a/n You recognize it then it's Rowlings

May 1992

"Well, it looks better," Ascella tried to say enthusiastically. "At the very least it doesn't smell anymore." Ascella was visiting Ron in the Hospital Wing. He'd been there for the past three days, ever since Norbert, Hagrid's illegal dragon, had bit him. In truth his bite did look a bit better but it was still gruesome. Two days ago, Ascella hadn't even been able to be in the same room as Ron without wanting to lose her lunch. She wasn't a fan of pus. Or oozing. Or the smell of putrid flesh.

Ron made a face at her. "Do you think it'll scar?" he asked looking a bit nervous about this.

"Probably," Ascella said unconcerned. "But that'll just make you look tougher." This at least seemed to cheer him up. He then asked where Hermione and Harry were.

"Finalizing the plan with Hagrid for how to get Norbert out of the castle. The man is inconsolable. But it has to go now that Malfoy knows," Ascella replied. Ron's face darkened.

"Git," he said.

"Yes, but at least we're getting rid of the dragon."

"Yeah and good riddance. I lost all sympathy for the thing, and Hagrid, when it bit me. Mind you I never had much sympathy for the dragon." Ascella nodded sympathetically. She'd thought the whole affair had been doomed to fail from the beginning and was almost glad Malfoy had been snooping around where he shouldn't have been. Like Ron had said at least the fire breathing monster was headed out of their lives and on his way to Romania with Ron's brother Charley.

"Well I'd best be off," Ascella said checking her watch. "I told Padma I'd meet her for dinner and I'm already late." She patted his good arm reassuringly. "Feel better, yeah?" Ron nodded in thanks and she headed out.

Dinner with Padma was uneventful if still fun. It had turned out that she and Padma got on well and had more in common than just disliking Turpin. By far her best friend was Boot but as Ascella's best friend was Harry and Hermione wasn't exactly a social girl, they had gravitated towards one another for the pleasures of girl talk and to have someone to roll their eyes with when the other girls in their dorm were being overly dramatic. Padma was a no nonsense type girl just like Ascella. It was one of her favorite things about the girl.

Half-way through dinner, Ascella spotted a worn down looking Harry and Hermione enter the Great Hall. Ascella figured the consoling had most likely taken a lot out of them. Harry gave her a weak smile as he passed. She bet he was both nervous and excited for tonight. Nervous about getting caught and excited about passing Norbert off.

After dinner Ascella told Padma and Terry to head on up. She wanted to check in with Harry. She walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down between Harry and Dean Thomas.

"How's Hagrid?" Ascella said lowly.

"About as well as you can imagine," Harry replied just as lowly. Hermione leaned in from across the table to listen as well. "You'd think it was his child the way he goes on about it." Ascella grimaced.

"He does know that dragon's are impossible to domesticate, right?" Ascella said. Harry shook his head unknowing.

"How's Ron? Harry said you were going to visit," Hermione asked.

"He's hanging in there. I think the Hospital Wing is getting a bit boring for him, but he's glad the demon is leaving. The bite looks marginally better," she replied.

"It must be better if you were able to be in the room for any length of time," Harry said, smirking at her. She scowled at him.

"Oi! It was one time! And I didn't actually retch, just you know, gagged a bit." Harry nodded, eyebrows raised in bemusement, unconvinced.

"Whatever," she said giving up, but she was amused nonetheless. "So what are we up to this lovely Saturday evening before your great adventure?"

"I dunno," Harry said. "Want to play some wizard's chess?"

"Yes alright. Even though I know you only want to play me because you know you'll win." He grinned. Ascella was awful at wizard's chess. She just didn't have the patience for it. Give her a card game any day over chess but Harry and Ron enjoyed it and she had to admit watching the little pieces destroy each other was rather fun.

"Still can't believe you managed to wiggle your way out of helping," Harry said finishing the last of his pudding, referring to the "great adventure".

"Yes, well, I think McGonagall might actually kill me if she catches me in the wrong place after hours ever again. I already have enough detentions from her for the times she's caught me in your common room after hours. I think I've seen the inside of her office more than I have Flitwick's and he's my head of house."

"And yet you keep getting caught," Harry hedged innocently, rising with Hermione to head to the Gryffindor common room. Ascella knew that tone but chose to ignore it, rising to walk with them.

"Yes. I'm more just hoping one of these days she realizes the detentions aren't working and she'll just stop dropping in unexpectedly. And if I do say so myself I have already noticed a decrease in the frequency of her visits. Now if only the twins would stop creating such a ruckus all the time... I blame them for her frequent visits. Granted by this point you'd think they'd have driven her to never want to visit. Ever." Harry snorted and Hermione nodded in agreement.

"But you've more than made up for those detentions by being sassy in class," Harry told her, holding a tapestry for her, that hid a secret staircase that led up a few floors.

"Please. McG loves me." Harry stumbled on the stair he'd been trying to step on.

"McG?" he asked laughing.

"Yeah I'm still trying to decide between that or Minnie. I think right now I might be pushing my luck with her at the moment so Minnie might be a bit strong, McG seems to be a safer bet."

"Oh Ascella," Hermione said shaking her head.

"What? I already call Flitwick, Flitwicky. He finds it endearing."

Harry laughed but Hermione just continued shaking her head looking mildly horrified.

This wasn't anything knew as Hermione was often shaking her head at Ascella, but Hermione knew there wasn't anything she could do to tone down certain parts of Ascella's personality. She'd resorted to just trying to minimize the damage. She often didn't succeed, but that was okay because for every detention Ascella had had this year she'd talked herself out of at least triple the number she'd served. Teacher's also found it hard to punish her in class when she always knew the right answer and always got full marks on her homework assignments, tests, and quizzes, despite the fact that she did all essay's last minute and spent a quarter of the time on them that anyone else did and never studied.

