So far so good, her first day of classes had passed rather quietly and for a moment, everything almost felt normal. She had to stop comparing her life now to her life before the end of the war, it would never be that way again, too much had changed.
Her schedule was pretty simple this year, she had the same classes on Monday and Wednesday, and then the same for Tuesday and Thursday with Friday being free. Tuesdays and Thursdays looked like they would be the most challenging with double Potions, double Transfiguration, double Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Astronomy that night to top it all off.
By the time her last class, Care of Magical Creatures, ended she was more than ready for dinner. The walk from Hagrid's back to the castle had never felt longer. All she wanted to do was stuff her face and talk to Ginny. Their breaks were at different times today so she hadn't gotten a chance to fill her in on the 'eighth' year situation.
The great hall was as warm and inviting as ever and she was pleased to see that Ginny had saved her a spot.
"How were your classes today?" Hermione asked as she took a seat and began to fill her plate up.
"So far so good. How were yours?" Ginny asked politely.
"Great! It's so nice to be back in the swing of things," she said with a smile in-between bites.
"So where do they have you hidden away? I was hoping we would get to share a room this year!"
"They've converted some of the classrooms on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors into a dormitory for us. I have to say it's a little weird living with other houses."
"And how is having to share a common room with a former Death Eater?" Ginny said with a hint of sarcasm. She must have been as surprised as Hermione was that he had returned to finish school.
"Actually so far not bad," she said. Not that Ginny believed a word of it, her skepticism was written all over her face. "I'm serious! He was even trying to have a civil conversation with me last night."
"Are you serious!?" Ginny's jaw had practically hit the table.
"Of course, I'm serious! Though it was really strange, he complimented my hair." Ginny's face said it all.
"He did? Like for real, not sarcastically?"
"Of course for real, that's what made it so strange!"
Hermione watched as Ginny turned to look over to the Slytherin table turning back to her with wide eyes and a strange little grin on her face.
"He's totally staring at you right now," Ginny said with a little giggle.
She looked around to the Slytherin table just in time to catch him looking back down at his plate. He was kind of pathetic looking really, sitting all alone. Until now she doubted if he had ever sat alone while at school here.
"I actually feel kind of bad for him, even his fellow Slytherin's are avoiding him. Though it could be because he got a lot of people's family members arrested. But still, he made the right choice in the end, and if he's going to be nice then so will I."
"Have fun with that," Ginny said sarcastically, "Sometimes you are too nice for your own good," she added with a smile.
Hermione smiled back at her, she knew.
The rest of dinner passed uneventfully though she did manage to eat more than she had in over a year. Amazing what a little bit of normalcy can do for one's appetite.
When she got back up to their new common room she found Padma and Hannah reading by the fire. They exchanged Hellos before Hermione headed up to her room to get started on the pile of homework she had already accumulated.
She stayed up late into the night working on her essay for History of Magic before climbing into bed. She had a pretty good start on her homework, not that she had anything due until Monday. If today's classes were any indication she would be swamped tomorrow and she was not looking forward to spending the whole weekend on homework.
Her morning started as all mornings did. She got up, took a shower, applied a generous amount of Sleekeasy's, got dressed, and headed down to breakfast. Since getting her hair done she spent more time getting ready in the morning but it was good.
Tuesdays and Thursdays started off with double Potions with Professor Slughorn. Hermione was glad to have him back while he could be a little strange he had certainly grown on her. He was a great Potions Master, and she was happy that he would be the one helping her get ready for her NEWTs.
A smile played across her lips when Slughorn announced that the first thing they would be working on this year would be brewing Polyjuice potion. She had made Polyjuice so many times now that she did not even need to look at the recipe, and in one month she knew that hers would be the best.
The only other person in her class that had ever brewed Polyjuice was Draco, and if he was the one who actually did the work was up for debate. Her only concern with this project was going to be how they would test them when they were finished. Slughorn had conveniently left that part out.
Her next class, Transfiguration, would be her first with a new professor. Hestia Jones, a member of the Order, had been given the job. She did not know her very well, having only seen her in passing, but from what she remembered she was very nice.
"Good Morning class!" Professor Jones began cheerfully enough. "For the majority of the school year, we will be focusing on human transfiguration which you all should have started working with during your sixth year. Today we will be working on a few simple transfigurations as a refresher. So let's go ahead and partner up, choose wisely as you will be partnered together for the remainder of the year."
The class began to shuffle around before she had even finished speaking, students quickly grabbing their closest friends to partner up with.
"Padma, Hannah, Hermione and Draco; if the four of you cold please meet me up here," she spoke loud enough to interrupted the shuffling.
A lump had quickly formed in Hermione's throat. She looked at Ginny, who she was going to partner up with, sympathetically before heading up front.
"Now since you four should have the most experience with this I would like you to partner up amongst the four of you," before she could even finish her sentence Padma and Hannah had moved together, "Ah perfect, Padma and Hannah and then Hermione and Draco. Couldn't have paired you up better, if I say so myself! Very well, you can join the rest of the class."
Hermione looked over at Draco with an unsure smile. After all, she had decided to be nice to him, but that would not make this any easier. They stood awkwardly staring at each other, like the rest of the class, waiting for further instructions.
"Okay so let's start with doing a simple swap of each other's noses. One at a time you will swap your nose with your partners and then swap it back."
They looked at each other for several moments. When Hermione had decided that Draco was not going to go first she raised her wand up to his face and spoke the incantation precisely. In a blink, her nose was now on Draco making his whole face look strange. A small grin found its way to Hermione's lips as she tried not to laugh.
"Think I look funny, Granger?" Draco asked that hint of arrogance back in his voice. Just when it looked like his attitude was going to ruin her attempt at kindness, "Because you should really look in a mirror."
Holy shit, was he smiling. After all, of the years of the two of them being in school together, she could never recall seeing Draco smile. She had seen his obnoxiously pompous smirk, but nothing like this. She flicked her wand and returned their noses to their own faces.
"Wait, before your turn," she quickly before hurrying back to her desk and rummaging through her bag. She returned with a tiny compact mirror, showing it to him with a slightly devilish grin.
He smiled back at her with this newly discovered smile that made Hermione almost not hate him. What was this madness? Ever since coming back to Hogwarts it felt like an episode of that American muggle tv show, The Twilight Zone. Draco raised his wand and spoke the same spell switching each other's noses back again.
Hermione grinned holding the clamshell mirror up to her face, looking at her reflection before starting to laugh. She placed one hand over her face before handing the mirror over to Malfoy who took it from her examining his own face with a smirk. With another flick of his wand, he returned their noses.
The rest of class continued in much the same manner. They took turns transfiguring each other's noses, looking at themselves in Hermione's mirror and giggling. Her favorite had to have been when she turned Malfoy's nose into a pig snout though that did get her nose turned into duck bill.
Other than now missing Tonk's and her funny faces more than ever, she felt a lot better about the rest of this year. It was going to be weird, but that was just how life was now. Weird did not have to mean bad.