Hermione skipped lunch and ran to the Hospital wing.
There were at least forty students in there, sitting on the floor or on the beds or just milling around and having a good time because they had a legitimate excuse to skip the rest of their classes for the day. Every single student had a metallic smelling yellow ointment smeared across their burns, although they didn't seem to be in any sort of discomfort.
Hermione pushed through the throng of people, trying to spot Harry's familiar tuft of messy black hair or Ron's ginger hair.
"What happened?" she asked, running up to them when she finally spotted them leaning against the wall.
"Ron and Parkinson blew up the potions classroom." Harry supplied helpfully, hiding his grin behind his hand.
"What?"
"I accidentally made our cauldron explode because I didn't measure the ingredients properly." Ron grumbled. "Although honestly, it was that moron Michael Corner's fault. If he hadn't tried to drown us all then the flames wouldn't have gotten worse. Everyone knows you aren't supposed to try and put out potion-induced fires with water."
Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.
"Well, fine. I didn't know. But I do now." he said defensively. "He was just trying to show off his Ravenclaw brains." he snorted.
"It's true." Harry muttered darkly. "He's been showing off all morning, he wouldn't shut up about his stupid villa in the alps and snow-brooming, whatever that is."
"And now, I have bloody detention for a week with that stupid Parkinson." Ron finished, annoyed.
"Speaking of Parkinson, have you been nice to her? I know you hate her but the Slytherins have been horrible to me and it feels terrible."
Ron shifted guiltily on his feet.
"I don't want to talk to her and I don't want to work with her and I hate her." he put on his best sulky pouting face.
"What have the Slytherins done?" Harry demanded. He looked ready to go fight a battle on her behalf, even though he was injured and half his face was covered with the yellow ointment. She loved that about Harry; he was so defensive and loyal to his friends.
She described her day briefly in a hushed voice, her face flushing puce when she got to the part where Malfoy may or may not have seen her without her clothes on.
"We could take him on." Ron said when she'd finally finished narrating her tale. There were only a few minutes of lunch left.
Hermione turned around when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and saw that it was Pansy. She looked terrible. Her arms were covered in the yellow ointment and so was a bit of her chin and neck.
She looked tired and miserable.
Ron groaned when he saw her. " Tell her to go away, she's done enough-" he fell silent when Hermione flashed him a warning look.
"Have you seen Draco?" Pansy asked her, a tad hopeful, "Is he coming to meet me?"
"Erm... he was eating lunch when I last saw him." Hermione had had a horrible day, but she still felt a twinge of pity for Pansy when her face fell .
"Don't bother feeling sorry for me, mudblood." The twinge of pity Hermione had felt vanished. "He has better things to do than mingle with blood traitors and losers." She sneered at Hermione.
Pansy had seen the flash of pity in Hermione's eyes and had lashed out as a reflex action. Don't accept pity from others, her mother had told her, it makes you look weak if you do.
She wanted to take it back as soon as she had said it, Hermione was one of the only people who had shown her any semblance of compassion that day. But she couldn't apologize. It had been drilled into her at a very young age that she must never, ever apologize for anything she did. She shouldn't make mistakes to apologize for in the first place.
Hardly anyone understood what kind of pressure Pansy was under to always act perfectly and look good and be respected in the pureblood community.
"He has better things to do than talk to you too." Hermione said pleasantly. She wasn't in the mood to take sass from anyone.
Pansy didn't reply to that and left them alone.
Neville was having fun. The burns had given him a reason to miss Snape's class, which he had been dreading. And on top of that, Luna was making him smile with her rants about 'Fire Wrinxes'. Neville was one of the few people who actually took Luna seriously, and didn't laugh at her or call her crazy because of her beliefs.
Besides, she had been right about the fact that blowing out the fire would extinguish it; she might be right about the fact that it was caused by "Fire Wrinxes" even if no one else had heard about them before.
Hannah was sulking in the corner because the fire had burned off her left eye's eyelashes, her left eyebrow and had singed her hair short. Madame Pomphrey had assured her that her hair would grow back within the week.
