Hermione watched as Ron gurgled down chocolate cereal, milk dribbling down his chin and getting caught in the short ginger hairs that were starting to poke through. Honestly, sometimes she wondered why she had spent four years trying to get his attention, the rest of the time she spent confused over the jumble of feelings she felt towards him. Sighing inwardly, she finished her porridge, grabbed a banana and headed towards the door. As she did, she saw Draco entering the hall, he looked at the Slytherin table, pausing for a moment he headed towards the front where Goyle and Blaise. She watched as he pulled out the sat next to Blaise, only as Blaise hooked his foot under the chair to stop it from moving. He looked up at Draco, though she could not hear his words she could see the cold look in his eyes, and Draco's cheeks redden. Draco turned on his heels and stormed back towards the door. Hermione speed up, trying to act like she hadn't seen anything.
"Hey, Draco! Turns out you're not so popular now you haven't got your Daddy's money." Ron's voice shouted out across the mumbles and laughter of the hall. There was a hushed silence that let Hermione know half the room had heard.
She turned back, not able to help herself. Draco was staring furiously at Ron. Hermione was about to tell Ron exactly what she thought of him, when Draco turned and looked directly at her. They stood meters apart looking at each other. Then Draco stormed straight past her.
Hermione knocked on professor Sprouts door.
"Come in!"
Hermione opened the door, Sprouts office was a large brick built shed built onto the back of greenhouse three. There was a rush of unseasonably hot and damp air as she walked in. She couldn't see Sprout at first, she had to make her way through several ferns and inch past a snoring narcolepsy lily.
"Professor?"
"Miss Granger."
Hermione jumped as a large purple hat appeared from behind a bush, quickly followed by Professor Sprout.
"My girl, it's been a while since I've seen you. Are you wanting to try for the Herbology Newt after all? You'd be a year behind, but I'm sure you could catch up."
"No Professor, this is just a social visit."
"In that case, I'll make us both a gingseng root tea."
"Thank you."
"So, what can I do for you?" Professor Sprout asked a few minutes later as they both settled down on the comfortable armchairs on either side of the desk.
Hermione reached into her pocket and got out the photos.
"I know that you were close to Professor Lupin."
A sudden sadness entered Sprouts eyes.
"Since he was a boy, before I came to Hogwarts I worked with his father."
"I'm sorry." Hermione said. "I just thought you might want to see these photos, they're of Theodore."
"Theodore Lupin." Sprouts usual jolly mood seemed to return. "Let's see them."
Hermione handed over the photos, she tried not to look to closely at Sprout. She was scared of the range of emotions that the woman was showing, Hermione had far too many of her own emotions to feel somebody else's as well.
"Gosh, he is all Lupin, isn't he? Except the nose, that's Nymphadora's – her original that is, though she never wore it. And the hair, blue, I guess that he's inherited her abilities. She wore her hair that colour on her first week of Hogwarts but long and down her back. Is that Mr Malfoy?"
"Yes." Hermione said trying to avoid looking at the photo of the tow cousins together.
"Well, I always thought he had a sweet side in him somewhere. His father, he was a weak boy. He was always too influenced by the Black crowd, and others. Thank you for showing me these Miss Granger. It means a lot to me. I guess I will be teaching a whole new generation in eleven years."
"Yes, hopefully a generation that never has to know war before they know a first day of work."
"Miss Granger?"
"I have to go. I have first period."
Sprout nodded, she walked Hermione out ofthe greenhouse.
"Miss Granger, I went through two wars. You can still find a little good in every day, you just have to look harder on some days than others."
Hermione thanked her for the tea. She didn't trust herself to reply any further.
Hermione was trying to concentrate on her Welsh rarebit and soup. She'd decided to sit with the first years for lunch, she had told Harry that it was because she wanted to see how they were settling in. She could tell he knew she wasn't being truthful, but good friends sometimes let you get away with lies. She could see him sometimes looking down the table at her, but she was trying to concentrate on her Welsh rarebit and soup. The first years were mainly talking over themselves, all excitement and energy, apparently somebody had blown up a table in one of the first classes, and so Hermione only needed to throw the odd comment their way every five minutes.
Yes, she was trying to concentrate on her Welsh Rarebit and soup, but he was also sitting with first year, directly across from her. She could see most of him from between a group of Ravenclaws, who were now shooting her rather odd looks. Odd looks didn't really matter to Hermione, she had dealt with a lot worse over the years. He wasn't looking at her though, he was looking at his food, and only his food. As she watched one of the first years next to him timidly asked him a question, he visibly sighed but seemed to answer it. Salad, he was eating salad. She had never known a teenage boy to willingly eat salad. Hogwarts provided salad for them every lunch time, but Hermione knew from Hagrid that most of it ended up feeding his various animals. Yes, teenage girls went on and off diets all the time, and there's no doubt that there would be complaints if it was taken off the menu, but most of the time it just sat in large bowls in the middle of the table untouched.
