Yay! Chapter deux! Eek, now I've gone and reminded myself of my French teacher… aghh. Worst woman alive, I say. I wish school was back in, I miss Matt! Both of them! Anyway, I have a bad habit of going on forever and I know it, and I know when you read this it won't make any sense. I am going to upload both chapters of my story at the same time, but since I lost Internet privileges, I cannot get onto ff.net for a while. Stupid parents. Anyway, hope you like the next instalment, and I'm positively thrilled to have a plot. Yay me! Hmm… creep, by Radiohead is a neat-o song. Listen to it sometime, it's quite interesting. Oh yeah, and thanks for the nice critique, SugarCrazedFish. I'll try that for next chapter. I already had this ¾ of the way done when I read you're suggestion. .
_*_*_*_*_*_*_
"Hermione? Did you hear us?" Ron asked her questioningly.
"Of course, you were talking about Fred and George, weren't you?" He rolled his eyes at her.
"Yeah, but that was about fifteen minutes ago. You keep staring off at the Slytherin table. Harry just asked you if you if you though Hagrid's beard looked more purple today than normal, and you just nodded and said "uh-huh" What's so exciting anyway? Or at least more exciting than you're friends." Hermione turned bright red, shook her head and mumbled some reply, which seemed to satisfy her friends.
"We're gonna go over to the Ravenclaw table for a minute, so Harry can talk to Andele." Harry spluttered and protested to Ron. Andele was Cho Changs younger cousin, and after Cho left, a slightly heart-broken Harry had noticed her. Like a younger version of her cousin, Andele was practically the same in every way except age, as she was in sixth year and her cousin had graduated the year before.
"What?! I said no! I don't even-- I don't think--I'm not going over there! Ron, all her friends, and she's a year above me, I don't need her to think I'm a total loser!" Ron just grinned at Harry. He glanced at Hermione who nodded.
"The I guess we'll just have to bring her to you. Come on, Ron."
"Fine! Just-- don't come with me okay? I'm going, you don't need to force me with a knife to my back." He sighed exasperatedly and got up. He walked nonchalantly over to Andele's seat and started to talk. Or at least tried to. Hermione could see his face getting progressively redder as he got closer, and it looked like Andele was doing most of the talking. Of course, her friends giggling didn't help much either. He turned around and walked back with a big grin plastered on his face.
"I told you so, didn't I? That wasn't so hard, now was it?" Ron snorted and tried not to laugh as he talked. In the end he gave up, and Harry just looked at him confused.
"Bugger, you're face is red though! You look like you just jumped into an oven!" He chuckled to himself and Harry look mortified and glanced back at Andele. He turned to Hermione.
"Was it that red? No wonder they were laughing."
"Your face was red, though not as bad as Ron said. So anyway, what did you say?"
"It was great, except for the laughing bit, but anyway.. ." He started into a long retelling of what had happened in the brief two minutes he talked to her. Ron looked over at Hermione with a self-satisfied look on his face. They slowed down out of step and Harry continued on with babbling about Cho.
"I think we'll be hearing about this for a while to come. Almost wish I hadn't set them up" He said jokingly.
"Well, now you know how I felt about Quiddich for so long, all you two would talk bout was Quiddich, Quiddich, Quiddich. I'm glad I learned more about it last year, or I doubt I would ever get a chance to talk!" With this being their last year, Harry and Ron were going crazy over winning the Cup. Hermione could now appreciate the finer points of the game, and though after getting over her fear of flying and actually getting quite good, she would never try out. She may have lost her fear, but flying in front of a huge crowd, hundreds of feet in the air, with heavy balls whizzing around to knock you off—well, it wasn't exactly her cup of tea.
"Maybe. But don't forget about S.P.E.W. You drove everyone crazy that year over house elves who liked working." She stiffened, still a little terse over her failed battle for elf-rights.
"Well, I did get them wages though. I suppose even if they were small ones, it wasn't all that bad." Ron nodded in agreement. Hermione smiled, Harry still was talking, and only now noticed that his friends weren't listening to him. He turned around indignantly. Ron cut him off before he had a chance to talk again.
