Hermione meant to take the diary to the headmaster, truly. She woke up the next morning full of energy. She was tense, almost aching for... something. She paused as she dressed, trying to pin down exactly what she wanted, but every time she did, her thoughts kept drifting to her best friend. Nervous, twitchy and with a sensation like liquid heat in her muscles, she finished dressing and went down to breakfast. As she passed the stairway to the boys dorms, she absent-mindedly rubbed at her collar. The glamour felt especially uncomfortable today...
Harry woke up with a strange sense of foreboding. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming, just the scent of chocolate and cinnamon. He could still smell it, but faintly, as though at a distance. Throwing a pillow at Ron's curtains to wake him, his friend having placed a Silencing Charm on them to moderate his snoring,he dressed, rubbing at his collar a lot. "Damn thing itches today, like never before. Maybe I should ask the twins to build in flea repellent charms?"
Shrugging off the stray thought, Harry went down to breakfast, unconsciously following the scent of cinnamon and chocolate as it grew stronger.
Struggling from the clutches of sleep, Ron had neither excess energy, indeed he had his usual trouble getting going, nor the sense of ominous change lurking in ambush. He wanted to be there for his friends, and feared they were leaving him behind. Harry had been back at the dorms for a single night when Ron had decided to secure Scabber's cage, taking it to Professor Flitwick for the Unbreakable Charm and blood-sealed Locking Charm so only he could open it, just in case. As he dressed, Ron forced himself to think. He was certain that he'd never be as clever as Hermione, nor was he likely to be as powerful as either of his friends. But he was good at strategy, was there some way he could develop that? With his mind on other matters, he wandered down towards the food.
It was impossible for the Feline couple to not hear Lockhart's bragging to the other teachers.
"Shouldn't think there'll be much trouble, now," he said, grinning that ridiculous smile. "whoever did this has surely heard that I'm on their trail. It wouldn't surprise me if the Chamber of Secrets had been locked for good." As he boasted, he tapped the side of his nose in what was supposed to be a knowing manner. Harry thought he looked an idiot. "What the school really needs is a morale booster. I know just the thing! Leave it all to me!"
Hermione glanced at Harry worriedly. Unfortunately, he looked just as concerned.
Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff was still convinced that Harry was the 'Heir of Slytherin', and that this whole mess was his fault. Harry, feeling a little distracted by the scent of cinnamon and chocolate, wasn't reacting as quickly as he could have. Hermione was almost as distracted, fighting her urge to flop next to Harry and just... snuggle till she purred, so she didn't notice what was going on until it was too late.
As the pair stood, with full intent to approach the headmaster, Ernie grabbed the collar of Harry's robes, and without knowing, his glamour-casting collar as well. The Weasly twins' creation was sturdy, but it was still just a collar, and tore, all of its magic gone in a snap, revealing Harry's feline form. Almost everyone froze. Harry and Hermione reacted.
The cat-boy slashed his claws at Ernie's arm, drawing blood as he broke loose, and shoulder barged the Hufflepuff back. Hermione pounced. As she drove the bleeding boy to the ground by landing squarely on his shoulders, she was, well, yowling. My Harry! Mine! Back Off!
The yowling may well have saved Macmillan's life, as Harry paused. Your Harry?
There was silence in the Great Hall, with all eyes on Harry. No-one moved, although Draco Malfoy started immediately composing his next letter home with malicious glee. Harry's new countenance had shocked them all, and Hermione's attack had everyone shocked.
"Well," said Hermione as she looked around at the gawking faces, "since the cat's out of the bag, anyway..." She reached for her own collar as Harry chuckled at the unintended pun, and dropped her own glamours.
If silence described the utter lack of noise and total shock that had filled the Hall at Harry's revelation, then the silence somehow deepened at Hermione's. Then a single sound broke it. A soft clapping, as Ron Weasly gave his wordless support to his feline friends.
The diary was forgotten, for now.
Over the following days, Hermione's vitality just grew. She was filled with an almost nervous energy, and was very edgy. She found herself trying to focus on a single scent, reminiscent of licorice and mint, and found it most often near Harry, whom she tried (and mostly failed) to avoid pressing against. There were obvious concerns, as Madam Pomfrey took her aside after a check up and gave her several soft pink potions. "Take these after your cycle's bleeding stops each month," the mediwitch ordered, "unless you want to wind up with a litter of little furballs." Having shocked the girl enough to ensure compliance, the older witch returned to her duties. Hermione drank her first potion then and there.
Harry had attracted fear and suspicion as the 'Heir of Slytherin', and being discovered to be 'differently normal' than the other students, as Ron put it in a moment of sympathy, didn't improve it. Those students who had cats were worried their pets would become loyal to him now, never mind that no-one told a cat what to do. It was frustrating, although it was a considerable relief not to have his glamour active all the time anymore.
