Hermione was early at breakfast. Most of the students had gotten into a habit of staying up late and sleeping in. It wasn't a horrible thing or even unexpected for teenagers. It just made the first few days of school a little tricky in the mornings.

Hermione drank her pumpkin juice as she finished her letter. She was fairly satisfied with it and would mail it off before her first class, which was transfiguration. Then there was an owl standing in front of her plate.

"What have we here?" she cooed.

She pulled the scroll off the owl's leg and handed it a piece of bacon before it flew off. Apparently whoever had sent it wasn't expecting an immediate response.

She unrolled the parchment and was shocked to find what was written there.

Hermione,

I know we aren't particularly close. We've probably spoken about three or four times. Unfortunate.

Anyway. Cassius and I are getting married. I hope that we can count on you and Viktor to be there. We would greatly appreciate your presence. We're planning on having it sometime during the break, so don't worry about school. And of course, you'll get a proper invitation.

Cedric Diggory

PS. I'm hoping we can get to be friends. Or at least better acquaintances.

Hermione rolled the scroll back up. She would have to add that to her letter to Viktor. She scribbled a postscript onto her letter and told him she would explain better later. She was excited as she thought about the wedding she was planning on going to.

Neville trudged down, wiping the sleep from his eyes at what most of the teachers would consider a reasonable hour.

"What are you doing up so early?" he asked

"I spent a lot of my summer in Bulgaria," she said. "It's two hours earlier than here."

"And? You've been back for a few weeks. You should be on our timetable now."

"I like to talk to Viktor before he heads off to quidditch practice," Hermione admitted.

Neville nodded as he spread orange marmalade all over his toast. He thought that Hermione was weird, but he wasn't going to say that to her face. She was terrifying when she was angry. And getting her worked up before classes even started sounded like a bad idea.

"Hey guys," Padma said as she sat down with them. They were at the Gryffindor table since Hermione had been the first one down. Depending on who got there first, they got to pick where they sat.

"Someone's chipper," Neville said.

"Is there a reason not to be?" Padma retorted.

"The pink toad," Neville said.

The three of them looked at the teacher's table and shuddered. Half of the teachers weren't there, for one reason or another. But Umbridge sat there, looking over the few students there as if she ruled over them.

"Guess you're right," Padma said.

"Don't you normally sit at the Ravenclaw table?" Pavarti asked.

"Sometimes," Hermione said. She grabbed another slice of toast and spread jam over it. "We sit wherever who gets here first is."

"I guess that's fine," Pavarti said. "I'm just here because she," she jerked her finger over to Padma, "made me keep a strict schedule over the summer."

Padma rolled her eyes at her Gryffindor sister. "You'll be more prepared for your classes than your friends. And you can't tell me that you're feeling more tired than last year."

Pavarti sighed. "No. But only because I fell asleep just after she did," she pointed at Hermione. "I wasn't even trying to."

Hermione smiled. She knew what it was like to have a day so full that you just sort of fell asleep after everything was done. And she knew how close Lavender and Pavarti were. They had stayed up gossiping all the year before. And if Pavarti had simply fallen asleep, it was definitely not planned.

"You'll be grateful for it by the end of the week," Neville said. "My gran did it last year, and it was a lifesaver."

"Besides, you get to eat breakfast with us before things get busy," Hermione said. "It's nice and quiet."

Pavarti sunk down and lay her head on the table. "I know. I don't like the quiet."

Neville and Hermione looked at each other and then at the twins. It was obvious that Padma and Pavarti weren't incredibly similar, in spite of the fact that they looked almost identical. But there was a reason they had been placed in different houses.

"What do you want to talk about then?" Hermione asked.

"We could discuss the difficulties of growing tropical plants in a temperate climate," Neville said.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think we need to go there before our first herbology lesson."

"I don't know what she wants to talk about," Neville hissed.

"Ask her."

Harry and Ron came down, rubbing their eyes. It was clear that they were still half asleep, if not more.

"Whoa Padma, there are two of you," Harry said.

"That's pretty normal with being a twin," Padma shot back.

"Hi Pavarti," Ron said. "You're not normally up this early."

"Neither are you," she snapped.

"Yeah, but it's the first day of class and Mione would kill us if we weren't there on time."

Though it wasn't the first time Ron had called her that, she felt her annoyance at the nickname rise. She hadn't ever said anything, but she was starting to think that she should. Maybe then Ron would stop the habit.

"We have transfiguration first," Hermione said. "If I don't kill you, Professor McGonagall will."

The boys shared a look as they imagined being eaten alive. It wasn't that McGonagall would eat them, so much as whatever she might do would be on the same level of horrific-ness. She wasn't the kind of woman who allowed tardiness at all.

Defence against the dark arts was the class that most of the student population was dreading. Hermione had an idea of what might go on, but she was appalled to find out that the ministry wanted them to do "pure theoretical work." It was heinous.

Harry, though, couldn't keep his big mouth shut. Hermione wasn't sure if that was part of his hero complex, or if it was his need to prove himself. It wasn't enough for him that he had managed to save Cedric Diggory. He had to save everyone he could.

Hermione cursed herself for being friends with him. She could still remember the troll incident from first year, and almost cursed herself for not realising earlier that he had a hero complex. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she had.

She had spent the rest of the day being worried over what would happen at Harry's detention. She would have written Viktor, but she didn't want to spoil that time with her worry. But as she felt herself tense up as the hours passed, she realised she wanted him there with her.

"Need to talk," Neville asked.

Hermione set her homework down on the table and sighed. Neville knew her far better than she would have liked under the circumstances. She rubbed her temples wearily.

