For QLFC S6R3

Prompts: (dialogue) "Pay attention to me", (word) Cryptic, (genre) Humour

Harry sprinted down the last two steps of the main staircase and dashed into the Great Hall. His hair was unbrushed and falling into his eyes because he hadn't wanted to miss breakfast even though he woke up late. From afar he spotted Ron's blindingly bright orange hair at the Gryffindor table and slid beside him onto the bench with an out of breath, "Morning".

Ron turned to look at him, a bewildered expression on his face. "Oh, good," he said, "the world isn't ending."

Harry paused in the middle of grabbing a piece of toast. "What?"

Ron sighed. "Isn't there something weird at the table?" he asked, eyebrow raised in question.

Harry scanned the table, eyebrows furrowed. "That's not a nice thing to say about Neville," he said. Neville looked up, startled, and let out a weak protest.

"No," Ron said. "Hermione's missing."

Harry had only just processed the fact when a distracted "Good morning" came from in front of him. Harry looked up to find Hermione slipping something into her skirt pocket as she took a seat across from him and Ron.

Harry looked at Ron, shocked. Hermione was the last one to arrive at breakfast? The last time that had happened was when she'd been petrified, but those had been extenuating circumstances.

"Stayed up late last night?" Harry asked.

"Mm," Hermione said. The bags under her eyes looked bruised and dark, and she stifled a yawn before spooning some food onto her plate. She said no more on the topic and instead ate with one hand under the table and the other on her utensil.

"Reading books?" Harry asked.

"Mm."

"Studying?" Ron tried. There was no response at all this time.

"She's being unusually cryptic," Harry muttered to Ron under his breath.

The two of them watched as Hermione missed her mouth with the fork and mashed a fried egg against her cheek, her eyes still fixed firmly on her lap.

Ron waved a hand in front of her face. "Pay attention to me," he demanded. She ignored him.

"I didn't do my Potions homework due today," Ron tried again. At the lack of a response, he turned to Harry, horrified. "Merlin, the world really is ending."

...

Harry and Ron convened in front of the fireplace later in the evening. Hermione had retired to her dorm room, citing a headache, and left right after dinner without even nagging them about doing their homework.

"There's something seriously wrong with her," Ron said. She had been acting so oddly that her actions had caught the attention of most of their classmates and their teachers as well. In class, she hadn't put her hand up once all day, instead seeming to walk around in a distracted haze.

"Do you suppose she's got her hands on another one of those Time-Turners?" Ron wondered aloud.

Harry shook his head. "Doubt it. She was practically rabid that time, not passive like she is now."

"I think you guys are exaggerating things," Dean piped in from the couch next to them. "She's probably just sick, isn't she?"

That made the most logical sense, and yet somehow Harry had a feeling that it wasn't right.

"Maybe," he said doubtfully.

...

Hermione's odd behaviour continued. There were now rumours flying around that she'd been possessed, or cursed, and people were beginning to avoid her. They needed to get to the bottom of things and clear things up before it was too late.

Asking Hermione wouldn't work, because she had been fielding them with increasingly mysterious answers. So instead, they recruited someone else with insight into Hermione's actions.

"Lavender, did you notice anything weird about Hermione last night?" Harry asked. "Or the last couple of weeks?"

Lavender hummed in thought. "Well, I heard some really weird screeching sounds coming from her bed, but that was it. Do you think she got a pet owl?"

Ron looked incredulous. "We're in the middle of the semester. When and where would she have gotten an owl?"

Lavender sniffed. "I was just trying to be helpful. I don't see you offering any ideas."

"I think she's in love," Ginny, who was walking past at the moment, declared. She shoved her way into the loose circle they had formed in front of the fireplace.

"Go away Ginny," Ron said. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"How would you explain the screeching noises then?" Harry asked.

Ginny levelled them with a look. "Have you ever seen a teenage girl in love?"

When Harry and Ron remained silent, she smirked and said, "Yeah, that's what I thought" and sauntered away.

Harry pondered this. Was Hermione really in love? He doubted it. Hermione had nothing but scorn for most of the guys in their year, including Ron and Harry when they didn't do their homework.

