"I'm bored," I announced to my best friend Janie as the Hogwarts Express rattled underneath us.
She sighed and bookmarked her dog-eared copy of Quidditch Through the Ages. "You're always bored, Diana," she muttered, pushing her dark hair behind her ear. It had gotten decidedly stringy on the long train ride.
"Well," I said, drawing the word out, "entertain me, then."
She looked up at me, deadpan. I gave her an ingratiating little smile.
"Why don't you read something?" Janie offered, sticking her nose back in her book.
"I've read everything," I said dismissively, pushing my blonde hair away from my face.
"It's beyond me that you read the Potions text at least fifty times last year and still barely managed to pass your OWL," she replied.
"Er," I said, stalling. "Well, reading is different than putting something in practice. You read that all the time and you know you're never going to try out for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team."
"I might," Janie said defensively.
I poked her rather chubby rat in the side. He had some unpronounceable name that meant "little fluffy" in Ancient Runes or something equally stupid.
"Don't annoy him," Janie chastised. "Did you do the summer assignment for your Head of House?"
"Oh, shit," I said. "No, I didn't. I did the one for Transfiguration, though."
"What about the one for Charms?" she said, looking up and surveying me behind her glasses.
"Uh," I said. "You know, you send me all these damn letters over the summer and never manage to tell me anything important, like if we had homework."
"It was only a few hundred words," she said. "You could do it now."
I glanced over at my bag lying a few seats away in our compartment.
"It was," she dictated, "a letter to your Head of House, saying why you thought your House would win the House Cup, and how you were going to help."
"I have to write a letter to Snape?" I demanded. "He hates me!"
"Maybe if you did your homework," Janie offered, smirking.
"All of the Slytherins hate me," I declared. "I don't know why."
"It couldn't possibly be because you hate them and spend all your time with the Ravenclaws in the library, could it?" she said.
"Pansy Parkinson short-sheeted my bed," I snapped.
"You set her hair on fire."
"That was an accident. She needed it cut anyway."
"Diana," Janie said, "please, please, please let me have one blissfully silent trip to Hogwarts without you bitching about the Slytherins. You know you have loads of fun getting back at them, anyway."
"The Sorting Hat almost put me in Ravenclaw," I said. "You think I can get a do-over?"
She rolled her eyes.
I was silent again for a moment, then:
"I think Malfoy's a pouf."
Janie snorted. "You think everyone's a pouf. Although..." she muttered something about impeccable fashion sense.
"I think," I said, pausing for effect, "Malfoy is gay for Harry Potter."
Janie slammed her book down. "Diana!"
I grinned lazily. Janie has been in sick puppy love with Potter for the last six years. He doesn't know even her name.
"He is not!" she snapped. "He dated that Cho girl!"
"Who you hated with a passion," I said.
Janie flushed. "She wasn't good enough for him."
"She's a slut," I said, nodding.
Janie frowned. "You shouldn't call people sluts."
"But she is," I said. "Even Malfoy says she's a slut, and he's the biggest manslut I've ever had the misfortune of sharing a common room with."
"Stop saying slut!" she exclaimed, giggling.
"Slut slut slut," I replied.
"So why do you think Malfoy and Harry are gay for each other?" she said, rolling her eyes. "Please enlighten me."
"Ever year after we lose the Quidditch or House Cup," I said, "Malfoy stomps around the common room cursing Potter to hell."
"Well, duh," she said. "They hate each other. Why do you call him Potter?"
"I'm a Slytherin," I said. "I think it's a law."
"Yeah, because you're really into following laws, Diana," Janie said, with another eyeroll.
"My sin and debauchery regardless, no one hates someone that much unless they secretly love them. Plus, they mention each other all the time."
"Because they hate each other!"
"No," I countered. "Dumbledore doesn't talk about You-Know-Who all the time."
"Which reminds me," she said. "Did you see that article about Inferi? That's downright creepy."
"Saw it, grossed out, threw the Daily Prophet away," I said. "Gone to shit since Skeeter left, anyway."
"So what else?" Janie replied, scratching her cheek with her quill and leaving a little black mark.
At that moment, we heard a crash outside the compartment. I leapt up and swung open the door, completely ready to bitch out whoever it was, and saw something else instead.
A smirk appeared on my face. "Janie," I whispered.
"What?" she asked, getting up and peering out of the compartment. "Oh my freaking god," she hissed between her teeth.
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were locked in a heart-clenchingly sexy kiss, their arms wrapped around each other, staggering around and moaning through the hallway of the train.
Malfoy's hand slipped down to Harry's crotch, and Harry let out a funny little noise. His one hand was in Malfoy's hair, the other on the door of a compartment a few doors down. They fell into it and slammed the door behind them.
I slowly turned to Janie. "You owe me about a million fucking Galleons."
"Oh, God," she muttered. Her face was bright red and her glasses were slipping down her face.
"That was pretty hot," I said casually, slipping back into our compartment. "Do we have any Chocolate Frogs left?"
Janie just stared at me.
"Well?"
"How can you just sit there?" she said, clutching her forehead in despair. "He's gay! Harry Potter is gay! For that ferret bastard Malfoy!"
"He's a cute ferret bastard, though," I said. "Even though he put salt in my pumpkin juice that one time." I had poured ink in his shoes afterward, of course.
"Oh, God!" she repeated.
I patted the seat next to me. She sank into it faintly.
"I'm very sorry your childhood dream was shattered and all that," I said sympathetically. "But seriously... did you eat all of the Chocolate Frogs?"