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Hermione hadn’t meant to sound quite so excited when she identified the cauldron of Amortentia in the first Potions lesson of the term.
“ — most powerful love potion in the world!”
It was, perhaps, simply the momentum carried over from her first two correct answers, and the fact that she’d barely taken a breath since the first time Professor Slughorn called on her.
But as her brain raced along and her mouth ran even faster, some part of her was also registering — now that she’d turned her full attention to the love potion — that it was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Reading about it could not have prepared her for just how lovely and… addictive it smelled.
“And the steam rising in characteristic spirals — ”
Wait, is it ‘characteristic’ spirals? Of course they’re characteristic, isn’t that the entire point? ‘Distinctive’ spirals? Isn’t that the same thing?
Hermione’s voice barely faltered as she charged past these thoughts, the information still flowing freely from the part of her brain that held facts at the ready.
‘Defined’ spirals. Damn it.
She shook this away and rattled off the rest of her answer with authority.
“ — And it’s supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and new parchment and — ”
What is that??
The thought crashed headlong into What are you doing?? and Hermione stopped abruptly, her cheeks warm, realising that everyone were staring at her as she prattled on inanely about her love for grass and parchment and…
What the hell IS that??
It was jarring in its familiarity, though she struggled to name it. It was on the tip of her tongue: something solid and reassuring and right. Her stomach fluttered, and she reckoned she might be coming down with something.
Disconcerted as she was, she almost missed Professor Slughorn asking her name, and she shrugged off the thought as she gave her reply. The assignment that followed left no room for distraction, as she concentrated every ounce of her being on this potion that seemed more difficult than any she’d ever brewed before. In the end she got it just about — almost exactly — right… but Harry’s was perfect .
In the fresh air outside the Potions classroom, and in the neat columns and rows of her full schedule, the Amortentia mystery was all but forgotten — for a few weeks, anyway.
The common room was nearly empty, late on a Thursday night. Harry and Ron had long since fallen asleep — the former on the floor, a cushion under his head and jumper over his face to block out the light, his stupid annotated Potions book locked firmly in his arms like a teddy — and the latter slouched on the sofa next to Hermione, Transfiguration book on his lap, head lolling to the side. Hermione found her own eyes starting to droop as she neared the conclusion of a Charms essay, and she shook herself awake when she caught herself drowsily scratching a line of ink across the parchment, before shooting an annoyed glance at her friends. Somewhere in the weirdest recesses of her mind, it occurred to her that perhaps their sleepiness was contagious.
It took a moment, after rolling up her essay, to realise that her bag was on the other side of Ron, squashed between his body and the arm of the sofa.
“Ron.” She shook his shoulder gently. “Hey. Get up.”
But he merely shrugged his shoulder and crossed his arms reflexively, eyes still closed, breathing deeply.
Hermione sighed and reached across him for her bag but found it hopelessly wedged between the git and the sofa, despite her best efforts to yank it out from underneath him. Somehow, none of this disrupted his slumber in the slightest, even when she planted her hand on his upper arm for leverage.
“Ron.” She jostled him again, wondering how it was possible for any person to sleep this deeply. “You’re on my bag. Come on, go to bed.”
“Mm-mmm,” protested Ron in his sleep, wrinkling his nose.
“For the love of — ” Arm still reaching across as she knelt next to him, Hermione raised her other hand and pinched his nose until he awoke with a snort, swatting the air in front of his face.
“What are you doing?” His disgruntled look soon gave way to a confused one.
“I need my bag, Sleeping Beauty.”
He pulled a face at the Muggle reference that made no sense to him, before dropping his gaze to his side. “Oh. Well, it makes a terrible pillow, just so you know. Ask nicely next time, why don’t you?”
She glared but he missed it as he yawned and ran a hand through his hair, shifting to extract the strap of her bag from underneath him. As he did, his head dipped towards her.
Hermione froze as the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.
