Draco had examined every inch of the book Hermione had lent to him for all the jinxes, hexes and curses he could think of. He frowned at it silently, pondering.

Whenever he thought of Hermione, he could feel a faint tingling sensation in his left cheek where she had hit him in his third year. It was no secret that Hermione hated him, he'd given her plenty of reason to. He didn't hate her, but he couldn't tolerate her being an insufferable know-it-all and he was used to winding her up.

But why did she give me the book?

He frowned at it again before finally deciding to touch it. He poked it, expecting something horrible to happen, but...nothing. It was just a book.

The pages were yellow with age, and the spine was thoroughly broken in. She had clearly read the book multiple times. He snorted, trust her to read a text book enough times to break the spine.

"Property of Hermione Jean Granger." was written on the first page in loopy but neat handwriting. He had known her for years but he'd never known she had a middle name.

He riffled through the pages, frowning. Her loopy handwriting covered the pages, she'd made notes everywhere. Draco never made a single note in any of his textbooks, he tried to keep them as fresh as the day he had bought them.

He scanned through some of her notes and smiled. Some of them were actually quite funny. He hadn't expected her to have a sense of humour beneath all of that bushy brown hair.

He had just decided mentally that he would read the book after all when Hermione stumbled into the boys dormitory, looking furious.

"I don't know what you're playing at, Malfoy." she said angrily.

He racked his brains, trying to figure out what she was talking about. He hadn't teased her the entire day and had ignored both Harry and Ron because his mind was preoccupied over the possible curses Hermione's book might have contained.

"Don't act like you don't know. This was low, even for you."

"I have no clue what you're talking about Granger. Now quit blubbering and tell me or leave. This is the boy's dormitory." He replied, meeting the fiery anger in her tone with the cool indifference in his.

"The password to the common room. 'Inferior mudbloods.'? What kind of a joke is that? And don't you have any mudbloods in Slytherin?"

"Who makes the Gryffindor passwords?"

"The portrait that guards our tower. But how is that relevant-"

"Then why would the Prefect make the Slytherin passwords? And you're a prefect too. And we have no mudbloods in Slytherin apart from you,at the moment. Salazaar Slytherin rarely accepts those who's blood is not pure. "

Hermione flushed red a bit when she realized her mistake but she was too proud to apologize.

"Well the only reason I asked is because you're a jerk enough to try and pull off something like this."

Draco didn't even protest.

"True. Have you gone through the patrol route?" he asked abruptly.

"Erm, yes. I wanted to speak to you about that too."

"If you're going to suggest some improvements to the route, don't bother, I'm not changing it. People would like you better if you stopped being a know-it-all."

"No- not improvements." she said hastily. "It's more of a favor. I was wondering if we could change some of my routes?"

He looked her over. She looked as if a lot depended on his reply, but was trying her best to hide it.

"Not unless you tell me why." He raised his eyebrows.

Hermione looked very much like she didn't want to tell him anything. But it must have been important to her because she drew in a deep breath and said-

"I'm scared of the dark."

Draco burst out laughing. "What?"

"I'm scared of the dark." she said defiantly. "And we're patrolling some of the unlit corridors. Could you just do those ones alone?"

"Aren't Gryffindors supposed to be brave?" he said between laughs. "Wait till I tell-"

Suddenly, Hermione drew out her wand and was pointing at him. "They say that you should never tell a Slytherin your weakness. Maybe I should erase your memory? Although...it would be a shame if I accidentally erased more than just our little conversation." Draco stopped laughing.

"If you weren't a mudblood," he said thoughtfully, "you would almost definitely be in Slytherin."

"Thank you." From him, that was a compliment.

"But I'm not going to change the route." He smiled evilly. "You don't need to worry though...I'll be with you."

Somehow, that didn't seem to make her feel better.

They had half an hour before they had to meet for patrolling and when they met in the Great hall, Hermione was a little alarmed to see that he was looking smug. She wondered what he had been up to.

