Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, not while hanging on a vine and not if I am drinking wine. Harry Potter is not mine.
Neither, I realize, are some furniture ideas (you'll understand later) which I stole from the videogame Animal Crossing.
AN: HAHA! I don't usually even do mild cliffies like that! Whee! Okay, so that was fun ^^;; I'll admit, the reason I stopped there is because I couldn't decide how the rooms would work *sweatdrops* but now I've come to a semi-descisive state, so here goes!
Augh, did I mention that near to ANY spells I make up are going to be Japanese in origin? That's because I know next to no Latin, but I've been studying Japanese for... *counts* a long time. *sweatdrops*
Chapter Three: Love is Changing
Just as Dumbledore had said, on the stone floor in front of her lay a piece of paper. Picking it up, she looked around. She seemed to be at the foot of a spiral staircase. Becoming curious, she looked at the paper.
Your room is, as you will soon discover, a bit bare. It is also located fourteen stories above where you, presumably, are now.
Hermione glanced up and thanked whatever deities that were listening for self-levitation charms.
When you arrive in your room, there should be a few things already there:
Your personal belongings will be near the wall to your left,
And directly in front of you will be a rather large muggle-style catalog.
That magazine contains the key to furnishing your room. Various furnishing items in many styles appear in the catalog (some rather unconventional), along with incantations to make the room materialize each.
Have fun, it's free!
Hermione folded up the piece of paper and stepped into the stairwell, closing the door behind her. The stairs seemed to go on forever, a window appearing every second rotation of the spiral. At the top, she emerged into a large circular room with windows all around and what looked like glass sliding doors on the west side, leading out onto a balcony.
"Great Goddess..." she whispered, glancing out each window. "I'm gonna need help with this."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"You mean you get to design your own room?" Ron asked as he, Harry, and Hermione dashed along the passage between Gryffindor Tower and the Prefects' Common.
"Yes, and judging from what I saw just flipping through the magazine, the possibilities are endless!"
"Now there's something to think about: what would an endless book look like?" Harry asked. Ron cast a quick glance at him.
"Well... really big?" he supplied in a halfway questioning tone. Harry grinned at the taller boy, which Hermione noticed made said redhead smile somewhat nervously. Inside her own mind, she grinned as well. It looked like Harry's romantic life was going to go rather well this year.
Once at the Prefects' common, Harry and Ron had to stop and stare.
"Bloody hell, Hermione, all this for ten people?" Ron said incredulously.
"And all the prefects to come, but I suppose that, yes, this is all for ten people a year."
Harry shook his head and smiled at her. "Wow."
"Come on, if we want to get done before dinner then we need to start soon." Hermione prompted, eager to see what they could do to her room. The boys each nodded and they started toward her room. As they passed the couches, Hermione saw Draco on one, the magazine open on his lamp and a list on the couch next to him.
'Has he been here the whole time? And he didn't comment when Harry and Ron came in? What's going on?' She continued watching him as she walked on the balcony level, and resigned herself simply to her own thoughts until they reached her room. Harry and Ron were already bent over the catalog when she got there, and she laughed a bit at their excited antics.
"Look, it's perfect!" Ron exclaimed, pointing to something. Harry snickered, something rather un-Harry-like, and Hermione became slightly concerned.
"Hikitsukeru chikara no Juutan!" Ron said as she stood and pointed his wand at the bare stone floor. A carpet materialized, pink with a male model winking at the ceiling, and he wasn't wearing anything save a loincloth.
Hermione turned cherry red, and burst into laughter. "Oh... oh god, (giggling) get that thing off before somebody comes up..." she lapsed into another fit of tear-inducing laughter, and after wiping her eyes she realized that the boys were laughing just as hard. "Oh my..." she took a deep breath. "I can't believe that was even in there! Oh... whoosh..."
"Whoosh?" Harry questioned.
"Like a deep exhalation." she stated and he rolled his eyes.
"Ah."
A few hours, hundreds of impossible to pronounce incantations, and thousands of laughs later, Hermione's room was in a presentable state. The carpet was a funny little fuzzy thing - mostly black with yellow and orange jack-o'-lanterns, blue wrapped sweets, and white "ghosts". The walls and ceiling remained stone, but the windows all had curtains that, amusingly, matched the rug. The bed they had chosen was an absolutely gorgeous king-sized canopy with midnight blue and silver curtains that they had spelled against flammability due to the tiki torches they had flanking the head of the bed.
