Second Year
/
"So, how was practice?" Hermione's voice was bright as she and Ron approached the two boys stuffing their faces, despite knowing how Draco's lip would curl as soon as her turned to face her.
"Fantastic! Gryffindor is definitely in for a win tomorrow." Harry asserted.
"Rubbish!" Draco declared. "We flew near identically today, Potter, and that was without the Slytherin beaters pelting bludgers at you."
"I still don't understand why you two go for extra practices of your own when you already have team practices three or four days a week and there are only three games a year. Do you really care that little about your marks?"
"Hermione, it's a lost cause." Ron told her. "Quidditch is actually fun, as opposed to your favorite hobbies of 'homework' and 'studying'."
"You should join us some time, Ron!" Harry suggested, receiving an eyebrow raise from Ron, who tilted his head in Draco's direction. "Nonsense, Draco doesn't mind-we're all friends, right Malfoy?"
Draco's eyes widened for a brief moment, but he swallowed and said, "Er, yeah, that would be-good. We could use someone to help make our flight path more, arm, difficult. You might not be awful."
Not kind, by any means, but it was a start. "Right. Well, yeah, I s'pose I'll come out next time then." Ron's words were as awkward as his current posture, and Draco wouldn't lay eyes on Hermione, who he had called a mudblood to her face the first week of school, but her eyes were shining at the progress, and with her hope for the three boys.
While Harry and Draco had become the youngest seekers in a century first year and were always off at practice, Ron had been left behind and started hanging out with the other boys in their dormitory more-Dean happened to study with Hermione many nights, both having started out without any knowledge of the wizard world and with a deep devotion to their education, so she and Ron ended up spending quite a bit of time together and became friends-the troll incident, if nothing else, solidified this fact, and gave her and Harry the beginnings of a friendship-but the point in all this was that she saw how resentful and, well, sad, Ron got when Harry was with Draco and seemed that the two were best friends.
The way she saw it, Harry was friends with Draco and Ron equally, but she supposed being that he'd been very lonely his whole life he likely didn't even realize how much his own presence (and lack thereof) affected his friends.
She blinked out of her thoughts and looked back up at the boys only to see all three of them engrossed in a conversation about the airborne sport, Ron and Draco both citing their favorite teams, mentioning each others' picks' strengths and weaknesses, and she stepped out, allowing herself a small smile.
/
"Hermione!" she heard Harry and Ron's voices even above the ruckus of the student body as she entered the Great Hall, and felt some of the air leave her bodies they both barreled into her. "We were so worried," Harry's voice said from her left as they both released her.
"Yes, well, thanks to Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey I'm fine-I was told by Seamus you two have been up to the usual world-saving, life-risking nonsense?" They both blushed. "So you can manage that without me, now the real question: did you stay for exams at all?"
"Well you see," Ron began hastily, "The thing is, until very late last night we were under the impression the school was going to be shut down, so we weren't exactly needing to study."
She opened her mouth, fully prepared to give a sassy retort, when she heard a slight cough behind her-a familiar, somewhat pretentious cough, and she spun to face him.
"Draco," she said, surprised.
"Granger." His voice was not without its usual tone of distaste. "I-I don't like you." Hermione simply raised an eyebrow, quite aware of this fact, and put out a hand to Ron, who she had felt tense behind her. "What I mean to say is I don't like you, but I-I'm, er, glad, that you weren't killed by the snake."
The situation was bizarre, but she took it in stride, giving him a nod of thanks. "That means quite a bit, coming from you."
"Well, don't get used to it," he tugged on his collar. "That's all. I just thought you ought to know."
And he went with the boys to play wizard chess in the Gryffindor common room as though nothing had happened, and perhaps maybe nothing had, but on the Hogwarts Express on the way home all four of them sat in the same car for the first time.