Lizzie and Draco hadn't properly spoken since she walked away from him. It wasn't that they weren't speaking, Draco had spoken to her a few times and she'd always replied, but they'd only actually seen each other in class and she hadn't wanted to bring it up when they had limited time to speak.

After Hannah had babbled about Mark for a good half an hour, Susan had asked how her afternoon with Draco was and she'd told them everything.

"Sounds like he's jealous to me," Hannah had decided after Lizzie filled her and Susan in on everything.

"Jealous of what though?" Lizzie asked.

"He likes you, Lizzie," Susan said.

"Well, yeah, we're friends."

"As more than friends," Susan added, whilst Hannah nodded along.

"No," Lizzie shook her head, "no, he doesn't."

"Why not? Why shouldn't he?"

"Because we're friends."

"That won't stop him thinking more of you."

"We're just friends," Lizzie insisted, "that's it."

"Okay then, what are you going to do about his jealousy?" Hannah asked.

"No idea, I want to apologise for how mad I got though."

"What? Why?"

"Because I should have listened to him rather than just storming off."

Lizzie did regret it, but she just hadn't had the chance to speak to him properly and sort it all out. However, since they'd spoken since then, she didn't feel the need to rush into talking to him.

Saturday brought the next Quidditch match (Hufflepuff vs Ravenclaw) and Lizzie was quite excited to watch. She had to admit that she'd enjoyed the first match, and given that her own house were actually playing and this meant something to her, she was fully prepared to be supportive.

The girls woke up fairly early the morning of the match to get ready. Or, at least, Hannah woke up and then she woke Susan and Lizzie up. The usual lot of complaining happened but they all were up and ready before half an hour had gone by.

"I still don't see why you need to wake us up so early," Susan grumbled as they made their way to the common room.

"Because then we're ready for the day," Hannah said.

Susan grumbled in response, and as usual when they got to the common room the boys were nowhere to be seen.

"See? This is why we shouldn't bother getting up as early as we do," Lizzie said, flopping down on a sofa and curling into a half-hearted ball.

"This way we're ready to go to breakfast when they are," Hannah said.

"Yes, but we also could have slept for longer."

"I'm sure they won't be long."

"You say that every morning," Susan slumped onto a sofa, leaning back against the cushions.

"And I'm usually right."

"Until it comes to a Saturday, when you tend to be wrong."

"Anyone would think this happened often," Lizzie smirked into the cushion she had face planted on.

"Shut up, Lizzie," Hannah said, good naturedly though, there was no malice in her voice.

"This happens every week, maybe we should start lying in on a Saturday."

"Probably," Susan agreed.

"I'll think about it," Hannah smirked.

"Agree to it, please."

"Thinking."

"Agreeing."

Lizzie rolled her eyes as she listened to the standard Saturday morning argument. It had taken a few weeks but they'd managed to get her to leave them alone on a Sunday, so the idea was that they could hopefully get her to agree to leaving them be on a Saturday too.

"Morning," a cheerful voice rang out across the common room.

"Mark!" Hannah cried, followed by the sound of footsteps running over to where Lizzie guessed the voice had come from.

Lizzie pushed herself up so she could sit on the sofa and look a bit more normal (despite what she consider a ridiculously early hour). Mark had come down into the common room with Jack, who was walking over to her and Susan and leaving the pair to their morning greetings.

"How come you two are up so early?" Lizzie asked, as Jack sat down on the sofa next to her.

"Have to go eat and then get ready for the match."

"What?" Susan joined the conversation.

"Yeah, me and Mark are on the team."

"What positions do you play?"

"He's a beater, I'm a chaser."

"You any good?" Lizzie said, giving him a gentle nudge with her elbow.

He gave a laugh, "I've scored a few goals."

"Congrats, you sound decent enough."

"Thanks, I try."

A silence fell over the three of them and they could hear Mark and Hannah's mutterings to one another before the pair came over to them.

"I'm going to go have breakfast with Mark and Jack," Hannah said, "is that okay with you two?"

Susan and Lizzie shared a glance before both nodding at her, "yeah, that's fine."

"Great, see you later guys," Hannah waved at that, leaving the common room with Mark in tow.

Jack stood up, "I guess I'll see you guys in the stands."

"Best of luck," Lizzie said, and Susan nodded along with her.

"Cheers, girls," and he left the common room too.

Susan and Lizzie were both quiet for a moment before Susan spoke up, "do you feel kind of let down?"

"Yeah…" Lizzie trailed off, and they lapsed into silence again.

"I get that she wants to spend time with him, but…" Susan just shrugged at the end of her sentence and Lizzie nodded.

