Green and Silver Tie

A/N: Hey again, my friends! This brilliant chapter is dedicated to all my brilliant reviewers – I hope you like it!

Chapter Three

If Hermione had to describe her situation in one word, it'd be awkward.

She knew, of course, that Weasley had no idea it was her and Harry Potter who had picked up their conversation in the shallow hallways the day before. Otherwise, she was certain her ability to even meet up at Potions would've dissipated along with her body being lowered six feet under.

Weasley looked quite furious where he sat beside her, refusing to even acknowledge she was there beside him. His glowingly orange hair clashed hard and cold with the green in his tie. His posture was stiff and she somehow knew he wasn't in the mood of a fight.

The tension between them radiated of cold hatred, annoyance and uneasiness. Hermione shifted self-consciously in her wooden chair. The silence drifted in the air. The usual chatter in the air had dropped dead the moment Snape had stepped into class and looked down at them from behind his crooked nose.

His beady, black eyes stared her down, and the Professor announced coolly, "Due to incompetence in certain areas of this subject–," Hermione heard Neville gulp, "–I have decided that you will be working in pairs, until further improvement has been accomplished,"

Snape swished his wand in the air. The two cauldrons on Hermione's table suddenly shivered like jelly, before they slowly were pulled together. Weasley's iron cauldron looked like liquid as it boiled and shivered before engulfing her own. As the spell cooled down, the two cauldrons had now become one, roomier and finer than their previous two.

Surprisingly, she noticed Weasley eying them suspiciously before his mouth turned and he smiled.

Although the expression was swept off his face in an instance, being replaced by a hard, iron mask, only emitting proudness and arrogance, she knew what she'd seen. He had smiled – not smirked, not sneered, but smiled. Not in all the years she'd known him, had she ever seen him smile.

Despite the weakness of the lopsided, slightly upturned grin, she had comprehended it. Hermione didn't know what the smile meant to her, but still, she took it as a victory. Perhaps one step into friendship, if she was lucky.

Hermione was so dumbstruck that she hadn't noticed that Weasley had said something to her. She abruptly snapped out of her daze.

"W-what?" she managed to stutter.

"Oh, I don't know," he replied smugly, the words dripping of sarcasm, "maybe if you'd listened to what the Professor said, you'd know that we're supposed to get our ingredients,"

Hermione stared at him in shock.

"That means, go and get our ingredients, Mudblood," he snarled.

"Do it yourself. I'm not some kind of slave you can command around like I'm filth," she replied sternly, jabbing a finger at his chest. Her rage boiled under her skin, barely held in control by her cold outer display.

She watched as his expression melted and a childish look surfaced. Weasley's icy eyes narrowed and he whined, "But you are filth,"

As if Snape had sensed the disruption at their empty table, he was suddenly standing at their table, looking at them out of the corner of his eyes. Immediately, Hermione bit back a reply and rushed to the ingredients in the front of the room.

Against all odds, her partner walked in her footsteps and the two met by the frog tongues and Waterwobby scales.

She calmly collected a set of orange roots as Ron cornered her. His mouth was drawn in a thin line while he spoke, "Granger," Hermione resisted the urge to push him away from her, "I know we both want to keep our O's in Potions, so I suggest a deal,"

He didn't give her room to talk as he continued, "We'll work together, do the potion and forget all about it when we're given our cauldrons back," he paused and quickly added, "it's not a request to be your…friend. We're only doing it because of the grade,"

Hermione accepted reluctantly with a nod of the head, before Weasley hurried back to their seats with a swish of air following his trail.

The remaining lesson was spent working fluently, the time flying by in a snap of her fingers. Occasionally, one of them would comment a wrong in the book or notice a colour change. From the picture in the textbook, their Coagulation Potion seemed to develop into an exactly copy of the photo.

Halfway through class, Hermione sighed and bit her lip. Weasley, who had edged himself as far away from her Mudblood germs that was humanly possible, had stuck his ungrateful nose into her carrot cutting. With a smirk, he pointed out, "You're cutting them too big, or else they won't liquefy when you blend them with the dragon venom,"

Hermione bit back a snappy reply, "Read the instructions again, will you?"

Weasley's eyes became steely and hard, "I have read them, but they're wrong,"

Malfoy, who had publicly glared at Weasley for quite the while, stood up forcefully on the other side of the classroom. Hermione's rage sparked as Snape deliberately didn't notice the git walk right out of the room smugly, leaving a poor Neville and a steaming, purple potion in his wake.

"How would you know?" she snapped back, only realizing how much anger she'd poured into the words when they left her mouth. Her eyes widened in realization before he spat back.

"I've made it before, Mudblood. At least I'm not some dense Muggle know-it-all who thinks she's always bloody right about everything,"

The words hurt more than they should have. It felt like a dagger to her chest, not because it was he who said it so full of hatred, but because he was right. The root she had been cutting – just as orange as her partner's hair – was suddenly snapped in half by a ragged push of her knife.

The ravenous flame that flickered in his eyes and the gloomy hatred that emanated from him instantly died down. In a split second, he almost looked regretful of his declaration. Hermione's eyes turned dry as sand and she forced herself to blink back tears.

"I – I'm–," she began, unsure of what she was about to say.

"…sorry," the word felt like silk, so soft it was uttered, yet so strong and repairing. Hermione was too dazed by the fact that it was spoken so full of swirling softness and strength that she didn't realize who had said it.

Weasley. Ron Weasley had said it.

Her childhood enemy. The most hated guy in the whole school – a Slytherin nonetheless – with a 'you hurt me, I'll kill you' complex, had just said he was sorry. For such a petty insult too.

Maybe the fact that she was on the edge of crying, or that he was tired of fighting with her, had made him human? She didn't know he possessed the ability of remorse, even less express it.

The air around them pulsed with shock and hesitation. Weasley stared at her intently, awaiting her late reply. Hermione shook her head, "…thanks, I guess," she started, but deemed it awkward, "for being friendly, I suppose,"

Although their partnership in Potions was anything but friendly, she felt slightly grateful for his apology. She didn't quite know what to do next, as they both sat there staring each other down in absolute silence.

Out of a sudden, Weasley's pale freckles lighted up and his skin became pearly white. His hand flew to his left forearm. What he grasped was impossible to tell underneath his black cloak. An expression of excitement – or perhaps dread – filled his eyes to the brim. She heard him swallow hard, and his mouth thinned out further into a cold, dead line. His blue eyes became instantly grey and gloomy.

She didn't know what happened, but before she could process it, Weasley darted out of the Potions classroom in a rush.

An emptiness filled her as she caught the curious eyes of lonely Neville Longbottom with his abandoned, purple potion. Worry suddenly filled her, for what reason she didn't know.

What she knew was that she'd rushed her hand in the air and got permission to go to the toilet. Immediately, she was hushed out of the room, leaving an open world of hidden passages and dark hallways before her.

Hermione tripped silently after the black snip of a cloak combined with a silver and green tie. She was still a little astonished at her own doing, but still, she followed along as the tempo increased.

A/N: Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your valuable thoughts! Your feedback is extremely encouraging.