Miss Moony would like to dedicate this chapter to shazia Born confused for being the first reviewer.

Miss Moony would also like to thank Poketheveil, skywalker1994, Yumi Fukushima, siriuslyaphanatic, james4lily, purplepanda7, cutiepiepink angel, misstress of the flames, Kara Adar, m-girls, Gemini ice 39, Summer Rain of '89, ktwesterna, RT, Reader4ever (twice), little mimi, amrawo, plutobaby494, Xandria Nirvana, pandas rule the world, Lady Lily3, magicgirl45852, moonypadfoot, hpottersgirl, Metamorphmagusgirl and Fk306 animelover for reviewing.

To ktwesterna: MiaHermione. Don't worry, I'll be editing that soon.

To Poketheveil: Thanks muchly. And also, I've been considering a food-fight scene for a while now, but I'm not sure how I'd do it. If anything comes of it, though, I promise I'll do my best.

To siriuslyaphanatic: I hope I'm not too late.

To Xandria Nirvana: Er… the good news is just that Sirius seems to be sticking up for Harry, actually.

Umm... every instance of the word "Mia" (except in the author's notes) has now been edited to say "Hermione". Sorry; it won't happen again.

------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------

Chapter 13

During her sixth year class that afternoon, Hermione decided that teaching teenagers was not her calling, however good she might be at memorising the contents of textbooks.

And Ron didn't seem to want to help her, either, considering the fact that he seemed to be asleep.

Discreetly kicking him, Hermione managed to bring him into wakefulness, and he grunted tiredly, causing a few scattered titters around the class of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, most of them being females of the same variety as Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, fondly known as the Giggle Twins.

'Do any of you know any way to ward away a vampire?' she asked the class tiredly, hoping that they would stop talking and actually listen to her for once.

No such luck. The class continued to titter amongst themselves until Ron stood up and bellowed at them to be quiet and listen to "Professor Grant".

Hermione flushed, though she was grateful to him, in a way. She then cleared her throat and addressed the now silent class. 'I asked if any of you know how to keep vampires away.'

Quite a few of them raised their hands with answers such as garlic, crosses and sunlight, and after pointing out that sunlight would kill a vampire, not drive it away, the lesson continued on without too many more glitches.

As the students filed out and Neville arrived to take his first-year class in the next period, Hermione and Ron shared a look, and she told him sincerely, 'I'll be glad when this is over.'

Ron nodded in agreement, and the two of them left the room, wishing Neville good luck.

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Usually, Ginny would take her time with such delicate things as seduction – she definitely had when she'd been crushing on Harry – but somehow, she knew that this was different.

She arrived halfway through the lesson, holding onto the grindylow that she'd be studying in her next third-year class, after lunch. Neville stood at the front, stuttering nervously about basic shield charms such as defendo and protego, and looking utterly harassed as the first-year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins laughed and giggled at him behind their hands.

One boy on the Slytherin side of the room raised his hand, interrupting Neville's sentence. 'Does everyone where you come from stutter this badly?' he asked when Neville called on him, 'Or is it just a Mudblood thing?'

Neville flushed, and looked for a moment as if he'd like to cry. Ginny's eyes flashed angrily and she snapped, 'Is everyone where you come from this rude, or is it just a Slytherin thing?'

Having effectively announced her presence to the class, she said to the boy, 'Didn't your mother ever teach you manners? Five points from Slytherin, and a detention. Stay behind after class to discuss the arrangements with Professor James, Mr…?'

'Rookwood,' the boy said, flushing in humiliation.

Neville gave Ginny a look of thanks as she passed him to place her grindylow at the front of the classroom in its tank, which she returned with an apologetic grin for letting her temper get the better of her.

In retrospect, Ginny realised that she'd never seen Neville look more fanciable, and she hoped desperately that her acting skills were good enough for her to have refrained from blushing redder than her hair.

'I'll see you later, Nev,' she said quietly, and then darted from the room as if she had a hellhound on her tail.