Diclaimer: I don't own any of these characters except for the ones i made up

After Clara was placed in Gryffindor, Ron, Harry and Clara were inseparable, but Hermoine always found an excuse to leave whenever Clara came near and Harry was starting to get concerned. He did not understand what Clara did wrong to make Hermoine avoid her so much. Whenever Harry asked why she was doing this, Hermoine got angry and told him that he should know. After a while, Harry just gave up all together on figuring out what was wrong with Hermoine.

It had been almost a week since they all arrived at Hogwarts and everything was still new and exciting to Clara. She was interested in all that was going on around her and she was happy to have Harry and Ron to help her. Clara was a very disappointed though, that Hermoine seemed to not like her. Every time she asked Harry about it though, he told her that she was imagining it and that Hermoine was always like that. He didn't know how to tell her that Hermoine despised her and thought that she was a hiding something, so instead he denied that Hermoine had any hostility towards her.

These things were far from Harry's mind, however as he woke up on Monday and groaned, because he just remembered that he had Snape for double Potions in just an hour. He slowly got up to get dressed and went down to the common room dreading having to go to potions. Harry didn't know why, but he thought that it would be weird facing professor Snape after what happened to his Godfather. Snape always hated Sirius and now that he is dead, what will Snape do? Probably have that smug smile on his face, thought Harry, as he was about to go threw the porthole and down to the Great Hall for lunch.

"Harry! Wait up, I'll walk down with you," cried Clara who had been sitting in the common room. She was grinning, as usual and was wearing one of her famous "American" outfits. Since she had come to Hogwarts, everyone noticed how every single day she looked her best. Today she was wearing a brown plaid skirt with a cream cashmere top while her hair was curled and pinned flawlessly to her head. Harry smiled as she walked towards him and he wondered how she could look amazing every day.

"Sure…" sighed Harry as they both climbed out of the porthole.

"You don't sound very enthusiastic.." replied Clara curiously.

"We have double Potions today," answered Harry with a little more warmth before he added, "with Professor Snape."

"And Professor Snape is…bad?" asked Clara as she stared innocently at Harry.

"You'll find out soon enough, but for now lets just eat," responded Harry while shaking his head.

When they got down to the Great Hall Harry spotted Ron and Hermoine and motioned Clara to sit by them. Sure enough though, Hermoine made some excuse about getting to class early and scurried off while Clara sat down.

She looked slightly hurt as Hermoine ran off and then Clara turned to face Harry, "Still think I am imagining it, Harry?"

He didn't know what to say to this because there was no use in denying that Hermoine didn't like Clara. Yet, he didn't want to make Clara feel bad about Hermoine, it wasn't her fault after all. Harry sighed as he stared back at Clara, but he took to long in trying to think of what to say.

Clara rolled her eyes and got up from the table and added as she was walking away, "You didn't have to lie to me; you could have just said that she didn't like me."

As Harry watched Clara walk away Ron shook his head and grinned, "Very smooth, Harry."

Harry and Ron smiled to each other and finished their breakfast. Then, they headed down to the dungeons, where their classes were. Sure enough, Clara and Hermoine were already there. They weren't sitting by each other though, and when Clara saw Harry and Ron walk in, she looked past them and waved to someone that was behind them. As they turned around to see who it was they groaned.

"Hello Potter," said a familiar voice filled with venom. Draco Malfoy was sneering at them as they looked disgustedly from Clara to Draco. "You've got a very attractive friend over there, Potter. Too bad she'd rather talk to me then listen to you drone on." Malfoy's two cronies laughed at their leader's "joke" as Malfoy strode away towards Clara who smiled triumphantly at Harry.

Boy, did Clara know how to really piss Harry off. He was fuming as he sat down next to Hermoine and he stared at the pair of them. Clara was laughing at something that Draco had said and she gave a quick glance at Harry as she touched his shoulder. She was TRYING to make Harry angry, and by god, she was doing a fantastic job at it. If Harry would have known that Clara would get this mad at him for lying to her, he would never had done so. Harry quickly turned to Hermoine and whispered angrily, "She is doing this because of you, ya know."

"Harry, I haven't even talked to her."

"Yeah, and that is exactly the problem. When Clara asked me if you had a problem with her I said that you didn't because I didn't want to make her feel bad. Then when you walked away this morning she asked me again if you had a problem. When I didn't answer, she got mad," said Harry under his breath as Snape started taking attendance.

"Harry, that is not my problem, you shouldn't have lied. Now be quiet," snapped Hermoine while glaring at Clara.

Snape was already almost at the bottom of the list as he called out, "Ron Weasley"

"Here."

"And lastly we have Clara Dell—" Snape suddenly just stared at the piece of paper for a moment with an odd look in his eyes. They were softened somehow as he blinked at the name. When everyone started to look around at each other he shook himself back into reality, "Clara Dellmont," he finished.

"Here" she said a little perplexed by his behavior.

He stared at her for a moment and then tried to sound casual while he asked, "Is your mother by any chance Genevieve Dellmont?"

"Yeah…how did you—"

"Never mind." He said quietly as he tried to regain his composure. "Now class, today we are going to learn how to create a potion that will make you tell the truth."

Harry looked up as Professor said this, a truth potion? He had heard that before, except he had heard it as a threat. He remembered when Snape had threatened to give him a truth potion and find out all of his secrets. Harry hoped that that threat was long forgotten by Snape.

"Now I need all of you to break off into pairs," Snape ordered.

Clara was paired up with Malfoy. That was all Harry thought about the entire class. Why would she go to such great lengths to make him mad? All he did was try to protect her feelings. There was nothing wrong with that, but by the end of class, Harry was quite sick of seeing Clara smile brightly at his enemy.

"That idiot doesn't realize that Clara is doing this to make us mad." Ron said threw gritted teeth. Once again Harry didn't even notice that Ron felt the same exact way he felt, and that was enraged.

By the end of class, Harry was glad to get away from Snape who came around every five minutes and said, "Hmm, horrible job, Potter. Better improve this potion or I will have to give you a truth potion that I have made myself."

As everyone exited the class, Harry noticed that Clara stayed back a moment to talk to Professor Snape. She's probably going to make friends with him too…Harry bitterly thought as he walked to his next class.