Hello dears! :) I know you're all waiting for a new chapter for ALB:CoS and I promise you it's coming! I've just been busy lately. But here's something to tide you all over. I hope you like it!

Hermione put on her pajamas and hopped into her bed, snuggling down into the covers. She'd been sleeping in this bed for two months already, but it'd never seemed so comfortable before. In fact, the entire dorm hadn't seemed so comfortable until now.

The events of that day, and especially the last few hours played in her head as she lie there, waiting for sleep to overtake her. She'd started out the day with a much different view of things than she had now.

She'd always been an outcast, if she was being honest with herself. The odd one out. The one that no one really wanted to be friends with. Sure, she'd had other people she could talk to. But she'd never really had a real, true friend. Even though she'd tried. She'd just never gotten along with others.

Now, though... she thought it would be safe to say that she had two friends. Harry and Ron. When she'd woken up that morning, she hadn't liked them very much. They broke rules, got themselves into trouble, and that was the sort of thing she'd never dreamed of doing. And then she'd overheard Ron make that remark about her after Charms class...

It was sort of like primary school all over again. She'd thought that she'd be different here. She'd never really made friends at her old school because she was different than them. She was a witch, they were muggles. She didn't fit in there.

Then Professor McGonagall had come to her door. She'd just been reading up in her bedroom when her parents called her down to the living room, saying she had a visitor and that they needed to talk. McGonagall had explained that she really was different than the other children. And she'd thought then that she'd for sure make better friends at Hogwarts. Because she'd be with people she was like.

But during the first months at Hogwarts, she'd learned that wasn't true. She was still the outcast. Then Ron made that remark about her… 'She's a nightmare, honestly! No wonder she doesn't have any friends!' Something inside her sort of clicked. She realized that she really was a nightmare. A swotty, annoying girl that no one really liked.

She couldn't go back to classes, so she'd actually skipped the rest of them that day. Which one side of her brain said 'Good, that'll show them that I'm not that bad' to, and the other was completely horrified. She just couldn't face any of the other kids, though. She couldn't.

Finally, after spending hours by herself, she'd checked her watch and realized that if she didn't get to the feast she wouldn't be getting anything. There was someone coming into the bathroom, too. She'd had enough of hearing the whispers of other girls over her sniffling. The whispers about her. She just wanted to get some dinner and get to bed.

But what she saw hadn't been another girl, ready to spread nasty gossip about how she was a crybaby. It was the complete opposite.

A troll. A giant troll. Coming right at her.

Her mind had frozen; she had no idea what to do. She remembered that she'd read about them, but she had no idea what any of the text had said. Her mind went blank right at that moment. She was trapped; there was no way she could get around it without being hit by its giant club. Her wand would be totally useless to her.

Then they'd come bursting into the bathroom. Harry and Ron. They came and they saved her. They actually did. They'd managed to knock out the troll. Ron had levitated its club (and with the right pronunciation, she was slightly proud to notice) and whacked it on the head. Harry had even jumped on its back, for goodness sakes! All of that to save her.

She'd never really before believed that someone would do something like that. But the proof was in the ten foot tall troll, unconscious on the ground in the bathroom. So when the teachers burst in, looking upset, McGonagall about ready to start shouting... she couldn't let Harry and Ron take the blame.

So she'd outright lied to a teacher. If you'd have told her she'd do that twenty four hours earlier, she'd never have believed it. But she did. And McGonagall took five points away from her. But Harry and Ron each got five, which meant that they ended up positive anyways.

Then McGonagall sent them up to the Gryffindor dorm, where there was a feast going on. She, Harry, and Ron had all gotten a plate of food and sat down together. And they'd actually talked and gotten along and laughed. It was the first time she'd eaten dinner with company besides whichever book she was reading.

She hadn't forgotten Ron's comment about her earlier, but she wasn't angry about that anymore. Because she realized that he was right. Maybe she needed to be a little less... uptight about everything. But now that she had people to talk to, maybe she could change. Now that she had... friends.

Friends. That had to be what they were now, didn't it? Harry and Ron were her friends. Her first real, actual friends. She smiled to herself and rolled over, pulling the blankets up to her chin. They were the last two people she'd ever thought she would call her friends, but now she was happier than she'd been since she'd discovered that she was a witch.

She finally drifted off to sleep, dreaming about a boy with a peculiar scar and another with very red hair. And when she woke up, she had a smile on her face.

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