"You're wrong!" Harry whispered, at this point totally frustrated with his best friend.
"I am not!" Ron bickered back, trying to keep his voice down. "Were you even paying attention? Snape's nose is definitely bigger today than it was last week!" Hermione giggled as she sprinkled the final ingredient into her potion. Once it sat for five minutes she would be done. She looked up to see that Snape was inspecting Malfoy's potion across the room; there's no way he could have heard her friend's exchange. With her task near completion, she sat down and turned her attention back to her friends.
"Well, we'll never know for sure now will we?" Harry asked, matter-of-factly. Ron's eyes immediately lit up and a mischievous smirk appeared on his face.
"What do you say we con some first-year into sneaking up on Snape while he's sleeping and measure his nose…" Hermione smacked her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing too loud. "Then," Ron continued, "he could return next week and see if it grew!" Hermione shook her head and gazed adoringly at her friends. They were awful. Never paying attention; always breaking the rules. But she loved him… Merlin help her, she loved them. Her thoughts were interrupted however, when another of her senses kicked in.
"What's that fowl smell?" She asked. Harry and Ron put their argument on hold.
"That's awful!" Ron exclaimed. The trio looked behind Hermione to see Neville with his hand over his nose and a large amount of steam coming out of this cauldron. Neville added more ingredients, attempting to settle the mixture. Instead, he only seemed to anger it- causing it double in size. Without a word, Ron, still staring at Neville's cauldron, reached for Hermione's hand, forcing her up, and slowly pulled further away from Neville.
"Neville," Harry said, cautiously. "Maybe you should just step away, Mate." With Harry's words, the cauldron began to crack and the potion made a loud shrieking noise.
What happened next was all blur to Harry. He remembered Hermione's scream and Ron's hand coming up to protect her face. Harry seemed to lunge forward and throw Neville away from the cauldron just as it exploded. Then, something massive struck Harry's face. It was hot…very hot. And then all he remembered was darkness.