A bit away from that, along one of the walls, sat a bureau, wardrobe, and vanity, with a folding screen so noone could catch her changing. =) Each of those were made of a rich-looking deep red-brown wood with black accents.
The middle of the room housed a bit of furniture that Ron insisted on surprising her with: a table and chair set fashioned to look like fruit. The chairs looked like an orange and some unspecified "melon" with a chunk cut out of them to sit on, while the table was like half of a watermelon.
On the other side of the room from the folding screen bit was a small fountain made to look like a typical garden pond (complete with lily pads) with a potted snake plant on one side. In fact, all around the room one could find plants. A reddish-brown table next to Hermione's school trunk at the foot of her bed displayed her own personal maple bonsai, and there was an aloe plant near the sliding doors and some potted herbs in the windowsills and on top of the reddish-brown bookcase.
One might say it looked like a lush garden. Maybe a strange lush garden, but a lush garden nonetheless.
~ * ~ *~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"That turned out rather nicely, if I may say so." Hermione stated while picking at her mashed potatoes at dinner.
"I still can't believe they put that rug in there, though." Harry said, grinning. Hermione and Ron rolled eyes simultaneously.
"Agreed." Hermione said.
"I think you should have kept the neon pink bedcovers though, Mione." Ron pointed out mock-seriously. "They would have gone so well with that first folding screen we tried." The three of them exchanged glances, and burst into laughter for the hundredth time that day.
Alicia, who was walking up to them, looked momentarily startled and then chuckled. "Having fun with your room?" she asked. Hermione turned around to look at her.
"Definitely."
"Try looking on the twentieth carpets page." Ron suggested, snickering even as he spoke.
Alicia raised an eyebrow. "I'll do that. Hermione, have you seen Lee about?"
"No, sorry. Try Fred or George. They might know."
"I'll do that, too. Thanks!" she started walking away.
"No problem, Alicia!" She turned back to the table to see Ron had gone back to his dinner and Harry was looking at her with a 'just-what-do-you-think-you're-doing' stare. "Um...?" she asked lamely.
"I thought you'd be hungrier after all that excitement." he stated just enigmatically enough that Ron wouldn't catch on right away.
"Oh... you know... I was just rambling about how cool my room is... I'll get to it."
"You really should." Harry replied, and though his voice didn't fluctuate a pitch, Hermione flinched.
"Sorry." she muttered, hunching a bit over her full plate. The feeling of having a large, warm hand placed on her shoulder made her look up and meet Harry's green eyes, which were full of friendly warmth and concern.
"Just because it's not summer anymore doesn't mean I'm not still there for you. Heck, you can even send notes with Hedwig if it makes you feel better."
Almost involuntarily, she flung her arms about his neck and buried her face in the front of his robes. From across the table, Hermione could hear a slight choking sound as Ron looked up followed by something odd that she interpreted as extremely jealous.
"Is she okay?" Ron mouthed to Harry, who made a bit of a face and seemed to shrug.
Carefully, the black-haired boy held the petite brunette who was shaking very hard and more than just a bit too thin. Glancing at her dinner, he realized she'd barely touched it - simply pushed it around a bit. After a little while, she stopped shaking and he ventured speaking to her.
"Hermione? Are you going to be okay?"
Realizing she had been in Harry's arms for the past five minutes, Hermione pulled away, rubbing at damp eyes. "I think so. I guess I'm just a little tired." If she had looked up, she would have found that even Ron didn't buy that excuse.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
By the end of dinner Harry and Ron had coaxed, tricked, and bribed her into eating all of her mashed potatoes, half of her peas, and a little chicken. Ron worriedly watched Harry as he paced in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room.
"Harry, you're going to wear the carpet thin." he stated after about twenty minutes. Harry looked at him, sighed heavily, and flopped down on the couch next to him. Ron found himself glad that he was already somewhat red from sitting so near the fire on an already warm night.
"I know, pacing won't help anything. It's just... I'm worried about her, Ron. She confided a lot of things in me over summer break... things you wouldn't even connect with the character of 'Hermione'. And I'm..." he covered his face in his hands and took a deep breath. "I'm scared she's going to hurt herself."
Tentatively, remembering how Harry had held Hermione at the dinner table, he placed an arm about his best friend's shoulders. Harry (Ron wondered if it was unconsciously) leaned into the light embrace and wrapped one of his own arms around the taller boy's slim waist.
