In this chapter, I'm trying to handle the theme of different kinds of attraction as realistically as possible. Ooooh, stuff's gonna happen. Gold swears a bit in this chapter. When I write his dialogue, I have to actively go back in and remove the cursing, so I'm amazed it's only happened once.

For the record, I've never been particularly pleased with the way the book handled fat characters, as well as Slytherins.

Summary: In the trio's fifth year, they come across a little band of Slytherins who want to make their own stand against Voldemort. Their leader - the sharp and unconventional Gold - has something Harry wants. And Hermione... well, she'd like to call it a mind-crush. An exploration of culture, class structure and exclusion in the wizarding world with shades of Hermione/OC tossed in.

Chapter 3

She liked listening to him talk. Whenever he answered a question for Professor Vector, Hermione would close her eyes and drink in the intelligence in his voice. Closing her eyes seemed less important than before, though. He was heavy, but he moved with a certain strange confidence. She wished she could have cared so little what anybody thought of her.

After class, she caught him in the corridor just as he was leaving. "David!"

"Since when do you call me David, Granger?"

Hermione didn't reply. Instead, she handed him a golden galleon. "It's charmed," she whispered. "The numbers round the rim are the next D.A. meeting. They'll change every time we schedule one. I'm making more for the other snakes as soon as I can."

He stared at the coin, then looked up at her with unmistakable respect. He was smiling. "Nobody'd suspect a thing to find you carrying money – Granger, this is the cleverest thing I've seen all month."

And then Hermione did something very silly. She leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. "That means a lot from you."

A moment later, she'd fled down the hall to her next class, confused at what had made her do it, and so she never saw Gold open his mouth to speak and find, for the first time in a decade, that no words were coming out.

Candles were very important in Hebraic magic. Harry was learning that. Some spells only worked when you had one lit. Some- mostly protection spells, powerful wards - had to be spoken in rhythm with the flickering flame. He'd spent last week focused on offence. Curses. A few hexes. Now he was turning his attention to wards. Broadening his repertoire. The intonation was the hardest part, but even if it would never sound as melodic as when Gold said it, there was still a kind of music in it.

"You really think learning this stuff is going to make a big difference?" asked Ron, from the bunk next to Harry, as the candle flame burned low.

"Dunno," answered Harry. "But I know it's easier to master than Occlumency, and at this point-"

"Anything could help?"

"Anything."

Ron seemed to be at peace with that answer. "The snakes haven't done anything on the map - I reckon they're safe enough," he admitted.

"Thanks, Ron," said Harry, pleasantly surprised.

"Whole house couldn't be evil, 'cos - you know what I thought of the other day?"

"What?"

"Well, you were nearly sorted Slytherin, weren't you?"

Harry paused. He had always thought - had felt it implied in Dumbledore's talk of choices deciding who he was - that choosing Gryffindor over Slytherin had somehow saved him. If he'd let the hat choose... would he have turned into another Malfoy? It seemed hard to fathom. The hat had talked about a thirst to prove himself. If that was enough to earn you a place in Slytherin, Harry wasn't sure he didn't still belong there.

"'Sides-" Ron yawned."You're sorted when you're eleven. I've known some mean little shits at eleven but none of them were evil."

"I dunno, Dudley was pretty evil."

Ron snickered. "Remember the ton-tongue toffee?"

The thought of it cheered Harry up substantially. "Ol' Dudders was really more spoiled than evil if I'm being fair."

"Y'ever wonder if there's a difference? Y'know, if maybe it's just a, a sort of a hill you go down, from being a bit spoiled or angry or difficult to being proper evil?"

"You're feeling very philosophical tonight, Ron."

Ron shrugged. "The snakes made me think. Chess, chess is what I know. Black and white, right? Simple. But actually it isn't, always, because you're not this perfect leader who values all his pawns like we reckon Dumbledore is. You make sacrifices. So... it's all grey areas, isn't it? And who gave you the power to decide a pawn is a pawn?"

Dumbledore's not a perfect leader either, Ron. He's a chessmaster just like you. Harry didn't say it aloud.

"In the end I don't think it matters who you are so much as what you're fighting for... Dumbledore'd probably be proud, you thinking to look outside of what's familiar for allies."

Harry didn't answer, and a short while later he heard Ron roll over and begin to snore. Dumbledore was amassing every tool he could. Harry knew that. But he didn't seem to understand that Harry could be useful – and now Harry had found a tool that not even Dumbledore knew about. He might have been fifteen, but he was not a child. Voldemort had taken his parents and the life of his classmate. Voldemort had taken his blood. How could he still be a child and know all that? He hadn't lost the thirst to prove himself at all. When the time came, he'd fight like an adult.

He was definitely a better kisser than Viktor Krum. Which was funny, because unlike Viktor Krum, David Gold, for all his swaggering assurance, had plainly never done anything like this before. It was oddly satisfying to see him turn so unsure of himself. They were in the abandoned girls' washroom and Hermione had one hand in his once-perfect hair and the other on the knot of his tie.

"Granger-"

"Hermione."

"You're mental, Hermione."

She had gone a bit mental. A month ago she wouldn't have looked at him except to hate him. And now she was snogging him in a washroom. She, know-it-all ice queen Granger, who never broke the rules, least of all for a boy. A Slytherin boy. And not even an attractive one - not that it seemed to matter right now. It was intellect that had done it, she realized. It was like his inner qualities had leaked outward. "Is that a complaint, David?"

"Merlin, no." David closed his eyes and kissed her hard. There was want behind it. It felt good, being wanted.

