Disclaimer: I don't own this. Never have, never will.
A/N: I know I took awhile, so this chapter's extra-long.
You broke the 40-review mark! I love you guys!
*********
Hermione held out the note and Draco took it, making a sound as if to say 'Oh, yeah, I remember this.' The air seemed suddenly so thick and tense that briefly Hermione wondered if Penny was sleeping through this, or perhaps listening in.
Clearing her suddenly-dry throat, Hermione asked, "What was the comment?"
There was a pause, and he stared at the scratched-out portion of the text. "...It said 'What an awful family name. And who wants to be named after the stars, anyway?'" Draco spat bitterly, reluctant to tear his eyes from the note.
"Why was it crossed-" began Hermione before she could stop herself.
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?" he snapped, standing up and stalking off to his room stiffly. Hermione was left alone with her thoughts and the crackling of the fire.
_He's named after the stars? Oh! The *constellation.* But I always thought..._ She looked up at the closed door, puzzled. _And he hates his family name?_ Changing gears, she thought, _Why did he have to be so sharp about it? I know I was prying, but if we're going to get along, then..._ Hermione found herself staring at the little crumpled piece of parchment on the floor, and wondering if her note to Lavender and Parvati was still on the stones in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
_Why is everyone being so--_
The sound of Draco's door clicking open drew her gaze upward. He peeked out apologetically. "Still friends?"
A smile rushed across her face. "Yeah. Still friends."
*********
They were sitting across from each other at the Slytherin table, and so, naturally, all the other Slytherins were clustered down at the other end, whispering. While not against the rules, it was certainly against *taboo* for a Gryffindor to sit there, but as a temporary solution to her house's avoidance, Hermione found it worked quite well. Malfoy was being downright chatty.
"Why do you think they're all down there? Maybe we've got some kind of disease?" He smiled at her, winking over his scrambled eggs.
Laughing, she said, "Just wait'll they see what we've got for Halloween!"
Draco released a loud burst of laughter, causing all the Slytherins to stare at them for a half a second, then turn back to each other and whisper more fervently. The social pariahs just exchanged a quiet glance and chuckle and went back to eating.
Hermione was marvelling at how easily she found it to converse with Malfoy, having only known him as friendly for a week or so. It was strange, but sort of comfortable already. "Do you think we should go down to Hogsmeade today?" It was a Saturday, and it only made sense.
"Yeah, sure, we should start stocking up for Halloween. But how are we going to do the--?"
"I'll have to head down to the library later. We'll figure something out. Besides, I already know the Phlogiston charm."
"Is it possible to make that a different color?"
"What did you have in mind?" Hermione grinned almost evilly.
"Well, maybe a--" Draco was cut off by the arrival of the mail. A large eagle owl swooped down and landed right by his plate, but he was distracted by the spectacle down at the other end of the table. "Look," he said amusedly.
Since the Slytherins (excepting Draco) were crammed into as little space as possible, there was no room left for the owls to land. As a consequence, there were owls standing in food, on the floor by the table, and a few were even perched embarrassedly on people's heads.
Upon seeing this, Hermione snorted in a decidedly un-feminine way in the vicinity of her pancakes, shielding her face from the sight as if that could somehow stop it from being funny.
"Hey, Ras," said Draco, tearing his gaze away from the opposite end of the table. The eagle owl stood regally on the table, seemingly oblivious to being surrounded by breakfast pastries and the like.
"'Ras'?" asked Hermione, now pulling out a book. Books were serious business. They'd stop her from snickering nonstop for the rest of her meal.
"Rasputin," Draco informed her shortly. "My dad named him." He continued, more kindly, "But don't hold that against him. Nothing today?" he addressed the owl, handing the animal a piece of toast. Rasputin took a modest nip of it, looked at the morsel offered scornfully, let Draco give him a pat on his wingfeathers, then took off again. The owl had swerve around a little oddly-shaped speck that appeared to be heading their way.
