"Granger." It was Malfoy, leaning against the wall. She wondered tiredly how long he had been watching her before she finally noticed that he was there. The rest of the common room was empty, she was the only one left working on her essay.

"It was your idea wasn't it? The snake? You wanted to scare me. Pseudechis porphyriacus." she murmured.

"What?"

"The common black snake or the red bellied black snake. It's found in Australia. I was wondering how you even managed to get it into Scotland, let alone Hogwarts. Did you even know how poisonous it was before deciding that I should touch it?"

She was angry now. She stood up, scattering sheaves of parchment to the floor and spilling ink across her the essay that she had been working on. She didn't pay any attention to it, knowing that she could easily remove the ink later.

Draco, to her annoyance,didn't even flinch. He didn't look scared of her at all. Which was actually pretty stupid of him, he was many things; but he was not stupid.

"I saw you talking to the snake. I heard you speaking parseltongue." Draco stated simply.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Hermione lied, fluidly.

"Of course you don't." He flashed her that irritating superior smile of his.

"If you're here to irritate me, please leave. I have enough work to do." She reigned in her temper but her exhaustion did nothing to help her self control.

"As nice as it would be to spend some quality time with you, Granger, I'm here to talk about the prefect patrol timings."

"Oh, right, that." She sat back down, straightening the ink pot she had tipped over and clearing up the mess with a flick of her wand.

He took a seat across from her and laid out a map of Hogwarts before snatching her quill from her and drawing out the routes the Slytherin prefects normally patrolled, his forehead furrowed in concentration.

Hermione watched him draw. She had never had an opportunity before to examine him when he wasn't surrounded by his group of friends. He looked surprisingly normal when he wasn't sneering or smirking at her. He looked as tired, she noticed the purple circles beneath his eyes for the first time.

"See something you like, Granger?" he asked without looking up from the map. She looked away quickly, realizing that she had been staring.

"My quill." she retorted.

"Where's the snake?" Draco asked, still looking at the map.

Hermione wasn't sure why she decided to answer. It may have been because she didn't really feel like fighting or because for the first time ever, Draco looked like a teenager like the rest of them.

"Gone." Sanya had requested to be set free in the grounds, promising that she wouldn't bite anyone unless she was attacked.

"Do you want to borrow my book?" Hermione asked suddenly.

"What?" Draco finally looked up from his drawing. "What are you even on about?"

"The Swathog... I learned how to catch it from a book. You can borrow it if you like."

"Are you drunk?"

"What?" Hermione asked, clearly affronted.

"Do you remember how today went? You embarrassed me in class and my friend's threw dung on you. Then I made you touch a poisonous snake, although, I didn't know it was poisonous at the time. But yes, that was my idea. You and I aren't even friends. Why are you offering me your book and why do you even think I'd want it?"

Hermione pondered for a minute. She hadn't really thought before offering, she just thought it would be a decent thing to do. She had forgotten temporarily about how horrible he was to her.

"You're under a lot of pressure from your father aren't you?" Hermione asked cautiously. Draco's face went void of any emotion it had contained before. It had clearly been the wrong thing to say and she tried to backtrack rapidly.

"Careful what you say next." Draco warned her quietly.

"That's why you were so angry today when I caught the Swarthog and you didn't. Well, that and the fact that you fell into a pile of poop."

She wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, but she could have sworn she saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

"So do you want it?" Hermione asked again.

"Go through the routes and have them memorized before our patrol tomorrow." He got up to leave, "And I don't know how it works in Gryffindor, but niceness won't get you anywhere in Slytherin." He trained his pale gray eyes on her like he was trying to read her expression.

"You can leave the book on this table, I'll collect it tomorrow morning."

He turned and left without thanking her and she stared at the squiggly patrol routes he had drawn for a while, thinking.

Pansy was in business mode. She had gotten a letter from her mother that morning, demanding to know how hers and Draco's relationship was going. With all the house switching drama, she had almost completely forgotten about her boyfriend. Pansy knew how furious her mother would be if she told her that Pansy and her "pure blood, attractive and rich" boyfriend were on the rocks so she lied about it and assured her that everything was fine.

