A/N: I AM SO SORRY to those of you who were reading this for not updating more recently! I just kind of forgot about it one day or was just too lazy to write anything, but I'm back! ENJOY!

Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me or anybody else.

Hermione left the Great Hall as soon as she could. Her first class was Defense Against the Dark Arts, with Harry and Ron. But she tried to avoid them, especially Ron. She chose a desk in the middle of the classroom and immediately began taking her books and things out of her bag.

Harry had been trying to catch up with her the whole way to class, and he took a seat next to her. He wanted to ask her if she noticed the new teacher at the staff table in the Great Hall. "No, I didn't notice a new teacher." Hermione said. She suddenly had a strange feeling in her gut, but she couldn't place it. "Well he's obviously the new DADA teacher, I remember Dumbledore saying something about him last night but I don't remember seeing him. Maybe he's just arrived in the morning..."

Ron arrived in class right before the bell rang. He sat down next to Harry, trying to avoid eye contact with Hermione. "Where were you?" Harry whispered to Ron. "Finishing a biscuit!" He said, like it was the most important thing in the world and why didn't Harry realize this? Harry chortled.

Still no sign of a teacher.

Hermione took this opportunity to start reading chapter one of her DADA book. It also gave her a break from thinking about Ron.

5 minutes later...Hermione is reading, Harry is lost deeply in thought, Ron is almost asleep, and there is still no teacher. The rest of the class is starting to get restless.

Finally, 5 minutes later, 10 minutes after class started, the door opened. It opened quietly, almost sheepishly. The same person that was sitting up at the staff table was coming down the stairs from his office. He was fairly young, probably around 30 years old. He had jet black hair and green eyes. The man was tall and thin, yet muscular at the same time. His eyes were dark, but not in an evil way. They looked tired, yet excited at the same time. He was wearing dark emerald green robes, which seemed to match his eyes exactly.

Harry had the strange feeling again. He felt safe in the presence of this man, and he didn't even know his name. Not safe in an odd way, the kind of safety you feel when you are with a parent. The only other person that made him feel safe like this was Sirius. It was all so strange.

The whole class quieted down when they saw the teacher. He had the air of a very noble and respectable man. Some people looked at Harry after studying the teacher for a moment, yet Harry didn't understand why.

"I'm sorry to be so late, it is most unacceptable for a teacher to be late to class, especially on the first day of the term. Well, as you all are probably wondering, my name is Professor Berkeley. I'll start off the day by telling you a little about myself. I am from Scotland, where all my family lives. Professor Dumbledore is a friend of my grandfather's, and quickly offered me the job to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, and I couldn't refuse. So here I am! I have studied the topic for many years, and I find it most interesting. I went to Hogwarts myself, actually, and I had a great teacher in this subject, which inspired me to want to teach it."

He spoke in a nice even tone, which made what he had to say seem less boring. Soon after he was finished introducing himself, he set the class to work on reading chapter 1 in their books. Then tomorrow they would have an activity of some kind based on the information in the chapter.

"Good class, don't you think?" Harry said as they got out into the hall. "Yeah, pretty good...he's not bad, that one. Maybe if we're lucky he'll be here more than a year..." Hermione didn't say anything. She was just happy to have had her mind mostly off Ron for a while.

The rest of the school day went by in a blur. All their other classes for the day consisted of Transfiguration, Arithmancy, (Harry and Ron finally gave in and decided to give it a go) Care of Magical Creatures-the class learned about magical insects today, some of which looked like spiders and nearly scared Ron to death, and last, Herbology.

"Its lucky we didn't have potions today" Ron said to Harry at the end of the day as they sat in the common room by the fire. Harry nodded.

Hermione wanted so badly to talk to Ron, to tell him how she felt, and she almost did one time. If it weren't for someone setting off some sort of popping thing across the room. This was a new one. And for once, Hermione was glad for the stupid little exploding things, she even loved them because this time it saved her from confronting Ron. The feeling was gone, the moment was gone. She didn't want to talk to him anymore.

Hermione couldn't just sit there, so close to Ron. She just couldn't. It was upsetting for her. She loved him, but at the moment she felt like she hated him. She got up, said, "Goodnight, Harry," then, trying to be polite, she attempted to say goodnight to Ron, but it came out as a funny little squeak and an odd look on her face, and she walked away.

Why does everything have to be so damn difficult? Why can't I just come out with it? This is so irritating.

She went into the dormitory, got onto her bed, and closed the curtains around her. She didn't feel like making any human contact until she absolutely had to.

A/N: I hope you liked it...Its different from the other chapters, and it was another difficult one. But I hope you all enjoyed it! Leave some reviews...? please...:-)