It was dizzying in its familiarity, solid and reassuring and right — and incredibly inconvenient, not to mention impossible. She felt a twinge in her stomach and stared dazedly at the back of his head.
“Here you — What?” he demanded, facing her once again, nose inches from hers as she stoically accepted her bag. “Sorry, all right?”
Ron settled against the cushions again, eyes closed and arms crossed once more. Hermione sank back onto her heels on the sofa, still watching him, trying to determine what exactly was going on here and whether she might just be losing it due to the lateness of the hour.
After a few seconds of this, one blue eye flew open.
“Quit looking at me,” he complained in a thick voice.
“What are you, five years old?” she retorted, regaining some of her senses. “And you’re obviously finished studying, why don’t you go to bed?”
“Time is it?” He craned his neck to glance at the clock on the wall. “Oh my god, it’s after one? Harry.” Ron slid lower in his seat and reached out one long leg to kick Harry’s foot. “Harry, come on. Go to bed, mate.”
From underneath his jumper, Harry muttered something that sounded like, “ You go to bed.”
“Come on.” Another kick, though Ron himself didn’t seem in any hurry to get up.
“Carry me,” was Harry’s muffled response, prompting Ron to launch a pillow at his head.
When both boys finally headed for the stairs, Hermione assured them she was off to bed herself. But she held back, instead, waiting until their footsteps had faded away, before retrieving two books from her bag: Advanced Potion-Making and Potioneering for Pinheads .
(Hermione was certainly not a pinhead, but seeing as she could never seem to get any potion exactly right this year — despite following instructions to the letter — she wasn’t above seeking guidance from other sources. Published , reputable sources.)
She flipped open Advanced Potion-Making to the bit about Amortentia, perusing the information there for the third time (the first being when she’d read the book cover-to-cover that summer, and the second being part of their assigned reading after their first class).
Alas, the clarity she sought was not to be found there, for whilst the book stated that Amortentia smells differently to each person according to what attracts them, it didn’t elaborate on what exactly it meant by ‘attract.’
Logically, she assured herself, it couldn’t just mean… attraction . Not in that way. After all, she wasn’t romantically attracted to grass or parchment. She simply liked how they smelled. How they made her feel.
All this meant was that Ron smelled nice. Perhaps he just used lovely soap.
Well, bully for him.
She couldn’t say at what point she fell asleep, but she awoke with a start at half past two, sitting up on the sofa in the dimly lit common room, swatting at the hand that had just been pinching her nose. The fire was nothing more than smouldering logs, and everyone else had cleared out except for the lanky figure perched on the edge of the sofa next to her legs.
“You know you snore?” he said by way of greeting.
“I do not.”
“You really do. It’s awful. Wish you could hear it.”
She ignored this, rubbing the back of her neck. “What are you doing down here?”
Ron shrugged. “I knew you were going to fall asleep down here. And I was up anyway; Dean talking in his sleep again. Bully for who, by the way?”
“What?”
“You said something like, Bully for him, when I was trying to wake you.”
“Oh…” In the dim lighting Ron couldn’t have seen her flushed cheeks, but Hermione hid her face anyway behind a frizzy curtain of hair as she reached down to the floor for the books that had slid off the sofa sometime after she’d fallen asleep.
“I have no idea,” she supplied, placing the books on the table. “Must have been a weird dream — ”
Too late she remembered the titles of the books she’d been reading, and she splayed her hand over the cover of Potioneering for Pinheads, just as Ron did a double-take, squinting at the title from where he sat.
“You’ve got to be joking,” he said after a pregnant moment of silence, during which she’d swept the books into her bag. “Why do you need that book?”
“You know why,” she said tightly.
“No. I don’t. Your potions have all been fine.”
“They haven’t been fine .” Hermione crossed her arms and threw herself back against the sofa cushions. “They’ve all been a little off, even though I follow the instructions exactly . What else am I meant to do?”