"Just get to the point, Harry, what's happening?!" Harry grinned again, as wide as when he had just finished talking to Andele.
"We're going to practice Quiddich together, after school Umm, would you mind if I didn't practice with you? I want to-"
"No problem. But I can't believe all that was just about practising Quiddich! You'd think you proposed and she accepted, the way you were carrying on about it" They all laughed, turning the corner to get to their first class, Transfiguration. Hermione pulled out her homework from before, suddenly remembering Malfoy and their short conversation.
She plopped down between Ron and Neville, in her usual place. She often helped the other boy with his assignments, though he had finally grown up to be the wizard his grandmother expected him t be. He did well enough in almost all of his classes, except potions. Neville had never been able to shake his fear of Snape. He still forgot everything he knew when the dark potions teacher looked at him.
Today he greeted her cheerfully, then turned around and began rummaging through his bag. Hermione glanced around the classroom. It was a double class with Slytherin. All of the Gryffindor's classes were shared with another house, a new school had been built in Sweden, and many students went there instead of the farther away Hogwarts. It was a small school, and no-where near as powerful as their own, but quite a few older students had left Hogwarts.
Unfortunately, since less students meant more shared classes, Gryffindors had to share more classes with Slytherins, which led to bitter rivalries. Hermione had three classes with Malfoy: Potions, Defence, and Transfiguration; plus anything that required the Head Boy and Girl's attention. Hermione was not thrilled with that at all. Herbology was the only class with the Hufflepuffs, while she had Arithmancy and History of Magic with the Ravenclaws.
She turned to her friends, and they got caught up in a lively debate on who was going to win the House Cup. Hermione thought Ravenclaw, but Harry and Ron though Gryffindor should win. Hermione glanced up and saw Malfoy enter through the room, and unusually, unaccompanied. Crabbe and Goyle wee nowhere to be seen.
She caught his eye by accident, but surprisingly he didn't glare or look away but instead he shifted his heads toward Harry and Ron who were arguing now over what team would win the Quiddich tournament. Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her and smiled. Well, it looked like a smile, it was hard to tell. It would have en and evil sneer on anyone else, but on Malfoy it looked almost friendly. Almost. She wondered which it was, but she decided on sneer after looking at Harry and Ron. Both were gesturing wildly and talking very loudly. McGonagall entered the room, shooed Malfoy to his desk, and ordered everyone to be quiet.
Hermione turned in her seat and eagerly listened. She had heard they were going to be doing human transfiguration soon, and she hoped that was what McGonagall was planning on explaining. Sure enough, she was right.
"Class! Quiet, please!" She paused and waited for the remainder of conversations to stop before continuing.
"Now, as you know, seventh year is you're last, and most difficult year. Last term, we covered most of the theory involved in humanoid transfiguration, as well as practising on animals. Most of you-" Here she looked pointedly at Neville,
"- Managed to transfigure your animals close to perfect, or in a few cases, exactly as planned." Hermione felt proud, she had been one of the few people to completely transfigure her animal.
"This project will be the most important assignment you do all year, and will count for a large part of your grade. I suggest that all of you should do some extra studying before you actually attempt to transfigure your partner." At the mention of partners, people began shooting glances across the room to their friends, silently working out who they would work with. McGonagall noticed, but went on with her talk.
"If you do not know what you are doing, not only could you get a bad mark, but you're partner may become stuck as a half broom and require medical assistance. And that would be most unhelpful to you're grade. Hermione glanced at Neville, who looked as though he was imagining living the rest of his life as a broom-man freak. Or worse, causing someone else to. Hermione had to concentrate hard not to snigger, Neville was so hopeless sometimes even she had to laugh. Besides, always being understanding got a little boring.
I just hope I don't get stuck with a total incompetent… If I get partnered with Crabbe or Goyle, I swear, I will have a seizure…
Or at least pretend to.