"Let's go." was the first thing he said when he saw her.

They walked together in silence, their steps in sync. Hermione liked patrolling with Ron, he would talk about home and things that Fred and George had done or Professor Trelawny's newest predictions. His cheerful chatter would distract her from the stress of homework and the shadows where the torch light didn't touch.

Going on her rounds with Draco, on the other hand, was a completely different story. The silence was awkward and tense and she kept on hearing sounds.

Then they came to the first unlit corridor that she had been dreading. The corridor was so long that even in the daytime, it took half an hour to walk through. Whenever she had to patrol an unlit corridor with Ron, he would go first, lighting the way as he went. In return, she would shoo away any spiders he wanted her to.

She knew Draco would do no such thing for her, so she didn't even bother asking. They started walking down the corridor together.

"Scared, Granger?" he whispered.

"Shut up, Malfoy."

They walked again in silence. She ignored Malfoy, concentrating instead on making sure there was no one or nothing hiding in the shadows.

Suddenly a dark figure jumped in front of her, Hermione screamed. But then the figure pulled off his mask and she saw it was just Draco. He had bent over laughing.

"That wasn't funny." she said. She turned around to wipe away her tears without him seeing. "You're a git, Malfoy."

"You should have seen your face." he said between chuckles.

They walked together in silence again.

They started down another unlit corridor. Hermione was fuming that she had told Draco about her weakness.

This is actually my fault. She thought angrily.

Suddenly there was a loud rattling noise from one of the unused classrooms.

Hermione turned to Draco, furious. "Learn when to stop Malfoy." But the look of confusion on his face told her that he hadn't planned this.

"I'll check what it is." Draco told Hermione. She waited in the corridor as he went to the classroom.

There was silence for a few moments, before a very surprised, "Father?"

Hermione went into the room to check who he was talking to. Lucius Malfoy was standing in the room with a look of white rage on his face.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Draco asked Mr Malfoy.

"I've heard that your relationship with Pansy is going down the drain and now you're consorting with mudbloods. You bring shame to our name Draco. You are no son of mine."

Draco stood there. The blood had drained from his face. He looked terrified.

"So I have come to...fix the problem." Mr Malfoy turned towards Hermione, drawing his wand.

"Ava-" he stated but Draco pushed Hermione to the floor. Something clicked inside Hermione's brain

"RIDDIKULUS" she shouted.

Mr Malfoy vanished, replaced by a shouting Professor McGonagall.

"Miss Granger, you're a failure." McGonagall shouted. "You only scored seventy percent in your exams. You think we let mudbloods like you stay in Hogwarts with less than ninety-five percent? You aren't worthy."

It was Hermione's turn to stare, horrified. But Draco had understood that it was a boggart.

"Riddikulus." he shouted and Professor McGonagall lost her voice and clutched at her own throat.

But the boggart had decided to target Hermione and it turned into other things she dreaded. Harry's body lay dead on the floor. Then Ron's. Then Ginny's.

She pulled herself together, pointed her wand at the boggart and with an emotionless voice said the spell. The boggart disappeared with a pop.

Neither of the two looked at each other. They had just seen each other's worse fears and they had nothing to say.

They completed the rest of the rounds in silence and headed back to the common room.

"Thanks for the book." Draco muttered, not looking at her.

"Thanks for not letting the boggart kill me." she muttered back.

They both hurried off to their respective dormitories, slamming the doors behind them.

Neville had had a bad day and now most of the Ravenclaws were ignoring him. He had been late for potions and had lost ten house points. Then in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Snape had decided to bully him by deducting another ten house points and it had continued until he had managed to lose thirty house points in a day.

While the Gryffindors were used to Neville and his loss of house points, the Ravenclaws were not. And with the exception of Luna and Hannah no one else wanted to talk to him (the Ravenclaws worked hard for their points and hated losing them). But Luna had gone to study for her Astronomy test so he was left with Hannah.

