Hermione's fears that she would be behind the other students turned out to be absurd. Draco watched in awe as she displayed that she already knew all the constellations they were supposed to learn that year in Astronomy, as she recited the properties of all the plants in their first Herbology lesson, and as she managed to wrest a smile from even the terrifying Professor McGonagall in Transfiguration.

"How did you learn all that?" he asked as they headed to their first Potions class.

She looked embarrassed. "Well, you don't need magic for Astronomy," she mumbled, "So I read the book and looked up a bunch of stuff at our library and drilled myself on it until I knew it all."

He gaped at her for a moment then said, "You really didn't want to be behind, did you?"

She shook her head.

"But magical Herbology…" he trailed off, not sure how she'd known all that as well.

"I got the books," she said, still mumbling, "Just the textbooks. It's not that hard, really. Not compared to Potions. I got the books for that for years one through three at Flourish & Botts when they took me there to get my things and I read them and I…." She stopped talking. "I'm sorry," she said at last. "Mum said once this is why people don't like me."

"I like you," Draco blurted out impulsively.

She flashed him that smile of hers and he grinned in delight at the sight of the teeth slightly too big for her mouth. It made her look endearing. It made her look adorable. "I'm glad," she said, tucking her hand in his. "It's nice to have a friend here."

"Yeah," Draco said, looking down at his feet at they entered Potions. It was the first class they'd had with Slytherin and he felt conflicting urges to pull his hand away from Hermione – surely they all knew she was a Mudblood by now – and the urge to hold on to her more tightly and protect her from the mocking glances of her classmates.

You're brave, he told himself. The Hat thought you belonged in Gryffindor. Be brave.

He held her hand more tightly and sat down at the same desk as she did.

He could hear Vincent Crabbe guffaw at the sight and Greg Goyle said, his voice carrying across the room, "I thought your parents said no familiar, Malfoy. They change their minds and let you get a pet after all?" He looked over at Theo, seated with Blaise Zabini, of course, and the boy just looked away. Zabini rolled his eyes and mouthed 'blood traitor' with a smirk.

"Do we know these arseholes, Draco?" Harry asked as he and Neville sat down at the next desk.

There was a gasp and then a nervous titter at Harry's language.

Draco was still looking at Theo, who wasn't looking back. "I don't think we do," he said after a moment.

The atmosphere of the Potions lab, already cold and dank because it was in the dungeons, got even colder after Draco spoke.

"Don't be stupid, Malfoy." It was Crabbe. "If you know what's good for you you'll – "

"Whatever he'll do," a voice drawled, "he'll do it after class." Professor Snape swooped into the room, lank hair falling around his face and a sneer under his hooked nose. He began to call roll.

Class went what Hermione would later call, in a fit of very British understatement, "badly."

"He's a jerk," she said that night as she sat on a couch in their common room with her feet tucked under her. "He was nasty to Harry for no reason, asked a bunch of questions on reading he hadn't even assigned yet – "

"You're just mad he wouldn't call on you," Harry said, grinning at her.

" – and then he was so mean to Neville during the actual practical part of the class just because he got his potion wrong, even though he was hurt." She huffed. "It's stupid to expect everyone to do it exactly right on the very first day. Apparently we aren't supposed to know the answers or do the work wrong."

"He liked Malfoy well enough, though," Ron said. "Thought your potion was the bees knees, didn't he?"

"It was," Hermione said. "We did it right. Complimenting people who got the potion right doesn't make you a nice teacher." She leaned over and patted Neville's hand. "It doesn't make it okay that he was such a jerk to you."

"Thanks, Hermione," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

They had all looked forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts, thinking that that class would be the most exciting of all. There had been a Dark Wizard, and not that long ago, and somehow Harry had managed to, if not defeat him, exactly, then to somehow make him disappear. The eagerness with which they'd anticipated learning how to ward off Dark Curses and block even simple hexes made the reality of the class that much drearier.

