine, too. I finished that essay last night, by the way. Now I just have to work on Arithmancy problems.”

Hermione closed her book over her bookmark and stood up from the couch. “Good job. I'll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yep,” he said, watching as she walked away from him. “See you.”

__________________________________________________________________

Pansy was stuck eating lunch with Harry and Ron in the Great Hall. They were boring her with their Quidditch talk, and she realized that she sort of missed hanging out with Draco. Sure, he talked about Quidditch every now and then, but it wasn't this obsessive sort of talk that Harry and Ron were currently doing.

She sighed, and they both stopped talking to look at her.

“Something wrong, Hermione?” Ron wanted to know.

“I'm just tired,” she lied. She had slept like a log last night.

“Oh,” Ron said, and Pansy caught him exchanging a knowing look with Harry. They were probably wondering why their precious Hermione was suddenly uninterested and everything they had to say. Oh, well. This only had to go on for a few days and then everything would be back to normal.

She only wondered how Hermione was doing pretending to be a Slytherin. Draco was pretty sharp, and she wondered if he noticed anything was different about the Pansy he was used to.

It was suddenly really quiet. Pansy had finished her meal about fifteen minutes ago while Harry and Ron continued to eat. They were now on dessert and would probably go for seconds like most boys did. She occupied herself by staring at her last three potion ingredients to find, wondering where in the hell she was going to find them. She had saved the hardest ones for last.

“I'm going to head to the library,” she announced, picking up her things and giving them a small smile and wave. “I'll see you guys later, okay?”

______________________________________________________________

Harry and Ron stared at her as she rushed out of the Great Hall.

“Something's strange about Hermione,” Harry said as Ron put another forkful of apple pie into his mouth. “I can't really put my finger on it exactly, but something is definitely strange.”

“I don't see what you mean,” Ron said, his mouth full. “She's always at the library, studying and doing her homework and all of those other things she does to make sure she's the most studious person here. How is she acting any different?”

“It's not what she's doing that's strange,” Harry contemplated while Ron took yet another bite of his apple pie. “I don't know… it's just… when I look at her eyes, there's something different. I wonder if she's keeping something from us.”

Ron shrugged. “I don't know what you're talking about, mate.”

“Never mind,” Harry sighed, going back to his own slice of pie. “Forget I said anything.”

________________________________________________________________

After leaving the Great Hall, Pansy was rushing down the hallway so quickly, that she didn't even see someone else walk around the corner and completely knocked right into him.

“Watch where you're going!” she snapped, bending over to pick up her things that had fallen.

“Well, well, well,” said Draco Malfoy. “If it isn't Granger rushing to get to the library. That is where you're going, isn't it?”

Pansy rolled her eyes. Draco could get a tad annoying at times, but this is ridiculous. “Whatever,” she said. “I'm in a hurry.”

He frowned. “What right do you have to take that tone with me?”

“You're not the king of this castle,” Pansy told him. “Step aside.”

“I most certainly will not.”

“I said, step aside, or I'll make my own way by.”

Draco grinned. “I'd like to see you try.”

Pansy shoved past him and kept on walking. So maybe it wasn't so easy to be Hermione. And Draco was sure an asshole to her. She'd have to have a little talk to him about that later on.

That afternoon, Hermione worked furiously on all of her homework assignments so that she could deliver them to Pansy to turn in on Monday. The news of the Hogsmeade trip made her day much tighter than she had originally planned. And when she had finished, it was already six o'clock in the evening, she hadn't had anything for dinner, and she still had two potion ingredients to find.

Shoving her books into her bag, Hermione slung it over her shoulder and left Pansy's dormitory. She was happy to find the Slytherin common room empty once again, and exited without being stopped by anyone.

Her last two ingredients shouldn't have been too difficult to find, but Hermione did not like leaving things till the last minute. The first thing she would go look for was the hair off of a bowtruckle, which she knew Hagrid kept locked up somewhere near his hut.

It was still light outside as she pushed open heavy doors and stepped out onto the grass, and she was grateful for that. She only hoped she could find the hair quickly so that she could get going on her next ingredient.

She approached Hagrid's small hut, and at the last minute, decided not to make him aware of her presence. After all, to him, she was Pansy Parkinson, and no matter how much explaining Hermione would have tried to do without telling him the truth, she doubted he would let her into the shed where he kept his creatures, including the bowtruckle. So she carefully crept around the hut, staying low and trying not to step on any dry leaves. She reached the shed and looked behind her, to make sure she wasn't being watched.

She was still alone.

