Hermione woke up because she was being shaken roughly. She opened her eyes to see a head full of ginger hair.
"Ron?" she asked groggily.
Ginny grinned back at her. "Wrong Weasley. Its lunch time, you should probably get up now. Ron said to let you sleep in because you've been pretty out of it lately."
"LUNCH TIME?" Hermione shrieked, jumping up from her bed. "That means I've missed Defense against the Dark Arts, A Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. I'll get detention for sure. Not to mention the notes I haven't taken."
Ginny fought to keep the smile off her face. "You worry about it too much. Just borrow someone else's notes."
"Ginny, no one else takes notes as well as I do." Hermione despaired. "Except Malfoy. And I'm not asking him."
Ginny threw her a slightly suspicious look. "When did you see Malfoy's notes? Do you talk to him?"
"If by talking you mean trading insults and him calling me a mudblood, then yes, we talk. As for the notes, he's only slightly behind me in most classes. You don't get marks like that without taking good notes."
Please don't call my bluff Hermione prayed in her head.
Ginny, to her relief, looked satisfied with her explanation and didn't press any further.
"In any case, you better hurry. Lunch is almost over."
Hermione had already started yanking her uniform on. She ran a comb through her hair and made a snap decision to skip lunch and instead practice her polishing charms. She ran to the first empty classroom she found and started working on her charms. She ignored her grumbling stomach and made a mental note to get a snack from the kitchen as soon as she could.
She managed to master the charm within 20 minutes and spent the rest of lunch drawing up a time table to help her finish all her homework on time. It was rare that she allowed herself to fall behind schedule.
She ran to the potions classroom just as lunch ended but Professor Slughorn was late and the Gryffindors and Slytherins milled outside the classroom.
"Hey." she greeted Harry and Ron with a wide smile. "Thanks for letting me sleep in today, I really needed that."
They grinned back at her.
"We thought you'd be angry." Harry said.
"I missed three classes but I'll make up for them later. Harry can I borrow your notes?"
"What's wrong with my notes?" Ron asked, looking petulant.
"Since when do you even take notes Ron?" she asked him and they burst into laughter together. She felt fresher than she had in days.
She felt that tingling sensation on the back of her neck again and turned around to see Malfoy watching her. He averted his eyes the second hers met his with his typical disdainful expression, but not before Ron saw him looking at them.
"What are you looking at?" he demanded rudely.
"I was looking at your face and was wondering how any one could produce something as ugly as you. I guess it runs in the family though." Malfoy drawled.
Beside him, Pansy Parkinson burst into peals of laughter.
"Draco you're soooo funny." she pressed herself against him.
"Draco you're soooo funny. I love you so much Draco. Marry me please. Let me have your babies." Hermione imitated Pansy's high pitched squeals. Harry, who had been about to defend Ron, looked surprised at Hermione's outburst.
It was extremely atypical of her to make such petty retorts. When she did insult someone(mostly in defense of her friends), they were usually well thought out jabs.
Hermione on the other hand, had been in an excellent mood before encountering the Slytherins. She was beyond annoyed that Malfoy and his posse had the power to ruin her mood with just a few words. She was even more annoyed by the fact that Malfoy wouldn't even look at her in public although she was doing him a favour by spending her own valuable time tutoring him.
"Shut up, you filthy mudblood. At least I have a boyfriend. No boy would even look at you. Mudblood, and on top of that ugly." Pansy retorted.
"Looks aren't everything,Parkinson. I wonder if your dear Malfoy will like you when you have wrinkles. Doesn't look like he likes you much right now either, judging by the disgusted look on his face."
Ron snorted beside her, trying to suppress his laughter and Pansy drew her wand and pointed it at her.
In response Harry, Ron and Hermione drew their wands and leveled them at the Slytherins. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Blaise Zabini pointed their wands at the Gryffindors.
"Scared, Potter?" Malfoy's cold grey eyes glinted in the light and Hermione had a faint recollection of Malfoy saying the exact same thing when he and Harry had been about to duel in the second year. She wondered absent mindedly if Harry caught the reference.
"Anteoculatia!" Blaise cried, aiming at Harry.
He blocked the hex quickly while Ron fired a hex back at him.
Hermione had known from before that they would be practising nonverbal spells that year and had been practicing one particular nonverbal spell for hours whenever she had the time. She took the opportunity to use it.
Expelliarmus she said in her head and Pansy's, Blaise's,Crabbe's and Draco's wands flew neatly into her hand. There was silence for a second.
And then Crabbe punched Harry in the face. Ron joined into the brawl while Hermione dropped all the wands and tried to pull them off each other while Zabini joined into the fight. She was hindered by Pansy who was still out for vengeance and yanked roughly at Hermione's hair and tried to claw at her face.
Hermione responded by elbowing Pansy in the stomach and trying to pry her fingers out from her hair.
"ENOUGH." Slughorn bellowed. He was standing in the doorway, looking flustered. He had been watching the duel with interest until it had gotten out of hand.
"How dare you!" he cried. "50 points from each of you." His face was red in anger. "But only 20 points from Mr Malfoy."
They all turned to stare at Malfoy. He hadn't joined into the brawl and had picked up his wand from where Hermione had dropped them and had been watching them with amusement etched into his face.
Slughorn turned to Hermione. "20 points to Gryffindor for that beautiful non verbal spell. I was very impressed with that. And DETENTION FOR THE LOT OF YOU." Slughorn looked breathless, although his face had lost the tomato red hue that it had previously acquired.
The group received dirty looks from the surrounding Gryffindors and Slytherins for costing them so many house points.
The rest of the lesson passed in relative silence.
At the end of the lesson Slughorn told them to stay back while the rest of the students trooped out.
"You'll have detention at 6pm on Saturday. We'll meet in the great hall. Don't be late."
He dismissed them.
Hermione was not looking forward to that day's tutoring session.
The Slytherins headed to their Defense Against the Dark Arts class with the Ravenclaws while Hermione headed to her numerology lesson and Harry and Ron went to their divination class together.
"How did she do that?" Blaise muttered to Draco as they hurried down the hallway.
Draco shrugged in return.
"I don't know. We're supposed to be learning non-verbal spells this year. She's probably been practicing since the day classes began."
"You're impressed aren't you Draco?" Blaise asked him.
"You'd be a fool not to be." Draco smiled back at Blaise.
His friendship with Blaise was a peculiar one. They were close, but there was an insurpassable wall between them. There always would be. The Slytherins were a cautious lot. They would stand up for their friends and their beliefs but their own agendas were always the priority. They had to be extremely careful who they could trust.
Draco would never admit it out loud, or even to himself, but he envied Ron's, Harry's and Hermione's friendship. He had seen how implicitly they trusted each other. How they always had each other's backs.
He sneered to himself to cover his jealousy. Good. One day that trust will get them killed.
"Professor I need to ask you something." Draco asked Snape as their lesson ended.
"Hmm?" Snape didn't look up at him but continued to shuffle through his notes.
"How long would it take someone to master the non-verbal Expelliarmus spell? And how long would it take one to master it's non-verbal counter spell?"
"Expelliarmus? You haven't even started with the easy non-verbal spells. Lower your expectations."
He waved his hand at Draco, clearly dismissing him.
"But how would someone go about it if they were determined?"
Professor Snape peered at Draco for a few seconds before drawing out a piece of parchment from his desk and scrawling a name onto it.
"Go to Madame Pince and ask her to give you this book from the restricted section of the library. This should have what you need."
"Thank you Sir." he turned to leave.
"Draco." Snape called after him, and he turned around.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
"I hope so too."