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I avoided Harry and Ron as much as I could for the next few weeks, sitting with Draco and his friends during my classes who all kept Harry and Ron at bay. Eventually though, they cornered me.
"Amy," Harry began again. I shook my head, and cut him off.
"I've told you, I don't want to hear it. You don't want me to be friends with him, because you think he'll hurt me. That he's just using me." I turned to glare at Ron who was next to my brother. "You want me to eat more at meal times. You want, you want, you want. Well I don't want to hear it repeated."
"Amy, please, I want to…"
Again, I cut him off. "No. Harry, I've heard what I need. You're not…" Ron cut me off by clapping a hand over my mouth.
"Yes. Harry's not in control of you're life. We've heard. Now hear us out." He turned to Harry.
"Amy, we're sorry about what we said. If you want to be friends with Malfoy, that's you're decision. We won't interfere, but we think it's a bad idea. We're sorry, but please don't avoid us because of him."
I nodded behind Ron's hand gag. He let me go, relieved. I rubbed my jaw slightly, sticking my tongue out at him.
"Can we head to dinner now you're done 'kidnapping her if need be'?" Ron asked wistfully, and I laughed. Ron ate more in one sitting than I did in about a week. Not that was a problem here at Hogwarts, because the food was always plentiful at meal times. Harry and I grinned at each other at his appetite, and we made out way down to dinner. I sat with them again, the first time in three or four weeks, and loaded my own plate. Ron glared at it, as if the lack of food was offending him, but he said nothing, thankfully.
The last week until Halloween past uneventfully for me, although Draco did seem a tad put out that I was friends with Harry and Ron again. I made sure to sit with him in potions still though, to save him from the nightmare that was Pansy Parkinson for a potions partner.
As Halloween approached I watched the castle activity with increasing wonder. I had never had a Halloween celebration, so I examined and asked questions about everything. Harry and Ron laughed and explained it all patiently to me. We didn't have many classes that day, so we sat in the Great Hall and watched all the setting up. By dinner, the Hall was a brilliant sight, carved pumpkins with candles inside lighting the Hall, and so much food, decorated to match the occasion.
I ate my normal, which had actually increased ever so slightly by the time Halloween came. I hoped I would be able to survive at the manor again after having food so plentiful for most of a year.
During a lull in our conversation, I looked around the table, noticing that Hermione's seat was empty. I didn't care much for her; she was bossy and flaunted her knowledge in every single class. She was arrogant in a way that even Draco wasn't.
I nudged Harry, who was sitting on my left. "Where's Hermione?" I asked him. He shrugged, looking over to her seat. Someone else answered my question.
"She's in the girls bathroom, crying."
I opened my mouth to ask why, when the doors swung open and Professor Quirrel ran through.
"Troll!" He yelled "Troll, in the dungeon!" He stopped about half way down the Hall, as if realising what he was doing. "Thought you ought to know." He said, dropping into a faint, spread across the floor between Ravenclaw and Slytherin.
Everyone started to panic, and Dumbledore stood. "Silence!" He called.
Everyone stopped to look.
"Good. Now, Prefects, please take your house to its' common room, and keep everyone together and calm. Teachers, please follow me to the dungeon."
Immediately, noise bubbled through the Hall again, as everyone began talking at once. I followed Ron and Harry out, but stopped, halting them as well.
"Hermione!"
"What?" Ron asked, but Harry caught my meaning.
"Hermione! She doesn't know!" He enlightened Ron. "Come on!"
We began to run back the other way, towards the girl's bathroom.
"Shouldn't we be getting a teacher?" I puffed, disgruntledly. The other two ignored me, and I pushed on after the boys. We were nearly there, when the troll rounded the corner and entered the bathroom. We followed it in, to see it swinging its' club through a row of cubicles, and Hermione lying on the floor, covering her head.
"Hermione! Move!" Harry called as the troll swung its' club towards where Hermione was laying. She crawled out of the way just in time. Ron started throwing pieces of wood at it, and I copied him, at a loss for what to do.
It turned towards us in confusion, and Hermione ran for the taps, but it beat her there, swinging the club and breaking straight through them. Harry jumped on it, and was pulled up by the club. Not the smartest idea, as now the troll had him by the ankle, swinging the club as he ducked towards the ceiling.
"Do something!" He called to Ron, for I was standing by Hermione, helping her stand, checking she wasn't badly injured.
"What?" I heard Ron call back as he looked around for something.
"Anything!"
Ron pulled out his wand, a determined look on his face. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The troll swung his club, to find it gone, hanging in the air above his head. He looked around, before looking up, and it dropped heavily, square onto his head, knocking him out. Harry landed hard on the floor, and Ron rushed over to help him up. We all stood, staring at the creature we had defeated when Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrel walked in, halting in the doorway at the sight.
"Oh… what happened here?" Professor McGonagall demanded.
"We…" Ron began, trailing off at our lack of explanation.
"It's my fault, Professor." Hermione explained.
"What?" I started, but Harry elbowed me, cutting me off.
"I thought I could handle the troll, that I could try out a few of the spells we've been learning in class, Professor. I found that I couldn't. If it wasn't for them, I'd be dead." Hermione looked at her feet, undoubtedly mentally berating herself for deliberately lying to a teacher.
"Well then. Five points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger." Professor McGonagall said, before she turned to us three. "And as for you three, five points each. For sheer, dumb luck. Not many first years like you could take on a fully-grown mountain troll and live. To your dormitories now."
"Y-yes." Professor Quirrel stuttered, examining the troll. "B-before it w-wakes up."
We all left the troll gratefully, heading back to the common room.
"Did you see Snape's leg?" Harry asked us. "I bet he let the troll in as a diversion, and tried to get past that three-headed dog."
I looked sharply at him. "What three-headed dog?" I asked curiously.
"On the third floor. It's guarding something, it was standing on a trapdoor."
"Isn't the third floor forbidden though?"
"We were escaping Filch's cat." Ron explained. "It was purely by accident."
"Uh huh." I raised my eyebrows sceptically, before shaking my head at their antics. "Well goodnight." I bid the three of them, heading up to my bed. Secretly I was disappointed I was left out of their adventures, before I reminded myself I'd been avoiding them for several weeks. If I wanted to hang out with Draco, it wasn't my fault they didn't include me in their adventures. Anyway, surely as much rule breaking as they did, sooner or later they'd get caught. I just hoped they wouldn't get expelled.
Or killed. The rules seemed much more serious when that was a consequence.