"Don't worry, we'll find a way through this." Ron found himself saying reassuringly. And if he didn't catch the 'we', Harry did, and smiled contentedly at the fire.
Across the room, a different redheaded boy caught sight of the pair and motioned to his twin to look as well. They looked at them fondly, caught each others' eyes, and each smiled warmly.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Draco Malfoy sat on the left-hand couch in the prefects' common, the large catalog open on his crossed legs sitting forgotten as he stared into the fire. The center couch held Hermione, who lay on her front facing Malfoy with schoolbooks all around. After a while, she sat up with her knees folded under her and stretched. The room was empty except for herself and the pensive Slytherin.
For a moment she studied him. He had rested his head on one fist, and the other lay limply on the magazine in his lap. The firelight was reflected in his eyes, and illuminated his pale skin and hair. Then, deciding he wasn't going to bother her, she put her schoolbooks aside and took out a new roll of parchment and her favorite wine red ink.
Harry,
Sorry I lost it at dinner like that. I guess that with school starting and the new rooms and everything that's been going on...
I think I just need to get back into the school routine and then I'll be fine.
Did you tell Ron about... you know...? He seemed to be contributing quite a bit to your antics to get me to eat. (yick, that was a bad sentence. Maybe I have been away from school for too long)
Anyways, don't worry about me. A good night's sleep and I'll be back to my old self! Oh, and thanks for not flipping on me when I fell apart earlier, I think I forgot to thank you at the time.
So, I think that's it.
~Hermione
After re-reading the note a few times, she folded it up and placed it on top of her books. Glancing at Malfoy, she realized he hadn't moved at all since twenty minutes earlier, and then she wondered why she cared. Mentally shrugging it off, she picked up her books and went up to her room to change.
Malfoy realized that the person on the couch to his right had left, so when there was movement in that direction, he was slightly startled and looked over. He was greeted with the sight of Hermione, her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing only a light green and light blue striped camisole and light blue drawstring sweatpants. She was curled up on the large deep purple couch with an oversized book in her hands, making her seem rather small.
Then she blinked and and focus on her book visibly broke, and she looked up at him. He looked away and back at the catalog.
"Do you need some help with that?" Hermione asked quietly. Malfoy looked back up, feeling ridiculous for having been startled by her twice in ten minutes.
"I... ah..." he averted his gaze, wondering why she offered to help him. She was a girl, and a Gryffindor, and someone he had been perfectly awful to in years past. She walked past the direction his eyes were pointed, and sat down next to him on the couch.
"Don't worry, I got Harry and Ron to help me with my room, and I'm not exactly going to tell anyone that Mr. High-and-Mighty Slytherin was having trouble deciding what to do with his room."
"Why do you want to help me?" he asked, and Hermione was surprised at how guarded his words sounded.
'What is he afraid of?' she wondered. 'His reputation, maybe? Is he afraid I'm going to go blabbing that he associated with a muggle-born?' "You looked sad." she chose her words carefully. "And I know that crazy magazine is overwhelming even if you're prepared for it." she took a breath and looked up at his face. "It didn't look to me like anyone else was going to help you, so... offering can't hurt."
"Well, if you're really going to help, maybe you should sit on my other side. You'll get jabbed at some point if you sit over there." When she looked slightly confused, he picked up a pencil and twirled it in his fingers.
"You're left-handed?" she asked.
"Yea..."
"Don't worry about it. I was going to sit facing you anyway. So what are you trying to choose?"
"Well, a carpet, but none seem to match what else I've got."
"What else have you got?"
"Most of the ebony set back here..." He turned to near the back of the catalog.
"Hmm... Well, maybe you should try putting in a little bit of..." she flipped back a few pages. "...this stuff here, the indigo set, and then some kind of night sky carpet would probably match."
"Mmm... maybe, but..." Talking about something as inconsequential as furniture that could be changed with the flick of a wand, both Hermione and Malfoy slowly relaxed. The night ended when, after slowly flipping through page after page of furniture, Malfoy discovered that Hermione had fallen asleep.
Feeling slightly awkward, he used a charm to lay her down on the couch (as opposed to draped on the back of it) and transfigured a small pillow into a blanket that turned out to be red and silver.
Halfway across the room, he turned back and looked at her. "See you in potions." he whispered, then shook his head quickly and went off to his room, where he promptly added a starry night carpet.
