The next day, I woke up late and almost missed breakfast. Hermione managed to get me some toast before classes started. I had Transfiguration first with Ron then Potions with all the three of them then Charms alone for now. I sighed and headed to my first class with Ron. We were about to sit together when a blond girl cut me off and sat next to Ron. It was then I recognized that it was Lavender Brown. I hated her, but she didn't know it yet because I was faked a smile when she talked to me, mainly other thing that I hated about her is that she's obsessed with Ron. It was slightly obvious that he didn't like her much, but I think he also like the attention he was getting from girls. I sighed and looked around trying to find a seat. Unfortunately, the only seat available was next to Malfoy.

I groaned lowly and made my way over to the vacant seat without making any eye contact with him. I was just glad Pansy wasn't in this class or she would bite my head off.

I heard him grunt which meant he noticed my presence next to him. Without looking at him I said "This was the only seat available, Malfoy."

"Oh I see, the Weasley ditched you for babble mouth." I could feel him smirk without even glancing at him. I didn't know why I didn't dare stare at him.

"He didn't ditch me." I snapped at him. "Blondie cut me off and sat down before I did. She's irritating." I was slowly getting angry and gripped the end of the desk hard.

Malfoy didn't press the matter any further and kept his mouth shut. Was he afraid of seeing me angry or just didn't want to upset me even more? Those two were implausible reasons. It turned out that McGonagall entered the class which made perfect sense.

During the lesson, I heard Malfoy whisper to me. "She's a slut if you ask me."

That caught me off guard and my eyes widened. This time, I really looked over at him with a questionable look. Was he agreeing with me? Lavender being a slut might be possible, but I wasn't too sure.

"How do you know that?" I whispered back.

"I heard Millicent telling Pansy that she slept with a few Ravenclaws already and that she's targeting Weasley."

I looked over at the two and Lavender was trying to hold Ron's hand and was sitting rather close to him. He was trying to scoot away from her, but the girl was strong enough to hold him back.

"Don't tell anyone I told you."

"Why would you even tell me this?" I asked curiously.

He stayed quiet for a moment and didn't answer me. He now had his full attention to McGonagall and to the lesson. I sighed and thought to do the same not wanting to get behind already. However, the whole time I was looking over at Ron and Lavenderwondering what Hermoine's reaction would be. She still had no idea about Lavender's feelings towards out best friend.

Class was over soon and Malfoy was the first one out. Wonder what was wrong with him. I caught up with Ron once Lavender was gone.

"What was that about with Lavender?" I asked him.

"I have no idea. She was sitting too close to me and...she smells nice." He answered with a small smile.

"Oh no. Don't tell me you like her?"

"I don't...but I'm liking the attention she's giving me. I never get attention from girls, Marianne you know that. It's always Harry!" He was getting slightly annoyed.

"What about Hermione?" I blurted out without even thinking.

Ron seemed to have stopped walking and stared at the floor for a moment then shook his head, not answering me and walked ahead. I ran catching up with him and noticed he was in deep thought so I didn't press on the matter.

We reached the Potions classroom. This year Slughorn was teaching us, apparently he used to be my mother's teacher and she also was a member of his club. I paired up with Hermione and waited for class to begin. Slughorn wanted us to make a potion called 'Draught of the Living Dead' and whoever finished first and made it right, they would be rewarded a potion called 'Felix Felicis' that grants good luck. Being paired up with Hermione I was confident that we would win it.

Throughout making it, Hermione was trying to cut the Snake fangs like the book had instructed but it wasn't working. I looked over at Harry and he was crushing it then dropping it into the potion. I walked over to him without Slughorn noticing and glanced at his book and saw that the instructions were corrected.

"Harry! Are you cheating?" I whispered harshly.

"No. I didn't have the book with me so I grabbed the one from this room. It looks like someone corrected it." Harry answered and carried on making his potion.

I walked back to my place and said "Maybe we should just crush it, I mean it worked for Harry."

"No! The book states that we should cut it, not crash it!" She snapped at me.

We kept arguing until Slughorn made his way to Harry and Ron's potion and they seemed to have finished and made it right. Hermione was shocked and groaned in frustration whereas I was stunned and clapped along with the others. Now I was interested in that book and who it belonged to.

When class was over, I walked next to Harry and asked if I can take a look at his book. "No." He simpled said and pulled the book closer to him.
I sighed and thought I'd have to sneak and steal it away from him at some point.

After classes were over, we made our way to the common room. Hermione started on her homework already meanwhile I was thinking of how to get that book. I looked over at Harry and saw that he was reading it again. I crept up behind him and tried to read. Suddenly, he snapped the book shut and his arms went for my neck as he pulled me to him. I tried to get away and yelled out for him that he was hurting me. Of course, I was faking it and he didn't believe so he pulled me harder and I fell on the couch with my legs on his lap. Force of habit, I got the pillow closest to me and hit him with it as we laughed.

We calmed down in a few minutes time. "Why you don't want me to read it?"

Harry shrugged and surprisingly handed it over to me. "Here. I guess I don't have a reason, but don't dare tell anything about this to Hermione or Ron."

I nodded and opened the book to the first page and said out loud what I had just read "Half-Blood Prince...who's the Half-Blood Prince?"

"I don't know. That's what I was trying to figure out."I looked through it and noticed almost everything was corrected. Then something caught my eye. It was spells that I've never heard of. "Harry, look at this."

I handed the book over to him to see. "I've never heard of these before. Let me just try one." He pulled out his wand, but I stopped him.

"No! It could be dangerous. Who knows what these spells can do. Maybe it's dark magic, we can't be too sure."Harry slowly put his wand away and sighed knowing I was right, but I knew that he was going to try them when I wasn't around and that scared me.