McGonagall instructed them to all get out their quills and they spent the rest of the class copying the notes that she conjured onto the board. Finally, after what seemed like and eternity, even to Hermione, who was devoted to learning, the bell rang and students filed out of the classroom.
She caught up to Harry and Ron who were talking animatedly about the projects.
"What are we going to do? He'll end up in the hospital wing for sure!" Hermione guessed the 'him' Ron was talking about was his soon-to-be partner, whoever they turned out to be. "
Just you watch, I'll be a laughingstock, plus I'll fail and have to live with causing some poor chap a horrible disfigurement. Or worse, I'll be put with someone like Neville and it'll happen to me!" Hermione sniffed.
"That's a horrible thing to say, Ron. You're not that much better than Neville yourself. And at least he tries! Besides, the changes wouldn't be permanent! McGonagall would never let us transfigure people if it were even remotely possible for anyone to get hurt." He gave her a distinct know-it-all look, but none-the-less he seemed relieved. And a glance at Harry confirmed the same for him.
Honestly. You'd think they were complete idiots if you didn't know them. She rolled her ees skyward for just a second before looking back at her two friends.
"So what class is next?" Harry asked.
"Uhh, divination? No wait, that's after lunch, I think it's, ahh-"
"Herbology. You two are pathetic sometimes. Can't remember a timetable for one day." She snorted and laughed. Harry shrugged.
"We aren't as devoted to it as you. Unlike you, school takes up less than 90% of our brains." He smiled.
"Yeah, but that space in you're head is totally empty! Except for maybe Quiddich. I'm surprised that neither of you hasn't had a restraining order against you after how you followed that Whidbey keeper when he was visiting Hogsmeade. Pitiful, it was." Harry just blushed and nodded.
Ron hadn't said anything for a while and Hermione saw he was fiddling with the bindings on his book. They had come loose and he was attacking it with several different kinds of repairing spells, none of which seemed to do the trick properly
"Here let me do it." Hermione reached for her wand in her pocket, then checked through her bag carefully. A look of panic crossed her face and she set her bag on the floor then dumped everything out and spread it around. She searched meticulously for her wand. This was horrible, if she had lost it-
"'Mione, what are you looking for?" She looked up at Harry and Ron.
"My wand! I can't, I can't find it anywhere!" A slight tremor caught in her voice.
"Well, just backtrack! It's probably in you're room or something. Where did you have it last?"
"Well, I had it in the morning, I don't know about at breakfast, I didn't need it. Same with transfiguration, it was all writing, I never needed it…"
"You might have dropped it in transfiguration, come on, we've got lots of time, as long as we don't spend too long on it." They quickly walked down the halls back to class and Hermione asked Professor McGonagall, then searched all around the classroom by herself. No use, it wasn't anywhere in the room, nor was it in the corridors or the great hall. Hermione looked around frantically. They were already late for classes.
"You guys go on, I don' want you to get detention because I lost my bloody wand." Slightly surprised at her cursing, they still refused to leave.
"Listen… just think. When's the last time you actually remember physically having it? Not just thinking you do… but you had it when you came out of the head Girl's room, and from there to breakfast. What did you do??" Suddenly she remembered… her wand had skittered away from her when she had hit-
"Malfoy!"
_*_*_*_*_*_*_
Oooh… added to the chapter, and it's currently, 2:30 am… arghhh. Forget plot bunnies, these things are more like Elephants stomping around. You just can't ignore them. Especially when you've freaked up on sugar and coke. (The liquid, pop kind, I am not a drug addict, contrary to many people's beliefs. ) Well, hope that was a good enough cliffhanger. Well, actually its not, since most of you are capable of putting two and two together and know what's happening.
If you were Harry or Ron it would be a cliffie, but you're not. Except for you psycho-obsessive people, and for fear of being killed in my sleep, I will just let you go on with you're insane fantasies, and not interrupt you.
Well, g'nite everyone! Or I guess it's morning. Meh. I sleep at all hours. I don't discriminate (-_-) -(ZzZzZzZz)