"What's that?" asked Hermione about the speck, just as it grew slightly in size and something resembling a large feathery superball landed rather haphazardly in her pumpkin juice, knocking it over. "Oh! It's Pig!" Acting quickly, she fished the tiny owl from the spreading orange puddle, and counteracted the motion of the liquid with several napkins people had left lying after moving their place-settings.
"'Pig'?" quoted Draco, in a way very reminiscent of Hermione's question a minute before.
"R-Ron's owl," Hermione stuttered, suddenly reminded, once again, of where Ron was instead of here. Avoiding Draco's inquiring gaze, she bent to her new task of brushing the tiny owl's feathers free of pumpkin juice with a spare napkin. It was difficult, as he was squirming with all his tiny plucky might. "Pigwidgeon. Pig for short. There. What have you got?" Removing Pig's burden of an envelope, leaving the bird free to flutter over to Draco's plate and steal the rest of Rasputin's toast, Hermione saw a vaguely familiar handwriting on the thick paper.
Unfolding the two sheets of paper, Hermione read:
~Dear Hermione,
How *are* you doing at Hogwarts this year?~ Now Hermione recognized the handwriting, with a smile, as Mrs. Weasley's. It had to be, with all that genuine cheer, even in the middle of a family crisis. Though for all she knew, Hermione reflected, the crisis had been resolved. Wouldn't it be grand if Ron came back to school? She dove back into the letter with hope.
~I've heard through the grapevine that you're Head Girl. Good for you! I always knew you'd go far, never doubted you'd make it!~ All right, now the cheer seemed a bit false. And she *had* doubted that Hermione would make it...well, at least, she hadn't always been that friendly toward her. Pushing these thoughts aside, Hermione pressed onward.
The bulk of the letter was merely updates on the Weasley clan: Ginny was doing splendidly as an Auror, everyone was so proud, Fred and George (thought scoundrels) were bringing in a fair income for themselves, and often stopped by with a new invention to show the family. Mr. Weasley had found a use for his collection of plugs when he discovered a portable generator and a cd player. Fortunately, he hadn't discovered cds, but Mrs. Weasley dreaded the day he figured it out. And Charlie and Bill were doing all right, though Bill still refused to cut his hair, and it was really getting very long...
Then Hermione got to the part that made the bustle of the Great Hall fade. The writing was a bit jerky here, as if there had been many stops and starts, and there were a few inkblots where the quill had remained in one place for too long.
~Anyway, darling, Ron's asked that we send you Pigwidgeon, always said you could use an owl.~ Hermione could just hear the hint of sadness creep into Mrs. Weasley's steadfastly jaunty patter. ~He wanted to send you his Chudley Cannons book, and his broom, too, but we wouldn't let him, dear, he could use those. He's sent gifts to all his other friends, too, but he wanted yours to be the most special, bless his heart.
Much love, and *do* write back,
Mrs. Weasley~
That was it? But what did that *mean*? Sending gifts to all his friends? Was Ron sick? Dying? Hermione knew he'd been depressed, but--no, that couldn't be it. Could it? Staring blindly up at Pigwidgeon, she hung limply to the letter in her hand, and reached up to pet her new-old owl. He snapped at her, but she didn't notice. What was wrong with Ron?
Across the table, Draco was thinking about what could possibly be going through the Head Girl's head. He'd spent the past fifteen minutes while she read her letter alternately staring abashedly at his plate and pushing his food around with his fork, and glancing up her to wonder what could be wrong. And now she was trying to pet the runt of an owl that had been eating his toast, and he realized that his breakfast was long since cold by now.
"Hermione?" he asked softly, and she blinked out of her reverie. "I think breakfast is almost over." Indeed it was, Hermione confirmed, staring around numbly. Most of the school had drifted out already. "Do you want to get going?" _Do you want to tell me what's happening here?_ he implored silently.
"Yes," she said, and for a brief moment he thought she was going to tell him what her letter was about. "Let's go." Standing up, she held out her finger to Pigwidgeon, and, putting on her business face (instead of that frighteningly lost look she'd been wearing), she told the owl, "You'd better stay with me for awhile. Those other owls will eat you alive."
