"Harry!" Ron said loudly, shaking Harry by the shoulders. "Get up, mate. You'll miss your first class if you don't hurry."
"Hmm? No... It's only the middle of the night... I haven't even gone to bed yet." mumbled Harry, still sitting upright in an armchair. He turned his head away from Ron, and closed his eyes.
"GET UP!" shouted Ron, and Harry jumped, so startled that he fell from his chair. "That's better."
Harry walked, quickly for Ron's sake, up to his dormitory, washed his face and changed his robes. He looked in the mirror on his way out, but his hair was such a lost cause that he didn't even bother to comb it.
As Harry came to the common room, Ron had already gone downstairs, presumably to get a bit of breakfast before their first class. The common room was empty except for one other person. Hermione sat facing him, trying to look as though she wasn't waiting for him to come down.
"Where's Ron?" Harry asked, even though he had a fairly good idea where he'd gone.
"Oh... he went to grab a piece of toast before History of Magic."
"And why're you still here?"
"I just wanted to say thanks for being concerned about me. I'd thought, after what you did on the train, that you didn't care about me anymore. But... well, you don't try to save people that you don't care about."
Harry starred, so happy he couldn't find words. He simply smiled and walked toward the sofa. Damn History of Magic, he thought, Professor Binns will never notice I'm gone, anyway.
"But..." said Hermione, and paused. She bit her lip in concentration, and Harry knew this was a bad sign. "I can never feel the same way about you now. You broke my trust... "
"Hermione, I didn't... It wasn't my fault. Ginny kissed me, not the other way around. She didn't say anything because Ron's been so hard on her lately, he's been acting like their mum." Harry paused. In his head, it had seemed like such a good argument, but now that he'd said it, he felt like a fool. Why should she believe me?
"Look... I just want to be friends again. I've missed you, and Ron. You don't know how hard it is to lose both your best friends in one stroke. Forgive me enough to be my friend again?" Harry tried to keep the pleading tone from his voice, but he was afraid it had shone though.
Hermione sat, still as stone, for what felt like days. Harry began contemplating the consequences of running away and pretending he'd never said anything.
"Alright." said Hermione, just as Harry was about to sprint to the door. "I missed you as well. There's so much less intelligent conversation when Ron's your best friend."
Harry was so excited, he jumped from the sofa and wrapped Hermione in a hug. She stood stiff in his arms, startled from this sudden display of affection. When Harry finally let go, they both went red from embarrassment.
"I suppose I'd better go to class now." said Harry awkwardly.
"Oh, no! I'm late! I hope Ron took proper notes..." said Hermione.
Harry held back laughter at the idea of Ron taking any notes at all.
"That was boring, even by Professor Binns' standards," yawned Hermione as she, Harry and Ron left the classroom and headed toward double Potions, with the Slytherins again this year.
"Can't believe we've been stuck with the ruddy Slytherins again! Damn it!"
"But, we've all improved, there really isn't anything for Malfoy and his cronies to bother us about," Hermione answered cheerfully.
"This is the happiest you've been in ages," snapped Ron, still unhappy about having to sit in the same classroom as Malfoy.
"I'm just glad we're all friends again. I missed you being grumpy to Harry, and then Harry complaining about how grumpy you were."
"That's not really how we are, is it?" asked Harry, a smile on his face.
"Course it is," answered Ron. "I'm never cheerful, according to her. Didn't you know, mate? The woman's against us."
The three of them walked laughing on the way to Potions, for the first time any of them could remember. As they reached Professor Snape's classroom, Ron launched into a particularly funny story about how his father had had to deal with a doddery old wizard who kept seventeen bewitched stuffed rabbits as pets. Just as Hermione let out a great squeal of laughter, Professor Snape could be heard shouting:
"Get in my class room, sit down, and be quiet! IMMEDIATELY!"
"And I thought this year might be different," sighed Harry.
The three friends grew quiet in the middle of Ron's anecdote, and rushed into their seats just as the bell sounded.
"Now that everyone is in their seats and silent, we can get on to work," Professor Snape hissed.
Hermione reached deep into her bag, pulling out quill and parchment, the necessities for a lesson in her opinion. She felt something touch her side, and jerked up abruptly. Draco had thrown a tiny wad of parchment at her arm. She picked it up, and as she threw it into her bag, she noticed the neat scrawl of ink covering it.
We've been putting off our meeting. Might as well get this over with. Drop your answer on my lab table as you walk past.
Bad Faith
The note was signed in an elaborately beautiful writing, very different from the body of the text. In the bottom corner was an intricate capitol D. Hermione laughed at the signature, Draco's surnames' meaning. She'd had no doubt who'd written it, even without the signature and initial. She dropped the bit of parchment into her bag, pulled out a scrap and wrote in the neatest handwriting she could manage,
Prefects bathroom again? It's usually empty.
As she stood to gather her ingredients for the Alteraitous Potion she was supposed to be concocting, she dropped the parchment into Draco's cauldron, instead of on his lab table. I hope he finds it before he mixes his potion.
"Be sure that your cauldrons are brilliantly clean, and that there are no foreign objects inside them," Snape snapped, looking sharply at Neville. Although Neville had certainly improved in the past few years, he still simply fell to pieces during Potions. Snape's piercing gaze never failed to draw a shudder from poor Neville.
"This could," Snape continued, "cause disastrous consequences in the outcome of your potions. I'd like you to be especially careful, Mr. Longbottom. I will not send you to the hospital wing again with no eyebrows or earlobes. I still can't understand how you managed it the first time..."
It was nearly a half hour into potions, and Neville had only barely singed the end of his nose, and Hermione had to admit that was a very good record. If only he could keep it up the entire class.
Draco sat watching Hermione closely, subconsciously looking for her to mess something up, even in the slightest. He was determined to prove she wasn't perfectly brilliant at academics, and that he was, in fact, the brightest student in their year. He set Blaise Zabini to mixing his potion, as to keep a better watch on Hermione and barely noticed Blaise at all. She was a slim, tall girl, with long, straight red hair and round green eyes. Today her hair was plaited, and drawn up into a bun at the nape of her neck, which Draco liked to flick lightly against her head when he was bored. Blaise and Draco had known each other since they were very small children, and it was the general consensus between their family and friends that they would have some sort of arcane arranged marriage someday. Draco highly doubted his mother would hold to such nonsense, after how miserable she'd been in the same situation with his father.
Blaise, on the other hand, was sure her father, Xavier, would marry her off to someone for the sole purpose of making her unhappy, and gaining some sort of gold from it. He cared about her very little, because he'd always expected her to be a boy. Her eldest brother was drown in a lake as a boy, and from the moment Blaise's mother had become pregnant again, Xavier had known he would be blessed with another heir. He was certainly disappointed by the tiny red-hair baby he'd ended up with.
"Blaise," said Draco, prodding her in the ear with the tip of his finger, something she hated above everything else. "Watch what you're doing, my potion's boiling. It isn't supposed to boil for another twelve minutes."
"Sure... but really, you should watch it yourself. It's hard to watch both..." but Blaise's voice dropped off dully when she noticed Draco had tuned her out again.
I wonder why I bother...