The rest of the week went relatively smoothly, lessons happened, homework was set and completed, and people got on. Cedric continued to check over her homework and give her pointers on how to improve her work, but there was less tutoring going on and more chattering given that Lizzie was finally getting the hang of the work and the speed they went at in classes.

The only real new thing that week was that they'd been given projects in Herbology and put into partners by Professor Sprout. Most of the Hufflepuffs had been partnered with each other (Ernie and Zacharias, Justin and Hannah) but Susan and Lizzie had each with partnered with Gryffindors (Lavender and Neville respectively). Lizzie had spoken to Neville briefly in the past, but it was mostly small talk in the way of "can you pass me some gloves?"

They'd arranged to get to work on the project Thursday after dinner in the library, somewhere around the Herbology section. When Lizzie got there, Neville was nowhere to be seen so she got to work finding books on the Moly plant, which was what they were having to research.

"Hi, sorry, have you been here long?" Nevillle said, walking over the table Lizzie had nabbed for them.

"No, don't worry," she said, "I was just grabbing some books for us to look at."

"Great."

They lapsed into silence as they began to go through the 5 books Lizzie had grabbed for them to look at, marking pages that would be helpful.

"How do you want to do this?" Lizzie asked after she'd finished 3 of the 5 books and Neville was nearly through his second.

"What do you mean?"

"Should we write an essay type thing or…"

"Oh," Neville flushed slightly, "right, essay type thing sounds good."

"Neville, are you okay?" Lizzie looked at him, concerned with his stumbling over his words.

He flushed again, "I'm fine."

"Really?" she frowned at him, "I know we've never really spoken before but I'm here if you ever want to talk."

Neville mumbled something that Lizzie couldn't quite catch.

"Pardon?"

"I'm not good with work and everything."

"Oh," Lizzie didn't quite know how to reply to that. "It takes some time to get used to everything here I think, I struggled for a while."

"I'm still struggling," Neville murmured, looking down at the book in front of him.

"What at?"

"Everything, the magic mostly."

"You're struggling at doing magic?"

Neville shrugged, "my family were convinced I was a squib for most of my life."

"Is there anything you're not struggling with?"

A shy smile grew on his face, "I like Herbology."

"That's something then." Lizzie smiled at him, "shall we get on with it then?"

They kept working for another hour, making notes on the books and page numbers or little sections that they wanted to reference. They talked every now and then, general discussions about what they thought of Hogwarts or something they had found that was interesting in one of the books. That particular topic of conversation was primarily started by Neville, who seemed to find everything fascinating. It didn't bother Lizzie that he did this. They were making good headway with the research and Lizzie was enjoying spending time with him.

She remembered that this was the boy whose remembrall Draco had flown up into the air, causing Harry Potter to get onto the Gryffindor Quidditch team if the rumours were to be believed. She also remembered that she never actually asked if him if he was okay after falling from his broom.

"Neville?" she began, he 'hmm'ed in response.

"Were you okay? After falling from your broom in your first flying lesson?"

He looked slightly shocked about the fact that she was asking. "I broke my wrist but Madame Pomfrey fixed it fairly quickly, and then I just had to stay in the Hospital Wing for a while for shock."

"Good, I'm glad everything was okay."

Neville was silent for a moment but then he spoke again, "how did you know about it?"

Lizzie glanced away, she had gathered that Draco and Neville didn't get on from the way Draco had spoken about it. "I'm friends with Draco Malfoy, he told me."

He seemed to slightly tense as she said that, "you're friends with Malfoy?"

"Yes."

"Why?" He didn't say it in a cruel way, more that he was amazed by what she had said.

"I don't really know how to answer that," Lizzie half laughed, "we get on well and became friends I guess?"

"But don't you find him-" he searched for the word, "-really annoying and horrible?"

"Sometimes he isn't the nicest, but we get on well enough. He's fairly good towards me so I don't tend to have many issues with him."

"He can be nice?"

"I've seen him be awful, but if it's been directed at me he always apologises. If it's directed at someone else then I tell him what I think of it, which doesn't tend to be a positive thing."

"But you're a Hufflepuff?" he said, sounding astounded.

"Really? I had no idea. I wondered what the Sorting Hat shouted when I had it on my head." She rolled her eyes.

But you're nice? And not a Slytherin?"

"Thank you for the compliment and the obvious statement about my house."

Neville shook his head, "I just always thought he only spoke to other mean Slytherins."

"They're not all that bad."

In response he simply raised his eyebrows at her.

"Okay, I haven't met that many, but Blaise Zabini is nice."

"I haven't met many of them either, I don't tend to talk to them."

"I probably wouldn't if it wasn't for being friends with Draco, and even then I've only spoken to Blaise and Pansy."

He pulled a face, "I'm not a fan of Pansy."

