Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling. I am not Bloomsbury, Scholastic or Warner Bros personified. I do not own Harry Potter. I do not have much money (in fact, as of today, I have precisely £3 in my bank account, and that's not including my debts). Please don't sue me! Thanks!
A/N: Eeeek! I'm just plodding on...
Thank you to all my lovely reviewers. Some of you mentioned a twist in the story. A twist? A twist? I said, where?! I'm not clever enough or forward-thinking enough to write a twist into a story. Then I realised, you meant the whole Draco not having his journal anymore. Ahh, a twist! I wrote it without even realising, perhaps this story is not doomed after all!
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Lamia – Chapter 4The rest of the day passed in a blur for Draco. Just thinking about his book in the hands of another, let alone Harry Potter made him feel dizzy.
Harry, on the other hand, found the remainder of his day pass much as any other day did. Potions was by far the worst of his subjects that day, and he had come out of that relatively unscathed. Only 60 house points lost for Gryffindor and one detention. Not bad considering the foul mood Snape had been in since term started.
Glancing up at the teacher's table during lunch, Harry saw Snape push back his plate, get up and turn to leave the hall. Making eye contact, Harry scowled at the potions master who returned that scowl with a malicious smile that played at the corner of his mouth. Snape even seemed to stride off with a kind of jaunt to his step, evidently in a much better mood now that he had deprived his least favourite student of free time and Quidditch practice.
Harry was quickly pulled out of his thoughts of detention with Snape by a loud noise coming from near his elbow. Startled, Harry looked round to see Hermione slamming another pile of books down next to Ron. Harry looked at his pile, then at Ron's, whose was about the same size at 3 ft high. He was about to protest when he saw Hermione's 4ft high pile of books stacked precariously on the table.
"Merlin's beard, Hermione, have you just borrowed the whole library? How did you carry all that? I hope you're not expecting me to read all of them tonight!" exclaimed Ron, eyeing the books with a look he normally reserved for something really smelly or Slytherin students.
"They're for Binn's History of Magic essay. It's worth 10% of our final mark!" said Hermione, noting the questioning looks on Harry's and Ron's faces.
"Okaaay," said Ron, stretching out the last syllable as if Hermione had gone mad. "You do realise that it's not due until after Easter, don't you?" he continued, "And it's only just October now..."
"Well, yes, but it's never too early to start. What if you left it all to the last minute and something terrible happened so you couldn't finish it?!"
"Something terrible like what, Hermione? All the books being taken out by other people? The library being blown up by an ambitious but inept first year?" replied Ron, his voice raising a little as he got into his stride.
Hermione visibly paled at the suggestion of the library being blown up, and then looked Ron directly in the eye. "Look, it wouldn't hurt to do a bit of background reading now, would it? Anyway, I've dug all these books out now, and you are going to read at least one of them, Ronald Weasley, or I'll cast a sticking charm and superglue your nose to the inside of the largest, heaviest book there!"
Ron, realising he was beaten and that Hermione may very well carry out her threat, backed down and turned back to his lunch. Scowling and grumbling into his sandwiches he didn't say another word.
Harry, who had been watching their exchange, shook his head and laughed. "You two!" he said, "You're like a pair of children! Either that or like two bad characters in a soap opera who spend half their time shouting at each other and the rest of their time shagging like rabbits!"
Ron and Hermione whipped their heads round and both glared at Harry. Feeling like a rabbit himself, although one caught in the headlights rather than in the throws of passion, Harry averted his eyes, mumbled an apology and hid behind his pile of books.
Finishing their lunches, and the earlier conversation mostly forgotten, they decided to put most of the books up in the Gryffindor common room. Harry was wondering how exactly they were going to carry everything when Hermione came to their rescue casting a spell to make the three piles of books bob along behind them.
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A/N: Next chappie will follow very soon. I think this is an in-between kinda chapter, it's needed to set up future-type-events (I have a vague plan!!!) I had some inspiration (kicked my muses up the bum – seemed to work!) Tell me what you think of the Hermione/Ron interaction – I won't be doing that a lot, but thought it made the fic more 3D by having other people in it (rather than just Harry's/Draco's thoughts going round in circles).