My mood didn't improve as the day went on. The Gryffindors, throughout every class we had with them, kept glaring and snapping at me for supposedly putting the fireworks into Longbottom's bag. Longbottom himself was acting even weirder than normal by not making eye contact and hurrying away from me every time I so much as looked at him.

Pansy told me to ignore them because they were all losers anyway (her exact words). I had just shook my head and went back to focusing on my school work. I didn't want this small speed bump to mess up my chances of being the top of the class.

The owl for Flitwick's detention came for me a week into term. The Great Gray took some bites of my bagel before flying away, its large wings knocking over Vincent's stack of buttered toast. I tore open the letter from Professor Flitwick.

Miss Schmidt. You will be tutoring students who need some help with the Charms subject. Please report to the extra Charms classroom, 305, tonight at five o'clock for a two hour tutoring session. - Professor Flitwick

"Ew," Pansy squeed. She had read over my shoulder. I quickly shoved the letter into my pocket and out of sight. "You have to tutor someone for detention? I'd much rather just write lines."

"Yeah, well," I started, moving the scrambled eggs around on my plate. "It'll help me get better. More practice, you know."

Pansy shrugged and I heard Daphne and Tracey immediately start to theorize who I'd end up tutoring. I was thinking it was probably a first year who needed an extra leg up, even this early in the school year.

Right after my last class of the day, I went to the Charms corridor, looking for the extra classroom that Professor Flitwick had written in his letter. When I finally got to classroom three-o-five, I heaved a sigh and readjusted my backpack on my shoulders. I entered the classroom and came to a halt when I saw who'd I be tutoring.

Longbottom sat there, his bag sitting on the table and our Herbology textbook in front of him. He hadn't noticed me yet, and I spent a small moment watching him with my narrowed eyes. Just wait until Pansy heard about this.

"I thought I was tutoring you Charms?" I asked, causing Longbottom to jump so bad he almost fell out of his chair. His face blotched and turned red when he looked up and saw me standing there, still wearing my Slytherin robes.

"I...I was just reading," He said quietly. I had to sit down across from him at the table to properly hear him. Even Theodore was louder than this, I thought bitterly. Longbottom shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Herbology is my best subject."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? Mine's Charms. Which is why we're here." I pulled out my Charms textbook and put it on the table between us. "What Charm are you really struggling with?"

Longbottom mumbled something I didn't hear and I asked him to repeat himself. "The unlocking charm."

I looked up from the book and stared at him. "You mean Alohomora?" Longbottom didn't look at me when he nodded. "That's something from last year, Longbottom."

"I know!" He said, a surprising amount of emotion coming into his voice. I blinked and sighed. "It's just-it's just that Charms is hard for me. All last year I was-I was really struggling. It's even worse now that Professor Flitwick wants us to already know that stuff. I don't know. Just, if you're going to help me, I think that Alohomora would be a good place to start."

It was the most I had ever heard Longbottom say in one go. I stared at him and he insisted on staring at a scratch on the table. I felt a small smile creep onto my face. Looked like there was a bit of a Gryffindor there after all, I thought.

"Okay then, Longbottom." I said standing up. His big brown eyes followed me, wide with surprise. "That book is going to be useless for learning this charm. Follow me." I lead the way to the supply closet door and opened it, seeing that it was empty. "Perfect." I whipped out my wand as Longbottom slowly approached me. "Colloportus."

The supply closet door sealed itself with a slight squeak. Longbottom gave me a worried look as I stepped aside. "Try unlocking it. You know the spell."

Longbottom took a small step forward and raised his wand. "A-Alohomora." When the spell didn't work, I looked back to Longbottom.

"It's okay, Longbottom." I told him. "You'll get this soon enough. You have to say it with confidence. Here, the way I think of it, I imagine myself with a key. It's sort of weird, but that's how I learned it. Try that."

Longbottom nodded at my words and raised his wand again. "Alohomora!" He definitely put more force in his spell this time. The lock gave an audible shift but still didn't move all the way out of the lock. Longbottom still frowned, a dimple forming in between his eyebrows.

"You're doing good, Longbottom." I assured him. "Try again."

He finally got it after three more tries. When the lock finally slid all the way out of lock, I reached out and opened the door and flashed Longbottom a smile. His round face was almost glowing and it was the happiest I had ever seen him.

"Would you look at that, Longbottom!" I said with a smile. "You got it!" I closed the door again and locked it. "Let's do it a few more tries to make sure you've got it down though."

Longbottom got the charm right about three more times after that, until I asked him what other charm he needed help with. Longbottom had turned red again when he admitted he needed help with the Dancing Feet spell.

"Oh, that's okay, Longbottom." I said to that. "I had trouble with that one when Professor Flitwick first assigned it." It was the truth; while every other Slytherin and Ravenclaw in my year had gotten the hang of the charm quickly, I had taken a while with it.

Longbottom brightened slightly at the sound of me struggling with a charm and we spent the next hour and a half trying to make the chairs in the room dance across the room. It took a long time, and every twenty minutes Longbottom asked if we could try another charm. But I was stubborn, and Longbottom was going to get this charm if it was the last thing I did.

By the end of our tutoring session, Longbottom had only managed to make a table reluctantly tap dance in place while my chair was wildly tap dancing around it.

"Well, we got nothing we were supposed to do done." I announced at the end of the two hour mark. "But I think we still made a lot of progress, Longbottom."

"Are we going to keep doing this?" Longbottom asked as we packed up our things.

"Yeah, I guess so." I said with a shrug; I had no idea how long Professor Flitwick wanted these tutoring sessions to go. "How about next Friday? That way we can have these sessions two hours at a time."

"That sounds good, Schmidt." He replied, his brown eyes bright from the tutoring session. We left the extra Charms classroom and started towards the Great Hall, neither of us speaking that much.

Finally, before we entered the Great Hall, "I wasn't the one who put the fireworks in your backpack, by the way. I thought you ought to know that."

Longbottom blinked and shrugged. "I didn't really think you did. You never said anything to me before. It didn't make sense to me that you would suddenly…" His voice trailed off and he turned pink.

I shrugged at his awkwardness and felt my own sting of awkwardness. "Yeah, well. I won't be mean to you in class; granted I never thought I was in the first place but-"

"It's okay, Schmidt." Longbottom cut me off, glancing at me before shuffling his feet. "You don't have to say anything. You don't have to pretend to be my friend." With that, Longbottom hurried off, the back of his neck just as red as his face.

I bit the inside of my mouth as I walked inside the Great Hall, a few moments after Longbottom. When I took my seat beside Pansy, she turned to me with a curious look on her face.

"So how was detention?" She asked.

I shrugged. "It was detention."

"How'd the tutoring go?"

"Okay, I guess."

"Who'd you end up tutoring?"

I risked a glance at the Gryffindor table. Longbottom was sitting beside Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas. The two other boys had acknowledged Longbottom, but otherwise they were talking to each other and ignoring Longbottom beside them.

"Just some first year," I said vaguely.

"A first year who needs help this early in the year?" Pansy asked, a wolfish smile spreading across her face. "They must be stupider than Longbottom."

Normally, I would ignore what she said and think nothing of it. But this time I made a noise at the back of my throat and chewed slightly on the tip of my tongue. Longbottom was nice, if not a little quiet and a lot more shyer than I had patience to deal with.

To avoid more of Pansy's questions I started scooping food onto my plate and Pansy started holding court with Tracey and Daphne instead.