To Win Her Heart (Part 4: Letters)
Ok! Part 4! (still without spellcheck... sigh...) I'm still developing the plot, so the stotyline is a little slow. Hold on though! I'm plannig to get alot more done this week! I know there is still like no romance between our main characters.... but it's coming! I promise!!!!

Lauren


Harry and Hermione went to the 'party' for only few minutes. They discovered it wasn't really a party at all, just a few people off in their own corners having deep discussions with each other. Not wanted to be too exhausted for the next days classes, they deceided to hit the hay, drowsilly trudging up the stairs, each with a severe case of jetlag. or perhaps... trainlag? No Jetlag, cause that sounds better.

The next morning Harry was up at eight, busily getting ready for what the new day had to bring He found a pile of letters neatly placed on his nightstand. One from Ron, one from Hagrid and One from Sirius, who must've somehow found out about Harry's relocation, because Harry was quite sure he had forgotten to mention it to Sirius.

Hermione woke up to screaming.

Lizzy was wide eyed, her cheeks red, and her lip quivering. her eyes were pinpointed on the bed to the right of Hermiones, where Kate was asleep with her head on the shoulder of a boy whom Hermione made out to be Steve, the tall redhead from the day before. It took Hermione to realize why Lizzy looked so upset, but then she remembered the conversation of the previous day and it all fell into place.

Kate woke up, dazed. She was at last aware of her surrounding when her face blushedm and she jumped to her feet. She prodded Steve on the shoulder, who woke quickly, tried to stand, but tangled his feet together and fell face first on the floor.

"You should probably get out of here before Laura does morning rounds." Kate said, shooing him out of the room. When the Weasley look alike had left, she turned to a very hurt Lizzy, who spat as she spoke.
"I can't beleive you Kat! How could you?"

"No no no! This is not as bad as it looks! We were talking during the party, and then Laura told everyone to go to sleep. We were still buzzed on chocolate frogs so we weren't tired. You guys were sleeping so we figured you wouldn't mind if we came in here to talk, I guess we just fell asleep I suppose."

Lizzy didn't accept the excuse and she began to wail uncontrolably. "You know how fragile I am! It's bad enough he wont speak to me, but now me best friend is trying to steal him!" She threw a pillow to her face to catch the tears.

Hermione shrugged, glad she was free from the trouble of men. She stretched, yawned and brushed Crookshank off the quilt, and as she did discovered a pile of letter scattered on top of it. This was very different from Hogwarts, where the mail was brought in at breakfast. Hermione looked around and found assorted packages and letter scattered around the room.
She really needed to get used to things here.

At breakfast she met Harry, who had bags under his emerald eyes and a bad case of bed head, that or it was just being particularilly unruly that day. Next to Harry was Steve, who looked extemely flustered, and beside him were the two boys that Hermione had seen after Lizzy's shouting fit in the hall the day before. Jason and Chris were their names, or at least that's what Hermione thought.

After Breakfast they had two hours before their first class, Transfiguration. From what Heather said, the teacher was one of the few male professors at the school, and he was extremely though, and had no tolerance for students whatsoever. He sounded quite like Snape, minus the Slytherin favoritism.

Hermione deceided to take her free time writing responses to her letters from Hogwarts.

Harry took this opportunity to 'hang out' with some of the Chanide guys, who were going down to the river to do a muggle activity called 'fishing'.

"So Steve, where were you last night?" Jason asked on the way. Steve responded that he'd rather not say, which received a taunting remark from Jason as well as the other boy.

"Making out with one of the chicks again? We know you're a ladies man, don't deny it!"

"Speaking of chicks, Lizzy was talking about you again."

"Dude, she's got it bad for you! Just ask her out!" Chris and Jason had about as much fun with Steve as the girls did with Lizzy apparently. Steve just shook his head.

"Hey Harry," he said at last, "Is the girl Hermione taken? She's not bad looking."

Harry stumbled on his answer, stuttering a simple No. All this talk about girls was really making him think though. Did Hermione mean something to him?

Meainwhile, back in the girls dorm, Hermione was at work writing a letter to Ron on some parchment she had found int he drawer of her nightstand. She told him about everything, literally everything. She knew he would be uninterested about most of it, but she promised to tell him as much as she could.

When she had finished, she folded the parchment into an envelope, and sealed it with a stamp bearing the logo of Chanide that she had borrowed from Michelle. Ron's letter was the last she had to write. Before his she had finished one to Ginny, and one to her parents.

Three envelopes in hand, Hermione left the dorm through the hole behind the tapestry. She unfolded a map of the campus in order to find her way to the aviary, as they called it, so she could mail her letters. When she reached it (which was actually a separate buling on the grounds) she heard the voices of four boys, coming up the hill toward her. One of the voices belonged to Harry. Hermione hid around the corner from them and listened intentively.

"So you really think she would go out with me if I asked her?"

"Uh... why not?" Answered Harry's wavering voice. Hermione recognized hte previous voice as that of Steve.

"Awesome! We have Transfiguaration together in about twenty minutes, I'll ask her after class. Speaking of class... I have to get my books. Talk to you later Harry!" Steve jogged off with a wave, followed by Chris and Jason.

Harry paced around nervously. "Hell, Hermione's going to kill me..."

Hermione spun out from around the corner. "Now why would I want to do that?"

"Steve thinks you're 'hot', he asked me if you were available and if you'd go our with him. I kinda just shrugged and he took that as a yes...."

"You're right! I should kill you." Hermione said. "You know better then to set me up with people.... " She looked at the letters in her hand, remembering why she was where she was in the first place. "Anyway, I gotta mail these back home, talk to you later." She opened the door to the Aviary, and slid in, feeling a sense of releif.

She found Lizzy huddled on the floor near the door. "How come he likes every girl in this school but me? First Kate, now you!"

"Lizzy I..."

"I know, it's not your fault he flirts with everyone."

"Maybe we should hook him up with Padma..." Hermione saw Lizzy's horrified face, "... just kidding."

"Hermione? Have you ever had a problem like this before?"

"I'm sorry to say that I haven't yet. But who knows what might happen here."

to be continued....