They had made it up to the entrance hall and halfway up the stairs when Cho Chang called to them, or more specifically, to Harry. She was in their Potions class and had been speaking to Harry more and more, which had surprised him after their falling out last year. Hermione tsked and Sarah watched, a bit confused, as Cho ran up and smiled at Harry widely.

"Hi, Harry," she said breathily.

"Er, hi, Cho," Harry said. Hermione elbowed him in the side and jerked her head at Sarah, who was waiting to be introduced. Cho didn't seem to notice.

"Er, Cho, this is Sarah, er, Riddle," Harry said awkwardly. "Sarah, that's Cho Chang."

Sarah made a motion to extend her hand for shaking, but looked at Cho and stayed still. Cho hadn't even noticed the introduction.

"Well, it looks like you need to talk," Sarah said. "Shall we go ahead to Transfiguration, then, Hermione?"

"I think so," she said. "Come on, I'll show you where it is."

They turned and left without so much as a goodbye, and Harry watched them leave wistfully. Funny, he thought, last year I was so anxious to have a moment alone with Cho. He turned to her now wishing she didn't exist.

"So...er...how are you?" Harry said.

"I'm fine," said Cho dreamily. "You? I'm sure you're fine too, you're always fine."

"Er...right," Harry said. "Well, I'd best be off-"

"Wait, Harry!" Cho said, grabbing his hand. "Didn't you see the signs? To help everyone become closer, like the Sorting Hat said last year, you know to promote unity, Dumbledore's planning a Valentine's Day ball!"

Harry groaned. He hated balls...well, he hated the only one he'd ever been to. The Yule Ball had been a part of the Triwizard Tournament, and as a champion he had been forced to dance in front of the whole school. Still, Valentine's Day was still a good month or so away. Plenty of time to mope.

"That's nice...I'll...er...look forward to it," he said. "See you later."

Cho released his hand, nodded and wandered off, crestfallen. That was obviously not the answer she had wanted to hear, but Harry didn't care. It hadn't worked with him and Cho last year, it wouldn't work this year. Maybe he'd ask Hermione...

"Hey Harry," Ron whispered, pulling him away from Hermione and Sarah in Transfiguration.

"Yeah?" Harry asked while trying to beat his ferret unconscious. They were supposed to be making mufflers, but Harry's ferret had taken a liking to the inside of his robes, and kept hiding in his pockets. The ferret bit him and went to Ron's pockets instead, watching Harry with a ridiculing expression. Harry glared at it and looked at Ron while nursing his hand.

"Well, I guess- I guess you heard about that ball, eh?" Ron said, his voice shaking a bit.

"Yeah, what about it?" Harry asked, wrapping his handkerchief around his hand.

"Well, I was thinking- I was thinking about asking Hermione."

Harry choked back a laugh and looked at Ron, his eyes glittering.

"Are you serious?" he said.

"Yes," Ron said indignantly. "Don't laugh. I mean, she might not say yes, but-"

"Who might not say yes?" Hermione asked. Ron looked at her and his ears flamed.

"Er...well I...er...well-" he sputtered. Sarah laughed.

"If you're going to have a private conversation you might do well to whisper through the whole thing," she said. "Now what were you talking about?"

"The Valentine's Day ball, I'll wager," Hermione said. "So who are you asking, Ron?"

"I don't know," he said rather too quickly. Hermione and Sarah laughed.

"Well, obviously you have some idea," Hermione said. "Seeing as how you said 'she might not say yes.' Who are you asking?"

"Why do you want to know?" Ron said defensively. Hermione's eyes glittered angrily.

"Because you're my friend and maybe- have you ever thought about this- I know more about the girls in this school than you, because I am one? Now just tell me, Ron, who do you want to ask?" she said.

"You!" Ron said loudly. "Alright? I wanted to ask you! Blimey, no need to get mad about it!"

There was silence, then Lavender and Parvati began to giggle. Dean and Seamus promptly ran up to Ron and slapped him on the back, laughing. Ron didn't notice, however. He was looking quite sick, and Hermione looked very surprised herself.

"You were going to ask me?" she said quietly. Ron nodded pathetically.

"Yep," he said, his voice hoarse. "So...er...will you go with me?"

Hermione looked at him and swallowed. Then she nodded, a smile creeping across her face. Ron sighed with relief and grinned. He looked at Harry.

"She said yes!" he said joyfully. "She actually said yes!"

Harry grinned, but before he could say anything McGonagall set them back to work, but not before she had smiled at Ron and Hermione.

The bell rang and the class began to filter out, and the Gryffindors headed to lunch.

