Harry watched Ginny and Michael from the corner of his eyes. They were standing in the corner, slightly away from the rest of the festivities in the Gryffindor common room and Michael was whispering in Ginny's ear. They looked far too snug for Harry's liking, although he tried his best to push all his jealous thought aside.

I'm not jealous. He told himself. She's Ron's sister and its only natural that I feel protective of her...Michael is a git anyway.

He turned to voice his opinion to Ron but Ron was staring blankly with a dazed expression on his face. His mouth was hanging open. Harry turned to see what he was staring at and saw that he was looking at Pansy. She was in the middle of the crowd and was helping Fred and George demonstrate their nosebleed nougats. The rest of the Gryffindors weren't too fond of her, but the fact that she had provided alcohol for their party as well as the fact that she was now almost friends with Fred and George warmed them to her slightly.

The sound of Pansy's high pitched laughter drifted over the heads of the crowd and reached them. Harry snapped his fingers in front of Ron's face, breaking him out of his reverie.

"What's the matter with you?" He asked Ron, grinning at his confused expression.

Ron shook his head, as if to clear it. "She kissed me." he stated simply.

"What?" He listened silently as Ron described what had happened.

"I wouldn't think about it too much, it obviously didn't mean much to her, don't overthink it. And anyway, she has Malfoy." Harry finally said after thinking it over for a while. "Hermione would probably be able to decipher Parkinson's emotions for you, but we hardly even see her anymore."

"You're right." Ron scratched his head and grimaced, "she isn't thinking about it, so neither should I."

Pansy was doing her absolute best not to look at Ron. The kiss had been on her mind for the last few hours, ever since she had gotten back to the Gryffindor common room. Every time it crossed her mind, she would flush and could feel her face heating up. She only hoped that the other Gryffindors attributed her red face to the effect of the nosebleed nougats and the alcohol.

When she did finally allow herself to glance at Ron, he seemed to be deep in conversation with "the Potter boy."

She hissed in irritation. I'm over here, blushing to death because of some stupid kiss and it didn't even affect him?

The thought irritated her more than she would have liked to admit. She was even irritated at herself for allowing the thought to irritate her.

She looked away, forcing laughter at the twin's antics.

If the kiss didn't affect him, then no way in Azkaban am I going to show him that it affected me. She decided.

Finally the twins decided to take a break, there was a limit to the amount of blood they could lose in a day without having to go to the hospital wing. They pulled Pansy over to a corner, away from the crowd.

"You keep glancing at our dear brother." George observed.

Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush.

She blushed.

"Yeah I was checking if he'd started mapping out the patrol sheets for Prefect duties." she said defensively.

The twins both shrugged at the same time, it weirded her out when they did things like that. They didn't appear as convinced as she wanted them to and this only made her face twist into an even worse scowl.

"Just remember," said Fred, "the way to Ron's heart is through his stomach."

"I'm not trying to get to his heart." she spluttered, her face turning red, but the twins were gone; once again encompassed by a horde of their rowdy fans.

She glanced at Ron again, he wasn't looking at her. Angered, she stormed out of the common room in a huff. She'd show him what happened when she was ignored.

Draco was watching Hermione closely.

He noticed many things about her that he hadn't before, and he was happy to say he hated almost every new thing he noticed. He hated the way her hand automatically shot up when a teacher asked a question before she had even heard the entire question, he hated how she said most of her answers without taking a breath between sentences and he absolutely loathed how she sucked on the end of her quill when another person was called on to answer a question; as if she was searching for a point to add to the answer.

But what he hated most about her were the things he might have liked if it had been any other girl. Things like how she wasn't afraid to fight for what she believed in (he'd seen her defend house elves in spite of the sneering Slytherins), how she made time to help out anyone who asked for it,how she scolded the wrongdoers without being intimidated by their sneers and their whispers of "filthy mudblood", how she could be nice one second and be snappy and sarcastic the next,and how her brown curls caught the light when she bounced in her seat to answer a question.

"Mr Malfoy." came Professor McGonagall's sharp voice, "if you'd be so kind as to return to our lesson from whatever dreamland you are in, perhaps you'd be able to demonstrate the raven to dinner plate transfiguration I've been talking about?"