Lizzie grinned at him. "I'm not either, she's terrible."

"Really? I mean, she seems like she might be but I wouldn't overly know."

"Oh, definitely! Incredibly judgmental and obsessed with Draco."

"That I gathered."

They both laughed and lapsed into a comfortable silence.

"I should probably head back to my common room," Lizzie said.

"Where is it?"

"Down in the basement of the school."

"Really?" They were both packing up by this point.

"Yeah, I love it though."

"Fair enough, we've got a tower and stuff as part of your common room."

"You must get some great views."

"Yeah, I can see part of the grounds from my dormitory window."

They'd reached the library entrance by this point.

"Do you want to work on this tomorrow as well?" Neville asked.

"Sounds good, same time"?

"Sure, see you tomorrow."

"You too."

"Lizzie!" her brother's shout greeted her as she crawled into the common room.

"What?"

"Come here a minute."

Lizzie rolled her eyes and walked over to where Ernie was sat with Justin.

"Where are the others?" she asked, taking a seat across from the two boys.

"Hannah and Susan are in your dormitory working on something, I think a bit of homework," Ernie glanced at Justin, obviously looking for some more information.

"Potions," Justin said, barely looking up from the book in front of him.

"Hannah and Susan are in your dormitory working on potions homework, Zacharias is working on his half of the Herbology project."

"And what are you two doing?"

"Working on our own halves of our projects."

"Why aren't you with your partners?

"We split the workload."

She rolled her eyes again, "alright then, what did you want?"

"What's Neville like?"

"That's what you demanded I come over here to tell you?"

"Maybe," her brother grinned at her.

"You're an idiot. He's really nice, very enthusiastic about Herbology."

"What's he like to work with?"

"It's good actually, we've figured out how we're doing it all and we're going to work on it more tomorrow."

"Nerd."

"Good to know, but you're the one who panics if your homework isn't done on the first night we get it."

Justin laughed, "I'm sorry, but she's right."

Ernie frowned at them both, "whatever."

Lizzie laughed, "can I go now?"

"Sure, see you in the morning."

"Bye guys."

Justin mumbled a goodbye whilst still continuing to stare at the book in front of him.

Lizzie waved to Cedric and his friends as she crossed the common room and made her way up to her dormitory. As she opened the door she nearly collided with Hannah, who gave a small squeak of surprise.

"Oh, hi Lizzie, is Justin in the common room?"

"With his nose stuck in a book."

"Great, see you in a bit." They swapped sides of the doorway and Lizzie closed the door after her.

"Hey Susan," Lizzie called over to her, throwing her own stuff on her bed and flopping down after it.

"One minute," she replied, continuing to write something on a piece of parchment.

Lizzie stared at the canopy above her bed and waited for the scratching of Susan's quill to stop, which it did after what sounded like a few more lines of writing. The sound of paper being shuffled and a book closing echoed around the room before Lizzie heard footsteps and Susan jumped onto her bed.

"Hi," Lizzie laughed, sitting up. "How did your bit of work go?"

"I've got an idea of what we can do with the structure and stuff so pretty well in all."

"When are you meeting Lavender?"

"Saturday, we figured we'll spend the entire day on it and hopefully get it all done."

"Sounds good."

"Is Cedric tutoring you on Saturday?"

"I told him I'd let him know at breakfast."

"Any chance I could borrow him? I get the feeling Lavender isn't going to be overly useful."

Lizzie laughed, whilst Susan tended to be fairly shy and quiet around other people she could be very opinionated and blunt when there weren't many people around.

"What?" Susan sounded surprised at Lizzie's reaction, "Have you ever considered her to be a good student?"

"Not really…" Lizzie trailed off, "but she might surprise you."

Susan shrugged, "alright then."

The two fell into a comfortable silence and Lizzie leaned back against the wall her bed was by. Susan sighed and got up, "I'm going to start getting ready for bed."

"Susan, it's barely 7 o'clock."

"At least if I'm ready for bed I can do a bit of potions homework up here until I get too tired to do anymore and then I can just go straight to bed."

"I thought that's what you and Hannah were doing? The potions homework I mean."

"We were," Susan said as she grabbed her pyjamas from her bed, "but then we didn't want to anymore."

Lizzie laughed at Susan closed the bathroom door behind her and began to unpack her bag. She made sure her Herbology books and notes were left out for her to use tomorrow and grabbed her potions books to try and get a bit more work done on the homework they'd been set before bed.

When Susan came in and saw the work Lizzie was attempting to get done she groaned.

"Why did you have to start doing more work? Now I have to start doing more work."

"I thought you were going to anyway?"

"I hadn't fully decided." She pulled a face. "Now I have to."

"You don't have to."

"No, but I feel like I should now."

Lizzie smirked to herself, "then get on with it."