“I don’t know, but I do know you could probably have written that book in Fourth Year— ”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
But she didn’t get up to leave; nor did he. Hermione felt his eyes on her as she sat there stewing, her legs tucked underneath her.
Ron sat back against the sofa arm at the far end, facing Hermione. For a pensive moment he simply sat there, arms crossed atop his knees, still but for the occasional arrhythmic tapping of his fingertips on his shirtsleeves.
“What’s Sleeping Beauty, anyway?” He misplaced the emphasis on ‘sleeping.’
It was so random, so unexpected, that Hermione forgot to be annoyed.
“Sleeping Beauty ,” she corrected. “It’s a fairy tale.”
When he stared blankly, Hermione added, “A children’s story. You know, make-believe.”
“About sleeping.”
“Well, it’s about a princess who’s cursed into a deep sleep and a prince saves her by kissing her.”
Ron cracked a smile. “Alright, you’re gonna have to explain how that one works.”
Hermione turned to face him more directly, sat cross-legged at her end of the sofa, and she felt herself smiling a little, too, as she obliged him with the story.
Ron was very clearly trying not to react or interject as he listened, though judging by his face this was a tall order. Finally, he could hold it in no longer.
“So basically, it’s like this Muggle took a Draught of Living Death, only there’s no antidote.”
“Sort of.”
“All because some witch wasn’t invited to a party.”
“Right.”
“And the witch could have pulled a You-Know-Who and just tried to kill the baby, only instead she decided to be dramatic about it with this curse.”
“Er… yeah.”
“And then this prince bloke comes along and sees this girl completely unconscious and is like, ‘How about I just snog her?’”
“Essentially.”
Ron chuckled. “That’s dodgy as shit, no?”
Hermione laughed, too. “Yeah, it is when you think about it.”
“Like I have so many questions. How did he even know this would work? And also, how did he even know he liked her?”
“ Loved her.”
“Yeah, okay, if you say so.”
“Well, it is called Sleeping Beauty .”
“That’s it? Didn’t know anything else about her? You’d think that’d be a little important.”
“This is quite sentimental of you,” she teased.
Ron grimaced cynically. “Nah, I just… I think I’d want to at least make sure this girl isn’t a looney before I decide to wake her up and marry her, right.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “That’s more like it.”
“I’m just…” Ron sniggered and then composed himself. “I’m trying to picture this fellow like, ‘Ah, yes, this is an excellent plan. I see absolutely nothing going wrong with this.’” He affected a deep, cocky sort of voice.
At that, they both broke into peals of laughter.
“Someone took his Liquid Luck that day, that’s what happened,” Ron concluded.
Perhaps it was simply the lack of sleep, but even in the midst of this familiar, easy jocularity, Hermione’s mood soured a bit at all this talk of princes and Liquid Luck. Ron must have seen it on her face, because he sat forward and studied her for a second before speaking. And when he did, it was in that soft, serious, and straightforward way that made her not want to lie to him.
“Alright, absolute truth: Are you still sore about Harry and that book?”
Sometimes when Ron spoke, it was ironic, or pugnacious. But sometimes, as now, it was solid, reassuring.
Still, Hermione wanted very much to not answer that question. She heaved a sigh.
“I just don’t think it’s very honest,” she evaded.
“Why, just because he’s using a different recipe to the rest of us? It’s not like any of us are reinventing the broom; we’re all following directions that someone’s worked out first.”
“But he’s got information not available to everyone else,” she argued.
“So? What if Snape one day was like, ‘Oi, Harry, in my experience, asphodel makes Wolfsbane Potion more… Wolfsbaney.’ And then Harry used that advice?”
Hermione laughed mirthlessly. “First of all, asphodel would make Wolfsbane less effective — ”
“Not the point.”
“And second, why on earth would Snape be giving Harry advice?”
“Fine. Bill’s good at potions. What if Bill gave me advice, different to the book, and I used it?”
“I think we should be learning how to do it the proper way. And then once you’ve mastered that, you can… get creative.”