"Luna," Neville tugged on a strand of her long dirty blonde hair gently to get her attention.
"Yes?" she asked in that slightly out of focus, dreamy way of hers.
"Hannah wants to go on a date with me." he whispered, glancing at the sulking Hannah, who still managed to look pretty while she pouted.
"That's amazing" Luna patted his back. "Hannah is really nice. You'll have fun with her."
"But she wants to go dancing, and I can't dance. I accidentally told her that I could."
"Don't worry, Neville. Sometimes the greatest things are discovered by accident... like the Gulping Plimpy." She finished happily.
"I think I've heard about that." Neville smiled, Luna's happiness was contagious. "Is that the one where..."
It was evening when Hermione tried to return to the Slytherin common room. She knew that it was in the dungeons somewhere but she couldn't figure out where. She wandered around for a while, searching for a wall that stood out to her but she couldn't seem to find one. There were no other Slytherins in sight.
She didn't want to go and ask Snape to help her. She sunk down to the floor and buried her head in her arms, waiting for another Slytherin to show up so she could follow them.
"Lost, Granger?" It was Theodore Nott. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there for but it felt like it had been hours.
"Yeah, I was wondering if you could help me find the Slytherin dormitory?"she tried a smile.
He leered at her. "I could do it...for a price."
She gripped her wand a little tighter. "Depends on the price." she said evenly.
"I want...four packs of Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans."
That was not what she had been expecting at all, but then, Nott wasn't the brightest bulb in the box.
"I'd ask for more, but I think you'll like what we have planned for you." He smiled evilly.
What is he on about? She wondered.
She found out the second he led her to the Slytherin common room. Everyone was huddled in the centre of the room.
"Behold," A boy she didn't recognize stepped forward. He was in the year above her. "The Slytherin initiation ceremony."
The crowd parted and she saw what was in the box. It was a snake, a poisonous one. Its body was pitch black and it was hissing at anyone who came near the box.
"That's a snake." Hermione pointed out. "Are you allowed snakes at school?"
The boy ignored her question. "All you have to do, to prove yourself worthy of being in Slytherin is stroke the snake...on it's head."
"And...every Slytherin does this? What about Zacharias, did he do this?"
"Leave it guys, she's too chicken. She doesn't belong in Gryffindor or Slytherin." It was Draco. He was sitting on the sofa, like he couldn't be bothered to get up and watch Hermione.
"No...I'll- I'll do it." Hermione stated.
"You will?" The group of people started whispering among themselves. Clearly, they hadn't been expecting that answer from her.
"Sure. I'll do it, but on one condition. You give me five minutes alone."
The boy laughed. "You aren't exactly in the position for making demands are you?"
Hermione smiled at him pleasantly, hiding the fact that her heart felt like it would beat itself out of her chest.
"The way I see it, you have two choices. Give me five minutes alone and watch me stroke a poisonous snake or... I'll let Snape know that you smuggled a dangerous and contraband animal into school. How many of you do you think will be expelled?"
The crowd fell silent, waiting for a decision to be made.
"Give her her five minutes." Draco ordered. The crowd dispersed immediately, apparently they were used to Draco giving them commands.
Hermione used to be scared of snakes and Hermione hated being scared of anything. Which is why, after she had discovered that Harry could speak Parseltongue in the second year, she asked him to teach her how to speak it too.
It had been tough for Harry, but Hermione was a good student and within a few years of regular practice, she was fluent. Not that anyone else knew that.
She leaned over the box and whispered to the snake in parseltongue.
Hello, I'm Hermione. I'm sorry about how loud these people are being, but I can help you out if you help me out.
The snake looked at her for a few seconds, as if evaluating her.
My name isss Ssssanya. What help?
If you promise not to bite me and allow you to stroke your head for the satisfaction of these hooligans, I'll keep you with me and no one will bother you. Or I could set you free in the grounds if you wanted, as long as you don't bite anyone.
The snake seemed to smile at her. Agreeeed.
"Your times up." It was Draco. The rest of the crowd followed him. "Are you going to be true to your word and touch the snake, or are you going to be a coward?"
