"Here." In the corridor, Jerry handed Hermione a bottle of Tonic Potion. Between her heavy course load and helping Hagrid with Buckbeak's case, she had been working herself to the bone lately.
"What's this?" Hermione opened the bottle and gave it a gentle sniff. Her mind immediately felt much clearer. "Oh, it's a Tonic Potion!"
"Thank you, Jerry!" she said with a grateful smile, then carefully tucked the potion into her pocket as though it were a precious treasure.
They reached the portrait at the entrance to Gryffindor, where Sir Cadogan and his fat little dapple-gray pony were chatting with several former Hogwarts headmasters and two or three monks.
"Jerry, come into the Gryffindor Common Room with me! I have some notes I'd like to ask you about," Hermione suggested.
"But I'm not in your house. Wouldn't that be a bit inappropriate?" Jerry said hesitantly.
"It's fine, don't worry. Nobody will mind. Besides, everyone's gone home for the holidays. You know the few people left in the common room!" Hermione said. "Just don't go wandering into the girls' dormitory!"
Jerry was speechless.
Jerry had wanted to complain about this so many times. Why could girls enter the boys' dormitory whenever they liked, while boys weren't allowed into the girls' dormitory? Wasn't that blatant sex discrimination?
"Scurvy mongrel."
"Hermione, you..." Jerry stared at her, dumbfounded. What did you just say? Were you insulting me? Could you possibly know what I was just thinking?
"And the same to you, sir and lady!" Before Hermione could answer, Sir Cadogan shouted his reply, and the portrait swung forward, revealing the passage into the common room.
"That's the password for the Gryffindor Common Room!" Hermione rolled her eyes helplessly and pursed her lips at Jerry. "I wasn't insulting you!"
Jerry pressed a hand to his