Hermione’s Denial

Harry had a seat in the back of each classroom and the teachers seemed determined none of the students would sit near enough to bother him in it. Ron had even tried to pass Harry a note threatening bodily harm if he didn't remove his mark one day on the way into their Potions class.

Professor Snape had swooped down on it where it lay being ignored by Harry. He'd read it aloud and given Ron a detention for threatening another student. He'd then harassed Ron so badly Ron had walked out of the class with a weeks worth of detentions and Gryffindor one hundred points lighter. Needless to say there had been more grief to come when the rest of Gryffindor found out.

And every single classroom had enough seating that there was no reason for any student to need to sit next to him. Not even Professor Trelawney would let Ron sit next to Harry and she was a dingbat of a teacher. If they tried to follow him outside of classes, the other students got in the way or a teacher came by and gave them a detention for loitering. Or something. No word of explanation from them was ever listened to or believed.

And that only served to convince her more than ever the Wizarding World was outdated and needed to be revitalized before it imploded on itself. Because in her eyes it was only because of her blood status that no one would help her force Potter to do as she wished and remove his awful brand from her face.

She refused to understand she had done him wrong. Because Hermione Granger was never wrong. She never did anything bad or against the rules. She didn't deserve this treatment. And he was only getting away with it because she was a muggleborn.

Nor were either of the afflicted Weasely's much help. At this point in time, all Ginerva wanted to do was cry for her Mother while Ron wanted to rant and rave about the injustice of it all. Of course, due to the nature of the punishment, he couldn't actually get far in his ranting before he was left gasping for breath with a very swollen face.

But that was mainly because he had long ago worked all his lies about Harry into his rants so the runes would react when he got going. But Ron was like Hermione in that he refused to believe he had done anything wrong. He insisted that Harry had done him wrong by daring to mark him as he had. Because he was a pureblood and outranked Harry who was only a halfblood.

Sometimes Ginny would stop crying long enough to suggest she go seduce Potter into removing the brands. That would set off Ron again as there was no way he wanted to think about his pureblood sister seducing a pathetic half-blood. Bloody rich halfblood or not. Hermione would simply roll her eyes and send the redheaded girl a sneer because Hermione knew Ginny was still trying to trap Harry.

Snootily she'd tell her, "You can't marry him any more, Ginny. That door closed when he marked you and told the whole school you're his property. So even if you did succeed in seducing him, it'd do you no good. No one would make him marry you. All anyone would say is, he was taking advantage of his property rights."

That would set Ron off again and send Ginny into a fresh burst of tears. But it was also the truth and Hermione knew it. So did Ginny if she was honest with herself. Eventually the girl would get it through her head. But honestly Hermione was much more concerned with herself right now. One thing she knew for certain.

She could NOT return home to her parents with this rune on her face. They definitely wouldn't understand and unlike a majority of this world she knew her mother could read runes. It had been a pastime hobby for her in her college days. That meant her Mother would know exactly what her mark said and she would tell Hermione's dad. Both of them would be very angry with her.

But Hermione was a strong believer in right and wrong and in justice coming to those who deserved it and were willing to work for it. Especially when the wrong in question had been done to her person.

This meant spending hours researching just exactly what Harry had done to her and the siblings. Because there was no way she believed what Professor McGonagal had told them. Judgement magic didn't exist. There was Light magic and there was Dark magic. And what wasn't known as Light Magic therefore had to be Dark Magic.

So she spent hours haunting the Library stacks reading book after book and passage after passage trying to find information she'd already been given. And then more hours late at night in the tower working out just how exactly he had crossed the line and why it was up to her to see to it he didn't get away with his crime.

She firmly believed he had wronged her and, without any true parental figures in his life willing to teach him right from wrong, it was up to her to do so. And of course it went without saying that when she finally figured out what he'd done to her and got him to admit it, she'd need to punish him.

Because behavior like this couldn't go unpunished. No good parent allowed their responsibility to get away with doing obviously bad things. Not for a second did she stop to consider she wasn't Harry's parent or guardian and therefore had no right or responsibility for teaching him anything. She certainly didn't have the right to go around punishing him for things she believed he did wrong.

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