"Sarah, I can't believe you took that ferret," Hermione said as they sat down.

"I didn't take him," Sarah said, pulling said ferret out of her bag and cradling it. It snuggled happily in her arms. "I asked first. McGonagall said I could have him. And I did turn him into a muffler. I just couldn't stand to leave him like that though."

"I'm surprised McGonagall let you keep it," Ron said.

"Him, Ron," Sarah corrected. "What should I name him?"

"What about Max?" Ron said.

"Max? What kind of name is that?" said Harry.

"Well, I like it," Ron said.

"I like Samhain," Sarah said. "See, he's got an orange-reddish tint to his fur...like a pumpkin. Yes, I'll call him Samhain. He can be Sam for short."

"Sam," Hermione said. "It's alright, I guess."

"Well, let's see what he thinks," Sarah said. She looked down at Sam and he looked up. "Do you like your new name, Sam?" In response, the ferret twitched his nose at her, and climbed up her arm and settled himself around her neck like a boa. Sarah laughed. "I'll take that as a yes."

"You know, he's kind of cute," Hermione said.

"'Cept he's a weird sort of rat," Ron said. Hermione shot a scathing look at him.

"Firstly, Ron, he's not a rodent, he's a mammal," she said. "And may I remind you that you used to have a pet rat."

"That didn't count, he wasn't really a rat," Ron said. Ron's pet rat Scabbers had been revealed as Peter Pettigrew in their third year, and since then he had had a rather strong dislike for rodents of any kind.

"Oh well," Hermione said. "You still thought he was a rat."

"Yeah, but-"

"Yeah, but Sam isn't a rat, therefore your conversation is completely irrelevant," Sarah said, stroking Sam. Hermione and Ron looked at her, then shrugged. Harry grinned. Ron looked at Sarah.

"So, you had your first Potions lesson this morning? What d'ya think of Snape?" he said. Sarah shrugged, upsetting Sam, who snaked down into her lap and stole himself a carrot from her plate.

"He seems like someone who could have been very nice, except other influences in his life shaped him into the nasty, bitter man he is today," she said, taking a bite out of her mash. Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at each other. "Nice" was a word they never thought they'd hear in a sentence about Snape. Soon the bell ran and they left the Great Hall to go to Charms.

"Today, we will be learning a charm called the Rien Charm. It's very much like a Vanishing Spell, but much easier to use," Flitwick squeaked from his pile of books. "The Vanishing Spell, as I'm sure Professor McGonagall told you last year, requires a lot of power and focus, while the Rien Charm is very fast and very simple, but very useful.

"The motion for the Rien Charm follows an almost circular pattern, thus," he said, demonstrating and swirling his arm in an anti-clockwise circle one time. "The incantation is rien. Well, there you go- begin!"

Hermione was the first to master the charm, as always, and surprisingly Harry and Ron got the hang of it quickly.

"Flitwick was right," Ron said, vanishing a feather. "This is a lot easier than that ruddy Vanishing Spell."

"Rien. Its fun," Sarah said, vanishing her third feather. "I could think of a few uses for this...like getting rid of bad food. I just wonder where it all goes." They all looked at Hermione, who shrugged.

"No one's really sure," she said. "But some wizards believe it's in another dimension and will soon return to this one and pile down on us." Harry, Ron and Sarah cringed and put their feathers away.

After dinner, the four went back to the common room, and Harry, Hermione and Sarah set about writing their essays for Snape. Sarah was done first. She beat Hermione merely because Hermione was writing her usual novel. Harry, however, was struggling. They'd been told to write two and a half feet on lavender, for some reason, but Harry couldn't seem to take it beyond twenty-four inches. He looked at Sarah for help.

"Sarah, will you read over my essay? Considering Hermione's busy," he said, looking at her. Hermione hadn't even noticed; she was bent over her parchment, scribbling furiously. Her hair would have been dragging in the ink if Ron hadn't tucked it under one of the woolen hats she'd made for house elves last year. Sarah took the essay and read over it, then pointed to the end.

"You've not talked about the celestial bodies and gods it's associated with," she said. "I can understand leaving it out, but now you've got nothing else to talk about. If you write a bunch of nonsense about Adonis and Venus and fill the conclusion with a lot of repeated facts you should be fine."

"Oh," Harry said, looking at it. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Sarah said. She watched him for a moment, as though expecting him to say something to her, and then stood up. "Well, I'm off to bed," she said. "G'night."

Harry and Ron mumbled goodnight. Hermione continued scribbling, not even noticing Ron catch the hat slipping off her bushy hair and replacing it.