The girls sat in silence, keeping their thoughts to themselves until the boys entered the common room.

"Ready to go to breakfast?" Ernie said, "where's Hannah?"

"Already at breakfast," Susan explained, standing up and following the group to the tunnel that marked the entrance/exit to the common room. Lizzie followed, Zacharias hanging back to keep her company even though the group we only about 5 feet in front of her.

"Why's she already at breakfast?" he asked, keeping his voice fairly quiet.

"Mark and Jack came down and went to breakfast early, Hannah went with them."

"For Mark?"

"Why else?"

Zacharias nodded and went silent.

"Shall we catch up with them?" Lizzie asked after a moment.

"We're nearly at the Great Hall anyway."

She nodded and didn't speak again until they'd sat down at the table, a little way down from Mark, Hannah, and Jack.

"Feeling more enthusiastic about this game?" Ernie said, nudging Lizzie with his elbow and grinning at her.

She elbowed him back, but also gave him a grin, "yes I am, thank you very much."

"Good, because this gave is important."

"Well I know that you dimwit."

"Ouch, there's no need to be mean," he mock glared at her.

"Thank you for that lovely bit of information."

"You're completely welcome."

The twins smiled at each other.

"You guys are weird," Susan smirked, "eat, be normal."

"Lizzie, no eat? Maybe when pigs fly," Ernie said.

"Only because she won't be able to get any bacon anymore," Justin joked.

Lizzie shook her fork at them, which just happened to have bacon on the end of it, "yes, I like food, problem?"

"Never, my dear sister, never."

"Good, now let me eat my bacon in peace."

After bacon had been eaten and the group reassembled (in other words Hannah had re-joined them), the first years began to walk towards the Quidditch pitch, gentle banter flowing between them, the issue of Hannah leaving them forgotten. That being said she had apologised quite a bit when she came over to them at the Hufflepuff table, and they'd all said they forgave her, but personally Lizzie wasn't quite sure how she felt about the fact that they'd been left in the lurch.

"Should be have anything house pride wise?" Susan said.

"What?" Lizzie didn't think any of the first years really knew what Susan was on about.

"You know, like a banner? Or face paint? Could we put yellow face paint on?"

"You want to wear yellow face paint?" Zacharias asked, disbelief clear in his voice.

Susan held her head up high, "I want to show my support for my house."

"But, yellow face paint?"

"Fine, not face paint, a scarf or something."

"Ummm Susan?" Lizzie said, nodding towards her neck, where a scarf was hanging.

"Yes, but a house one."

"I'd wear one," Justin interjected, before Zacharias could make another comment.

"Same," Hannah nodded, "we should be able to find one somewhere."

"Until then, maybe a yellow hair accessory? We don't need to resort to face paint," Lizzie said, smiling at her friend.

"Sounds good to me," Susan agreed.

By this point they were making their way up the stairs to reach the Hufflepuff section of the stands.

"Any preference as to where we sit?" Ernie asked, since he was leading the way.

"In seats," Lizzie replied.

"Haha, thank you for your input," he glared at her, "any normal people wanting to tell me a preference?"

"Wherever you want," Justin said, shushing Lizzie before she could make another comment.

Ernie lead them to similar seats that they had sat in before, only given that there were a few less of them they didn't take up quite so many.

"How good is our Quidditch team?" Zacharias asked.

"Amazing!" Hannah said.

Lizzie rolled her eyes, "no idea, but Mark's on the team so we're hoping pretty good."

"That and because it's our house's Quidditch team so we want to do well," Justin added.

"And because we know Mark and Jack," Susan interjected.

"In short, go Hufflepuff," Ernie finished.

As much as they wanted Hufflepuff to win, it didn't, and from what Lizzie could tell, their team wasn't bad per say, just Ravenclaw's was better.

"You did really well," Hannah was saying to Mark over lunch, where the fourth year boys were sitting with the first years again.

Lizzie was sat by Cedric, who was saying something about the work they were going to go over that afternoon in tutoring. It suddenly clicked that it might be a good idea to listen.

"Sorry, what?"

Cedric smiled at her, "where did you tune out?"

"You said something about this afternoon we would go to the library?" she grinned, sheepishly.

"I was thinking we would go over your potions essay and work on that."

"Sounds good to me, is that all we'll do?"

"I'd be happy to check some of your charms spell work?"

"Okay, I think I've just about got the flying one."

"Wingardium Leviosa?"

"Yeah, that flying one."

"I'll check it for you, do you know if Draco will be popping up and joining us at all?" Cedric asked, and Lizzie grimaced.