They were back at square one.

…

"It's an animal, I'm sure," Lavender argued once again. Today, Parvati sat beside her for moral support. "You all heard that screeching noise in class today! I bet she mistreats it too, with all that noise it's making."

"It's not an animal," Ron said loyally, feeling obligated to defend her honour even though things were looking sketchy for her. "And even if it was, she'd never mistreat it. Have you seen her with Crookshanks?"

He paused here and thought about it some more. "Although I suppose there was thing with Rita Skeeter as a beetle. Er."

Lavender pounced on that bit of information with frightening speed. "What thing with Rita Skeeter?" she pressed, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared.

Ron looked glanced at Harry from across the room, sending help signals with his eyes. Harry averted his eyes and studied the rug pattern.

"Hermione kept Rita Skeeter as a beetle for a month in a jar," Ron said really quickly under his breath.

"She kept Rita Skeeter as a beetle for a month?" Lavender asked, astonished. "Well, not that she didn't have it coming, but still."

Parvati whistled under her breath. "Who'd have known she had it in her, huh?"

"You should shut up now," Harry advised Ron, who silently agreed.

"Maybe she's playing a handheld game?" Neville chimed in. Their little group around the fireplace had grown through the weeks as more and more people speculated about exactly what Hermione was doing. "Like one of those things you've mentioned before. The game where you poke a man."

Parvati squinted at him.. "...Pokemon?" she asked.

Neville brightened. "Yeah, that! Although I don't see what's so fun about poking men anyways."

"It's not—nevermind," Parvati sighed.

A thought occurred to Ron as he sprung to his feet. "Oh Merlin, she's been Polyjuiced."

That certainly made sense, Harry thought. Why else would she be acting so weirdly and yet look the same?

Neville glanced up at them. "She's been what now?"

Harry exchanged glances with Ron. They needed to confront her to confirm it was really her and not someone else wearing her form.

"Sorry, no time to wait," Harry said to the group as he and Ron rushed out the common room to find Hermione.

The only issue was that Hermione was nowhere to be found. She obviously wasn't in the dorm, since they had been holding camp there for quite some time now and hadn't seen hide or hair of her. The library was a no go. The great hall was empty.

Just as they were about to give up, Ron rounded the corner of an empty hallway and bumped into the devil herself. The papers and books she was carrying flew into the air and scattered onto the ground. Ron knelt on the ground to help Hermione gather her stuff, but as he did so his knee landed on something small and hard and there was a crack.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all froze. Horrified, Hermione dropped her papers and shoved him aside.

"Ow!" Ron complained, but leaned in closer to see what it was he broke. Hermione scooped up a small, egg-shaped… thing into her hands. There was a long jagged crack running across its top.

"I spent weeks on that," she said, despairing.

"What is that?"

She stared mournfully down at it and said, "A tamagotchi."

"Bless you," Ron said.

Hermione rolled her eyes and gestured to the now broken machine. "This is a tamagotchi. It's a game that muggle children play. It must've been knocked into my luggage by accident, but I dug it out and discovered it actually worked at Hogwarts!"

"I've seen this before," Harry said, leaning in to take a closer look at it as well. "I think Dudley ripped it out of some poor kid's hands and left them crying on the playground. But how is it working at Hogwarts?"

Hermione shrugged. "I don't really understand it but it must be simple enough technology that it's allowed through."

Ron squinted at it, wondering how on earth you could even play with that thing. "So why have you been keeping it a secret from everyone?" he asked.

Hermione's cheeks went pink. "Well, it's just such a childish game! I didn't want to ruin my reputation you know…"

Harry didn't have the heart to tell her that her reputation was already ruined beyond repair. Instead, he switched the topic.

"So this is a handheld game?" he confirmed.

"Yes, that's right."

"And it's something similar to the game Pokey Man, right?" Ron asked.

"Er—Pokemon? Well that one's a bit more complex but they are both handheld games. Why do you want to know?"

Ron stared at her, before shaking his head and pulling her up. "Whatever you do, don't tell Neville."