Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter... sobs uncontrolably

Lesson One:FOR THE LOVE OF MERLIN, OPEN YOUR EYES!!

If you think she's exceedingly nice, she's flirting with you! Other than that, a girl really has no reason to be that nice to a guy. I mean, honestly! Guys are so thick!

Bloody hell… This class is boring. I've already read the chapter on Werewolves… Three times. I guess that's what Ron would call being an 'over-achiever', and I guess he's right. I look around the room. Everyone else is still reading. Everyone except for Ron, Harry, and me that is. They know I'll just let them copy my notes later tonight, so what do they have to worry about? After all, that's what I'm here for…

Ron's half asleep, as usual, his head in his hands, and draped lazily over his DADA book. Poor thing… Had to stay up late last night to finish a Charms essay, which I still ended up writing most of. (He woke up thinking he had been sleep-writing and came to the brilliant conclusion that he should sleep through every class because judging by his work on the essay, he was 'bloody fantastic' in his sleep… I had just rolled my eyes…) He twitched a little and a string of drool seeped out from his parted lips and landed without a sound on his book cover. Who knows how many Weasleys had fallen asleep on that DADA book? Quite a few by the looks of the cover and it's numerous spit stains.

Harry was awake, though. His green eyes were fixed on something near the front of the room. I followed his gaze, but I couldn't see anything interesting there… Unless Harry was looking at Draco Malfoy, but I highly doubted that. I stared at Harry a while longer. He must have felt my eyes on him because he turned in my direction and smiled. I smiled back and then looked away. I wonder if he knows how beautiful his eyes really are… I should tell him… No, that would be too blunt, even for me.

I sighed quietly and looked back down at my notes. Five pages, neatly written, all organized by chapter, page number, and subject matter… And then it all seemed so silly. Why do I spend so much of my time on schoolwork when I could be more like Ron or Harry and just mooch off other people? I guess that's because I'm the one people mooch off of and without me, no one would get anything done… I guess that makes me important… Sort of…

There is some movement at the front of the room. I look up and see Malfoy's finished the chapter and is leaning back in his chair, his feet up on the table in front of him. He rested his head on the table behind him, at which sat Pansy Parkinson. Pansy was never far from Malfoy at all times, like an extremely obedient golden retriever except not nearly as smart or attractive. She took a lock of his platinum blonde hair in her stubby fingers and twirled it as she rocked forward in her chair and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and smiled up at her, then looked away again, patiently letting Pansy braid and un-braid that strand of hair.

"Sick…" came a whisper from my left.

I turned to Ron. He was watching Malfoy and Pansy with a grimace of disgust on his face.

"I don't know…" I whispered back to him, folding my hands under my chin. "I think it's kind of… sweet."

He looked at me like I had sprouted another head. "Sweet?" he hissed.

I nodded slightly. "Yeah… It shows that even someone as horrible as Malfoy has someone to love him…" I replied softly.

Ron shook his head and muttered "Girls!" He looked at me sideways, a half-smile on his lips.

I smiled back and nudged him with my elbow. He laid his head back down on his book and shut his eyes again. " 'Mione?" he asked quietly.

"Mmhmm?"

"Promise me you'll never braid my hair?" He smiled again and opened one eye, to see my reaction.

I grinned and nodded. "I promise…"

"Good. I don't think I could take that." He shut his eyes once more. "Oh, and could you wake me up five minutes before class ends?"

"Of course," I responded. After all, what was I here for except to play personal alarm clock for Ronald Weasley? But I really didn't mind. It wasn't like I was going to be doing anything else for the entire class period.

So I watched Ron sleep. Not in a creepy way… But just in a… curious way. The way his back rose and fell with each breath. The way his lips twitched at the corners and his eyes moved back and forth behind their lids. The way his hair fell in his face and over the cover of his book. He looked so angelic. So unlike how he usually looked, it was almost unnerving. I wondered what he was dreaming about…

I reached out to brush a stray hair out of his face, not really realizing what I was doing. A snort came from the front of the room, and I looked up, startled.

Malfoy and Pansy were staring at me. Pansy was stifling a snicker behind her hand, but wasn't doing a very good job of it, I could still hear her, as could anyone else who happened to not be paying attention to his or her bookwork, but luckily for me, that was only Malfoy, Pansy, and I. (Harry was reading a comic under his desk, so thankfully, all his attention was focused on that and Ron was still sleeping.) Pansy smirked and made a heart with her thumbs and forefingers and held it out in front of her face, one eye squinted shut and her tongue stupidly poking out of the side of her mouth, obviously placing Ron and me in the center of her makeshift frame. I frowned at her and ground my teeth, but that only made her laugh harder. She poked Malfoy in the arm and pointed at us. He nodded and smirked, but his eyes looked distant, like they weren't really looking at me, but past me.

And then Ron woke up wondering why he hadn't taken any notes in his sleep.

"I wish I could have been there," Ginny whispered to me after I had recounted the whole DADA episode. She shook her head as she grabbed a chicken leg and put it on her plate. "I would have said something, or at least hexed them, or something, I don't know."

"Yeah, well…" There wasn't much I could say. The whole 'heart-frame-thing' really shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. Ron and I were just friends, no matter what Pansy and Malfoy thought. No matter what anyone thought.

My eyes drifted Ron's way. The way he ate was sickening. He had barely chewed his bite of chicken before another bite when in, his fork poised over his mashed potatoes, ready to dig in when he freed up some space in his black hole of a mouth.

"Wipe your mouth," I commanded him as I speared a rogue pea with one of the prongs of my fork.

He frowned in my direction, but complied with my order, taking his napkin from his lap and swiping it viciously over his face before attacking his roll.

I sighed and put my chin in my hand, twirling my fork in the potato remains, swirling little waves in the gravy and piling heaps of potatoes one on top of the other…

"… right?"

I glanced up to see Harry staring intently at me from across the table with a concerned look on his face. "I said, 'Are you all right?' Usually, you correct Ron's eating habits more than once a meal," he joked.

"Hey, I eat just fine!" Ron objected through a mouthful of bread as his hand shot out to grab another roll before the dinner plates were replaced with desert.

I managed a feeble eye roll. "Fine, I'm fine." I gave Ginny a look out of the corner of my eye. She returned the look with a flippant shake of her red hair and a shrug of her shoulders before launching into a long and involved conversation with Harry about Quidditch.

I ceased molding my potatoes into a small, but surprisingly accurate, model of Krakatoa and laid my fork gently on the edge of my plate. "Actually, I think I'll spend my free period sleeping," I said to no one in particular as I stood and untangled my legs from the bench. I accidentally kneed Ginny in the side, but she was too busy flirting with Harry to notice, so I didn't interrupt with meaningless apologies.

Really the boy was impossible. No matter how hard Ginny batted her scant eyelashes or how many times she gently touched his arm, as if to emphasize a point in their conversation, Harry remained tortuously unaware. And it drove Ginny insane. I would have helped, but she made me promise not to tell him about her feelings. She even tried to get me to make the Unbreakable Vow, but I convinced her to swear on a pinky promise instead, telling her it was the muggle equivalent. There was no need to shed too much blood over the matter. It was only love after all, and love, as I have come to decide, is highly overrated.

I gathered my books and headed towards the door. None of my friends seemed to notice that I had left. As I passed by the Slytherin table, I did my best impression of a sneer in Malfoy and Pansy's direction. Pansy returned the gesture with her own equally nasty gesture. But Malfoy did something peculiar:

He actually smiled at me.