_Crookshanks might be a problem around him,_ she told herself, forcing her mind to think about something other than Ron. _I'll have to work something out._
*********
The air in Hogsmeade was brisk, so they decided to stop at the Three Broomsticks to warm up a bit before getting to shopping. They'd been allotted a budget by the Headmaster when they'd stopped in to ask permission for their outing. It had been declared by Hermione more than enough, and they'd been about to leave when Dumbledore had delivered a dire warning.
"Not everyone was happy about the outcome of the war," he told them, face darkening. "Remember that. You were the ones who got away. Watch yourselves."
Now they sat down at a table near the bar and watched Madame Rosmerta approach. "Are you two the Head Boy and Girl this year?"
Both Hermione and Draco smiled and said "Yeah."
"Well, I hope you two are planning something a little different this year. Usually when they get out here, it's just to buy pumpkins. Honestly, there's no creativity anymore."
"Oh, what we're planning is different," said Draco, smiling conspiratorially at Hermione. She smiled right back. "You don't have to worry about that."
"I'll expect you'll be wanting two butterbeers?"
Again, they both smiled at her and said "Yeah." She bustled off, thinking to herself.
Madame Rosmerta prided herself on the ability to place nearly every customer who walked into her establishment, and these two were obvious. _First date,_ she told herself, smiling and heading for the next table.
"So where do you think we should go first?" asked Hermione.
"Dunno. We need to get something to transfigure into a--"
"Yeah, that should be easy enough. I need to go to the post office first, though."
"Okay."
"Hey, um," Hermione shifted in her seat. "I wanted you to know that, um, my name should be on your list, too." Draco tensed. "It means 'earthy,' how awful is that?" She was really taking a risk, here. If Malfoy reverted to his old ways, she was bound to be called a Mudblood or some such thing, told that she was, in fact, earthy. But, no, he said,
"Your name isn't so bad."
"Oh," she said, a bit relieved. "Thanks. Um, aren't we supposed to be on the lookout?" Hermione suddenly remembered Dumbledore's warning, and looked around herself.
"Yeah. See anyone suspicious?"
Not many people were in the Three Broomsticks besides themselves. There were a couple of middle-aged wizards and witches having a brunch by the entrance, a pale woman with black hair sitting slumped over the bar, and...who was that? "What about that person?" Hermione was staring at someone nearly completely covered in a black cloak.
"Doesn't seem too suspicious to me."
"But he's looking at us."
"What?"
"See his eyes flash when he takes a sip?" It was true, every time he tilted his drink up to his face, a glimpse of his eyes could be seen. And he was staring at them.
Madame Rosmerta took that opportunity to show up with their butterbeers. "Here you are. Anything else you need?"
"There is, in fact," Draco thought he'd better be accomodating of his friend. 'Friend.' Wow. And she was worried, so he should do something about it. "Can you tell us who that is," he gestured to the dark man in the corner, "over there?"
"Him? I don't know. But I wouldn't get too close to him. I've said it before, we'll welcome anyone at the Three Broomsticks, provided they ain't doing anything nasty, but...well, he looked like the sort who might do something nasty, if you know what I mean." Hermione looked worriedly at Draco. Rosmerta caught it. "But don't worry too much about it. At the worst, he's probably going to shoplift from Zonko's or something." Smiling at them, Rosmerta said, "Enjoy."
"So what do you think of what we're doing in Muggle Studies?" Draco asked, to take her mind off her fear. It had wound up that Hermione's prediction had been right--all the Muggle Studies classes, having dwindled in size, had been combined. "Terry...who?"
They'd been assigned a book that had been written by a Muggle author--about wizards. "Terry Pratchett. I...I, uh, haven't started yet."
"You haven't *started*? We were assigned it *first class,*" said Draco, mock-incredulous and laughing inside. "I expected you to be *finished* by now!" He was building up now. "In fact, I thought you'd have already read it before *class* started!" Laughing, he turned to see Hermione's reaction and was surprised to find tears in her eyes. "Hey," he said after a minute, stunned. "I was only teasing."
