Chapter one: Broken bottles of ink.
Another rainy day at Hogwarts. March really is not the best month of the year, especially here. Especially now. The clock is about to ring and everybody is running to escape from the pouring rain, pushing anybody who gets in the way. Even the prefects, apparently.
"Get out of the way, Granger!" a tall guy yelled at her.
A Slytherin, what a surprise... But Hermione did not have the time to step away, and the boy shoved her. She tripped, then fell on the wet ground.
"You know I can take points from you, right?" she hissed.
"Who cares? Take ten points from us, if you want. Snape will give them back to us as soon as we get to our Potions class."
Before the Slytherin guy and his friends walked away, the leader of the group kicked in one of the books that fell from the young girl's bag and sent it in a muddy puddle. His gang burst out laughing and they finally left.
"Stupid, stupid third years..." she said as she started to gather all the things that got out of her bag when she fell. One of her bottles of ink was broken. Ah, what a day.
-0-
A little bit further away, in a dry corridor, people were watching and making fun of the people outside.
"Hey Fred! Aren't we lucky we were already inside when it started raining ?"
"Very lucky, George!"
The Weasley twins began to laugh, mocking a group of first years trying to run without tripping on their robes.
"Faster, faster!" they giggled when the children finally got into the corridor.
But as George was literally bended in half by the laughter, Fred noticed the scene between Hermione and the Slytherins. Seeing such a nice girl as Hermione Granger being bullied by idiots like them really enraged him, but he did not want anybody to know how he really felt about her – maybe because he did not know himself – so he did not say or do anything about what just happened. Not until George had to left for class, anyway. It was almost too late, there were only a few books on the floor now, but he still wanted to help his friend.
"Let me help you with that." he said as he approached Hermione.
"It's nothing really." She said without even looking at him, too busy gathering her quills without damaging them even more.
Fred sighed but did not give up so easily.
"Hermione, you can barely hold your bag close and pick up this pen at the same time. You need a helping hand."
He carefully got the broken glass away from the young girl's knees and got his wand out of his sleeve. After mumbling a little spell, the bottle was fixed.
"Guess you'll have to add some ink later, though!" he laughed.
Fred just noticed, but Hermione had stopped picking up her quills. She was now staring at the young man in surprise.
"What?"
"Thank you." She whispered, blushing. "You're going to be late." Hermione added as she quickly looked away.
"Psht, who cares?"
"Mh, teachers?"
"They don't count."
Hermione's eyebrows started to frown as she sighed, but they relaxed again when she began to laugh.
"You really don't care about class this year, do you?"
"Well, let's just say Umbridge isn't the most motivational person in the world."
"She could punish you, though." She muttered.
Hermione grabbed Fred's left hand in hers and checked the scars on the back of it. The skin was still red from yesterday's detention hour. It was not bleeding anymore though.
"We found a little cure to prevent the blood from flooding so much. Well, it gives you nausea for two good hours, but it's worth it I guess!"
Hermione laughed lightly before really frowning this time.
"You should be a little less…"
"Yes?"
"Take care, Fred." She simply whispered.
She closed her bag and stood up before Fred and helped him get on his feet. Her right hand lingered on Fred's arm for a few seconds as she thanked him for helping her. Before the young man could say anything, Hermione was rushing through the corridors, heading towards the library.