MARY-SUE AND GARY-STU DO HOGWARTS
CHAPTER THREE: EXPLODING CAULDRONS OF (UN)REQUITED LOVE

-- -- -- -- --

"Avoid eye contact," Hermione muttered under her breath to Harry and Ron as they found themselves in suffocatingly close quarters with the newest exchange student. "You never know what these people have planned out. You would be best to stay as far away from her as possible-"

"Hm?" Ron and Harry both replied in a dreamy voice from behind her.

Fearing the worst, Hermione turned on her heel. A pit of doom began to form in her abdomen as she studied the sight before her. Ron and Harry had both stopped in their advance towards their usual seats in Snape's formidable classroom. They stood, staring - no, gawking - over to where the Slytherins were, and Hermione hesitantly followed their gaze.

It was just as she thought. In the middle of the gathered Slytherins was her. Though half a dozen boys chatted at her from every direction, her attention was turned only towards the two Gryffindors gaping at her from the doorway.

With an annoyed sigh, Hermione stomped back towards them and hastily snapped her fingers in front of their stunned faces. "Come on, you two. There's no time for this today. We need to concentrate our efforts-"

"Says who, Hermione?" Ron replied in an angry tone that, without the presence of this girl (what was her name again?), he would never have used when addressing her.

Ron was lost, she decided. She instead turned towards Harry, but as she opened her mouth to speak to him, he left she and Ron behind as he moved across the room, drawn to the intrigued expression that he was receiving from the only other girl in Potions class besides herself. Where were the rest of them?

"Harry!" she tried to call him back, but then decided that it was no use as Ron hurriedly followed him. She was alone in this plight, unless she could find someone else who remained unaffected. There was always someone, but it was quite the chore in separating them out from the rest.

"All right, everyone get into your seats-" Snape barked as he stepped into his classroom, but then fell unusually quiet, even for him, as he saw the new student sitting amidst the crowd of boys on the Slytherins' side of the classroom. "Oh, hello, Raven."

"Hello, Severus," she replied with a knowing wink. "I trust you have been well, since the last time that we spoke?"

Hermione could not fight the urge to roll her eyes. Of course she would know Snape. She was Bellatrix's daughter, and more than likely had strong ties to Voldemort, because of that. In fact, Hermione had a faint suspicion that her bonds to Voldemort were enough so as to warrant evidence of that connection.

It was always dangerous to directly contact her kind, but Hermione had a hunch that this was the right way to go about dealing with this one: expose her for who she was right off the bat and see where that got her. She glanced over to where the new girl sat and realized that the classroom's entire populace surrounded her, spare herself and Professor Snape, who seemed to have turned a blind eye to the goings-on before him and had forgotten that he was supposed to be teaching a lesson.

'Great,' she thought. 'She's got him too.'

Hermione moved to approach the crowd of people, but found that her plan would be impossible to perform. As she watched, the girl rolled up her left sleeve and showed, for all to see, the fancy new fashion accessory that she had acquired before coming to Hogwarts: the Dark Mark.

"I can even make it disappear!" she whispered excitedly to the boys, and made it flash against her skin, earning herself several gasps of excitement.

Hermione's eyes found Harry and Ron in the crowd, and she found that they had sunken so deep in this new girl's intoxicating presence that they did not even care that she was openly affiliated with the Wizarding World's worst enemy.

"What's going on over there, babe?"

Hermione gasped as a cold body pressed against her from behind, and two strong arms wrapped themselves around her torso in order to hold it there. She felt a pair of lips brush the nape of her neck before she pushed the boy away from her. She left a healthy distance between them before daring to discover who had just assaulted her in such a way.

When she saw who it was, she stared at him with an intent gaze of disgust. "Zabini?"

He smiled as she said his name, and then tried to take a step towards her. She put her hands up before her, warning him to stop, but he merely smiled wider. "I love it when you act like you don't want me, Hermione-"

"Well, it's not hard, considering that I don't," she bluntly replied.

"Oh, but we both know that's not entirely true," he teased her ever so slightly.

Hermione placed her hands on her hips, and scowled in his direction. "We've never even spoken before. When did I ever become your babe?"

'You did this,' she hastily thought as she peered over her shoulder towards the new girl, who still reveled in the attention that she was gaining from the entire male population of Snape's classroom, spare the one that bothered her in that moment.

"You've always been my babe, Hermione," he told her with a smirk that would make Malfoy proud. "There's always been something between us, you and I-"

"If that's so, it's news to me-" she cut herself off as a sudden realization dawned on her. "Wait, hold on a moment."

"Whatever you need, babe," Zabini winked, and then commenced to watch her as she thought.

"Have you met the new girl?" Hermione hurriedly asked him.

"Yes," he replied, but his gaze did not wander away from her.

Despite the fact that a Slytherin was hounding her for love and affection, Hermione found it in her to allow for a small smile to creep over her lips. She had just found who was going to help her make rid of Hogwarts' newest nuisance.