1IF YOU WERE OFFENDED BY MY GOD STATEMENT, READ THIS! I don't hate God. I do not run around saying "Fuck God." My story is not anti-God. My story is anti-homophobe. I'm sorry if I offended you with what I wrote, but it was only because Hermione was pissed off and was trying to illustrate her point. Don't hate me!

Chapter 6: Potions Assignments of Doom

One week later and it was yet another wonderful Wednesday. Hermione had spent the last week avoiding Lavender, Parvati, and Malfoy, but had had little luck. Many of her classes were with the two Gryffindor Gossips and Malfoy was her roommate. The only thing that held Hermione together was the knowledge that she was better than they were.

Hermione really did feel kind of bad about what she had said to Lavender and Parvati though. Any remorse she felt towards Malfoy was simply horror and irritation at her own stupidity, but she did feel guilty about her "Fuck God!" comment. She didn't really feel that way. In fact, generally Hermione was pretty neutral when it came to God. Her family was Christian, but not particularly religious. They rarely went to church for anything other than major holidays or funerals (more of the former than the latter, thank goodness.) In fact, the last time Hermione had been to church had been years ago; she was rarely home for Christmas anymore.

But the fact of the matter was that Hermione really didn't have any right to say something that bad about God. She wasn't afraid that some great hand in the sky was going to chuck a lightning bolt at her or anything like that, but she did realize that many people were extremely sensitive about religion. And she could respect that; really she could, just as long as those people remembered their place.

In Hermione's philosophy, religion was all well and good, but nothing good could come of using religion as an excuse to hate. After all, isn't religion about brotherly love, or whatever? If that were true, why should religious people think that they could justify ridiculous prejudice with their religion?

After much pondering Hermione decided that she should feel guilty, but not too guilty. Maybe a heartfelt apology was owed to Lavender and Parvati about her blasphemy, but not about her outrage at their homophobic viewpoints. She would not support hatred of that or any other kind, because, really, all prejudice is the same and hating gay people was on the same level as hating a person because she was muggleborn, which Hermione definitely related to.

So, on Wednesday morning Hermione swallowed her pride and warily approached Lavender and Parvati at breakfast.

"Good morning, Parvati," she started awkwardly. "Lavender."

"What do you want, Oh Great Head Girl?" Lavender asked sarcastically, refusing to meet Hermione's eyes.

"I wanted to apologize for what I said," she said slowly, trying to keep her teeth from grinding. "I didn't mean to offend your religious sensibilities."

"Whatever, lezzy," Parvati retorted before the two girls walked off, rather rudely in Hermione's opinion.

Hermione rolled her eyes and then, checking to see that no teachers were watching her, cast a quick hex after the retreating girls. It would take several long, painfully funny moments before the two realized that the reason people were pointing and laughing was the two bushy tails that had sprouted from their rears. After those moments had passed and the Gryffindor girls had noticed their tails they had tried to cover them up, which made the other students laugh louder, before they decided that the best thing to do was to sprint out of the Great Hall and strait to Madam Pomfrey.

Hermione drank her juice and munched her toast happily, never noticing the thoughtful gray eyes that were carefully appraising her from across the hall.

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The morning's classes passed by quickly. Hermione didn't learn anything that she hadn't already memorized from her text books but still enjoyed the points she earned for Gryffindor by giving correct answers to every question that came her way. Lunch was spent in the Library, avoiding her classmates once more. They had been to none of the morning classes she had with them, but she figured that they should have recovered by lunch time and that they would choose to pick another fight with her. So, she spent lunch brushing up on her knowledge of deadly poisons; double Potions with the Slytherins was next.

Hermione strode into the dungeons a moment before Snape did. He frowned slightly, seeing that he had missed the opportunity to punish a Gryffindor for her lateness. Poor Snape had had a real disappointment this year; not only was the horrible Harry Potter in his class, but also the irritating know-it-all. Jule was there as well, but as yet he had not found any specific reason to hate her. The only other Gryffindors in the class were Dean Thomas and Parvati Patil. Neville had given up, and Hermione was certain the Snape thanked whatever god he worshiped every day for that.

The class was small and mostly Slytherin. The five Gryffindors were rather nervous about the numbers against them. Almost every seventh year Slytherin was in the class (Pansy Parkinson was the only one who was not.) But their Gryffindor bravery held them together and kept their backs strait despite the disparaging remarks, ugly looks, and pranks. There had been one prank so far, where some unnamed Slytherin had slipped something into a Gryffindor cauldron, causing it to explode, but they had only been there for a little over a week; Hermione knew that more such pranks were coming.

"Now class," Snape spoke slowly in little more than a whisper, glaring angrily at the Gryffindor side of the room. "Today we will be beginning a big project. It will count for one half of your grade this term. It will be handed in on the last day of class before the Christmas vacation, so I suggest that you work hard on it." He looked around the room, pausing dramatically. "Some of you may think that because you have half of the school year to work on this project you can just wait until the last minute and then hand it in. Wrong. This is a very complex, dangerous potion, and you will work on the project in class only, under my supervision." Again he glared at them dramatically.

"Drama-queen," Jule whispered in Hermione's ear. Hermione struggled not to laugh right in Snape's face; somehow she doubted that he would take it well.

