‘Course it is, they're alive, aren't they?’ said Fred angrily.

‘Course it is, they're alive, aren't they?’ said Fred angrily.

‘You can't do this, what if you made one of them really ill?’

‘We're not going to make them ill, we've already tested them all on ourselves, this is just to see if everyone reacts the same—’

‘If you don't stop doing it, I'm going to—’

‘Put us in detention?’ said Fred, in an I'd-like-to-see-you-try-it voice.

‘Make us write lines?’ said George, smirking.

Onlookers all over the room were laughing. Hermione drew herself up to her full height; her eyes were narrowed and her bushy hair seemed to crackle with electricity.

‘No,’ she said, her voice quivering with anger, ‘but I will write to your mother.’

‘You wouldn't,’ said George, horrified, taking a step back from her.

‘Oh, yes, I would,’ said Hermione grimly. ‘I can't stop you eating the stupid things yourselves, but you're not to give them to the first-years,’

Fred and George looked thunderstruck. It was clear that as far as they were concerned, Hermione's threat was way below the belt. With a last threatening look at them, she thrust Fred's clipboard and the bag of Fancies back into his arms, and stalked back to her chair by the fire.

Ron was now so low in his seat that his nose was roughly level with his knees.

‘Thank you for your support, Ron,’ Hermione said acidly.

‘You handled it fine by yourself,’ Ron mumbled.

Hermione stared down at her blank piece of parchment for a few seconds, then said edgily, ‘Oh, it's no good, I can't concentrate now. I'm going to bed.’

She wrenched her bag open; Harry thought she was about to put her books away, but instead she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects, placed them carefully on a table by the fireplace, covered them with a few screwed-up bits of parchment and a broken quill and stood back to admire the effect.

‘What in the name of Merlin are you doing?’ said Ron, watching her as though fearful for her sanity.

‘They're hats for house-elves,’ she said briskly now stuffing her books back into her bag. ‘I did them over the summer. I'm a really slow knitter without magic but now I'm back at school I should be able to make lots more.’

‘You're leaving out hats for the house-elves?’ said Ron slowly. ‘And you're covering them up with rubbish first?’

‘Yes,’ said Hermione defiantly, swinging her bag on to her back.

That's not on,’ said Ron angrily. ‘You're trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You're setting them free when they might not want to be free.’

‘Of course they want to be free!’ said Hermione at once, though her face was turning pink. ‘Don't you dare touch those hats, Ron!’

She turned on her heel and left. Ron waited until she had disappeared through the door to the girls’ dormitories, then cleared the rubbish off the woolly hats.

‘They should at least see what they're picking up,’ he said firmly. ‘Anyway ...’ he rolled up the parchment on which he had written the title of Snape's essay, ‘there's no point trying to finish this now, I can't do it without Hermione, I haven't got a clue what you're supposed to do with moonstones, have you?’