Thanks for the reviews you lot they made my day, I've tried to make this chapter longer and I think it is, marginally: ) and to Ariana, do I sound very American? Because I am actually British, lol.
Harry Potter et al belong to Mrs Rowling, and My Family belongs to er… the BBC.
When I got back to my dorm, Parvati and Lavender were already in there furiously packing.
"Why are you doing that now?" I asked them.
"Because we have to be in the hall by 7 tomorrow morning and it'll take me ages to pack all my make-up!" Parvati hissed. Looking at her was rather funny actually. Her arms were moving so fast they were just blurs at her side.
"Yeah, god Hermione, don't tell me you're gonna get up at about 6 or something, just to pack?" Lavender said. She was now pulling drawers out of her wardrobe and everything was tipping onto the floor.
"Stop! Look at the mess you're making! We don't want to leave the room in a tip!" I shouted, grabbing handfuls of Lavender's clothes off the carpet and shoving them back on her bed.
"Oh puh-lease Hermione, the houselves can clean up! It's their job, isn't it?"
Not a very wise thing for her to say.
"You do realise they don't get paid! No holidays, no pension, no sick days! I can't believe that in a modern society we still have slave labour! It's an outrage! If a few more people would join S.P.E.W-"
"Just shut up and pack!" Parvati said, picking a sock off the floor and shoving it in my mouth.
The next morning at 7 found everyone stood in the great hall, bleary eyed and tired. All over the floor were sleeping bags and rolled up tents. I saw Harry and Ron slumped on the ground looking depressed, so I walked over to them.
"You don't look very happy," I commented.
"No, I suppose we don't," Harry replied, his eyes still half closed.
"Yeah, after all, the people we're with over the next few days-," Ron said, then cut off "but I suppose you don't want to hear about that."
I sat down on the floor next to them and sighed.
"Go on, tell me. If you don't get the moan out of your system now, then no doubt you'll do something really weird like start writing a diary and putting all your feelings in that."
Ron looked extremely relieved that he could lament his problems to me.
"Pansy bloody Parkinson. Can you believe it? That stupid, simpering, sadistic-"
"Hey," I interrupted, slightly annoyed "long descriptive words, preferably alliteration, are my thing."
"He's a bit out of it, Mione. We stayed up until about 4 last night – well, I should say morning – reading up on protective shields. From curses," Harry added, seeing my confused face.
"Yeah, it'd be just like a Slytherin to perform some horrible spell on us while we're sleeping," Ron said.
I smiled a bit and shook my head.
"Ronald Weasley, you can hardly believe that Pansy Parkinson is capable of remembering complex spell work for anything other than straightening her hair?"
He brightened up a bit at this remark.
"Yeah, that's true. But not for Harry. He's stuck with Blaise Zabini and that guy's not exactly thick."
"I'm sure Harry can hold his own, can't you Harry? Harry!" I said, shoving him hard in the side.
He blinked rapidly and mumbled "What? Oh yeah, er, hold my own. Sure can do," Then closed his eyes again.
Sighing, I stood up and walked over to Hannah and Anthony, who were both clutching their rucksacks and looking around fearfully.
"You-you haven't seen Malfoy, have you?" Hannah stammered.
"Hannah," hissed Anthony, "we've been over this. I think we should call him Draco, or, if he doesn't like that, Mr Malfoy. We don't want to disrespect him, do we?"
I almost burst out laughing at this, but prevented it by snorting through my nose. Hannah and Anthony both turned to look at me and their faces changed from bemused to horrified. I wasn't that ugly, was I?
"Honestly, Granger. Haven't you evolved from your piggish ancestors yet?"
Oh. That's what they were staring at.
"Honestly, Malfoy. Didn't your parents realise that cross breeding with ferrets is not the way to create a child?" I said in a sickly sweet voice, grinning at him.
Ha. Take that, pale face.
His eyes narrowed at me and he muttered "Just you wait mudblood. When we're alone at night in the wilderness, no ones going to here your screams."
"Didn't realise you were planning on having sex with her, Malfoy."