Biting back a retort, Draco turned to his raven and tapped it, muttering "laminarae". It worked, the cawing raven turned into a silver dinner plate causing Draco to blink in bemusement. He hadn't been expecting it to work.

He looked up, a pair of brown eyes were watching him curiously, although Hermione whipped her head back around when his eyes met hers.

"Excellent." said Professor McGonagall. "Take twenty points for Slytherin, but do not let me catch you daydreaming in my class again. The rest of you start transfiguring your animals."

She walked away and the rest of the class began tapping their own animals. Draco however, kept his eyes trained on Hermione. He couldn't help but smile when he saw that it took her three attempts before she managed to transfigure her raven.

Draco had to run to catch up to her after class. She was striding ahead of the rest of the class, as usual, trying to be the first to get to the next class and get the seat of her choice.

"Malfoy." She stated curtly, acknowledging his presence.

"Granger." He replied, just as curtly. "Snape wanted to see us in his office today at seven."

"What for?"

"How should I know Granger?" he replied irritably. "Maybe you should ask Professor Trelawney although I doubt that woman has made a single true prophecy in her life." He added scornfully.

Hermione's laugh surprised him, he hadn't expected her laugh to be so loud, he had expected her to have a breathy giggle like Daphne's.

He grinned back, happier than he had been a second ago.

They headed to herbology together with Draco doing his best to ignore how their hands sometimes grazed while walking and the little tingles that shot up his arm when they did.

When Hermione and Draco reported to Snape's office he seemed to be in a dangerously bad mood.

"Granger... Malfoy, I need you both to patrol the outskirts of the forbidden forest tonight. Apparently students have been...sneaking out." He sneered.

"You'll patrol from nine to twelve and then the Ravenclaw prefects will substitute you."

Draco opened his mouth to say something but was cut off before he could start.

"No arguments. I suggest you hurry up and I want the new patrol charts on my desk by this time tomorrow." He turned back to whatever he was writing, dismissing them silently.

"I have so much homework left though." Hermione sounded upset. They were hurrying back to the common room. Draco threw her a look, "Well, I have a life. So this forest patrol is a pain for both of us."

"When do you even do your homework, Malfoy? How do you submit it on time? If you're bullying first years into doing it, I'll report you." She said fiercely.

"Relaaaax. I don't bully first year Slytherins anyway."

"No. You bully everyone apart from the superior Slytherins, don't you?" She spat before storming away.

"Whatever, Granger." He muttered to himself as he watched her hurry away from him. He ignored the slight twinge he got in his stomach when Hermione shouted at him. No one else but his mother normally shouted at him. He wasn't used to it.

Blaise had quickly realized that being friends with a Ravenclaw was a lot different than he expected it to be. Padma skipped more classes than he did, finished her homework at the last minute and was absolutely terrible at charms. He hadn't thought a Ravenclaw could be terrible at any subject.

He watched her scrawl rapidly across her parchment. Her handwriting was huge, she was trying to finish the fourteen inch essay on a History Of Magic as quick as possible, with as little writing that she could. Even then, she was finding it difficult. Her brows were furrowed as she concentrated, a wisp of black hair fell across her forehead and her teeth worried at her bottom lip as she scribbled.

He hadn't even realized he'd been staring at her with his mouth slightly agape until she looked up at him.

"Your ink is dripping." She said simply. "I've got six inches left on this essay and I have no clue what to write." She closed her eyes in frustration. "Ask whatever you've been wanting to ask for the last ten minutes Zabini." She sighed, leaning her head back against the cold stone behind her.

They weren't in the common room, mostly because Padma insisted that that the cold air helped her think. Instead, they were sitting together on the spiral steps of one of the East towers. Blaise was freezing, but he would go wherever Padma wanted to. He loved spending time with her.

"No offense but...how did you manage to get into Ravenclaw? You're terrible at charms and you put so little effort into your homework, isn't that the opposite of what a Ravenclaw is supposed to be like?"

She smiled, with her eyes still closed.

"There you go with your house stereotypes again. There are more types of intelligence than academic intelligence. And besides, I'm pretty good at my unicorn experiments. I'm good at research. Some Ravenclaw's are good at inventing things. Some are good at learning things. We're all different."

