She sat up with a gasp. She was in the common room…that was normal. She'd fallen asleep over her homework. Also normal. But the absence of her best friend's and boyfriend's presence near her…was not normal…and neither was that faint hint of a giggle, punctuated with the deeper laughter of a male from upstairs. She swung her legs of the couch and sat up. A note had been left on the seat that she remembered her friend sitting in.

Hey,

Gone to quidditch practice, and I'll visit the kitchen on the way back. Will probably return loaded with snacks, so I hope you're hungry. See you in a few hours.

Ah. Well, that explained one of them. The giggle sounded again, and was cut off. It continued after a moment, however, and as Head Girl she knew that it was her job, if not her wish, to find out what was going on. She walked deliberately up the stairs, careful to set her foot quietly on each stair. Reaching the landing, she stood between the two doors and listened for the telltale giggle to sound again. There-from the boys dorm. Gee, what a surprise, she thought. One of the boys thinks he can get away with making out with some girl in broad daylight over Easter break. Not likely.

She opened the door, slowly and quietly. Again, she did her best to muffle her footsteps as she approached the one bed with its curtains pulled closed. She reached the foot of the bed, realizing as she did this that there were three people sitting there, two of them female. She sighed; it wasn't that she wanted to interrupt their fun, but it really was her job. So, taking a deep breath, she reached out a hand to pull back the hangings – and then the boy spoke again, and she recognized his voice all too well. Hermione savagely wrenched open the curtains and glared down at the unfortunate trio. The boy's shirt was halfway unbuttoned, with one girl's fingers frozen motionless on the next button. The other girl's blouse had been removed, leaving her draped across his neck in nothing but a bra.

"……….You…" Unable to speak, she turned away from him, the one boy who had stated only a year before that he loved her.

As she started to dash away from the three, a shimmer caught her eye – her friends invisibility cloak lay abandoned on the floor. She snatched it up and then ran, blinded by tears out of the common room, through the great hall, and out of the castle. On her way to Hagrid's hut, she stopped. She couldn't tell anyone just yet, especially not Hagrid. She changed course, and ran to the far side of the lake, still invisible. There, she collapsed against a tree and sobbed, crying harder than she had ever cried before.

But she didn't realize that her sobs were carried across the lake, amplified by the water. On the other side, a boy was also sitting, gazing at his reflection in the smooth, placid lake. His ears caught what his two lackey's ears missed; the heartrending, broken sobs from his worst enemy's best friend, the mudblood, Hermione Granger.