It was several days before they remembered the diary. Rummaging through Hermione's book bag, they gathered in a quiet corner of the common room. Examining the little book, they found the name on it. Whoever T M Riddle was, he was most likely muggle-born or -raised, since the diary came from Vauxhall Road. Although she tried, nothing Hermione knew of could reveal any writing in the little book.
"But I know I've seen that name somewhere before," Ron grumbled on their way to bed. He didn't see his little sister, lurking nearby and trying to pluck up the courage to talk to the famous Harry Potter, jump, and go very nearly white.
As the three friends approached the Great Hall on St Valentine's Day, Harry and Hermione both gagged and retched. There was some horrendous smell, as if a perfume factory had died in there. The felines couldn't get close, as the smell just rolled out of the Hall and hammered their poor noses. The only way they could override that, that stench, was to bury their noses in the fur at each other's neck. That brought up a whole new set of problems.
Harry found the source of the tantalising scent he'd been looking for, now of all days, and it was Hermione! It was a muted version of the scent, fortunately, or his inner cat, already pushing at the barriers within his mind, would have had control, and that could only make this situation worse. Pushing his head against that little spot on her neck, the emerald-eyed boy gathered all his willpower.
Hermione on the other hand, had also identified a mysterious scent, as Harry's odour was identical to the licorice and mint she'd been smelling for the past week. To escape whatever was causing the stench, she also burrowed against the source of the wonderful scent.
Ron watched, somewhat confused as his two best friends staggered as if physically struck, and collapsed in obvious distress, at least until they managed to push their noses into each others' fur. He, along with anyone else who was watching was surprised when they bit each other gently near the base of the neck. He could smell the perfume Lockhart had doused the Great Hall with, and figured the fraud was up to something. There wasn't much he could do about that alone, though. Looking at everyone who had paused in the hallway, mostly Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, with the occasional Ravenclaw, and stepped forwards.
"OI! Attention, Please!" he bellowed. "Whatever is doing this is coming from the Great Hall. The kitty couple can't do much about it and need help. Everyone who can, let's scourgify it until the smell is gone." With that, he turned and walked into the Great Hall, and as Lockhart, the prat, opened his mouth to speak, began casting the cleaning spell. As the other students from the corridor walked in and started doing the same, with Neville Longbottom and Susan Bones leading them in Ron's wake, Lockhart found himself completely ignored, a sensation to which he was most definitely unaccustomed.
Once the odious whiff of the teacher's perfume was gone, Ron, Neville and Susan went back into the corridor and helped their feline friends to their seats. Susan then waved at Neville as she walked back to the Hufflepuff table.
Somewhat disturbed at being ignored, and striving to reclaim the limelight, Professor Lockhart once again began to speak. Perhaps he'd have been taken more seriously had his robes not been a lurid hot pink.
"As I was saying, Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted now. "Thank you to my forty-five fans who sent me cards, and I have a surprise for you all!" He clapped his hands, and a number of dwarves, about a dozen, very surly, entered through the main doors. Lockhart had them dressed in cupid outfits, complete with golden wings and harps. He must have been paying them a lotof gold.
"These friendly cupids will be around for the rest of the day, carrying your loving messages direct to the object of your affections," the man in pink said. "That's not all, however, as you should ask the rest of the staff to uphold the spirit of the day! Just ask Professor Snape how to brew a Love Potion, or get Professor Flitwick to show you how an Entrancing Enchantment works!"
Looking at the dwarves over Hermione's hair, Harry thought that the dwarves were more likely to hurt you than carry a message, Snape glared like he was going to poison the first ten fools to ask for Love Potions (then he'd get creative) and poor Flitwick had his head in his hands, growling something in gobbledegook that was literally turning the air in his vicinity blue.
Struggling to think straight, he directed his attention at his fellow feline. "Hermione?" he muttered. "Do you have the diary?"
Lifting her head from his shoulder reluctantly, she looked into his emerald eyes. "Hmmmm?"
Drawn into her amber gaze, Harry struggled to keep control. "The diary? Do you have it?"
"Of course, Harrry," she almost purred, reaching into her bookbag. Her eyes flew wide open after a few seconds of searching. "No! It's gone! It was there this morning, I put it there first thing, straight out of my trunk!"
Switching to lingua felinarum, Harry started muttering. When? It had to be while we were overwhelmed by Lockhart's perfume, but who? We won't be able to catch their scent after that stink.
Hermione's reply reminded Harry where they were. "English, Harry, the others can't understand you."