'Is there a reason you wanted to come down this way, Harry?' Ginny asked, pulling her robes tighter around herself to keep warm. 'It's just that it's cold...'
Harry agreed, and turned into a deserted classroom. He looked around and spotted the fireplace, which looked like it hadn't really been used. Dungeon classes are always freezing, he thought, remembering Potions.
'Ignitus flamma!' Harry yelled, pointing his wand to the fireplace. Suddenly, a nice toasty fire was going, and the room soon warmed.
'Hey, when do you learn that spell?' Ginny asked. 'I'm in the fifth year, and I still haven't learned it...'
'I don't think they taught us that. But it's a pretty standard spell, you can find it a lot of places.'
Ginny nodded, and sat down in a ramshackle old chair near the front of the aged classroom. She looked around at the walls, seeing moving diagrams peeling off from the wall. 'What do you suppose they taught in here?' Ginny asked.
'I don't know, probably some kind of...' Harry stopped so he could observe the diagrams on the wall. 'Looks like some advanced form of potions,' he finished. 'That right there,' he said, pointing to one diagram, 'is the Polyjuice Potion.' He recognized it at once from when he had used the Polyjuice Potion in his second year.
Ginny studied the diagrams some more while Harry opened the desk drawer. In it, he found some old parchment and quills. The desk also had some orange ink in it.
'Hey, Ron would like this,' Harry said. 'Orange... like the Chudley Cannons.' He pocketed it and continued to poke around in the desk, but found nothing good.
'Goyle, Crabbe, stop being idiots, and act like normal people for once!' Malfoy's voice drifted into the classroom from the hallway, where it seemed a disgruntled Malfoy was telling his friends off.
'Sorry,' grunted one of them.
The door to the classroom was mostly closed, so Harry didn't feel a need to do anything as Malfoy passed. The sounds of the trio talking were now right outside the door when Malfoy said, 'Wait!' and pushed the door open.
'Oh,' he said, as he laid his eyes on Ginny and Harry. 'It's Potter and his girlfriend. You two should stay out of this room, you know. You shouldn't be wandering the dungeons, you could get into trouble, you know.'
'What do you want, Malfoy?' Harry asked, irritated.
'Just going to pick something up,' Malfoy said lightly, going over to a cabinet in the room and opening it, pulling out what looked like potions ingredients. 'Better be careful, Potter,' Malfoy warned. 'Don't want to get caught down here.'
Malfoy thought that'd be enough, since there wasn't really anyone else around to humiliate Harry in front of. He stalked out of the room, swishing his robes as he went.
'Stupid git,' Ginny said quietly from her chair. 'Wonder what it is he took.'
Harry wondered also, but thought it'd be too risky to look at the moment, as he heard more voices and footsteps coming down the corridor. 'Let's go,' he said.
They walked out into the hall unseen, but passed the Slytherins Harry had heard while in the classroom. The ones that could be seen hanging around Malfoy made faces at Harry as he passed on the stairs, but no remarks were said.
'Where to now?' Ginny asked when they ended up back outside the Great Hall.
'Maybe we should go back to the common room?' Harry suggested. He didn't really want to, but couldn't think of anything else.
'All right...' said Ginny reluctantly.
They headed back up to Gryffindor tower, talking about Charms lessons.
When they arrived, a few more students were up, milling around the common room. Although Harry didn't see Ron or Hermione, Ginny saw one of her friends. Harry noticed her waving at a girl with blue ribbons tied in her blonde hair, and the girl quickly looked away.
'Your friend?' Harry asked.
'Yes,' Ginny said. 'Her name's Lissa, she's a Muggle born.'
Lissa looked at Ginny and Harry through the corner of her eye, then quickly looked away again.
'Hmm,' Harry said. 'Well, I'll leave you to it. I'm going back up to my dormitory.'
Ginny nodded and walked over to her friend.
As Harry climbed up the stairs, he saw the look of delight on both Ginny and Lissa's face, and they were talking excitedly and laughing. I wonder if they're making fun of me, Harry wondered. But then he thought, No, Ginny's nicer than that, and continued up the stairs.
He pushed open the door and flopped down on his bed. He took out of his trunk a Transfiguration spellbook and started to flip through it, bored. He closed it after a few minutes, and thought about how he needed to go Christmas shopping for his friends soon. I wonder when the next Hogsmeade weekend is. Of course, if it's not soon enough, I can just use the secret passage... His thoughts were interrupted by Ron waking up.
'Hey, Harry,' he said, yawning.
'You decided to wake up,' Harry replied.
'How long have you been up?' Ron asked. 'It's still early enough... look outside,' said Ron, pointing out the window. 'It's still early.'
Harry nodded, and Ron got out of bed and stretched. 'So what are the plans for today?' he asked.
Harry shrugged and said, 'We'll come up with something when Hermione gets up.'