The next morning found Harry slouched on the bench and picking at his breakfast even before most of his dorm had awakened. Seamus commented on the dark circles under his eyes and Dean mentioned that Harry had been skipping meals lately, which of course set Hermione on a thirty minute rant about the importance of meals, breakfast in particular, that Harry tried to ignore. He glared at the black boy as Hermione's voice rang sharply in his ear and regretted even the twinge of guilt he'd felt each time he'd sent Seamus his way.
Ron arrived then, plopping down on the bench next to Harry with a heavy sigh followed almost immediately by a yawn. Harry frowned worriedly. The red-head looked nearly as tired as he felt. "Alright there, Ron?" he asked, dropping his fork and all pretense of eating. Ron gave him a vague sort of look and nodded slowly before turning back to his meal with much less gusto than usual.
"Don't worry about him, Harry," Hermione cut in, taking a sip of her juice. "He's just tired."
"You'd be too," Ron broke off with another yawn, "if you stayed up all night working on that stupid shirt." He propped his chin on his hand, chewing slowly on a crisp slice of bacon.
"Please," Hermione snorted. "First, its a tunic, not a shirt, and second, I was up all night, remember?" she rolled her eyes. "I was working on Juliet's dress."
"You're a girl," Ron pointed out rather needlessly. It was something they'd all agreed upon several years ago, after all. "That clothes making thing is natural to you girls. Not so much for us boys," he finished, letting his eyes close as he chewed tiredly.
He missed the look Hermione gave him, which Harry figured was a good thing. "I'm going to chalk that bit of chauvinism up to your late night," she informed him primly. "Don't let it happen again." Harry recognized that tone of voice and he quickly looked down at his own uneaten breakfast. She'd be out for revenge if Ron wasn't a little more careful.
"Besides," Ron continued on a yawn, ignoring or not caring about Hermione's threat, "dress rehearsal isn't for a few more weeks. Why do we need costumes already?"
Hermione stifled her own yawn before answering in an exasperated tone, "We have more than one costume each, Ron. There's a whole cast to dress. Besides, we need to make sure they're perfect and that takes time." Ron nodded blankly and continued chewing, clearly too tired to say anything else.
Harry waited a few more moments, then stood to leave the table, but Hermione's hand on his arm made him look back down at the witch. "It's a bit early for it Harry, but would you mind letting us do a fitting on you?" she asked and lifted her cup for more juice. "I want to make sure we're doing this right."
He nodded and Hermione quickly told him when and where. It was a little longer before Harry could actually walk away. It would have been too rude to leave during another of Hermione's spiel about "those worthless Slytherins". When he could finally leave the table and start heading for class, Harry wasn't surprised that he managed, once again, to run into Malfoy at the door. It seemed his bad luck was holding steady.
While he did want to talk to Malfoy about that bit of jealousy, Harry hadn't quite figured out what to say to the blond. So he, very smartly, opened his mouth for a slow, "Uhhh..." then sidestepped the group and dodged through the open doors of the Great Hall, satisfied that he'd escaped some sort of confrontation. Not that Malfoy had seemed to be looking for one, but better safe than sorry after the way the last few days had been going.
He was surprised to find that Parkinson followed him through the doors, breaking away from the rest of Malfoy's herd, and was even more surprised when the Slytherin slipped her arm through his. "Uh...what are you doing?" he asked, trying for a brief moment to be polite, then giving it up entirely.
"Oh, Harry!" she slapped his arm playfully as he raised his brows at her use of his first name. "We never get to talk, even though we are both in the play and everything." Parkinson waved a hand airily and smiled winningly up at him.
It was all he could do not to shove her away and run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. But she was leading him right to his first class, and any delay for evasive maneuvers would make him late. So Harry resigned himself to her company and resolved to keep an eye out for some kind of Slytherin trick. But Parkinson was a snake after all, and Harry was hard-pressed to find any in her one-sided conversation. Then, as suddenly as she had appeared by his side, she strolled away, leaving him standing alone and confused at the door to the classroom.
It had been completely random, and to top it all off, she hadn't actually said anything that would concern him or the play. He crossed the room and sat in his usual seat, propping his chin on his hand as he contemplated the strangeness of girls, and Slytherins. When Seamus casually strolled in, smiling genuinely for what seemed the first time in weeks despite being a full five minutes late, Harry hardly took notice. He only blinked at him curiously before turning an empty stare back to the front of the classroom.
The sandy haired boy slid to sit next to Harry, nudging him slightly with the pointy elbow Harry was fast beginning to hate, and whispered, "Where are Ron and Hermione?" It was only then that Harry, having been so preoccupied with discovering Pansy Parkinson's motivation, discovered his two best friends in the whole wide wizarding world, who should have been seated on either side of him by now, were curiously, strangely, and definitely noticeably absent.
A/N: Right, that's long enough for now, especially since it's been so long in coming. Yeah... Sorry about that! Anyhow, thanks to Draco and Hermione is like PBJ, SexySpeedDemon, painyupurple, brionyjae, niconico, SwarmOfFanGirls, HiM'e'iTSu, Rukari, spiderfrommars, LyricallyInspired, Death-God-777, purplerawr, PrincessPurity, and YeahYouWannaKnowMyName for the lovely reviews! Mwah!s to you all!