"If she likes him so much, she can date him then." She muttered to herself darkly, sending her reply away by owl. "It would save me a lot of hassle."

But her mother's letter had reminded her of her failing relationship and now she needed a way to fix it, and fast.

She pulled Draco aside on his way to the Great Hall.

"I have an idea." She told him, feigning excitement.

"Hey Pansy." Draco didn't look too enthusiastic to see her.

"I'm going to purposely sabotage the Gryffindor's house points." This is a terrible idea. Wouldn't it just be easy to break the relationship off?...But mother would be furious.

Finally, there it was, the spark of animation that she had been looking for in Draco's face. Nothing would bring them closer like a bit of Gryffindor bashing.

"But you'll have to work with me on this if you want us to pull it off successfully. You need to deduct as many house points from Gryffindor as you can, without anyone noticing, and I'll do my best to get myself into trouble. Weasley and I already lost fifty points for Gryffindor yesterday for making the classroom catch fire." Which you knew about but didn't even bother going to the hospital wing to check on me.

"You'll get a lot of detention for this though..." Draco warned her.

"As long as you spend time with me later to make up for lost time." Pansy hated how she sounded. Sickly sweet and fake.

"Sure." Draco smiled at her before heading to his own Slytherin table while she went to the Gryffindor table. She took a seat between Ron and Harry, partly to annoy him and partly because she wanted his attention.

"We have prefect duties today, and I don't care what Granger did, I am not drawing up patrol charts on my own so today at one you are going to meet me in the library and we're going to do it together." She fixed him with a steely look. "Understood?"

Ron glared at her but muttered "Sure."

Pansy dug into the food in front of her happily. She'd done both of the things she'd wanted to.

She hadn't really expected anyone to talk to her and was surprised when the Weasley twins plopped themselves in the seats opposite her.

"Hey Parkinson." They said in unison.

She narrowed her eyes at them. "What?"

"We wanted to know if you'd come smuggle butterbeer and firewhisky into the castle with us." One of the twins said.

The Weasley twins were trouble. She was on the verge of saying no, knowing that they were probably up to no good but then she remembered that she was supposed to be looking for trouble.

"I'm a prefect." She said.

"We know." They said together. "That's why we're asking."

"Ok, I'm in." She said simply, smiling at them because she was happy that she was already on her way to losing house points.

Ron had stopped eating, and was listening to them talk. "You're joking. You can't go smuggle alcohol with them. Besides," he turned to his brothers, "You've never needed help before."

"We're trying to see-" Fred said.

"-if a Slytherin-"

"-can be turned into-"

"A Gryffindor." George completed.

Pansy watched them curiously, she had known that they went everywhere together but she didn't know that they completed each others sentences too.

George looked Pansy over. "We think she can. She's not one of the Unfixable ones, although she does have the added disadvantage of being Malfoy's girlfriend, and a git most of the time."

Pansy didn't bother protesting, she was a git most of the time. She hadn't lied.

"That's ridiculous." Ron said confidently.

"Want a bet?" Fred asked.

"I don't have any money." Ron lowered his voice. His lack of money was always a touchy subject for him.

"That's ok. We had something else in mind. If you win, we'll...what do you want?"

"Your box of fizzing whizbees, all your fireworks and one of your fake wands."

"Done. And if we win you have to... take Pansy out of a date."

Ron turned red. "What?" he asked at the same time Pansy said, "I'm literally sitting right here."

"We think that's a pretty fair deal. Besides, if we win, Pansy will be a much nicer Gryffindor by then."

"Again," she protested, "I'm sitting right here."

Ron turned to her, taking in her perfectly combed hair (to make up for the mess she had been the day before), her acne-less face (an anti acne potion she brewed every month) and her perfectly shaped, unbitten nails.

"Well, I could do worse." he said, shrugging.

"I still haven't given my consent to this." Pansy pointed out.

"You should." George said, "You'll get a date with our idiot brother, and you might actually make some proper friends. I noticed your dear Slytherin friends haven't even bothered trying to talk to you lately." he pointed out.

"True. When do we meet for the alcohol run?"