"So don't tease," choked Hermione, surprised to find her voice clogged with tears. Maybe she was sensitive because of the letter she'd gotten that morning. Maybe it was all her frustraction with her classmates building to a head. Maybe this was just reserves of grief over Harry's death. Or maybe she'd just been ready to trust Draco enough not to attack her like this. In any case, she stood up and walked out of the Three Broomsticks into the cold, leaving her butterbeer untouched.
Draco was stunned. Okay, he'd gone too far, but he was *new* at this, and her reaction was a little much for a mere social blunder. He stood up, leaving some money on the table, and rushed out after her with some parting advice from Madame Rosmerta, "It's all right, just ask 'er out again and all will be forgiven!" Already too confused by Hermione's actions to puzzle over that, he resolved to be befuddled later, choosing instead to just find his friend.
But when he got outside, she'd disappeared.
*********
A/N: Okay, still evil here.
And now, a word from our sponsor, Pluggy McPluggerson! Take it, Pluggy!
Pluggy: (_takes a deep breath_)
That's right, folks, I want to plug a truly awesome fic, _No Longer An Enemy_ by Plaidlylush.
Pluggy (_wanders off muttering_): Aw, shucks...
Seriously, _No Longer An Enemy_ is wickedawesome, it's got romance comin' out the wazoo, as well as humor, and did I mention romance? Plaidlylush and I decided to plug each other's fics because we have some of the same ideas about Head Boys and Girls. Her fic's really sweet, and I recommend it highly (help! I'm addicted to _No Longer An Enemy_!) I love you, Deva!
Since Lil' Fairy made an effort, Ravenclaw gets a half a million points. It's a plain old ordinary English word, to answer your question. But the million points still go to whoever can guess what word Professor Pinebrow's name is based on. Here's a hint: try pronouncing "Pinebrow" differently.
I love you all!
Reviews are begged for on bended knee.
A/N: I know I took awhile, so this chapter's extra-long.
You broke the 40-review mark! I love you guys!
*********
Hermione held out the note and Draco took it, making a sound as if to say 'Oh, yeah, I remember this.' The air seemed suddenly so thick and tense that briefly Hermione wondered if Penny was sleeping through this, or perhaps listening in.
Clearing her suddenly-dry throat, Hermione asked, "What was the comment?"
There was a pause, and he stared at the scratched-out portion of the text. "...It said 'What an awful family name. And who wants to be named after the stars, anyway?'" Draco spat bitterly, reluctant to tear his eyes from the note.
"Why was it crossed-" began Hermione before she could stop herself.
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?" he snapped, standing up and stalking off to his room stiffly. Hermione was left alone with her thoughts and the crackling of the fire.
_He's named after the stars? Oh! The *constellation.* But I always thought..._ She looked up at the closed door, puzzled. _And he hates his family name?_ Changing gears, she thought, _Why did he have to be so sharp about it? I know I was prying, but if we're going to get along, then..._ Hermione found herself staring at the little crumpled piece of parchment on the floor, and wondering if her note to Lavender and Parvati was still on the stones in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
_Why is everyone being so--_
The sound of Draco's door clicking open drew her gaze upward. He peeked out apologetically. "Still friends?"
A smile rushed across her face. "Yeah. Still friends."
*********
They were sitting across from each other at the Slytherin table, and so, naturally, all the other Slytherins were clustered down at the other end, whispering. While not against the rules, it was certainly against *taboo* for a Gryffindor to sit there, but as a temporary solution to her house's avoidance, Hermione found it worked quite well. Malfoy was being downright chatty.
"Why do you think they're all down there? Maybe we've got some kind of disease?" He smiled at her, winking over his scrambled eggs.
Laughing, she said, "Just wait'll they see what we've got for Halloween!"