I spun round to see Ron, glaring down at him. I flashed him a smile and put my arm around his waist, which seemed to make Ron blush and Malfoy smirk.
"Oh yes, Ron, because we all know I'm so good that girls scream out for more from me. Whereas you – well, even your own penis cowers when you put your hand near it."
Disgusting! Could Malfoy have said anything more crude and vulgar?
I repeated this to him and his eyes flashed. Well, made a change from the boring grey they usually are.
"Don't worry, Granger, I've got a lot more from where that came from," he - well, I suppose there's no other word to describe it apart from - purred. Doesn't seem right, Malfoy and purr in the same sentence, does it?
Luckily, before either me or Ron could reply, Dumbledore cleared his throat.
"Well, students, the time has come at last. In your groups of four you shall all proceed to the portkey at the front of the hall, where upon it shall place you at different points on your trail. Once you have reappeared at the other end, all the maps etc. shall show you where to go. Group A, if you could approach the head table."
And so, slowly, one by one, people started vanishing. Our group was called out, the four of us lugged our luggage (A.N hee, lugged our luggage) over to the table and taking a deep breath, we put our hand on the golden tent (Dumbledore has some wacky ideas).
There was that sickening moment when your stomach feels like it's been wrenched up out of your throat and your brain has slid down through your nostrils and then it passed.
With a slight thud, the four of us fell onto damp soft earth that was covered in a bed of pine needles.
"Oh crap, my robes!" Yelled Malfoy, leaping up and brushing himself off.
I rolled my eyes. WHAT a prima donna.
"Right," I said, taking charge, seen as no one else seemed capable to "where are the maps?"
"They're here Hermione," Hannah called picking up large bundles of parchment off a flat rock. She passed them over to me and I examined them for a few seconds.
"Right, from what I can see here, we'll travel about fifteen miles on foot today and make camp at about" I checked my watch "five this evening. We don't want to over exhaust ourselves."
"Er, I was looking up spells last night," Anthony stuttered. Jesus, he couldn't still be terrified of ferret boy, could he? "And there's this one where we can transfigure stuff to fly that will be able to carry our body weight. All we need to do is to find some big branches-"
"Merlin," Malfoy cut in "have none of you got brains? I took the liberty last night to break into the sports cupboard and transfigure some brooms into rocks." He reached into his pocket and took out four round, smooth pebbles and tossed one to each of us.
"You can't do that, Malfoy! It's breaking and entering! You could be stripped of you prefects badge!" I protested.
"Well, I'm not going to be, because no one is going to grass, are they?" He snarled, giving us all the evil eye. Hannah and Anthony cowered a bit, but I just look at him in disbelief.
"Well, anyway, even if it wasn't against the rules, we can't do it. Because-" I blushed slightly "BecauseImnotverygoodatridingabroom."
"What was that, Granger?" Malfoy said with a large smirk plastered on his face. He knew bloody well what I'd just said.
"Because I'm rubbish at flying, okay?" I yelled.
As you can tell, I don't really like admitting that I'm bad at stuff.
"Hey, that's no problem, Hermione. You can just ride on Mr Malfoy's broom," Anthony said brightly.
"God, Goldstein, and I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be SMART. There is no way I'm sitting on the same thing as mudblood over here."
"I'm afraid you've not got much choice," Hannah said "unless we fly really slowly so Hermione can walk beside us and that's defeating the object."
"I see no problem at leaving scrub brush behind," He said.
"Well I do," I said frostily "And you'd better just shut up and put up, Malfoy, because I'll have to share a broom with you."
"Why not share with the girl? Or birdbrain?"
"Because they're not as good at flying as you are."
I hitched up my robes and looked at him pointedly. "Go on then, Mr Genius, transfigure the brooms and amaze me."
He did and we all sat on one, with me clutching Draco round the waist.
"I wish I was dead," he declared in a loud and dramatic voice.
"Malfoy," I said, shocked "how can you say that? It's I wish I were dead. The subjunctive."
And with that we took off.