"At six. You can come too, Ron, if you want. Unless you're too busy being a prefect." Fred sniggered.

"Well...it's better than homework. I'll come." They'd never invited him along before.

Harry was sitting on the other side of Pansy but he was completely ignoring their conversation. He was staring at the other ginger in Gryffindor. Ginny was deep in conversation with Michael Corner.

She didn't look too bored, and she was twirling a lock of red hair around her finger as she listened to him. Harry couldn't tell if she was faking an interest in what Michael was saying, or if she was actually interested in his bragging.

He grabbed his bag. She probably needed saving from Michael's boringness.

"I'll see you all in later." He told the rest of the Weasely's surrounding him.

"Hey Ginny." he said, taking a seat opposite her and Michael.

Ginny, to his surprise, didn't look happy or even relieved that Harry had interrupted her conversation with Michael, in fact she looked a little...annoyed?

Harry was taken aback. He had known about Ginny's crush on him for years, although he ignored it. He wasn't even sure it still existed. He realized how presumptuous of him it was to think that she wouldn't be annoyed at him. Or that she even needed saving. Ginny was strong, she rarely ever needed saving and he loved that about her.

"I was just wondering if you were finally going to be on time for Quidditch practice for once in your life." he joked.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I'm there before you. You're the one who's late."

"I'm the captain, practice only starts when I get there." He grinned at her.

She looked pretty that morning, a part of him wondered jealously if she had put in the extra effort for Michael.

"I've been wanting to talk to you about that-" Michael interrupted them and Harry turned to him, annoyance at being interrupted clearly plastered on his face.

"I was on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team when I was in that house so I think its only fair that I'm on the Gryffindor team."

"...There aren't any available places on the Gryffindor team."

"I was the seeker on the Ravenclaw team." he stated.

Ginny was watching the pair of them silently.

"All right, we'll have try outs then. For the position of seeker. You and me on the Quidditch field today at seven." He pasted a smile on his face, knowing he was risking his captaincy of the team. If he lost to Michael then Michael would become the new Gryffindor seeker for a year and he wouldn't be a part of the team. If he wasn't on the team he couldn't be captain.

"All right mate." Michael clapped him on the shoulder, said bye to Ginny and left the two of them alone.

"That was... ridiculous." Ginny finally said. "You're risking your captaincy."

"I know." His stomach was in knots just thinking about it. "But if he's a better seeker than me...then he deserves to be on the team. Its what's best for the team."

"You don't have to put everyone before what you want." she whispered. "But you're right, its best for the team." She gave him a funny smile. "Be prepared. I've seen him play before. He's good. Really good."

Neville had been trying to get into the Ravenclaw common room for at least thirty minutes. He was in a rush, he had potions for his first class and he had left his book and bagful of potions ingredients in the common room by accident.

He had avoided answering any of the riddles before because Luna had answered them for him. But Luna wasn't here now, and he didn't have the slightest idea how to answer the question the eagle kept on asking him.

"What comes but never arrives?" The eagle asked him again.

"I don't KNOW." Neville yelled at the eagle before sinking to the floor in despair. All the other Ravenclaws were at the Great Hall and he didn't have enough time to go and fetch one to answer for him.

He hit his forehead in frustration. He was clearly not made for this house.

As if on cue, Luna appeared. "Hey, Neville. I came to see if the warglers had gotten you. Why are you on the floor?"

He scrambled to his feet. "Luna, thank god you're here. I need help, I can't answer anything it's asking me and it won't let me in if I don't answer."

Luna patted his shoulder comfortingly. "Dont't worry about it too much. Mr Aras," she pointed at the eagle, "will accept any answer as long as you learn something. You have to have some belief in yourself Neville. You are good enough for this house or anything else if you put your mind to it."

"Ok...I'll try. What comes but never arrives...? Erm...I'm going to just guess. Death?" he asked the eagle.

To his surprise the door swung open.

"The answer is actually 'Tomorrow'." Luna told him.

"But then why did it let me in? I didn't learn anything..."

"Maybe you did." Luna's answering smile was enigmatic.

A/N: Thanks so much for leaving your reviews/opinions. It makes me feel happy to know someone is actually reading it and liking it :*