-Birthday Wishes: Part 2-

Herbology was the last class of the day, and it was turning out to be very long and very hot. The Gryffindor and Hufflepuff seventh years were all sweating as they sat in groups in green house number three, learning to properly plant mandrake seedlings.

The trio was working together in a group with Neville Longbottom and Susan Bones, and all five of them were feeling the same way; hot, tired and extremely temperamental.

With their brains increasingly turning into mush by the sun's heat, they had become careless with their work and many of the tiny mandrake seedlings had began to let out tiny whimpers of pain as their little mishandled bodies were being shoved into mounds of soil.

Ron grabbed a tiny mandrake and roughly shoved it deep into the earth of his own pot, and a few moments later, he let out a sharp cry and extracted his hand to find that his finger was bleeding.

"The bloody thing bit me!" he growled angrily as he inspected his finger.

Hermione looked at him and rolled her eyes, "Well maybe if you weren't being so rough with them, they wouldn't need to bite back."

Ron's head tilted to Hermione, "You're one to talk. Look at your pot, you've gone and drown them all."

Hermione looked down at her own pot. It was true, there was so much water in her pot that the earth was over saturated and the excess water stayed sitting on the top of the soil, having no where else to go.

Hermione looked back at Ron who smirked at her. She stuck her tongue out at him and watched him walk away to the other end of the green house to go clean his bleeding finger off.

Hermione took this opportunity to mention the letter to Harry, something which she had been trying to do all day but never had a chance because of Ron's constant presence.

Hermione leaned over to Harry who was busy separating two mandrakes who wouldn't let go of each other.

"Harry, I need to ask a favor of you." whispered Hermione so the others at the table couldn't hear. Harry dropped the two mandrakes into his pot and looked up at Hermione.

"Well I can't explain it all to you right now," said Hermione as she kept a watchful eye on Ron to see when he would return, "but I got this weird letter today and I want to know if you can help me find out who wrote it. I just need you to promise me that you won't mention anything to Ron, because well, the letter isn't something he'd enjoy."

Harry saw the seriousness in Hermione's face and nodded. "You can tell me more later, when Ron leaves to set up for your dinner tonight." whispered Harry quickly as Ron approached the table.

Hermione quickly nodded and then sat upright in her chair and went back to her hopeless mess of an assignment.