Susan grumbled to herself as she found all her potions work and spread it across her bed, but quieted down relatively quickly and got on with the homework.

They worked in silence for a while, asking each other the odd question about the work or where to find some piece of information, until Hannah came in.

"I am so done with Herbology."

Both girls looked up from their work.

"What happened?" Susan asked.

"Nothing, I'm just fed up of it." Hannah flopped on her bed, "what are you guys doing?"

"Potions," they both replied.

Hannah groaned, "but if you're doing work then I have to as well."

Lizzie rolled her eyes, "I just went through this with Susan, no you don't."

Hannah paused, seemingly contemplating this fact. "True, I don't, I did more Herbology work than you both." She smiled. "I'm going to get ready for bed," and she flounced off to the bathroom, apparently quite proud that she didn't have to do any more work.

Susan gave a small laugh, "how much do you reckon you've got left of the potions homework?"

"Maybe a paragraph or two? I've actually managed to get quite a bit done."

"How many paragraphs have you done so far?"

"Only two, it's not exactly a huge piece of homework, it's just about the different parts of aconite."

"Are you including about its use in Wolfsbane potion?"

"Crap, probably should," Lizzie scrunched up her face, "I've covered where it can be found and stuff, and the flowers. I was just going to do the leaves, the roots, and then leave it at that."

"Did you not talk about the Wolfsbane potion within the flowers?"

Lizzie looked back over her essay, "I did but I feel like I should maybe speak about it on its own?"

Susan shrugged, "I don't know whether I'd bother if I were you."

"I like that idea."

They fell back into silence as they continued to work on the homework. Hannah came back into the room at one point but let them carry on focusing on the work rather than talking to them, instead she sat on her bed and started writing a letter to her parents.

About an hour and a half after they'd started the homework, Lizzie finally got to put down her quill and stretch back on her bed.

"You done?" Hannah asked, sitting up straighter at the prospect of being able to talk to someone.

"Yep," Lizzie nodded, beginning to put her books and parchment away so she could actually sleep in her bed that night.

"I'm not," Susan said. Her eyes were still focused on the book in front of her and Lizzie could see that she was biting the end of her quill.

Lizzie and Hannah made eye contact, silently agreeing to not speak quite yet. Lizzie continued to clear up her mess from homework doing in silence, trying and failing to remember offhand what lessons they had tomorrow so she could know what to pack in her bag. Giving up on that for now, she grabbed her pyjamas and took her turn in the bathroom, showering and cleaning her teeth before changing into her pyjamas for bed.

When she came back out 20 minutes later Susan and Hannah were chatting whilst Susan cleared everything off of her bed.

"You're done then?" Lizzie asked, chucking her robes into her trunk and sitting back on her bed.

"Yep, only took me two or so hours."

"Is it difficult to get done?" Hannah asked them both.

"Not really," Susan shrugged, "most of the time is spent finding the information to write down."

"Make sure I get it done tomorrow about dinner?"

Both girls nodded. "Sure thing," Lizzie said, "although Susan might have to get you to start it, I'm meeting Neville in the library to work on Herbology."

"I can do that," Susan nodded.

"Great," Hannah smiled, "how likely do you think we are to get set homework by Quirrell tomorrow?"

"I'm probably going to be doing it tomorrow evening whilst you get on with Potions," Susan grimaced.

Lizzie rolled her eyes, knowing full well she'd probably be working on Defence Against the Dark Arts in the library on Saturday, but the work wasn't normally too bad.

"Is Cedric tutoring you on Saturday?" Hannah asked.

"I said I'd let him know at breakfast."

"You're getting on better with the work now, aren't you?"

"Oh definitely," Lizzie smiled, "he still goes over my work to check I'm writing something that's actually right and answers any questions I have though."

"Reckon he could do that for us?" Susan grinned.

Lizzie grinned back, "I'll ask if you want."

"I doubt he'd refuse you anything," Hannah said, smirking at Lizzie, "are you sure you're just friends?"

Lizzie threw a pillow at her as she and Susan fell about laughing.

"Shut up, yes we are just friends!"

"Whatever you say," Hannah grinned, chucking the pillow back at Lizzie.

"So what's going on with you and Mark?" Lizzie smirked.

Hannah flushed, "well we're not just friends but we're not something either."

Susan shrieked in delight and Lizzie grinned.

"Shut up, it's not a big deal." Hannah buried her face in her pillows, attempting to hide from girls' grins.

"Whatever you say," Lizzie said, continuing to grin at her friend.

"I'm going to sleep now, leave me alone," Hannah's voice was muffled from the pillows she was hiding in.

"Alright, alright, night," Lizzie said, climbing into bed herself and settling down. Susan and Hannah said their goodnights and the dormitory fell silent as the three girls went to sleep.