She opened the door to the shed and moved to the back; to where Hagrid had shown them the bowtruckle earlier that week. In cages and stalls all around her, the creatures were mostly lying down or sleeping, but every once in a while she caught a glint of eyes watching her every move.

In the last cage, there were two bowtruckles sticking their long fingers out at her through the holes.

“I just need a hair,” Hermione whispered to them. “Can one of you give me a hair?”

The bowtruckles chirped at her, trying to reach out to grab her hair.

“No, not my hair,” she said. “Your hair!”

One of the bowtruckles held out two pinched fingers with a strand of hair between them. Hermione carefully took it while the other bowtruckle chirped at her.

“Thank you very much,” she said, depositing the hair in a little bottle that she held in her other hand. “I really appreciate your kindness.”

“Miss Pansy? Is that you over there?”

Hermione spun around on her heels and shoved the little bottle into her pocket at the same time. It would only be her luck that Hagrid would happen to enter the shack at the exact time that she was there getting he ingredient.

“Hi, Hagrid,” she said, giving a little wave. “I was just looking at the bowtruckles for the assignment that's due next week. I wanted to get a little better feel for them.”

“Didn't I show ya enough in class?” Hagrid stood at the doorway. “I thought I gave a long display of the creatures for all a you.”

“And you did,” Hermione agreed. “I just really had a fascination, that's all.”

“Well, that's understandin', Miss Pansy, but ya shouldn't be hangin' out in here wit' all these creatures yerself. It could be dangerous fer ya.”

“I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise.” Hermione walked toward the exit and moved past Hagrid. “See you in class on Monday!” And she ran off.
_____________________________________________________________

Pansy had one item left to find, and according to the books in the library, the only place it could be found was at the bottom of the lake. She'd probably get eaten by the Giant Squid or something with her luck.

At the current moment, she sat on a bench next to the lake thinking about how to go about getting her last ingredient.

“Hey there, Hermione.”

Pansy jumped as someone in a scuba type suit emerged from the water. He pulled off his snorkel and revealed himself to be Neville Longbottom.

“Neville…” she said, staring at him as though he were crazy. “What are you doing in the water?”

Neville held out a bag filled with different types of seaweed. “Just collecting a few plants for Herbology next week. I'm doing an extra credit project for Professor Sprout on rare water plants found in England.”

“Oh,” she said, but then looked closer into his bag and saw something she hadn't been expecting to see. It was exactly what she had been looking for, the leaf of the ervum sea plant, and the one item she had left in her search.

“Oh, Neville!” she exclaimed, grabbing his scuba suit and pulling him closer to her. “You've gotta help me out. You've just gotta!”

“Hermione!” Neville exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock. “Of course! Anything you want!”

“Can I just have a small piece of that ervum leaf? I'll owe you big time!”

“Sure! Take it all if you'd like!”

Pansy let go of his suit and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, Neville!” she gave him a brilliant smile as he held out his bag, sparkly eyed, and she plucked on leaf up from the bunch. “All I need as one leaf. Thanks so much, Neville, you're a dear.”

And she gave his wet cheek a quick kiss before running back to the castle as fast as she could. It was almost eight o'clock and Hermione would be waiting for her.

Harry Potter was lounging on his bed with the latest copy of his favorite Quiddich magazine, when the door burst open and both he and Ron looked up to see who was there.

“You won't believe it,” a wet haired Neville said, breathing heavily. “I just ran all the way up here from the lake, and let me tell you, Hermione is acting weird!”

Both Harry and Ron perked up at the mention of Hermione's name.

“What are you talking about?” Ron demanded, sitting up straight on his bed, his legs hanging over the edge.

“I was swimming in the lake looking for rare plants for a Herbology project, and I came up to the surface, and Hermione was sitting on the bench. She begged me for a leaf from one of the plants and then gave me a kiss on the cheek!” Neville exclaimed, looking dreamily upwards as if he were imagining the scene in his head.

Harry looked over at Ron, and then back at Neville. “She kissed you on the cheek?” he wanted clarification. “Why?!”

“Apparently she really wanted my ervum leaves!” Neville exclaimed, his face red.

Harry and Ron were silent, contemplating this change of events.

“But what was even weirder,” Neville went on, “Was that she grabbed me, and pulled me close… and then was like all, `pretty please, Neville?'” He made a kissy face.

“Yeah right!” Ron exclaimed, jumping. “She did not!”

“She did!” Neville insisted. “Well, okay, so maybe she didn't say pretty please, and maybe she didn't make a kissy face, but she was majorly begging! Like her life depended on those leaves!”

Harry closed his Quiddich magazine and stood up. “I'm going to go see what's going on here,” he said, and without waiting for a response, he left the dormitories.