AN: So this chapter was shorter than the last one... only by a page or so. At least I got it out in absolutely record time! Wai! Next chapter should feature at least Potions and DADA with Bill. (hehehehehe) Now, the review button is calling out to you. =P
Neither, I realize, are some furniture ideas (you'll understand later) which I stole from the videogame Animal Crossing.
AN: HAHA! I don't usually even do mild cliffies like that! Whee! Okay, so that was fun ^^;; I'll admit, the reason I stopped there is because I couldn't decide how the rooms would work *sweatdrops* but now I've come to a semi-descisive state, so here goes!
Augh, did I mention that near to ANY spells I make up are going to be Japanese in origin? That's because I know next to no Latin, but I've been studying Japanese for... *counts* a long time. *sweatdrops*
Just as Dumbledore had said, on the stone floor in front of her lay a piece of paper. Picking it up, she looked around. She seemed to be at the foot of a spiral staircase. Becoming curious, she looked at the paper.
Hermione glanced up and thanked whatever deities that were listening for self-levitation charms.
Your personal belongings will be near the wall to your left,
And directly in front of you will be a rather large muggle-style catalog.
That magazine contains the key to furnishing your room. Various furnishing items in many styles appear in the catalog (some rather unconventional), along with incantations to make the room materialize each.
Have fun, it's free!
Hermione folded up the piece of paper and stepped into the stairwell, closing the door behind her. The stairs seemed to go on forever, a window appearing every second rotation of the spiral. At the top, she emerged into a large circular room with windows all around and what looked like glass sliding doors on the west side, leading out onto a balcony.
"Great Goddess..." she whispered, glancing out each window. "I'm gonna need help with this."
"You mean you get to design your own room?" Ron asked as he, Harry, and Hermione dashed along the passage between Gryffindor Tower and the Prefects' Common.
"Yes, and judging from what I saw just flipping through the magazine, the possibilities are endless!"
"Now there's something to think about: what would an endless book look like?" Harry asked. Ron cast a quick glance at him.
"Well... really big?" he supplied in a halfway questioning tone. Harry grinned at the taller boy, which Hermione noticed made said redhead smile somewhat nervously. Inside her own mind, she grinned as well. It looked like Harry's romantic life was going to go rather well this year.
Once at the Prefects' common, Harry and Ron had to stop and stare.
"Bloody hell, Hermione, all this for ten people?" Ron said incredulously.
"And all the prefects to come, but I suppose that, yes, this is all for ten people a year."
Harry shook his head and smiled at her. "Wow."
"Come on, if we want to get done before dinner then we need to start soon." Hermione prompted, eager to see what they could do to her room. The boys each nodded and they started toward her room. As they passed the couches, Hermione saw Draco on one, the magazine open on his lamp and a list on the couch next to him.
'Has he been here the whole time? And he didn't comment when Harry and Ron came in? What's going on?' She continued watching him as she walked on the balcony level, and resigned herself simply to her own thoughts until they reached her room. Harry and Ron were already bent over the catalog when she got there, and she laughed a bit at their excited antics.
"Look, it's perfect!" Ron exclaimed, pointing to something. Harry snickered, something rather un-Harry-like, and Hermione became slightly concerned.
"Hikitsukeru chikara no Juutan!" Ron said as she stood and pointed his wand at the bare stone floor. A carpet materialized, pink with a male model winking at the ceiling, and he wasn't wearing anything save a loincloth.
Hermione turned cherry red, and burst into laughter. "Oh... oh god, (giggling) get that thing off before somebody comes up..." she lapsed into another fit of tear-inducing laughter, and after wiping her eyes she realized that the boys were laughing just as hard. "Oh my..." she took a deep breath. "I can't believe that was even in there! Oh... whoosh..."
"Whoosh?" Harry questioned.
"Like a deep exhalation." she stated and he rolled his eyes.
"Ah."
A few hours, hundreds of impossible to pronounce incantations, and thousands of laughs later, Hermione's room was in a presentable state. The carpet was a funny little fuzzy thing - mostly black with yellow and orange jack-o'-lanterns, blue wrapped sweets, and white "ghosts". The walls and ceiling remained stone, but the windows all had curtains that, amusingly, matched the rug. The bed they had chosen was an absolutely gorgeous king-sized canopy with midnight blue and silver curtains that they had spelled against flammability due to the tiki torches they had flanking the head of the bed.
A bit away from that, along one of the walls, sat a bureau, wardrobe, and vanity, with a folding screen so noone could catch her changing. =) Each of those were made of a rich-looking deep red-brown wood with black accents.