"Alright then," Snape said after he had waited long enough for them to realize just how serious he was. "The name of the potion that you shall be brewing is called Resistenza. It is a potion created to increase the drinker's strength. What makes this potion so difficult and fascinating is that depending on one or two ingredients the potion will affect the drinker differently. If, for example, the shavings of a dragon scale are used the drinker will become stronger physically. Likewise unicorn hair will affect magical strength and sphinx saliva affects intelligence. You will be divided into different groups and assigned different ingredients to create several variations of the potion."

The students glanced at each other, some nervously, others curiously. The students, including Hermione, who had already researched the potion, were nervous. The other students, who had no idea what the big deal was, were staring at their counterparts in confusion. What Hermione knew was that Resistenza had the potential for either great good or great evil, depending on which ingredients it was made with and by whom it was created. It was also an incredibly complex and difficult potion to brew.

"Now, to your great disappointment, I am sure," Snape said silkily, smirking ever so slightly. "You will not be permitted to choose your own partners. They will be assigned to you as follows." The entire class, on both sides, groaned. Snape never assigned partners fairly. "Bulstrode, Patil; Crabbe, Potter; Goyle, Thomas; Malfoy, Granger," the list went on, but Hermione wasn't listening.

Malfoy, she was supposed to be working with Malfoy? It wasn't enough that she had to live with him, or even enough that she had to take animagus lessons with him, but now she also had to work with him?

But, of course, what bothered her most were the memories being in his presence brought up. She was embarrassed that she had kissed a complete stranger and more embarrassed still that that stranger had turned out to be Malfoy. Avoiding him all week had made it easier to avoid thinking about the way his body had felt pressed against hers, the way he had tasted and what a damn good kisser he had been.

Hermione sighed and stared up at Snape only to realize that he had finished the pairings. Jule had moved away from her seat next to Hermione and was sitting next to Blaise Zabini. It seemed that all of the Gryffindors had been paired with Slytherins, although some of the Slytherins were paired together due to their greater numbers.

Hermione glanced around and saw that everyone was sitting with their assigned partners except for her and Malfoy, who sat at the very back of the formerly Slytherin side of the room. They stared blankly at one another for several moments, both expecting the other to come and sit next to them, both refusing to demean themselves by moving. Hermione rolled her eyes and snorted before pulling her Potions textbook out of her bag and starting to read. Malfoy smirked and raised his hand.

"What is it Mr. Malfoy?" Snape asked irritably from his desk where he was shuffling the assignment papers.

"Professor, Granger is refusing to come sit next to me so that we can work together." Malfoy whined.

"Granger, go sit with Malfoy." Snape said smoothly without even glancing up.

"Excuse me sir, but I thought that my desk would be better considering how it's much closer to the board." Hermione protested.

"Granger you're not going to be taking notes during this class, so get to the back of the room with Malfoy this instant!" Snape hissed at her.

Hermione looked down in embarrassment as the class laughed at her. She slowly gathered her things and walked up the aisle towards the back of the room. As she passed Jule where she was seated next to Zabini Jule gave her a wink and made kissing motions at her. Hermione hissed at her to shut up before continuing her walk of shame.

By the time she was sitting next to Malfoy the class had gotten over their little joke and Malfoy was smirking in a very satisfied, ferrety kind of way. "Shut it, Malfoy, nobody cares." Hermione ground out at him. Looking forward she saw Jule and Blaise hunched over a textbook, Blaise's arm around Jule's shoulders. Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes at what a whore her new friend could be.

"Now, now Granger, just because you didn't get to work with your little girlfriend doesn't mean that you have to take it out on me." Malfoy drawled, staring at Hermione intently. "Besides, it looks like she's having a perfectly wonderful time with Blaise. I doubt she even misses you."

"Not that I care what you think," Hermione turned to face Malfoy. "But what makes you think that Jule's my girlfriend?"

"That's what everyone's been saying," Malfoy said, inspecting his nails.

Hermione ground her teeth. "Well, it's not true. We aren't girlfriends, hell we aren't even lesbians! Well, at least I'm not, Jule may be." She ended on a slightly confused note.

"Yeah, yeah, no ones listening," Malfoy said lazily, still inspecting his nails.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something else but stopped herself. Malfoy wasn't worth that much energy.

Moments later Snape snapped at Blaise and Jule to get off each other and for Jule to hand out the assignments. Jule fixed the top button of her shirt before walking to the front of the classroom. She practically skipped as she handed out the pieces of parchments to the designated students before finally prancing back to her seat.

Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled in amusement at Jules antics before glancing at her and Malfoy's assignment. Above the list of ingredients and the instructions on how to make the potion was a short message from Snape.

"Considering that the two of you are the Head-boy and –girl, I have decided that you're assignment will be a bit more complex than the rest of the class. As you may have noticed in your list of ingredients you are required to use the shavings of a dragon's scale, unicorn hair, and sphinx saliva. In addition to these three you will be required to research a fourth ingredient, predict what affects it may have on the potion and then prove your hypothesis. Good luck."

Hermione drew in a large sigh. "Figures Snape'd give us the most work."

"What's wrong Granger; don't think you can handle it?" Malfoy sneered. "Well, just don't expect me to do all the work for you."

"Likewise."

"Oh, just shut up so we can get to work."

"You're the one who's still talking."

"Who's still talking now?"

"You are."

Malfoy's mouth opened and closed several times before he closed it firmly and went to the supply cupboard to gather their ingredients. Hermione snickered quietly.

TBC...

Preview:

"May, dearest, your breasts are one of your most attractive features. Use them well."