The only problem was, they seemed to have nothing in common. Hannah hated plants, she preferred to sit inside and read books, or listen to music. She wasn't a fan of Quidditch and she liked talking about things Neville had no clue about- like the Gobstone championship in 1965.

Neville liked listening to her talk, but after a little while, he couldn't help but feel a bored and more than a little befuddled. Until she finally said something that penetrated through his confused daze.

"So how often do you dance?" Hannah suddenly asked.

I'm going to tell her now. Time to come clean.

Neville gathered his nerves, opened his mouth to confess- and was interrupted. Luna was back.

"None of these charts seem to make any sense." said Luna, holding her map of the planets upside down.

She plonked herself down on a pouffe close to them and started tugging out her homework from her bag.

"I heard they got a new specimen of the rare Venomous Fishfly plant in Greenhouse six." Luna told him.

"Really?" Neville gasped. He'd read about it before. It was incredibly rare and supposed to possess powerful healing properties.

"Yep. We could go down and see it together in the weekend if you like. I wanted to check the plant for Flickerby's anyway. I've heard they infest the plant and I've never seen one before."

Neville smiled at her. She always knew how to make him feel better after a bad day. "I would really like that."

Hannah went back to talking about the Hogwarts gobstones club.

Harry was feeling as nauseous as he had before the Quidditch finals in his third year. He had been practicing on his firebolt for a few hours after class ended. But the nerves just wouldn't go. It felt like he had swallowed a whole box of frogs.

I shouldn't have agreed to this. A part of his mind thought bitterly. Another part of his mind argued that it was only fair and it was best for the team if they got a better seeker.

If he wanted fairness, he should have gone to a Hufflepuff the part of his mind said again.

Michael arrived, Ginny was with him. She had come to watch them compete. Hermione had enchanted a normal ball to behave like the Snitch because they couldn't risk losing the actual snitch in the dark.

"Hey Harry." Michael greeted him with a cocky grin playing on his lips.

"Hullo Michael." he said, barely enthusiastic. "Ok the rules are simple, the first one to catch the ball becomes the new seeker. Although, if you do win," Harry added, "the team will have to pick a new captain and it might not be you."

"No problem. I think I've got this."

Harry didn't rise to the bait. "On the count of three then. One...two...three."

They both kicked off. Michael immediately began flying around the outskirts of the stadium, trying to spot the impromptu snitch.

Harry rose up high into the air, trying to see if he could spot it from above. Several times he thought he saw a flash of orange but it was gone before he could close in on it.

He saw Michael dive. He had spotted the snitch hovering near the ground. He pushed his firebolt to the limit, zoning in on the snitch. Michael was a foot from it. Harry tried to go as fast as he could.

He drew up level with Michael, both of them reaching for the snitch. But Harry got there faster and in seconds the little ball was clutched in his hand.

"Yes!" He shouted happily. He was so relieved that he had caught it before Michael.

Michael demounted his broom, his face full of anger. He tossed his broom over his shoulder angrily and stalked off the pitch.

"Congrats, Harry." Ginny called to him, running onto the pitch and throwing her arms around his neck. "That was really good."

Ginny's hair smelled of cinnamon and vaguely reminded him of Christmas at the Weasley's house where the smell of Mrs Weasley's cinnamon rolls would waft from the kitchen and spread around the house.

He felt a tingling sensation in his stomach that wasn't one of hunger. It was gone the second Ginny stopped hugging him.

"I better go and cheer up Michael." said Ginny. "He was really looking forward to being on the Gryffindor Quidditch team."

And just like that, she was gone. Harry watched her run off the Quidditch pitch, her flaming red hair dancing like fire in the night.

A/N: Heyo! Leave a review and make me happy? Please? Even if you don't, thank you for reading!

Ps my laptop screen keeps flickering on and off. it still works for now, but if i dont update in a while, its because my laptop finally died ;-; and i'll update the second i get it back