Draco released a loud burst of laughter, causing all the Slytherins to stare at them for a half a second, then turn back to each other and whisper more fervently. The social pariahs just exchanged a quiet glance and chuckle and went back to eating.
Hermione was marvelling at how easily she found it to converse with Malfoy, having only known him as friendly for a week or so. It was strange, but sort of comfortable already. "Do you think we should go down to Hogsmeade today?" It was a Saturday, and it only made sense.
"Yeah, sure, we should start stocking up for Halloween. But how are we going to do the--?"
"I'll have to head down to the library later. We'll figure something out. Besides, I already know the Phlogiston charm."
"Is it possible to make that a different color?"
"What did you have in mind?" Hermione grinned almost evilly.
"Well, maybe a--" Draco was cut off by the arrival of the mail. A large eagle owl swooped down and landed right by his plate, but he was distracted by the spectacle down at the other end of the table. "Look," he said amusedly.
Since the Slytherins (excepting Draco) were crammed into as little space as possible, there was no room left for the owls to land. As a consequence, there were owls standing in food, on the floor by the table, and a few were even perched embarrassedly on people's heads.
Upon seeing this, Hermione snorted in a decidedly un-feminine way in the vicinity of her pancakes, shielding her face from the sight as if that could somehow stop it from being funny.
"Hey, Ras," said Draco, tearing his gaze away from the opposite end of the table. The eagle owl stood regally on the table, seemingly oblivious to being surrounded by breakfast pastries and the like.
"'Ras'?" asked Hermione, now pulling out a book. Books were serious business. They'd stop her from snickering nonstop for the rest of her meal.
"Rasputin," Draco informed her shortly. "My dad named him." He continued, more kindly, "But don't hold that against him. Nothing today?" he addressed the owl, handing the animal a piece of toast. Rasputin took a modest nip of it, looked at the morsel offered scornfully, let Draco give him a pat on his wingfeathers, then took off again. The owl had swerve around a little oddly-shaped speck that appeared to be heading their way.
"What's that?" asked Hermione about the speck, just as it grew slightly in size and something resembling a large feathery superball landed rather haphazardly in her pumpkin juice, knocking it over. "Oh! It's Pig!" Acting quickly, she fished the tiny owl from the spreading orange puddle, and counteracted the motion of the liquid with several napkins people had left lying after moving their place-settings.
"'Pig'?" quoted Draco, in a way very reminiscent of Hermione's question a minute before.
"R-Ron's owl," Hermione stuttered, suddenly reminded, once again, of where Ron was instead of here. Avoiding Draco's inquiring gaze, she bent to her new task of brushing the tiny owl's feathers free of pumpkin juice with a spare napkin. It was difficult, as he was squirming with all his tiny plucky might. "Pigwidgeon. Pig for short. There. What have you got?" Removing Pig's burden of an envelope, leaving the bird free to flutter over to Draco's plate and steal the rest of Rasputin's toast, Hermione saw a vaguely familiar handwriting on the thick paper.
Unfolding the two sheets of paper, Hermione read:
~Dear Hermione,
How *are* you doing at Hogwarts this year?~ Now Hermione recognized the handwriting, with a smile, as Mrs. Weasley's. It had to be, with all that genuine cheer, even in the middle of a family crisis. Though for all she knew, Hermione reflected, the crisis had been resolved. Wouldn't it be grand if Ron came back to school? She dove back into the letter with hope.
~I've heard through the grapevine that you're Head Girl. Good for you! I always knew you'd go far, never doubted you'd make it!~ All right, now the cheer seemed a bit false. And she *had* doubted that Hermione would make it...well, at least, she hadn't always been that friendly toward her. Pushing these thoughts aside, Hermione pressed onward.
The bulk of the letter was merely updates on the Weasley clan: Ginny was doing splendidly as an Auror, everyone was so proud, Fred and George (thought scoundrels) were bringing in a fair income for themselves, and often stopped by with a new invention to show the family. Mr. Weasley had found a use for his collection of plugs when he discovered a portable generator and a cd player. Fortunately, he hadn't discovered cds, but Mrs. Weasley dreaded the day he figured it out. And Charlie and Bill were doing all right, though Bill still refused to cut his hair, and it was really getting very long...
