Chapter 12

Hermione made her to the ancient runes classroom after downing a hasty breakfast. She was so excited. She was in her first N.E.W.T level class. It was the first stepping stone in the long pathway to her future. She got to the classroom and entered. She was the first to arrive out the only three students. She sat down and pulled out her book, a scroll of parchment and a quill. Once her desk was set she decided that it would probably be best if she reread the first chapter at least one more time.

Hermione sat there reading for about fifteen minutes before she heard the door open. When she looked up to see who had walked in she got a big surprise. It was the cute boy from the train and the strumpet. Hermione watched as said strumpet kissed the cute boy on the cheek and then sit down. For some odd reason this enraged Hermione for as to why she had no idea. He was just a cute boy that she had shared a moment with on the train and rolled down the hill with.

The two sat down a couple of rows over from her and as close to the door as possible it seemed. The boy only one row over from her started pulling his book and parchment. Hermione realized that she was staring while he was doing this. He looked up caught her and smiled briefly before sitting back up in his chair and waited for the o come in.

Blaise should have know that she would be in this class, especially when Snape had told him that there was only one other person in the class besides Aspen and himself. After eating a very quick breakfast he and Aspen had had to track down Snape so they could get their schedules for the year. Blaise has been pleasantly surprised when he had found that he and Aspen had almost all of the same classes. She had one class away from him and it was an extra class. Muggle studies. He had taken it in his fourth year also but had just chosen not to go further with it after the O.W.L's.

After muttering something about how long the year was going to be Aspen pecked him on the cheek and went to find a seat. Blaise looked and saw that Aspen had sat as far away from Hermione as possible. He decided that since he and Aspen were in the same house that he should probably sit with her. After he had sat down the professor came in, introduced themselves and began to lecture immediately.

Blaise couldn't believe that this was going to be his first class of the day for the rest of the year. Hermione, Aspen and himself together for the rest of the year. Well at least it was only one of his classes. He was just starting to trail off when Aspen kicked him as hard as he could. He looked over at her in confusion and she pointed at the chalk board. It was nearly filled with notes and there was only about twenty minutes left in the class. Blaise began to write as quickly as possible. He was only about half way through when the bell rang and he had to get to potions. Slamming his head into the desk at his own stupidity, Blaise packed up his books and was just about to step after Aspen when he slammed in Hermione Granger again and caused her to spill her bag all over the ground.

"We really have to stop doing this." Said Hermione as she hurriedly grabbed the contents if her bag and shoved them back in as quickly as possible.

"You think that we'd have learned not to by now, right…." Blaise said as he handed her the last of her quills. Hermione took them and stuffed them in the bag as quickly as possible.

"Well, it was nice to run into you again, but I really must be off I have to get to potions." And with that she ran out of the room like the devil himself was after her. Blaise sat on the floor watching the place where Hermione had just been. 'So she's also in my potions class. This really should make for an interesting year.' He was forced to get up and move when Aspen started to nudge him repeatedly with her foot.

"Wow, If Hogwarts had a track team I'd say that she should be on it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone move that fast in my life. What'd you do to her?" Blaise just looked at her and together they headed down to the dungeons.

Blaise and Aspen snuck into potions with about a minute to spare. They had just sat down in the very back of the room when Snape slammed his office door open and started ranting on the difficulty of potion making and how only a chosen few could appreciate the beauty of a simmering cauldron. All through this Aspen had been doodling on her parchment and had bewitched them to fight each other. Blaise couldn't help but watch the sad little vampire girl take out the giant zombie sock time and time again. She continued to add little characters and soon Blaise was so absorbed that he didn't realize that Snape had finished speaking and was now standing in front of their table.

"I'm sorry that you find warring cartoons more important than my class Mr.Zabini. But maybe in the future you can deign yourself to pay attention to my lecture. Understood?"

"Yes sir." They both said quietly. With that said they copied down the instructions and started to make it. About half way through Blaise looked over at Aspen and noticed that she was totally absorbed into what she was doing. She looked like as if the only thing that mattered was finishing the potion and finishing so that it was textbook perfect. She finally took a breather when she had to let it stew for ten minutes before adding the final ingredient.

"You did that wrong" Aspen said so suddenly that it made Blaise jump.

"Did what wrong?" He asked. "You were supposed to let the blobberworm paste breathe before you added and you forgot to shell the pimpernel peas before you put them in. It should be a perfect clear sky blue. Like mine." Blaise looked over at his potion it was pretty much a light blue color but when he looked over at hers it was clearly a lot bluer than his. He smiled and stirred his potion a few more times and poured it into a flask. She did the same and handed hers to him so he could take both of them up to Snape.

When he had gotten back to the desk everything was scrubbed clean and packed away. He looked around amazed he had only been gone maybe; a grand total of five minutes and everything was done. Clean up after potions usually too him at least 15-20 minutes. Because he had to scrub out his cauldron and any tools he had used and then he had pack away his potions kit. Yet it had Aspen a grand total of five minutes (maybe less) to scrub out two cauldron and all the tools not mention pack away all of the ingredients. He looked at her again trying to figure out she had done it and she just beamed at him in return. The bell rang signaling lunch she handed him his bag and together they headed back up into the castle.

Hermione had never had such a stressful potions period in all of her life. She had barely started her potion when Ron had caused his start smoking and as soon as she sorted out his and got him on the right path Harry was what seemed like light years ahead of her. She continued on with her own potion all the time answering Ron's and Ernie's questions. She finished without anymore major mishaps from any of her boys. She smiled at that thought.

Her boys, yes Harry and Ron were her boys. Her two best friends in the entire world. There was nothing that she wouldn't do for them. They meant the world to her and yet at times she wished she could have something more. Something like she had had with Viktor. Almost unconsciously she brought her hand up to her neck where two rings and the necklace her had bought her resided. She had thought that she had been ready to put them away. But she was wrong, so instead of wearing them on her finger she had decided to keep them a little closer to her heart.

Hermione handed in her sample and went back and started to clean up. Taking a minute to breathe she looked over and saw the strumpet standing over a mess of moving potions equipment. It looked like a scene out of Beauty and the Beast. Every little tool had its job and did it and then went to its place. Hermione couldn't help but notice how serene she looked while presiding over the little dance. All too soon everything was clean and with one final swipe of her wand every thing went back to its place. She smiled down at the neat and tidy scene before her, and as though she sensed that Hermione was looking at her she looked up at her and straight into Hermione's eyes. The strumpet blushed, smiled sheepishly and turned away. The bell rang and Hermione headed off to lunch with her boys, without any more thoughts of sadness or strumpets.