Professor Quirrell smelt of garlic, didn't seem to have anything to teach them, and wore a purple turban on his head. The class was a total, smelly, bore. "I'm sure it's very nice," Hermione said of his turban. "I mean, I don't really know anything about wizarding fashion, but - "

"It's queer," Ron said. "Don't need to have grown up in a magical household to know that."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said, her tone a bit prim, "but the way a lot of wizards dress looks odd to me. It's hard to know what's 'queer' and what's just the way wizards dress."

"My mum dresses like, well, like women in your Muggle fashion magazines," Draco told her. "We don't all wear pointed black hats and shoes with toes that curl up." He glared at Ron. "Don't make her feel bad for not knowing things." He muttered something under his breath that sounded a bit like, "Maybe you're the one who should have been in Slytherin."

. . . . . . . . . .

Neville's gran sent him a package the morning of their first flying lesson. He opened it, hoping for cakes like the ones Narcissa Malfoy continued to send regularly, only to frown at the white marble inside the box.

"What's that?" Hermione asked.

"It's a Remembrall," he said as his shoulders slumped. "She knows I forget things all the time so this is… you hold onto it and if it glows red you've forgotten something."

Neville picked it up and the color changed to red.

"What did you forget?" Hermione asked him.

"I don't know," he muttered, his face nearly as red as the ball in his hand.

"That doesn't seem very helpful," she said.

"It's not," Draco said, plucking the ball away from Neville's fingers.

"Hey," the boy complained but Draco threw the thing down on the floor and stepped on it, leaving it as a pile of shards and dust.

"If you forget things, get a diary or something," Draco said, "Not some stupid toy that'll just make you feel worse about stuff. Merlin, does your gran not like you or something?"

. . . . . . . . . .

"I wish we could just try out," Draco whined again as they made their way to the Quidditch pitch for what he considered to be wholly unnecessary flying lessons. He and Harry had been flying since before he could remember and they both had brooms at home that a professional Quidditch player would envy. "It's not fair first years can't play Quidditch."

"I know," Harry muttered, kicking a clod of dirt. "I'd be a great Seeker."

"I'd be a great Seeker," Draco corrected him. "You'd be a great, I don't know, Chaser or something."

"Prat."

"Git."

"I've never flown," Neville said to Hermione in a nervous undertone as they walked behind the bickering pair. "My Gran thought it was too dangerous."

"I've never flown before because, well, you know," Hermione said.

Like Potions, the flying lesson was held with the students in their year from Slytherin. Draco could see Hermione tense when she saw the green on their robes but she just looped an arm around Neville and ignored the low laughter that greeted the arrival of the Gryffindors. Draco tried to catch Theo's attention and, at last, the boy gave him a wan smile but he turned it off just as quickly when Blaise Zabini came up to him. Draco's braced his shoulders against the slump that threatened to conquer them and turned his back on the Slytherin students and asked Harry in a loud voice whether he thought they'd get new brooms for Christmas.

Harry looked momentarily confused then, flicking his eyes over to look at Pansy Parkinson, the girl he'd been forced to partner in dance classes for three long years who was now sneering at the pair of them as she stood with Theo and Blaise, Harry said, his voice equally loud, "I'm sure. Or sooner, if a new model comes out." Pansy tossed her hair and Harry blew her a kiss. That seemed to fluster her and she turned away.

"Bunch of gits," Harry said to Draco under his breath. "Theo'll come around and Pansy'll be hanging all over one of us by Christmas, just you wait."

Draco shrugged. "'snot like I care," he said.

"Exactly," Harry said as the Quidditch coach and physical education teacher, Madam Hooch came striding across the pitch. She had a bundle of brooms following her.

"We're supposed to fly on those?" Draco asked in disbelief. "Do those even work anymore?" The woman handed him a broom and he made a face at the scraggly straw and the gouges in the handle.

"Think you can't handle it?" Harry asked, his hand on his own, equally battered, broom. "Can you only take to the air on something with cushioning charms and balance spells?"

"Is that a dare?" Draco demanded.