Then Hermione got to the part that made the bustle of the Great Hall fade. The writing was a bit jerky here, as if there had been many stops and starts, and there were a few inkblots where the quill had remained in one place for too long.
~Anyway, darling, Ron's asked that we send you Pigwidgeon, always said you could use an owl.~ Hermione could just hear the hint of sadness creep into Mrs. Weasley's steadfastly jaunty patter. ~He wanted to send you his Chudley Cannons book, and his broom, too, but we wouldn't let him, dear, he could use those. He's sent gifts to all his other friends, too, but he wanted yours to be the most special, bless his heart.
Much love, and *do* write back,
Mrs. Weasley~
That was it? But what did that *mean*? Sending gifts to all his friends? Was Ron sick? Dying? Hermione knew he'd been depressed, but--no, that couldn't be it. Could it? Staring blindly up at Pigwidgeon, she hung limply to the letter in her hand, and reached up to pet her new-old owl. He snapped at her, but she didn't notice. What was wrong with Ron?
Across the table, Draco was thinking about what could possibly be going through the Head Girl's head. He'd spent the past fifteen minutes while she read her letter alternately staring abashedly at his plate and pushing his food around with his fork, and glancing up her to wonder what could be wrong. And now she was trying to pet the runt of an owl that had been eating his toast, and he realized that his breakfast was long since cold by now.
"Hermione?" he asked softly, and she blinked out of her reverie. "I think breakfast is almost over." Indeed it was, Hermione confirmed, staring around numbly. Most of the school had drifted out already. "Do you want to get going?" _Do you want to tell me what's happening here?_ he implored silently.
"Yes," she said, and for a brief moment he thought she was going to tell him what her letter was about. "Let's go." Standing up, she held out her finger to Pigwidgeon, and, putting on her business face (instead of that frighteningly lost look she'd been wearing), she told the owl, "You'd better stay with me for awhile. Those other owls will eat you alive."
_Crookshanks might be a problem around him,_ she told herself, forcing her mind to think about something other than Ron. _I'll have to work something out._
*********
The air in Hogsmeade was brisk, so they decided to stop at the Three Broomsticks to warm up a bit before getting to shopping. They'd been allotted a budget by the Headmaster when they'd stopped in to ask permission for their outing. It had been declared by Hermione more than enough, and they'd been about to leave when Dumbledore had delivered a dire warning.
"Not everyone was happy about the outcome of the war," he told them, face darkening. "Remember that. You were the ones who got away. Watch yourselves."
Now they sat down at a table near the bar and watched Madame Rosmerta approach. "Are you two the Head Boy and Girl this year?"
Both Hermione and Draco smiled and said "Yeah."
"Well, I hope you two are planning something a little different this year. Usually when they get out here, it's just to buy pumpkins. Honestly, there's no creativity anymore."
"Oh, what we're planning is different," said Draco, smiling conspiratorially at Hermione. She smiled right back. "You don't have to worry about that."
"I'll expect you'll be wanting two butterbeers?"
Again, they both smiled at her and said "Yeah." She bustled off, thinking to herself.
Madame Rosmerta prided herself on the ability to place nearly every customer who walked into her establishment, and these two were obvious. _First date,_ she told herself, smiling and heading for the next table.
"So where do you think we should go first?" asked Hermione.
"Dunno. We need to get something to transfigure into a--"
"Yeah, that should be easy enough. I need to go to the post office first, though."
"Okay."
"Hey, um," Hermione shifted in her seat. "I wanted you to know that, um, my name should be on your list, too." Draco tensed. "It means 'earthy,' how awful is that?" She was really taking a risk, here. If Malfoy reverted to his old ways, she was bound to be called a Mudblood or some such thing, told that she was, in fact, earthy. But, no, he said,
"Your name isn't so bad."
