Chapter 2: A New Face

Harry kicked Ron awake early the next morning and made sure they were at breakfast before a single Slytherin sat down. He didn't want to miss Malfoy. Hermione was already in the Great Hall, which was no surprise to them; she was always first to rise in the Gryffindor tower. She was sitting at the end of their table nearest the entrance, giving her the best seat to watch for Malfoy's arrival.

"Harry," she said. "I thought we'd spread out. That way no matter where Malfoy sits we'll be able to see his face."

"Unless he sits with his back to us," Harry pointed out.

The brainy Gryffindor frowned, "Oh… well, there is that. But he never sits with his back to the Gryffindor table."

"There's always a first time," Ron said and went to the far end to sit in the shadow of the high table, where the professors would be taking their breakfast. Harry sat in between. To the rest of the students it would look as if they had a falling out, but they didn't care about gossip when Harry's wrongful expulsion was a possibility.

The students filed in and sat down at their house tables. The three Gryffindors watched the Slytherins with intense eyes, waiting for the pale Draco Malfoy to show his face. He strolled into the Great Hall flanked, as always, by his burly sidekicks Crabbe and Goyle. To Hermione's eye he didn't look any more pleased with himself than normal. Even as he walked past Harry, he didn't show any sign of a plan successfully laid. He sat close to the center of the Slytherin table and Hermione could no longer see his face. She would have to move.

"Is this seat taken?"

She glanced at the place on the bench beside her, "No."

"Good." A boy, tall and broad-chested enough to be in his seventh year, slid into the seat sideways, straddling the bench, to face Hermione. "You got a name?"

"Of course I do," she said somewhat stupidly, flustered by the boy's attentions. Young men as attractive as him didn't notice her; even moderately handsome boys like Ron didn't, much as she wanted them to.

He laughed, a loud bark of a laugh that sounded familiar. Everything about him was familiar. He was wearing a Gryffindor tie and his grey jumper had the distinct scarlet and gold at the collar, so she must have seen him around the common room. He was probably a fifth year student who had a major growth spurt over the summer holiday and was nearly unrecognizable to her now.

"Let's try a different approach: What's your name?" he asked.

"Hermione."

"Hermione," he repeated it. She liked how it sounded in his deep voice. "Are you new?"

"No," she replied, confused and slightly insulted. "Are you?"

He replied through his laughter, "No." He eyed her with a grin and turned to follow her glance. She was looking past him to the Slytherin table. It was difficult to look away from him, but she was supposed to be watching Malfoy. "Who's the blond bloke? A crush of yours?"

She snorted, not caring if it sounded completely undignified and unladylike. The idea that she would be remotely interested in Malfoy was just ridiculous. How could he be a Gryffindor and even think she would be interested in Malfoy?

"Most certainly not," she said, staring at the new face before her. He really did look familiar.

Her interest in him brought a smile to his lips as if it was something completely novel, which it wasn't. Girls just liked him. If she liked him, she wasn't showing it in the usual way; there wasn't any worrying stutters or giggles retarding her ability to speak. She was looking him over, appraising more than admiring, and he liked it. It was something very different than he was used to.

"What's your name?" she asked.

He leaned in to tell her, closing the already tight gap and all but brushing her ear with his lips.

"Hermione!" Ron called as he rushed over. He eyed the new boy with suspicion, his long hair with contempt, his proximity to Hermione with horror. "Come on, Malfoy's settled in, we can watch with Harry now."

"Okay," she said, trying not to sound disappointed. "Excuse me."

With impeccable manners, the young man rose from his seat and offered her a hand in standing. She accepted it and fought down a blush. "Thank you."

"Not at all, Hermione," he winked and sat back down to eat his breakfast.

Ron glared back over his shoulder at him. The boy just smirked. He was taller than Ron, had more muscle, too, but that didn't stop Ron sending threatening looks his way. "Who was that?" he whispered roughly.

"I didn't catch his name. Does he look familiar to you?"

"Looks like a git to me," Ron grumbled as they found room beside Harry.

"He didn't even look this way," Harry told them as soon as they sat down.

Hermione told them what she saw when Malfoy came in. Harry and Ron spent the rest of breakfast dissecting Malfoy's every move like observers of a Wizard Chess game. Every glance Malfoy made, every sneer or smirk, they noted it. Hermione wasn't watching. She was too busy trying to figure out who the boy was. She read in a book once that hair only grows an average of half-an-inch per month, so at the end of the previous term his hair would only have been an inch shorter than it was now; she didn't remember a Gryffindor with hair even close to as long as that boy's. But he was a wizard and it wasn't hard to imagine him using a spell to grow his hair out.