"Miss Granger."
Hermione snapped out of her musings and looked over at the first year who had been trying to get her attention.
"Sorry, what was the question?"
"Are any of us going to be able to do any magic by the end of the week?"
"Yes, most of you would have been able to have moved something in some direction or changed something to a different colour."
"Are we going to be changing things to a different colour?" Another girl asked excitedly.
"Well, that's not what the lessons are supposed to be about, but it seems to be a common accident in the first weeks. Just try not to turn any parts of yourself to a different colour, it takes weeks to wear off."
"Does doing magic ever become less cool, like do you get used to it at some stage?"
"Yes, when you realise that despite all the power you've been given you're still completely powerless to change the way people think and feel, to stop discrimination, to save the people you love from pain." Hermione stopped herself when she looked back at the first-year girls staring open mouthed at her. "But, it's always fun when you discover a new spell you didn't know about before." She said with a bright false smile. "I've got a lot of studying to do." She pushed her dish away from her and made her way out of the hall.
"Professor McGonagall? I hoped to catch you before the end of lunch. I realize you must be busy."
"Yes, always busy now, but the day when I am too busy for my students is the day when I quit."
Hermione walked timidly into the headteachers office – not the proper headteachers office, but the office Professor McGonagall l had always occupied. It was not as tidy as it had always been though, there were books and parchments laying in odd piles on the floor, Hermione dodged between the piles and over to McGonagall's desk.
"How are you settling in?" McGonagall asked looking up over her glasses.
"It's strange. It's like it's not home anymore."
McGonagall nodded.
"But, I am determined to finish my education."
"So, how can I help?"
"You can't. I mean, I didn't come here for help. I just.." She hesitated as she reached into her pocket and drew out the photos.
"I thought you might appreciate seeing these."
McGonagall took the photos off her, her expression barely changing as she flicked through the photos.
"So, traumatising, to lose your family. And yet to manage to show a little kindness, I think he has some strength that he's not yet aware of."
"I don't think Teddy is aware that he lost his parents." Hermione said startled.
"I was not talking of Theodore Lupin." She laid the photos on the desk between them. Hermione looked at the photo at the top, the one she had only glanced at before. She had seen it was of Young Teddy with his much older cousin, but she had tried not to see the way Malfoy in the photo was talking calmly to the infant whilst offering him a toy owl. Kindness? Is that what McGonagall saw there? There was definitely a look Hermione had not seen before on the boy's face, something more relaxed than his usual look of disgust, but was it kindness? A photo, even a wizarding one doesn't tell a whole story, it just captures one moment of it.
"Don't you have potions lessons starting Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall asked. "You shouldn't be late for your first class with Professor Ricinus."
Hermione nodded in agreement, she picked up the photos and rushed through the door and down the stairs to the potions room. She arrived breathless to find that though she was the last person the new professor had yet to arrive. She looked around the room, Harry raised his hand and she nodded at him, he wasn't who she was looking to. It took her a minute to find Draco, stood on his own at the back of the classroom instead of with the group of Slytherins at the front.
He glanced up at her as she walked over, but immediately focused his eyes back on unpacking his books from a satchel.
"I'm sorry." She said holding out the photos.
"Bugger off Granger."
"I didn't mean to draw the same old lines in the sand. It's time we got over the old rivalries."
Malfoy grabbed the photos off her.
"It's not a rivalry Granger, it's a hierarchy, you're at the bottom and I'm.."
"FREEZE!"
They all jumped at the American voice shouting across the room, and automatically thirty pairs of eyes turned to the front of the room. The diminutive blonde professor was stood at the front.
"Sorry." She apologised. "I've always had a flair for the dramatic, and poisons. I'm Professor Ricinus, your new potions master. And you're first assignment is going to be an epic two-month long gruel to make one of the rarest and most complicated potions in history. But, there's more, you are going to be working in teams. And because this year our theme is house cooperation we're going to have Gryffindors teamed with Slytherins. So, look around you, Gryffindors the Slytherin closest to you is going to be your partner for the next two months! You are going to have to spend a lot of time with them, so I suggest that you socialise, get to know each other on a personal level."
It was clear from the expressions on every students face that getting to know each other on a personal level was to them on the same level as getting intimate with a fluey flubberworm.
Hermione looked around, she must be closer to another Slytherin, or maybe she could shuffle a bit? Draco caught her eye and sneered. "You've done it now Granger."
Yep, I went with that old story line of forced to work together - but don't see it as old – see it as a classic, like Sherlock or Pride and Prejudice, something that can be done over and over in many ways and occasionally ends up brilliant…. I hope. Has this really been over a year! Opps! Wellm back to it now.