"Oh," she said, a bit relieved. "Thanks. Um, aren't we supposed to be on the lookout?" Hermione suddenly remembered Dumbledore's warning, and looked around herself.
"Yeah. See anyone suspicious?"
Not many people were in the Three Broomsticks besides themselves. There were a couple of middle-aged wizards and witches having a brunch by the entrance, a pale woman with black hair sitting slumped over the bar, and...who was that? "What about that person?" Hermione was staring at someone nearly completely covered in a black cloak.
"Doesn't seem too suspicious to me."
"But he's looking at us."
"What?"
"See his eyes flash when he takes a sip?" It was true, every time he tilted his drink up to his face, a glimpse of his eyes could be seen. And he was staring at them.
Madame Rosmerta took that opportunity to show up with their butterbeers. "Here you are. Anything else you need?"
"There is, in fact," Draco thought he'd better be accomodating of his friend. 'Friend.' Wow. And she was worried, so he should do something about it. "Can you tell us who that is," he gestured to the dark man in the corner, "over there?"
"Him? I don't know. But I wouldn't get too close to him. I've said it before, we'll welcome anyone at the Three Broomsticks, provided they ain't doing anything nasty, but...well, he looked like the sort who might do something nasty, if you know what I mean." Hermione looked worriedly at Draco. Rosmerta caught it. "But don't worry too much about it. At the worst, he's probably going to shoplift from Zonko's or something." Smiling at them, Rosmerta said, "Enjoy."
"So what do you think of what we're doing in Muggle Studies?" Draco asked, to take her mind off her fear. It had wound up that Hermione's prediction had been right--all the Muggle Studies classes, having dwindled in size, had been combined. "Terry...who?"
They'd been assigned a book that had been written by a Muggle author--about wizards. "Terry Pratchett. I...I, uh, haven't started yet."
"You haven't *started*? We were assigned it *first class,*" said Draco, mock-incredulous and laughing inside. "I expected you to be *finished* by now!" He was building up now. "In fact, I thought you'd have already read it before *class* started!" Laughing, he turned to see Hermione's reaction and was surprised to find tears in her eyes. "Hey," he said after a minute, stunned. "I was only teasing."
"So don't tease," choked Hermione, surprised to find her voice clogged with tears. Maybe she was sensitive because of the letter she'd gotten that morning. Maybe it was all her frustraction with her classmates building to a head. Maybe this was just reserves of grief over Harry's death. Or maybe she'd just been ready to trust Draco enough not to attack her like this. In any case, she stood up and walked out of the Three Broomsticks into the cold, leaving her butterbeer untouched.
Draco was stunned. Okay, he'd gone too far, but he was *new* at this, and her reaction was a little much for a mere social blunder. He stood up, leaving some money on the table, and rushed out after her with some parting advice from Madame Rosmerta, "It's all right, just ask 'er out again and all will be forgiven!" Already too confused by Hermione's actions to puzzle over that, he resolved to be befuddled later, choosing instead to just find his friend.
But when he got outside, she'd disappeared.
*********
A/N: Okay, still evil here.
And now, a word from our sponsor, Pluggy McPluggerson! Take it, Pluggy!
Pluggy: (_takes a deep breath_)
That's right, folks, I want to plug a truly awesome fic, _No Longer An Enemy_ by Plaidlylush.
Pluggy (_wanders off muttering_): Aw, shucks...
Seriously, _No Longer An Enemy_ is wickedawesome, it's got romance comin' out the wazoo, as well as humor, and did I mention romance? Plaidlylush and I decided to plug each other's fics because we have some of the same ideas about Head Boys and Girls. Her fic's really sweet, and I recommend it highly (help! I'm addicted to _No Longer An Enemy_!) I love you, Deva!
Since Lil' Fairy made an effort, Ravenclaw gets a half a million points. It's a plain old ordinary English word, to answer your question. But the million points still go to whoever can guess what word Professor Pinebrow's name is based on. Here's a hint: try pronouncing "Pinebrow" differently.
I love you all!
Reviews are begged for on bended knee.