"We had a slight falling out last week and haven't really sorted it out yet."

He frowned at her, "are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. We've spoken briefly a few times this week but not enough to talk about what happened."

"What did happen?"

Lizzie rolled her eyes, "he didn't like me being friends with some people, Hannah and Susan think it was jealousy."

"I wouldn't be surprised if it was," Cedric said, grinning at her.

She elbowed him in the side, "don't you start as well."

He continued to grin at her, "eat, and then we'll go to the library."

"Happily," she stuck her tongue out and began to eat her toad in the hole.

"You need to change this bit here," Cedric pointed to her essay, "it's good that you talk about the different strengths of different vials, but compare them a bit more."

"Other than that?"

"Other than that it looks fine," he smiled at her.

"Great, I'll finish this off."

They lapsed into silence whilst Lizzie rewrote the section of her essay onto another piece of parchment (she'd properly write the entire thing later that day).

"To be fair, you could change this bit as well?" Cedric said, pointed to the initial essay he'd been looking back over.

Lizzie sighed and glared at him, "is it important that it should be changed?"

"Not really, just would look better if it was."

"Then no need to be changed," she smiled at him, "there's no point in creating extra work for myself."

He chuckled, "Snape will make a comment on it."

"I don't care, I'll take note of it then."

"He'll like you more if he didn't have to write that comment."

"Still not caring," Lizzie continued to rewrite her paragraph.

"I still think you should do it."

"Still not going to."

"Snape will comment on it."

"Let's move on to charms," Lizzie said, pushing the sheet of parchment to the side.

"You sure?"

"Yes!" said Lizzie, rolling her names and feeling completely exasperated at the whole thing.

"I'll shut up now," Cedric teased.

"Sounds good."

It turned out Lizzie was now somewhat competent at the levitation charm and so they weren't in the library for very much longer.

On their way back down to the Hufflepuff common room they passed a group of Slytherins, a few were apparently in Cedric's year and they greeted one another as they walked by. Once they'd reached a fair distance from the group Cedric began to speak.

"Slytherins have a bad reputation in the school but I've always found them okay to get along with. Sure, some of them aren't all that nice, but the majority are alright."

"That's the impression I'm getting at the moment."

Cedric glanced at her, "you'll be alright with them, having a Malfoy as your friend will hold you in good standing."

"They're that influential? I mean I always knew they were, but to that extent?"

"Definitely, some of the ones in my class have discussed ways to get Malfoy as their friend."

Lizzie pulled a face, "sounds like my parents."

"Is that why you became friends?"

"No, they wanted Ernie as his friend and me as a potential relationship, but I became his friend."

"No potential relationship in there?" he grinned at her.

She gently hit his arm, "no, no potential relationship."

"How about an actual relationship?"

"No actual relationship either. How about you? Any girls?"

"There's this one, she's in Ravenclaw, but I don't know."

"Why not?"

"She's absolutely stunning and completely out of my league."

"Have you ever spoken to her?"

"Not really," they both laughed.

"Try it sometime, it might work," Lizzie nudged him with her shoulder.

They were nearly across the entrance hall and reaching the stairs down to the basement where their common room was located.

"Lizzie!"

The pair stopped and turned to see Draco and a few of his friends emerging from the stairs down to the dungeons.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

Lizzie turned to Cedric, "I'll see you later," and he left with a nod. She turned back to Draco, who was in the middle of dismissing his friends.

"I don't know, go walk in the grounds or something, just go away."

Crabbe and Goyle shuffled back down the stairs, evidently heading back to the Slytherin common room.

Both Lizzie and Draco started talking at the same time.

"I'm sorry for how I acted, it wasn't fair on you."

"I was awful, I'm sorry, of course you can have other friends."

They grinned at each other.

"Everything good?" Lizzie said.

"I shouldn't have acted how I did, I just got jealous and cranky and took it out on you."

"No you shouldn't have, but I forgive you."

"So, truce?"

"Truce."

Lizzie gave him a hug, "but if you get funny about me being friends with people in my house again I'm not going to be so forgiving."

Draco grinned sheepishly, "that's fair enough, but if you ever feel the need to say I can't be friends with Parkinson then I want you to know that's more than okay."

"Shut up, she isn't that bad I'm sure."

"Except she is," Draco shuddered, "I despise her clinginess."

"Good for you, are we still on for a walk somewhere tomorrow after lunch?"

"Always," he grinned, "I should probably go and find Crabbe and Goyle, they're hopeless without me."

"Probably," she smiled at him, "I'm glad we sorted this all out."

"Me too."

And with another hug they each returned to their common rooms.