She looked so pretty with the torchlight glinting off the strands of her shiny black hair that Blaise couldn't help himself. He leaned in to kiss her.

But she covered his mouth with her hand as her eyes flew open.

"Just friends, Zabini." She said calmly.

He ran his fingers through his hair and grinned abashedly. "Sorry, you're right. I should have asked. Hurry up with your essay, we're going to get locked out again."

"Can I just copy yours?" she moaned.

He let out a loud laugh. "Absolutely not. Now hurry up." She poked him with her quill and went back to her untidy scrawling.

Neville was sprawled across the floor for the seventh time that evening. He extended his hand and Luna pulled him back to his feet.

"You know, Neville, I think it's not you. I think it might be me who's terrible at dancing." She said serenely. " I keep on tripping you over my feet, sorry."

Neville grinned at her. He had convinced her after much cajoling and promises of going plimpy fishing with her to practice dancing with him. He didn't know anyone else who would have been nice enough to spend hours practicing the same five steps over and over again. What he hadn't anticipated though, was the fact that she would be just as bad, or maybe even worse,at dancing than him.

They were in the room of requirement which had provided them with an old record player.

"I don't think it's you, Luna. I think it's the music."

Neville had asked Hannah what type of dancing she liked and she had said the Waltz. He found it confusing and he really really hated the music.

"You want to change it? The Room has provided us with so many records to try."

"Sure, why not. You pick something. Can't be worse than this rubbish." He plonked himself down onto a beanbag.

She shuffled through the stacks of vinyls before squealing. Neville whipped around to see what was wrong, but her face was alight with delight.

"My mother used to play this to me when I was a child!" she exclaimed. She put it in the player and an upbeat tune filled the room. She pulled Neville to his feet and grabbed his hands and started spinning, laughing as she did so.

"Now we're dancing." Neville laughed, twirling her around and jumping about like Luna was, waving his hands and trying to sing along to the song even though he didn't know the lyrics.

"You'll be all set for your dancing date this weekend if you keep this up." Luna yelled over the music. Neville nodded, laughing. Perhaps dancing wasn't so bad after all.

Pansy strode along the corridors, seething. How dare he ignore her? How dare he pretend that that kiss, as terrible as it had been, had made him feel absolutely nothing. Had his heart not raced like hers had? Did he not feel the same frizzle of electricity she had?

Maybe you're just not good enough for him. Her mother's voice whispered in her head.

It only made her angrier. She debated returning to the common room and smashing the bottle she had clutched in her hands on his head. Too violent. She told herself.

Maybe I should go kiss Potter and see how Weasley feels about that she thought angrily before stopping in her tracks.

Kiss Potter? Make Weasley jealous? What am I DOING? I have a boyfriend. She had completely forgotten about Draco. She had completely forgotten that she was supposed to be losing house points

for Draco instead of helping the Gryffindor's throw parties and smuggle alcohol.

She needed to get back on track. She needed to get Gryffindor in trouble, and fast.

Parties with alcohol aren't allowed

She slipped back into the common room twenty minutes later, the party was still in full flow. A large group had gathered around a table, someone was playing the exploding snap challenge. Almost everyone was drunk. She grabbed another drink from the table and tried to blend in with the crowd, prepared for what was about to happen. What she was about to make happen.

Five minutes later, it happened.

"HOW DARE YOU?" McGonagall's furious shout filled the common room, causing it to lapse into silence almost immediately. Bottles were hastily hidden, but it was too late. McGonagall had already seen, besides, she had a broken bottle clutched in her hand. Her fingertips white with rage. Pansy's bottle.

She had waited until Peeves was close enough to hear before loudly smashing her bottle on the floor. Peeves' shouts had attracted Filch, and a delighted Filch had immediately reported to a furious McGonagall that a smashed bottle had been found and the closest common room was Gryffindor's.

Pansy tried her best to act surprised when McGonagall showed up,seething with anger. But she wasn't quite fast enough. She didn't notice a pair of blue eyes trained on her from across the room. They had been watching her ever since she had slipped back into the common room.

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