Hermione felt her face burning.
Her front teeth kept growing uncontrollably—now jutting past her chin like a beaver's, absurdly poking against her collarbone. She clamped both hands over her mouth, tears blurring everything into a smeared mess of light and shadow.
"How dare you—"
Seamus, face streaked with soot, was roaring at the Slytherins, wand still spitting sparks.
Beside him Dean Thomas tried to haul Neville back—the usually timid round-faced boy now charging blindly with his eyes screwed shut.
"He deserved it!" Goyle wiped blood from his nose, face twisted in proud, thuggish defiance. "That kind of blood doesn't belong at Hogwarts!"
In front of this pack of furious lions, one figure stood out—awkward, out of place.
Percy Weasley.
The prefect who lived by the rulebook had turned liver-red. He'd just escaped the Devil's Snare. He'd raised his arms to separate his own brothers—then heard Goyle's insult and frozen mid-gesture.
Percy was shaking.
If he started reciting point deductions now, or sided with the teachers against his own house, his credibility in Gryffindor would evaporate.
A prefect's authority didn't just come from appointment. It came from the house itself.
Percy spun around like he'd made a decision. Face flushed with humiliated fury, he jabbed a trembling finger at the Slytherin captain.
"Keep your rabid dogs on a leash!"
"Oh, protecting them now?" Malfoy's drawling, nauseating voice slithered out. "Typical Weasley prefect—always covering for the poor and the stupid…"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Protego!"
More chaotic spells ripped through the corridor.
…
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!"
Professor McGonagall's voice cut like a blade.
Through her fingers Hermione saw the professor striding forward in her tartan dressing gown, hair in a tight knot, lips a bloodless line.
Right behind her came the far more suffocating black shape.
Snape materialized between the two houses like a shadow given form. His robes hung motionless, yet the sheer weight of his presence crushed the air.
Hermione's first coherent thought as the model student:
We're finished.
"Behaving like Muggles in a street brawl…" Snape fixed on Harry and Percy. "Gryffindor's manners never cease to astonish. Prefect Weasley—is this how you manage your house?"
"Professor, they started—" Percy tried.
"Talking back to a teacher. Ten points from Gryffindor." Snape cut him off instantly. "I saw clearly: a mob attacking my students."
"Severus!" McGonagall's voice shook with rage. She stepped forward. "You cannot take one side's word alone! Look at Mr. Longbottom's face! And—Merlin, Miss Granger?"
Hermione shrank. She didn't want to be noticed now—not with these grotesque teeth on display. She buried her face deeper.
But in that instant she caught something jarringly wrong.
In the corner—a blood-soaked figure lifted his eyelids just a fraction.
Lucian.
Even through tears and the churning crowd she felt the weight of that gaze. The boy leaning against the wall, half his robes crimson.
He seemed to flick a glance toward Ron—or maybe Harry.
But… that corner had been empty a second ago.
The thought flashed and vanished before her overloaded mind could grab it.
Disillusionment Charm? Or had she simply missed him in the chaos?
Next second Ron—until now shrinking—stepped forward.
"Professor!" He roared, red-faced and neck bulging. "This wasn't a brawl! We were demanding justice! Malfoy cursed Neville—nearly broke his neck in the Great Hall!"
Low laughter rippled from the Slytherins.
"Evidence, Weasley?" Snape asked softly. "Or is this another persecution fantasy cooked up in that impoverished brain of yours?"
"And!" Ron's finger stabbed toward Malfoy, trembling with the effort it took to force the words out. "Just now—when we confronted him—he called Hermione a mudblood!!"
McGonagall sucked in a sharp breath. Her stern face twisted with the righteous fury of a decent witch.
And Snape—
The man who usually wore perpetual mockery froze as if Petrified.
Every drop of color drained from his sallow face.
The look in his eyes made Hermione forget her own tears. She had never seen anything so terrifying on a teacher's face.
He stared at Malfoy as though seeing a ghost that filled him with equal parts loathing and agony.
"You used that word?"
Malfoy's smugness vanished. He actually took a step back from his own Head of House's murderous glare. "I… Professor, I only—"
"Fifty points from Slytherin."
Snape forced the words through clenched teeth. "For your disgusting, filthy mouth, Malfoy."
Dead silence gripped the corridor.
Even the Gryffindors were stunned.
The old bat had just docked his own house?
But the moment of vindication barely flickered before Snape turned, the pent-up black fury redirecting onto Gryffindor.
"However."
His robes billowed again. "That does not excuse dozens of you engaging in a corridor riot. Offensive language is not a license for violence."
He looked at McGonagall, eyes venomous. "Minerva. Since we're being fair…"
McGonagall gripped her wand so tightly her knuckles whitened. Emotionally she wanted to slap every Slytherin in detention.
But rules—those same rules that bound her and Hermione—were iron.
Gryffindor had struck first. Gryffindor had caused chaos.
As Deputy Headmistress she couldn't rule by feeling.
"…Gryffindor," she closed her eyes, voice scraping, "did indeed break school rules. For this mass brawl… fifty points from Gryffindor."
"What?!" The twins shouted in disbelief.
"That's not fair!" Harry yelled.
"Fair?" Snape gave a short, bitter laugh. His gaze swept the corridor, lingering between the still-defiant lions and the venomous snakes. "This is the fairest outcome possible. Everyone pays for their own stupidity."
Hermione leaned against the cold stone, watching.
No winners.
Gryffindor justice had been crudely reduced to numbers—fifty-fifty beatings in the name of balance.
Slytherin malice had been brushed aside with a few limp reprimands.