"I guess so, but the person I want to talk to isn't here."

Neville handed her a pen. "I bet he's waiting for you to talk to him."

Hermione took the writing utensil from him, a grateful smile on her face. "How do you know?"

"I know how I felt over the summer when you didn't write," he said. "I know you were busy and I don't really mind that you'd rather spend time with Krum than me. But I wished I could talk to one of my best friends."

"I'm really sorry about that," she said.

"Don't be. Padma sent letters that were as long as that one you sent to Krum. And my gran has been kind enough to set up a greenhouse for me."

"That's nice. I guess you kept yourself busy."

"That's one way of putting it. Harry says you spent the last two weeks of the summer with him and the Weasleys."

Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "I did. Someone thought I'd be safer there than at home, so I guess it was a good thing my parents came to Bulgaria with me. Even if my mother did get some ideas in her head."

"Oh no."

It was no secret that Hermione's tendency to get carried away came from her mother. Neville had only met her once, but he knew that if she was pursuing something, nothing would get in her way. And the fact that it had happened relatively early in the summer only seemed to confirm his suspicions.

"Tell me about it," Hermione moaned. "She's decided to overthrow the statute of secrecy."

Neville's jaw dropped. "Can she do that?"

"Apparently in America, they don't have the same laws. She's working on drafting a proposal similar to theirs. Apparently, it would cause a lot less stress if there weren't so many rules and regulations surrounding the magical community."

Neville thought over her words. He was afraid that he wasn't really all that familiar with all the laws regarding different countries. He wasn't really all that familiar with those of his own, but he was only fifteen.

"I guess I wouldn't know," he admitted. "Being a pureblood really means that you don't have to think about those sort of things often."

"But wouldn't it be nice to know that you could use magic no matter who was watching if it really mattered?" Hermione asked. Her voice was growing impassioned, and it wasn't hard to see that she really believed in what her mother was doing.

"Probably. I thought we had rules about that."

"We supposedly do. But Harry used a patronus to save his cousin, his cousin, over the summer and wound up in court."

"Oh Merlin," Neville cursed. "Someone's trying to lock up Harry."

"I know."

"Go talk to your boyfriend," Neville said. "I do have homework to finish. And it will be easier to finish without you prattling on." He said it all with a smile, so Hermione knew that Neville was only teasing her.

She picked up her stuff and headed up to her room. She did want to talk to Viktor, but found that ranting to Neville was also fairly calming. She was certain that she would be doing it more as the semester went on.

Viktor, are you free to talk? She wrote.

Yes.

Hermione felt herself relax at that one word. It was strange how much he could change her mood, with only a few strokes of a pen. And she was fairly certain he was using a pen.

One of the things that Hermione had given Viktor had been a box of pens. They were the bic kind, where there were so many of them that a person could easily lose count. But she wanted him to have enough that he wouldn't need to worry about running out.

How was quidditch practice?

About the same as all the others. Coach says that we'll be doing some different exercises next month, but for now, it's pretty much the same as all the other practices we've had so far.

I think he's holding off on tiring you guys out before the big game at the end of the month.

The Vultures, Viktor's team when he wasn't playing for the world cup, was playing their largest rivals, the Sophoclean Sirens. They were a Greek team, and doing incredibly well that season. But so were the Vultures.

Speaking of that, I've invited your father over for that. He seems a little nervous about magical travel. Is there anything you could say to him? Flying the muggle way takes much longer.

Hermione was touched that Viktor was trying to build a relationship with her father. Both of their mothers got on like a house on fire. Sometimes it was a little worrying. But she was more worried that her father wouldn't approve of her dating Viktor.

Apparently, she needn't have worried as much as she did. She was already going over certain points to share with her father in her head. She wasn't sure what would be more convincing, but having time was one she was sure he would like.

She pulled out a sheet of paper and jotted down a few points before turning back to her arm.

I'll talk to him. He won't like the way it feels like you're twisted through a sieve, but he'll be fine. Anything else interesting happen today?

Not really. How's school going?

She sighed heavily, leaning back against the pillow on her bed. It was the thing she really didn't want to talk about, but she was fairly certain that it was going to come up sooner or later.

We have this horrible new defence against the dark arts teacher. She's from the ministry, and she gave Harry detention tonight for talking back. I know he should have shut up, but it's hard to get that boy to do anything he doesn't want to.

Don't worry, Viktor wrote. He will learn. He's a smart kid, even with that unnatural ability to get himself into trouble.

I know, but he's like a brother. I'm always going to worry about him.

More than you worry about me? he teased.

No. But I also don't think of you as a brother.

I should hope not.

There was a bit of a clamour downstairs and Hermione grabbed her robe.

I think Harry just got back. I'll talk to you later.

She threw the robe over her uniform and rolled her left sleeve down with practised ease as she ran down the steps to find Harry flopped down on one of the couches. His left hand was bandaged up sloppily and was still obviously bleeding.

"Oh Harry," she murmured as she pushed his hair out of his face. "I guess it was pretty bad."

"Horrible. Do you have anything to make it stop hurting?"

"Wait here." She ran up to her room to get some murtlap essence she had been getting ready for a side potions project. She was just grateful she had it.

A/N: So I've been corrected on Umbridge. Apparently on Pottermore she's a Slytherin. But with my habit of ignoring canon (see above story for evidence of that) I'm going to continue to ignore that fact. I really hate the fact that Rowling seems to throw almost all of her bad guys in Slytherin. Also, this chapter was a bit longer than I had originally anticipated. That's not a bad thing, just suprising. Hope you guys enjoy it.