Then, suddenly, he pulled away like he'd been burnt. "This isn't a good idea."

"What's wrong?"

"I am."

Hermione had pressed herself up against him, carried away in the moment. She looked up at him and frowned. Honestly, he was ruining everything. "But you're brilliant."

"Which is the only thing you like about me." David took hold of her hand, gently detaching it from the knot of his tie. The angry scar on the back of it leapt out at her. I must not question authority. "I'm not a person, I'm a problem in person form. Whatever you're looking for, you're not going to find it in me."

"If this is about your weight-"

"Don't patronize me, Hermione, I know you wish it was otherwise. That is just one of a long, long list of grievances the world has had with me. The fact is, I don't like changing for other people. What do you want out of this?"

Hermione found she didn't know how to answer.

David tilted his head. "Does it get lonely, up there at the top? Surrounded by people who are always one step behind you?"

"You know it does."

"So you want an equal. And yet you've destroyed me in duelling – potions – I never would have thought of the coins – and you've enjoyed it."

That was it. Hermione pulled away from him, turning to hide her face. Hermione Granger, the brightest young witch of her age. She needed that. It was all she had, all that let her stand next to Harry and Ron and feel she was worthy despite her bushy hair and the buck teeth that she'd magicked away in fourth year and yet still found herself trying to hide sometimes, her fussiness, her need to be perfect – she wanted an equal, but she was too scared to allow anyone onto her level.

Was that what this was about? Wrapping David Gold around her finger because she couldn't out-think him in Arithmancy? Taking possession of him so that she wouldn't have to feel so alone?

"But you understand," she mumbled, already knowing it was useless. "You get angry when things aren't right."

"Nothing's ever right, and I'm always angry." He let out a breath, his gaze dropping. He looked small and miserable. "I do understand. But a meeting of minds isn't enough. If you just wanted to know you could make me want you more than anything, then, well… Mazel tov, you got your wish. Here I am at your feet. Now go find yourself somebody you actually like, as well as respect."

Hermione swallowed. Then she sat down against the cool tiled wall, fixing her collar and her hair. Restoring herself. A moment later, he joined her. Outside of the heat of the moment, she had no idea how she had ever found him appealing.

"... I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to string you along."

"Don't rub it in, Granger. My pride is all I've got."

They were back to last names. Probably for the best. "Is it so bad, Gold? That I wanted you to like me even though I couldn't like you?" She understood the way he'd used the word 'like'; not as a squealing teenager who used it to hint at whom she fancied, but to speak of affection for the body and the heart and the mind.

Gold shrugged. "You don't usually try to make people like you. It's like you've given up hope."

"Well." Hermione stared at her hands. "Granger, the know-it-all. She's a nightmare, honestly!" It was impossible to keep the hurt out of her voice. "Harry and Ron were the first people to like me as I am. Most people still don't. It's easier to be respected. If they're not going to like me, I can at least prove I'm clever."

Gold turned to meet her gaze. "You weren't made to fit in. Fuck them all. You don't need their validation. Be exceptional. It won't be lonely forever – Weasley'll grow up, and if he doesn't, he doesn't deserve you."

It was both the nicest thing he'd ever said to her, and the most embarrassing. Thank Merlin he'd stopped her snogging him, thought Hermione. The extent of her mistake was finally beginning to sink in. "You weren't made to fit in either, Gold," she murmured, getting to her feet. Her eyes flickered over him one last time, taking in all the details that had made her so conflicted. "I'm sorry I couldn't like you."

"Stop apologizing and get on with you," said Gold, mock-irritably.

Hermione leaned in to peck him on the cheek again. This time, it was nothing but friendly. "I'll see you at D.A.," she said. Then she disappeared out the door, leaving Gold sitting on his haunches against the wall of an abandoned girls' toilets with his hair a mess. For a while, he didn't move. The only sound was the dripping of the broken-down taps.

"You know, I've always fancied bigger men. If you're not all snogged-out..."

"Oh, shut up, Myrtle."

Didon Pettyfer showed up to that week's D.A. meeting leading a little group of snakes and beaming from ear to ear. "Harry! Harry! Guess what we did?"

"What did you do?"

"We bugged the Slytherin common room," blurted one of the others, a Muggleborn named Lucas Speck.

"Bugged? Muggle devices won't-"

"We're not stupid. A magical bug."

"Didon found a charm that makes things listen-"

"-And we charmed all the torch fixtures and tapestries-"

"-And they send everything they hear to an enchanted quill!" Pettyfer waved the quill in front of him. "It writes it all down! We want to hide it here in the Room of Requirement and then we can read it out for anything suspicious-"

Harry was cautiously impressed. He tried to hide it, for the moment. "Do you think they'd be thick enough to talk about anything important in the common room?"

"Some of the muppet baby Death Eaters are pretty thick," observed Pettyfer, sounding an awful lot like Gold. "The other day Malfoy said his family could trace their magic back 3000 years and Crabbe asked Goyle how that was possible when it was only 1995."

Harry winced. "It certainly can't hurt. Good thinking, you lot, very clever."

Speck's grin was almost as wide as his whole face. "If you get any other ideas like that, Harry, let us know. Didon's really good with sneaky little charms. We can't all teach you fancy spells in other languages but we all want to help."

Suddenly, Harry was struck by the utter sincerity on all their faces. They were in the enemy's lair - literally, even - and still doing everything they could for the cause. He'd known Gryffindors who were less brave.

Later, he would realize that bravery, in Slytherin house, was not a rare quality at all.

Do please R&R!