It was frustrating to say the least. She didn't have a photographic memory, but she could remember facts from books like Ron remembered Quidditch handicaps. Placing a name to a face ought to be easy for her. Recognizing a face as handsome and a mouth so quick to smile and grey eyes so eager to disappear in crinkles as he laughed loudly ought to be simple, especially in the small and tightly knit Gryffindor tower. Maybe Harry would know him. She would point him out as they left and he might be able to tell her his name.

"We're going to be late," Hermione said. As eager to be to class on time as to have Harry identify the young man in question.

"Malfoy's moving, too," Harry said and rushed to stand.

They walked down the aisle; Hermione's eyes were locked on the spot where the boy with the long, dark hair ought to have been sitting. The spot was empty. There were no plates to indicate that he had been sitting there at all. She was bitterly disappointed, and had to force herself to watch Malfoy. The pale Slytherin came to the entrance hall at the same time Harry did, glared at him, sneered and strode past.

"It was him," Ron said.

"Definitely," Harry agreed.

So Malfoy was playing at being Harry in the evenings to get him into trouble and expelled. That would make Harry's life more difficult than normal. He sat in Charms plotting out his best course of action. He would have to make sure he traveled with a pack of students at all times to ensure he had an alibi and witnesses. Although, if Mrs Norris shadowed his every move, the cat would be his best witness. Somehow she and Filch managed to communicate, and she would tell him that Harry went straight from the Gryffindor tower to the Headmaster's office. If the cat stuck with him, it wouldn't matter what crimes Malfoy did while disguised as him.

"You realize," Ron said with a worried expression after Harry told him this revelation, "that you're actually happy that Filch suspects you."

"He always suspects me," Harry said with a laugh. "He suspects everyone."

"That's true."

They walked on to lunch, Hermione hoping with every step to see the boy and find out his name. More than that, she was hoping to have him so close she could smell his skin as he whispered it to her, like he would have done that morning. Her hopes were for nothing, however, as he wasn't there, at least not where she could see. It was disappointing, but not unexpected. Ron didn't pay her any attention, so why would someone that handsome give her a second look. She could smack Weasley for interfering.

"What did I do?" Ron asked when he saw her looking at him in a rather unpleasant tone.

"Nothing," she grumbled and focused on her sandwich.

"Doesn't look like nothing," he insisted. "You're looking at me like I killed your cat or something."

She glared at him with more venom than she had before, "I said it was nothing."

He opened his mouth to continue, but Harry stomped on his foot to keep him from shoving it any further into his big mouth. Ron wasn't used to girls. A lifetime growing up with brothers and a sister as fiery as all the Weasley boys combined hadn't taught Ron the delicacies required to dealing with girls in foul moods. Unlike Ron, Harry grew up with his Aunt Petunia, who was always in a foul mood with Harry around, so he knew the secret female language of glares, sighs, tones and pursed lips. Hermione was at the lower levels of annoyance where it was best to say nothing until she got over it on her own or mentioned what it was she was annoyed about. To prod her as Ron wanted to do, would risk raising her level of annoyance from moderate vexation to proper anger.

Ron did understand the blatant male signal to shut up, which he did by taking too large a bite of pasty.

"What are we going to do about Malfoy?" Hermione asked. Her tone was back to normal though she gave Ron a nasty look for eating with so few manners. That handsome black-haired boy wouldn't have eaten his lunch that way, she was certain.

"We'll have to catch him in the act," Harry said, his nose wrinkled at Ron's overly full face. "No one will believe us otherwise."

"How? We don't know where he'll be?" Ron said through his food.

"That is disgusting, Ronald."

"Sorry."

Ignoring the bits of half-masticated pasty on Ron's tie, Harry said, "We do know. Filch said Malfoy was trying to break into a storeroom on the third floor."

"What could he want in there?" Hermione wondered.

Harry shrugged. "To get me into trouble?"

"Obviously," she sighed. "But there's got to be more to it than that. We'll have to go see what's in that storeroom."

Ron had finished swallowing his pasty, nearly choking on the enormous and only partially chewed bite, "Wait. You want Harry to do what he was accused of. What if he gets caught?"

"I've got the cloak. I won't get caught," Harry said with confidence. He may not have inherited a strut from his father, but he did inherit an invisibility cloak. With it he could easily sneak to the third floor and see what was so special about the storeroom.

"Filch will be guarding that storeroom expecting you to try again," Hermione said. "How will you get through?"

Harry took a bite his sandwich and considered what to do while he chewed and swallowed. "If there really is something in there that Malfoy wants, he'll try again. I'll go and hide under the cloak until he comes. Most likely, Filch will chase after him and leave the room unguarded."

Hermione and Ron nodded their approval.

"When?" Ron asked.

"Tonight."