The middle of the room housed a bit of furniture that Ron insisted on surprising her with: a table and chair set fashioned to look like fruit. The chairs looked like an orange and some unspecified "melon" with a chunk cut out of them to sit on, while the table was like half of a watermelon.
On the other side of the room from the folding screen bit was a small fountain made to look like a typical garden pond (complete with lily pads) with a potted snake plant on one side. In fact, all around the room one could find plants. A reddish-brown table next to Hermione's school trunk at the foot of her bed displayed her own personal maple bonsai, and there was an aloe plant near the sliding doors and some potted herbs in the windowsills and on top of the reddish-brown bookcase.
One might say it looked like a lush garden. Maybe a strange lush garden, but a lush garden nonetheless.
"That turned out rather nicely, if I may say so." Hermione stated while picking at her mashed potatoes at dinner.
"I still can't believe they put that rug in there, though." Harry said, grinning. Hermione and Ron rolled eyes simultaneously.
"Agreed." Hermione said.
"I think you should have kept the neon pink bedcovers though, Mione." Ron pointed out mock-seriously. "They would have gone so well with that first folding screen we tried." The three of them exchanged glances, and burst into laughter for the hundredth time that day.
Alicia, who was walking up to them, looked momentarily startled and then chuckled. "Having fun with your room?" she asked. Hermione turned around to look at her.
"Definitely."
"Try looking on the twentieth carpets page." Ron suggested, snickering even as he spoke.
Alicia raised an eyebrow. "I'll do that. Hermione, have you seen Lee about?"
"No, sorry. Try Fred or George. They might know."
"I'll do that, too. Thanks!" she started walking away.
"No problem, Alicia!" She turned back to the table to see Ron had gone back to his dinner and Harry was looking at her with a 'just-what-do-you-think-you're-doing' stare. "Um...?" she asked lamely.
"I thought you'd be hungrier after all that excitement." he stated just enigmatically enough that Ron wouldn't catch on right away.
"Oh... you know... I was just rambling about how cool my room is... I'll get to it."
"You really should." Harry replied, and though his voice didn't fluctuate a pitch, Hermione flinched.
"Sorry." she muttered, hunching a bit over her full plate. The feeling of having a large, warm hand placed on her shoulder made her look up and meet Harry's green eyes, which were full of friendly warmth and concern.
"Just because it's not summer anymore doesn't mean I'm not still there for you. Heck, you can even send notes with Hedwig if it makes you feel better."
Almost involuntarily, she flung her arms about his neck and buried her face in the front of his robes. From across the table, Hermione could hear a slight choking sound as Ron looked up followed by something odd that she interpreted as extremely jealous.
"Is she okay?" Ron mouthed to Harry, who made a bit of a face and seemed to shrug.
Carefully, the black-haired boy held the petite brunette who was shaking very hard and more than just a bit too thin. Glancing at her dinner, he realized she'd barely touched it - simply pushed it around a bit. After a little while, she stopped shaking and he ventured speaking to her.
"Hermione? Are you going to be okay?"
Realizing she had been in Harry's arms for the past five minutes, Hermione pulled away, rubbing at damp eyes. "I think so. I guess I'm just a little tired." If she had looked up, she would have found that even Ron didn't buy that excuse.
By the end of dinner Harry and Ron had coaxed, tricked, and bribed her into eating all of her mashed potatoes, half of her peas, and a little chicken. Ron worriedly watched Harry as he paced in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room.
"Harry, you're going to wear the carpet thin." he stated after about twenty minutes. Harry looked at him, sighed heavily, and flopped down on the couch next to him. Ron found himself glad that he was already somewhat red from sitting so near the fire on an already warm night.
"I know, pacing won't help anything. It's just... I'm worried about her, Ron. She confided a lot of things in me over summer break... things you wouldn't even connect with the character of 'Hermione'. And I'm..." he covered his face in his hands and took a deep breath. "I'm scared she's going to hurt herself."
Tentatively, remembering how Harry had held Hermione at the dinner table, he placed an arm about his best friend's shoulders. Harry (Ron wondered if it was unconsciously) leaned into the light embrace and wrapped one of his own arms around the taller boy's slim waist.
"Don't worry, we'll find a way through this." Ron found himself saying reassuringly. And if he didn't catch the 'we', Harry did, and smiled contentedly at the fire.