Percy was still arguing with McGonagall. The twins were flipping off the Slytherins. Malfoy—despite the point loss—hid in the crowd and mouthed taunts at Ron.
Nothing was resolved. The filthy water had simply been forced back under a lid. Beneath it, deeper hatred was already fermenting.
Hermione pressed her hands harder over her mouth. Those ridiculous teeth felt heavier than ever, dragging her head down.
Only then did Snape seem to notice the corner.
He narrowed his eyes at the blue-robed figure, then strode over.
Slytherins parted like water.
Lucian leaned against the wall, left shoulder of his robe torn open, blood dripping steadily onto the floor.
Drip. Drip.
Snape stepped close, reaching to examine the wound.
Lucian didn't flinch, didn't cry out, didn't accuse. He simply shifted slightly, letting the torchlight fully illuminate the raw, gaping mess.
"This is Gryffindor 'courage'?"
Snape turned, robes swirling. His voice had lost its usual dry sarcasm—only suppressed rage remained.
"Openly using blasting curses in the corridor…" He gestured at the horrific wound. "…attempting to murder a Ravenclaw?"
"We didn't!" Harry shouted, voice cracking with panic. "It was an accident! Everyone was firing spells everywhere—"
"An accident?"
Snape's laugh was short and cold. "Mr. Potter considers leaving a classmate bleeding out an 'accident'?"
"Professor…"
Lucian spoke.
"It was indeed an accident."
The boy half-leaned against the wall, lips colorless from blood loss. He looked at McGonagall—not Snape—voice carrying a heartbreaking calm and reason:
"I was simply passing through… I didn't expect to be caught in a house exchange. Gryffindor surely didn't aim for me on purpose… even if that curse did come from Mr. Potter's direction."
Hermione's swollen eyes widened.
It sounded like he was defending Harry.
Yet every word nailed the coffin shut.
He confirmed the curse flew from Harry's wand. Confirmed an innocent bystander was dragged in. Worst of all—his gentle, rational tone—even making excuses for the attacker—stood in stark contrast to the Dungbomb-wielding, furious Gryffindors around him.
"Did you hear that, Minerva?"
Snape turned to her. "This is Gryffindor. Arrogant. Reckless. Violent. These are the lions you're so proud of."
McGonagall's lips disappeared. She looked at Lucian's blood, at Hermione's monstrous teeth, at the wreckage.
The look in her eyes hurt Hermione worse than any curse.
Utter disappointment.
"Gryffindor—detention. All of you who took part tonight."
"And," Snape added, gaze coiling around Harry like a snake, "Potter. For the grievous injury you caused a fellow student, you will serve one month of labor in my office."
"As for points…"
McGonagall drew a shuddering breath.
"Another one hundred from Gryffindor."
"What?" Harry choked.
"One hundred!" McGonagall suddenly exploded, pointing at them in fury. "For roaming the corridors at night! For this disgraceful brawl! One hundred and sixty total! Gryffindor has just lost any chance at the House Cup!"
One hundred and sixty points.
Hermione felt the world tilt.
Gone. All gone.
"Disperse! Back to your dormitories—now!"
The crowd scattered in panic. Slytherins slipped behind the stone wall with victorious smirks. Gryffindors slunk away, heads down.
Only Hermione remained frozen.
"Miss Granger," Madam Pomfrey had appeared from somewhere, gasping at the teeth hanging to her chest. "Oh Merlin, what curse is this? Come with me at once."
As she was pulled past the corner, Hermione glanced up on instinct.
Snape was staunching Lucian's wound. The boy still leaned there—pale as death, yet calm as if watching a poorly acted farce.
Lucian's gaze slid over Snape's shoulder and settled lightly on her.
Hermione dropped her eyes, looked away. Let Pomfrey drag her into the dark corridor.
Her teeth throbbed.
But worse was the hollow void swallowing her from inside.
One hundred and sixty points.
Until tonight, that had been her proof of existence.
The late-night spells she memorized. The parchment she wore thin in the library. The arms she raised in class until they ached. She had believed that was the whole wizarding world:
Be smart enough. Rule-following enough. Hard-working enough. And you would be recognized. You could prove that word—
"mudblood"—was wrong.
Tonight reality slapped her swollen face.
Malfoy broke every rule and walked away unscathed—because he lied well and had a biased Head of House.
Gryffindor used violence and was still framed as courageous excess—even heroic.
And her?
She had only tried to stop them. Tried to keep order.
And the result?
She became the joke. The beaver. The house disgrace. The nuisance even McGonagall now despised.
"Maybe Lucian was right."
The thought once born could not be killed.
The corridor torches flickered, stretching her shadow into something twisted and grotesque.
If rules only chained the honest… if effort never bought justice… if authority turned blind before real power and calculation…
Then what had all her life—the perfect, rule-abiding, always-correct Hermione Granger—actually been?
A joke?
Tears came again. Silent this time.
Through the blur she stared at her wand hand. The wand felt alien. Powerless.
In that moment something that had held up her entire belief—the fairy tale of justice and fairness—shattered quietly inside a twelve-year-old girl.
Her hand drifted to her robe pocket. Inside lay a single Galleon engraved with an ouroboros.
Lucian's ticket.
She used to think it led to the abyss of breaking rules.
Now, amid the ruins inside her, it suddenly felt like the only key left to anything real.
For the first time the world showed her its true face—vicious and absurd.
If following the rules guaranteed nothing…
…why not see what lay beyond them?
She let Madam Pomfrey pull her into the darkness.
The teeth ached.
But the emptiness hurt far worse.