She raised her chin defiantly. "I'll do it."
She wasn't a hundred percent sure that Sanya actually wouldn't bite her and the room was silent with baited breath as she reached her hand closer to the snake.
She stroked her head and Sanya seemed to let out a sound of content before slithering and wrapping herself around Hermione's hand.
"Are you guys happy?" Hermione asked the silent room. "Now leave me alone, I have homework. And I'm keeping her, just so you know." She told them before walking away.
Padma had convinced Blaise to skip class.
"Aren't you Ravenclaws supposed to be really uptight about things like skipping classes and education?"
Padma raised an eyebrow.
"Aren't you Slytherins supposed to be evil puppy killers?" she fired back at him.
He grinned. "Good point. House steroetypes suck anyway. Do you even know the number of crying first years we get because they're convinced that being in Slytherin is going to turn them evil?"
They were climbing their way up the steps of the astronomy tower.
"Where are we even going?" he asked Padma after a few minutes of silence where the only sound was that of Padma's laboured breathing.
"To the top." she panted.
"But why?" He climbed the stairs easily, taking two at a time.
"For experiments. I want to see if certain types of fireworks can attract unicorns out of the forest or not."
"Not that I have a problem with skipping classes, but was this really necessary? Couldn't we have gone later?"
"Nope, twilight is the hour of unicorns. Besides, this is all in the name of Science." she threw him a lopsided grin.
"Some would say its the hour of vampires." Blaise retorted.
"What? Don't be ridiculous, everyone knows that-"
'Muggle joke. Forget it." he chuckled.
"Look at Zabini, the Slytherin who tells muggle jokes." she teased him.
They'd finally reached the top of the Astronomy tower and Padma started tugging out firework after firework from her bag and setting them up along the edges of the tower.
"Ok, this is what we're going to do. I'm going to set off the fireworks and you're going to tell me if any unicorns come out of the forest and if they do, how far they come out from the treeline."
"Why can't I set of the fireworks and you measure the distances?"
"Whatever." Padma huffed. "You're such a child."
He lit the fireworks one by one while she squinted into the distance for a sign of unicorns. None appeared, at least not until Blaise lit a firework called "the Silent Whisper."
Padma grabbed at Blaise's sleeve and tugged hard. "There." she said, pointing at the treeline.
Two white unicorns had come out of the forest and were standing silently, staring up at the sky.
"Light another, see if they come further."
But the second Blaise lit another, the unicorns turned and fled back into the forest. The pair of them stood there, watching the fireworks fade against the twilight sky.
All of a sudden, Padma pulled Blaise by the shirt and kissed him while Blaise stood there,shocked into silence.
She pulled away after a few seconds and patted his shoulder.
"Don't worry, that was just an experiment, for science. We should just be friends." She beamed at him.
"What?" Blaise blinked in confusion.
"Nothing. We should go back downstairs before they lock the doors."
"They don't lock the doors."
"Yeah, they do,ever since a bunch of kids climbed up here at night a few years ago, they've started locking the doors."
Blaise tried the door but it wouldn't budge. "Alohomora." he tried.
It didn't work.
"Don't you think they'd have thought of that?" Padma rolled her eyes. "We're stuck here for the night. Good thing I brought a blanket in my trust bag."
"Why do you carry a blanket around?"
She shrugged. "Be prepared- that's my motto."
Padma cast a spell to keep them warm and they huddled together on the blanket and counted stars and talked till dawn and the doors finally unlocked.
Blaise yawned. "I'm way too sleepy for class today. I guess I'm skipping a few today too." He shot her a sleepy smile.
"Me too. I wanted to work on my project anyway."
"Do you even know where the Hufflepuff dormitory is?"
Padma's laugh sounded louder in the stillness of the morning. "You weren't listening were you? I'm always prepared."
A/N: A HUGE thank you to my lovely reviewers. You motivate me to write more :* I really loved this ch. But my sis says I need to hurry the "Dramione" along. But its only ch 4 :( Your opinions?