Across the room, a different redheaded boy caught sight of the pair and motioned to his twin to look as well. They looked at them fondly, caught each others' eyes, and each smiled warmly.
Draco Malfoy sat on the left-hand couch in the prefects' common, the large catalog open on his crossed legs sitting forgotten as he stared into the fire. The center couch held Hermione, who lay on her front facing Malfoy with schoolbooks all around. After a while, she sat up with her knees folded under her and stretched. The room was empty except for herself and the pensive Slytherin.
For a moment she studied him. He had rested his head on one fist, and the other lay limply on the magazine in his lap. The firelight was reflected in his eyes, and illuminated his pale skin and hair. Then, deciding he wasn't going to bother her, she put her schoolbooks aside and took out a new roll of parchment and her favorite wine red ink.
Harry,
Sorry I lost it at dinner like that. I guess that with school starting and the new rooms and everything that's been going on...
I think I just need to get back into the school routine and then I'll be fine.
Did you tell Ron about... you know...? He seemed to be contributing quite a bit to your antics to get me to eat. (yick, that was a bad sentence. Maybe I have been away from school for too long)
Anyways, don't worry about me. A good night's sleep and I'll be back to my old self! Oh, and thanks for not flipping on me when I fell apart earlier, I think I forgot to thank you at the time.
So, I think that's it.
~Hermione
After re-reading the note a few times, she folded it up and placed it on top of her books. Glancing at Malfoy, she realized he hadn't moved at all since twenty minutes earlier, and then she wondered why she cared. Mentally shrugging it off, she picked up her books and went up to her room to change.
Malfoy realized that the person on the couch to his right had left, so when there was movement in that direction, he was slightly startled and looked over. He was greeted with the sight of Hermione, her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing only a light green and light blue striped camisole and light blue drawstring sweatpants. She was curled up on the large deep purple couch with an oversized book in her hands, making her seem rather small.
Then she blinked and and focus on her book visibly broke, and she looked up at him. He looked away and back at the catalog.
"Do you need some help with that?" Hermione asked quietly. Malfoy looked back up, feeling ridiculous for having been startled by her twice in ten minutes.
"I... ah..." he averted his gaze, wondering why she offered to help him. She was a girl, and a Gryffindor, and someone he had been perfectly awful to in years past. She walked past the direction his eyes were pointed, and sat down next to him on the couch.
"Don't worry, I got Harry and Ron to help me with my room, and I'm not exactly going to tell anyone that Mr. High-and-Mighty Slytherin was having trouble deciding what to do with his room."
"Why do you want to help me?" he asked, and Hermione was surprised at how guarded his words sounded.
'What is he afraid of?' she wondered. 'His reputation, maybe? Is he afraid I'm going to go blabbing that he associated with a muggle-born?' "You looked sad." she chose her words carefully. "And I know that crazy magazine is overwhelming even if you're prepared for it." she took a breath and looked up at his face. "It didn't look to me like anyone else was going to help you, so... offering can't hurt."
"Well, if you're really going to help, maybe you should sit on my other side. You'll get jabbed at some point if you sit over there." When she looked slightly confused, he picked up a pencil and twirled it in his fingers.
"You're left-handed?" she asked.
"Yea..."
"Don't worry about it. I was going to sit facing you anyway. So what are you trying to choose?"
"Well, a carpet, but none seem to match what else I've got."
"What else have you got?"
"Most of the ebony set back here..." He turned to near the back of the catalog.
"Hmm... Well, maybe you should try putting in a little bit of..." she flipped back a few pages. "...this stuff here, the indigo set, and then some kind of night sky carpet would probably match."
"Mmm... maybe, but..." Talking about something as inconsequential as furniture that could be changed with the flick of a wand, both Hermione and Malfoy slowly relaxed. The night ended when, after slowly flipping through page after page of furniture, Malfoy discovered that Hermione had fallen asleep.
Feeling slightly awkward, he used a charm to lay her down on the couch (as opposed to draped on the back of it) and transfigured a small pillow into a blanket that turned out to be red and silver.
Halfway across the room, he turned back and looked at her. "See you in potions." he whispered, then shook his head quickly and went off to his room, where he promptly added a starry night carpet.
AN: So this chapter was shorter than the last one... only by a page or so. At least I got it out in absolutely record time! Wai! Next chapter should feature at least Potions and DADA with Bill. (hehehehehe) Now, the review button is calling out to you. =P