-:Chapter 5: The Morning After:-

"Pansy." Jenny whispered, poking the green comforter. "Pansy!"

Silence.

"Oh, Puh-AN-sy…" she trilled loudly, her voice jumping several octaves and resonating in the room grotesquely.

"If you don't shut the fuck up, bitch, I swear I will set fire to your entire wardrobe." Pansy snarled from under the covers.

"Well, aren't we just a ray of sunshine in the morning?" Jenny laughed. The lump that she could only guess was Pansy didn't even twitch. "Fine, I'll wait downstairs," Jenny said at last, turning on her heel and strolling down the stairs in a huff.

The common room was mostly empty, as most of students had already gone down to breakfast. She took a moment to examine her new home more closely, especially the pale green light that was filtering in from the windows.

"It's water."

"GAH!" she shrieked, jumping a foot into the air before whipping around, "Holy shit, Draco!" she gasped, clutching her racing heart while the smirking blond bastard merely grinned, "Make some noise when you move!"

"It's not my fault you're especially unobservant," Draco drawled, dulling the jab by flashing his most charming smile at her. She narrowed her eyes at him, glaring at him for a moment before sticking her tongue out at him in retaliation. He laughed, "How mature you are in the morning."

"Maturity is overrated," she replied, turning back to the windows, "What were you saying about the glass?"

"It's not the glass. It's the water."

"Say what?" she asked blankly.

"Our entire common room is under the Black Lake. What you're seeing is light filtering down through the water all the way to our windows."

"That…is…so cool!" she squealed after a moment, her eyes sparkling as she gazed out the window excitedly. Draco smiled.

'He shoots and he scores…' he thought, giving himself a mental pat on the back.

"So, where's Blaisey-boy?" she asked after a few more minutes of window-ogling. "Is he a terrible morning person like Pans?"

Draco grinned, "So you noticed." In truth, he'd been half afraid that Pansy, in her early morning rage, would kill Jenny before he even had a chance with her.

"Hard not to, seeing as I'm starving and I want some breakfast and she won't get the fuck out of bed…" she grumbled, crossing her arms and glaring at the staircase leading back up to the girls' dorms.

"I'll take you to breakfast," Draco offered, trying to seem casual and not like he'd been waiting for her to come down for an hour so that he could do just that. She blinked for a moment, her eyes wide, before she smiled.

"Thanks, Dray," she said, looping her arm through his. Draco smirked, and began leading her towards the portrait hole.

"I hope you weren't thinking of stealing her away, Malfoy," Blaise said from behind them. Draco smirked at his best friend over his shoulder.

"Hey, you snooze, you lose, mate," he said with a shrug, "By the way, Pans refuses to get up. Better nip that in the bud before she sleeps 'till noon."

"What? Draco!" Blaise whined, as the portrait hole swung shut behind them. "Get back here, you traitor!"

Draco snickered proudly as they continued to walk, while Jenny narrowed her eyes at him in disapproval.

"That wasn't very nice, Draco," she scolded, smacking his arm lightly, "She might actually kill him, and then what?"

Draco merely grinned at her charmingly. "Turns out, I'm not a very nice person either," he said, winking and wringing a smile out of her.

"Oh? You mean besides your horrible crime of abandoning your friends to tired, violent, grumpy she-devils?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course," he muttered, momentarily distracted by a passing Ravenclaw giving Jenny a once over. Draco drew her a little bit closer, sending a white hot glare at the boy over her head. "I don't like to share, either."

After a while, Blaise and Pansy made it down to the Great Hall, and Jenny giggled when Blaise sat down with a wince. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"Unsympathetic bitch," he huffed imperiously. She feigned shock, a grin hiding in the corners of her mouth.

"You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing…" she said innocently. He glared for a moment longer before smirking.

"It's almost frightening how much you belong here," he said with a smile, buttering a slice of toast. She smiled.

"Thank you," she said, before a shadow enveloped her.

"Miss Rovalt?" Severus Snape asked, looking down his hook nose at her.

"Present, pretty, and oddly popular!" she said with a salute. He raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed. I trust you've found your dormitory to your liking?" he said in a bored, I-don't-really-give-a-damn-either-way-voice.

Jenny, in her early-morning-obliviousness, answered brightly, "Yes, sirree, sir!" she gestured at her companions, "These three have been taking extra special good care of me!"

"I see," he said, giving Draco an intrigued look that the blond ignored completely. Snape turned his attention to a stack of papers in his hands, lifting the first page up to his eyes and scanning it quickly. "Well, Miss Rovalt, there seems to be some discrepancies with your schedule."

"Are you sure?" she asked, looking confused. "I went over it, like, eight times with my counselor at Salem…"

"Yes. You seem to be signed up for NEWT level Potions and History of Magic, and OWL level Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Yeah? And?"

"You are not eligible to take those courses. They are much too high for your skill level, especially potions."

"What?" she said, aghast, "B-but I'm-"

"Here is your revised schedule." Snape said, talking over her as handed her the piece of paper before turning his back on her. "Good day, Miss Rovalt," he said as he swept down the table in a swirl of black robes, handing out schedules as he went.

"…Lamer!" she said after a moment, pouting and crossing her arms as she glared at Snape's back, "Now I'm going to be bored out of my fucking mind. Great."

"How did you even get signed up for NEWT level courses?" Draco asked, looking over her shoulder at her schedule while simultaneously stealing food from her plate.

"My counselor said that those courses equaled the ones I would have been taking at Salem this year," she said, looking at her new schedule with distaste. "This is gonna suck…"

-:End Chapter:-