Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, just the plot.
A/N: Okay I was corrected by Ravenclaw's Heir that it's Blaise Zabini, not Zambini, so I've gone back to chapter 3 to fix that, and hopefully it's changed now. And I'll make sure to try and not make that mistake again. Thanks Ravenclaw's Heir for pointing that out to me.
Well onto the story. :)
Chapter 5
Ron complained from the second they left the dungeons all the way outside to Herbology about his encounter with Pansy. "She kept touching me. And she wouldn't shut up! She kept talking about how she wanted to show me what it's like to be with a real, pureblooded, woman. And she grabbed my arse twice! It was horrible!"
"I dunno, Ron. That's probably the most action you've had in a long while, you should've enjoyed yourself more." Harry laughed as they neared the greenhouses.
"Oh, that's right, laugh it up Harry. You don't realize how terrible it really was!" Ron moaned.
"And you think I enjoyed myself any better? I had to sit there and listen to Blaise Zabini go on about how much he liked Hermione's breasts for an hour and a half." Harry complained.
"My what?!?" Hermione exclaimed, scandalized.
"Oops, sorry Hermione." Harry said apologetically. "I tried to get him to shut up about it, but he just wouldn't take a hint. I think he's really quite taken with you." he added slyly.
Hermione just rolled her eyes and unconsciously pulled her robes tighter together. "Oh and by the way, Malfoy wanted to know how good you were in bed, Harry. And he seems to be very curious about you're, um…equipment, Ron."
"What?!?"
"Oh yes," she continued. "He was very interested in those two subjects. I think he's really quite taken with you two." she added with a grin.
Harry and Ron looked horrified.
Herbology with the Hufflepuffs is never bad, and today was no different. They were transplanting Starbursters, plants that had little star-shaped flowers on them that burst into foot tall flames when the plant feels threatened, so you had to be careful to make them feel trusting of you before you could touch them. They were paired off into groups of three or four and they were supposed to hopefully have transplanted ten plants, altogether, by the end of class.
Things had started off normally enough, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had paired off together and were trying, with some amount of difficulty, to get their Starbursters to trust them.
Ron continued to complain so much about the whole Pansy fiasco that Hermione threatened to set him on fire if he didn't shut up. At that Ron glared at her before retorting that at least he hadn't been flirting with Malfoy all of potions class.
"No, he would've enjoyed that too much coming from you, hm? Besides, you would have made Pansy jealous." Hermione smirked while Ron looked disgusted.
"This conversation has definitely taken a turn for the worst." he replied.
"Well the way you keep going on about Pansy, one might think you actually like her or something." she paused, looking up from her plant. "Do you?"
"What?" Ron exclaimed staring at her as if he'd never seen her before.
Hermione shrugged. "It was just a question." she said, and then added, "You know you could tell me if you did, right?"
Ron gaped at her. "You're insane, absolutely insane." He turned to Harry, "Tell her she's insane."
Harry, who'd been diligently ignoring his two best friends for the past few minutes while trying to get his Starburster to let him touch it without smoking, shrugged and muttered, "Insane, absolutely insane."
Hermione just rolled her eyes and went back to concentrating on her Starburster.
Harry finally had his hand around his plant and was beginning to transplant it when he heard a voice say his name in front of him.
"Harry?"
He glanced up to see Hannah Abbot looking at him.
"Er, hi." he said not really knowing what she wanted.
"Hi, Harry. Listen, me and the other girls in my group were just wanting to know if you'd want to be our fourth in the group. We understand that you might now want to be around her right now." At this she gave Hermione a pointed glare. "And we'd love to have you. What do you say?" she asked with a hopeful smile.
Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione. Ron was watching him and Hannah with interest while Hermione was ignoring them all and slowly pulling her plant out of its pot and placing it into a larger one.
"I don't think so, Hannah. Ron and Hermione would have an awful hard time potting ten of these plants by themselves, besides I'm fine over here. Thanks for the invite though." Harry replied carefully.
Hannah nodded at him with a sad smile like she didn't believe him one bit. She then turned to Hermione who was moving onto her second Starburster. "I just want you to know that we all think it's terrible how you've brainwashed them, you have no right to treat people like this, especially your best friends. I think it's best if you just come clean and deal with the consequences, really now. Do you truly expect to be able to string them along forever? It's terrible what you've done, acting like a horrible little vixen. You're not even that pretty, I don't know who you think you are but you need to stop it. Just give them up, let them go."
As Hannah's speech continued she got louder and louder and she soon had the rest of the class's attention as well. The Starburster in Hermione's hand was trembling and just as Hannah finished her last word, every star-shaped flower on the plant burst into foot tall flames.
The flames caught on Hannah's hair and she screamed louder, causing the rest of the plants to tremble and burst into flames as well. Hermione let go of her plant and it fell back into its pot as she ducked under the table for cover.
Hannah continued to scream until Professor Sprout came and put her hair out. The professor was furious. "What is the meaning of all this?" she demanded.
Hermione poked her head out from under the desk and began to answer her, but Professor Sprout interrupted her angrily. "Miss Granger, I expected much better conduct from you!" Hermione's mouth dropped open. "I assume you've done the reading over the Starbursters so you should very well know that raising one's voice is never a good idea, ten points from Gryffindor for being so careless and I expect a foot long essay over the dangers of Starbursters to be handed in to me for next class. Class dismissed!"
Hannah smirked at Hermione as she left to go get her things. Harry and Ron glared at her in turn.
Hermione gaped after Professor Sprout for a full thirty seconds before Harry and Ron pulled her up and pushed her towards the door.
A/N: Okay, as always, review and tell me what you think!! :)