"'Mione?" Ascella asked sweetly looking at her bushy haired friend. Hermione looked frightened. With a sly look at Harry she continued. "You know I love you, right?" Harry burst out laughing, knowing what she was doing. Ascella stepped on his toes. Hard. He stumbled, almost falling over, but he grabbed Ascella's robes to stabilize himself. This of course escalated into a shoving match and general rough housing, until both of them were on the floor in the middle of a seventh floor corridor.

Hermione tutted but she had a smile on her face and headed for the common room, leaving behind her goofy friends.

Eventually Harry and Ascella looked up and noticed Hermione had left. Ascella jumped up before Harry, running after her. The game must go on.

"Later Potter! I've got to catch my bestest friend 'Mione and tell her how much I love her!"

"Hey!" Harry called still on the floor in a heap. "I thought I was your best friend!" She stopped and darted back to him.

"Oh yeah," she smiled and held a hand out to help him up.

Harry brushed himself off. "Glad to see I can be forgotten so easily," he said aloofly, but Ascella could see the corners of his mouth fighting to not turn up in a smile. It was a teasing game that had begun in the past few months, where they pretended the other wasn't their best friend while they both knew better.

"Of course not Potter," she said linking arms with him and continuing on to the portrait hole. "Remind me again of your first name?" He shoved her away as she laughed. He soon joined her and they entered the portrait hole a moment later both still laughing.

Harry and Ascella played three games of chess before the thrill of watching as her pieces get destroyed by Harry's had worn off for Ascella and she'd had to tell Harry he could beat her again another night. Hermione had spent the time watching them and laughing at Ascella's outrage whenever she'd thought she'd tricked Harry but actually hadn't. Their chess matches were known for being entertaining. Fred and George had even stopped over sometime during game two and had proceeded to commentate the match in announcer voices to the enjoyment of those gathered around and to Ascella's growing frustration.

"And Black sends her knight forth to do battle with Harry's queen. Any comments on the wiseness of this move George?"

"Well Fred, she does need to make some sort of move here, she's only got a handful of pieces left, but if you are asking if I think that was the best move? Honestly, no."

"George it looks like you were right! The sound you hear folks is Black's knight losing it's life to Harry's queen."

"Pity, pity, she really should have seen the trap Harry'd been setting."

It was about this point that Ascella had threatened the safety of both twins' manhoods and they had darted away cackling.

"She definitely is a lively one," Fred said to George while both grinned at her over their shoulders as they ran away.

"Heart of a lion that one," George continued.

"Too bad she'd got the brain of a raven," Fred said.

"It's an eagle!" she shouted at them in reference to her House's mascot, but this only made them laugh more. Harry meanwhile was shaking in silent laughter. "Shut it, Harry," she'd snapped at him. But that comment had just aided in his laughter and soon he was bend double roaring in laughter at her. His laughter was infectious and soon she was smiling and then laughing too.

Now that they'd finished with chess, Hermione and Harry began to get more and more nervous as midnight drew closer. Hermione couldn't even read. Around 11:30 the common room had thankfully emptied and Harry went up to retrieve his invisibility cloak. Ascella wished them luck as they disappeared under the cloak and settled in to wait.

She must have dosed off in the armchair in front of the fire, because when she hears the body slump into the chair next to hers she sits up with a start. Blearily she looked around and focused on an extremely distraught Harry slumped in the chair across from her.

"Harry? What's wrong? Where's Hermione?" Ascella asked concerned. She looked for Hermione but she wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Bed. She and Neville both," he replied despondent. Ascella's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Wait - What? Neville? Harry, what the hell happened?" she asked again more urgently.

"We got caught," Harry said. Ascella's mouth dropped as he relayed the rest of the story in a hollow voice. About how they'd gotten Norbert to the tower and sent off alright but in their euphoria they'd forgotten the invisibility cloak only to be found by Filch moments later. When he got to the part about Neville and about how Neville now thinks they'd just been playing a prank on Malfoy that he'd gotten caught up in, she instantly felt a stab of sympathy for the boy. It wasn't like they could tell him what they'd really been up to.

"Poor Neville," she said. Harry nodded.

"It gets worse. She took 50 points from us. Each."

"Each?!" Ascella was astounded. It was unheard of. At her worst she'd only ever been deducted 20 points and that usually only happened when she got cheeky in Potions. She always got them back in Charms though.

"Yeah. And we all have detention."

"Well that's not so bad, really. The detention I mean. The points though... well you won't have just the Gryffindor's mad at you. The rest of the houses were hoping someone would finally knock Slytherin off their winning streak, and with Gryffindor in the lead it was looking possible."

"I know," Harry said miserably, sinking lower in the chair. "Tomorrow's going to awful."

"Yeah you're right. You should get some sleep though. Come on let's enjoy our last night of freedom." She rose and dragged Harry behind her up the stairs to the boys dormitory.

"Wait what do you mean 'our'," Harry asked.

"What you don't see how this affects me? I can't be friends with you until this blows over. The whole school's going to hate you and if it seemed I was siding with you they'll hate me too. You understand though."

Harry stopped on the stairs, just below the landing for his dorm. It wasn't until Ascella turned and he saw her smile that he realized she was joking.

"Damn it 'Cells," he said. He gave a small chuckle though so Ascella knew she'd made him feel at least a little better, just like she'd intended.

"Oh come on Harry. It would take more than a mere loss of points," Harry snorted at how caviler she'd put it, "to drive me away. Angering McG on the other hand... You've really put a chink in my time plan for introducing Minnie. You think she'll have cooled down by, say, our third year?"

"Probably," Harry replied grinning. "Come on," he said passing her to enter the room. "Let's go to bed." And so they did.