Harry smirked back at him but before either boy could start a race into the air the instructor began listing off what they needed to do to fly. For Harry and Draco it was a but like getting a lesson on breathing but Neville and Hermione both held their hands over their brooms and demanded 'up' in shaky voices that got only more nervous as the brooms just quivered on the ground before settling back to rest.

"It's the broom," Draco said as Hermione held her hand out and muttered, 'up' again. "These school brooms are so old I'm surprised they move at all. You can't ask someone to learn on something like this." He kicked at her broom.

"Maybe the Muggle just isn't quite cut out for flying," Greg Goyle suggested in what he probably thought was a sly tone of voice.

'It's 'Muggle-born'," Hermione said, "Not 'Muggle'. Try to keep it straight."

"There's a difference?" Vincent Crabbe asked. Blaise Zabini guffawed and Pansy cocked her head to the side as if waiting for the answer but Hermione just turned away with a mulish set to her jaw and held her hand over the broom again.

"Don't just order it," Draco suggested. "Invite it. You're trying too hard."

"Up?" Hermione said. The broom seemed to sigh as if this was all so much work but it finally staggered its way up into her hand.

Draco glared at it. "You can come visit me over break," he said, "and use a real broom. This piece of garbage is just going to put you off flying forever." He glanced over at Neville who was having similar trouble with his own school broom. "You too, Nev."

"Really?" Neville looked surprised and happy to be included before his face clouded and he mumbled, "I don't think Gran would let me."

"Why not?" Draco demanded.

Neville looked down. "Just reasons," he said. "But it's cool you asked.

Draco looked at him and then said, "Well, if you change your mind. Harry'll be there."

Neville flashed him a wan smile. "Yeah, she's pretty… she'd rather I come home, you know?"

"Listen up," the hard faced woman in front of them was saying and Draco turned around, his suck up expression firmly in place. "I'll be doing a series of flying tests; some of you don't need to waste my time in this class what with being on brooms since you could walk. Pass the test and you'll be excused for the rest of the term."

Harry flashed a thumbs-up at Draco who grinned back. One more free period sounded great. Madam Hooch called students out one at a time and asked them to fly to the other end of the pitch and back. When it was his turn Harry flew straight up into the air, bent down the handle of the school broom and raced to the other end of the pitch as fast as he could go. Once there he made a tight turn, zoomed back and then plunged to the ground in what looked like a death spiral.

Draco saw Hermione's eyes go wide and she grabbed onto to Neville's arm. "Show-offy git," he said to her. "He's fine."

Harry pulled out of his dive about five feet from the ground and settled at Madam Hooch's feet, a smug smile on his face.

"Do I pass?" he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. "James Potter's son?" she confirmed with what sounded like exasperation. "I expect to see you at tryouts next year. Now go."

"Beat that," Harry said to Draco as he tossed the school broom back into the pile and made a show of sauntering off the pitch.

Ron, who'd been hanging out with a boy named Seamus and his roommate Dean, went next, and he flew easily to the other side and back.

"Nice to see someone who doesn't need to be quite so dramatic," Madam Hooch said. "Good job." She looked at Hermione. "Your turn."

"I… I think I need the class," Hermione muttered to a round of sniggering from the nearby children in green.

"Fine," Madam Hooch said. "Thursdays at 3:30." She looked at Draco and sighed. "Mr. Malfoy."

Draco smirked at Hermione and then, taking a running start, hopped onto his broom and skimmed across the grass mere inches from the ground. Madam Hooch sighed noisily, then again when he reached the other end and pointed his broom up in the air. He flew back in great, swooping spirals that ending with him landing at the teacher's feet. He made an elaborate bow and she pinched her lips together and seemed to be controlling her urge to roll her eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy, you pass."

Draco glanced at Hermione, her shoulders hunched a little, and said, "Actually, I think I need more practice if that's okay."

Madam Hooch didn't even look up from her clipboard. "That's fine. Thursdays at 3:30. Dean Thomas? I have you listed next."

. . . . . . . . . .