When morning finally arrived the head girl was sprawled out on her bed, tangled in the sheets. The Crimson red curtains did little to stop the sunshine from awakening a killer headache and after many failed attempts to block out the harsh light, Hermione finally gave up and struggled out of bed.

She quickly went about her morning routine and trudged down to the great hall for breakfast. She was rather late but she had no morning classes so there was no rush. Stumbling slightly through the doors to the great hall, Hermione slowly shuffled to the Gryffindor table and dumped her bag down on the bench before sitting upon it herself. She filled her plate with an assortment of breakfast foods and fished out a book on advanced arithmancy from the bottom of her bag.

A few moments later a brown barn owl swooped in and deposited a letter right onto her bacon, stealing a piece in the process. Hermione huffed and brushed off the food debris from the paper before opening the envelope and reading the tidy script. It was a rather official letter from the Ministry enquiring as to whether or not she'd be interested in a job in their new 'Muggle Protection' department. Hermione immediately drew her wand and set the piece of parchment alight; receiving a few wary looks, but no one said anything to the furious witch. How many times would it take for them to realise she didn't want anything to do with the bloody Ministry of Magic? She'd learnt after the war that politics was a business she wanted to stay far away from. No matter how many zeroes they were claiming would be on her pay cheque, it would never be enough.

After another 15 minutes Hermione found that she wasn't all that hungry and so gave up on nutrition and instead made her way out to the lake where she could get some peace and quiet.

It was a wonderful day and the water of the lake shone in the early light, giving the illusion that thousands of diamonds graced its surface. Hermione sat beneath an old oak tree, listening to the rustling of the leaves and the splashing of water. Hogwarts was a lot more beautiful when you took the time to just look around.

She once again took out her arithmancy book and began reading, looking for any information to add to her already jam packed essay but also to gain knowledge she wasn't set to learn for another month. It always paid to read ahead.

After being quite sure she wasn't missing anything, Hermione replaced the book with an old tome on charms. She flicked through the pages until she got to one of her favourite spells. She had read the faded runes many times and had of course memorised the incantation, however the wand movements always escaped her. Quickly refreshing herself on the correct moves, she picked up her wand and let forth a beautiful red swirl of light. The light curled around the air and morphed into beautiful fiery birds. Their long tails flowed behind them as they glided through the air in a show of graceful acrobatics.

The spectacular show had the effect it always did. Hermione felt lighter and her worries slipped away as she gazed at the silently beating wings and sparkling trails left in the phoenixes' wake.

Allowing the birds to fade away, she cast a quick tempus charm and found that her first class of the day would be starting in 15 minutes. She quickly gathered her belongings and jogged towards the castle, not wanting to be late. Arriving at the classroom with 5 minutes to spare, Hermione quickly took her seat at the front of the room and began to get out her books. It wasn't long before the rest of the class entered the room, a mixture of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. A rather harmonious combination. The Gryffindors took turns making jokes and showing off and the Hufflefuffs were too polite to do anything but play along.

The transfiguration lesson went by in a flash and it wasn't long before Hermione was making her way down to the dungeons for potions. The potions room was dark and cool as usual and the overall atmosphere was as foreboding as ever. Even if the man had been named a hero, Severus Snape was still the most feared person at Hogwarts, if not the entire wizarding world now that Voldemort was gone.

The lesson went surprisingly smoothly with only one unfortunate Gryffindor's failed potion resulting in a deduction of house points. Which was rather odd. Usually Gryffindor would be losing points left right and centre for the entire lesson. The lack of which drew two possible conclusions. Either Snape was too distracted to put forth any effort into ruining their day, or he was in a particularly good mood. And God help them all if it was the latter. Who knew what terrible catastrophes had occurred to brighten the Dungeon Bat's day.

Although, what was even more disconcerting was that Hermione found Snape was ignoring her more than usual, which she originally thought would be impossible. But he hadn't neared her work bench all lesson or so much as glanced at her. However, every now and then she could swear she could feel his black eyes boring into her while she worked.

xXx

Despite the speculations, nothing particularly terrible had happened to make Snape uncharacteristically happy. In fact, he was just as apathetic as he was any other day. The only difference was that McGonagall had had a nice little chat with him about house favouring among the teachers. After much spluttering, denial and off handed comments about reckless Gryffindors, Snape had been forced into submission with a single pointed look from the headmistress. She then told him that if he continued to take points and punish Gryffindors at the rate he was then she would permanently transfigure all of his robes to such a pink and frilly extent that they would rival even Umbridge's. This had shut him up and he was begrudgingly obliging.

Looking over the class of bored and rather confused faces who were currently failing to brew an exceptionally easy healing potion he sighed and leaned further onto his desk. None of them seemed to appreciate the subtle art of potion making, but really how could they mess up their potions so easily when they were literally given a step-by-step guide on how to do it would always baffle him.

As his gaze swept the classroom it landed on a certain bushy-haired witch. Hermione Granger was truly the closest he'd come to finding an acceptable potions student. She had never melted one of his cauldrons or wasted his ingredients. Even her work bench was left remarkably tidy and her potions were never anything but perfect. Not that he'd ever tell her that. He'd sooner have a civil conversation with Hooch than actually give a Gryffindor a compliment. However, he sometimes came dangerously close to showing approval to Miss Granger. Her bright, innocent brown eyes would sparkle up at him, searching desperately for approval. In a way she reminded him of himself when he was younger. A thirst to prove himself and absorb all the knowledge that was available to him.

His mind wandered back to earlier that day. He had been sat at the teacher's dais at breakfast when she received an official looking letter. Naturally he was curious, and so watched for her reaction. It certainly hadn't been what he'd expected. No sooner had she opened the envelope had the parchment burst into flames. Not long after that she had practically stormed out of the great hall, bushy curls bouncing around her shoulders as they crackled with repressed magical energy.

He had decided that he too wished to finish with breakfast early and had left to take a walk in the fresh air. He hadn't expected to see the girl again so soon, but before he could back track and put some distance between him and the annoying know-it-all, he'd caught a glimpse of a familiar shape, swirling around the air in front of her. He couldn't quite believe he was seeing correctly, but sure enough there were those bright phoenixes flying freely about the tree trunk.

He stood speechless until he was snapped back to reality by Miss Granger quickly gathering her things and hurrying towards the castle. He soon followed, needing to prepare for his first class, with a wave of memories trying to drown him in pain and misery.

For most of the lesson he had tried to avoid Miss Granger but he was fighting a losing battle, having to speak with her anyway. So he did what he always did and locked the bad memories away, deep within the recesses of his mind.

Sighing once more he announced the end of class and forced them all from his sight.

"Not you, Miss Granger," he called as she neared the doorway. She turned and walked back to his desk. Once the last student had left he stood and strolled around to the front of the table and leant on it with his arms folded over his chest. "I thought it prudent to tell you that I will be expecting you at 7 o'clock this evening and you should bring gloves. You will be sorting through the inventory of the store room for your detention."

"Yes, Sir." She replied smoothly. "Will that be all?" She met his gaze as he seemed to study her, an unreadable expression on his face, as if he was trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle.

"Yes I suppose it will be. Now run along Granger, I don't want to have to see you for longer than is strictly necessary." And with that he returned to his desk, head down, and began reading through the abysmal essays his third year class for some reason deemed acceptable to actually present to him.

With the abrupt dismissal Hermione hurried from the room, the feeling all but mutual, and headed to the library for some last minute research before her next lesson.