Then, resenting Ron’s sceptical look, she turned it around on him: “And what about you, anyway? Absolute truth: You’re not at all annoyed that Harry has this sudden advantage?”
Ron sniffed, swiped his thumb across the tip of his nose, looked to the side, up, down, everywhere but at Hermione.
Finally, with a shrug, he settled on his own non-answer: “I probably shouldn’t even be in that class to begin with.”
“You’re just as qualified as everyone else there, you’ve got the OWL that says so.”
“Fine, but I literally don’t need to know how to make Amortentia or Draught of Living Death or… Most of these potions are dodgy as hell, they’re useless for us anyway.”
“It’s important to know the theory, though, and how to make different classes of potion.”
“All right,” he allowed, a grin creeping across his face again, “but I’m sure even you see the problem with a bunch of Sixth Years all in the same class trying to brew a potion that makes you randy.”
Hermione giggled in spite of herself. “It doesn’t — just being in the room with it doesn’t do that! You’d have to drink it. The scent is just… it’s there to interest you, something you feel like you want to be around. Like a carnivorous plant luring a bug.”
Ron whistled. “That’s quite dark, I’m not sure we’ve got enough time at the moment to unpack that comparison.” He looked at an imaginary watch on his bare wrist.
“Well, it isn’t exactly a nice potion, is it? It’s a horrible thing to do to someone. And it’s not as if it’s one of those silly things your brothers sell, that wear off after a few hours. Amortentia can be used to manipulate someone for years; it basically takes away your free will.”
“Yeah,” he said fairly. “I can’t say I see the appeal, honestly. Knowing someone’s only with you because they had no choice in the matter.” He looked down at his knees and clicked his tongue absently a few times. “Think anyone’s going to try to brew it outside class anyway?”
“Undoubtedly. We’d probably all do well to start watching our drinks.”
Ron chuckled. “I doubt I’ll have a problem. Though I do like the idea of weirdly carrying around a flask out of sheer paranoia like Mad-Eye.”
Hermione had a fit of giggles, and her attempts to repress it only made it worse.
“What?” prompted Ron.
“I’m just…” Hermione pressed her lips together to swallow her laughter. “I’m just imagining Mad-Eye having that thing because what he’s really trying to avoid are love potions. Very in-demand. Puts him in a whole new light.”
Ron’s shoulders shook with mirth. “Just hordes of girls after Mad-Eye. Constant vigilance!”
“You know, though, I imagine he could have been a catch when he was younger,” Hermione said fairly.
“Oh, come on.”
Hermione broke into a new bout of laughter at the look on Ron’s face.
“What? He won’t have always looked the way he does now,” she pointed out. “And he’s a brilliant Auror.”
Ron looked thoughtful, musing blithely, “You know, I always thought that eye of his was a bit pervy.”
“What??” Hermione practically snorted.
“Come on, you know. The thing can see through everything! Why’s that even necessary? He’s a bloody wizard, isn’t he.”
“Oh, my god…”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
Hermione couldn’t tell him he was wrong, because she was too busy wiping tears from her eyes. Her laughter set off Ron’s, which set off hers again, until she was clutching a stitch in her side.
“Why — ” She gasped for a breath. “Why are we talking about this?”
“Dunno. You started it, probably.”
“You came down here!”
“Yeah, because if you fall asleep down here you’ll be in a right mood tomorrow.”
“I will not! And it’s today, anyway.”
“Holy shit.” He glanced at the clock in confirmation. “It’s after three, you lunatic.”
“Well, go to bed.”
“ You go to bed.”
Hermione yawned in response, allowing Ron to pull her to her feet and steady her as she swayed a little on the spot. Despite the exhaustion she could feel in her bones, part of her still didn’t want to leave. Maybe it was the way he smelled, or maybe it was everything else that was unnervingly familiar and right. She dragged herself up the stairs and crawled into bed… and proceeded to get absolutely no sleep at all.
But then, it was always the most difficult lessons that kept her up the latest.