October came, and with it, half of the school caught sick. Madam Pomfrey was constantly doling out doses of Pepperup Potion, and Bonnie was one of the unlucky recipients. Her throat had been sore and she'd been coughing for a solid day before Cedric all but dragged her to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey shook her head as she put a cup of potion into Bonnie's hand. "Almost the entire school, including staff!" she said, watching as Bonnie downed the potion.
It felt like liquid fire sliding down her throat and pooling in her stomach. She coughed in protest, wincing.
Smoke immediately began to billow from her ears.
"I hate that stuff," she muttered, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, as if that could eliminate the stinging remnants of the burning liquid.
"Yes," Madam Pomfrey said, tight-lipped. "Well. How do you feel?"
"Better," Bonnie grudgingly admitted. "Much better."
In fact, she felt cured. There wasn't so much as a tickle in her throat.
But she wasn't about to admit it.

"Ced?" She asked as they left the Hospital Wing,
"Yes?"
"Can you do me a favor, since you dragged me into this mess?"
Cedric glanced at her slantways.
"What would that be?"
"Cover my ears so I'm not billowing smoke all the way to Hufflepuff?"
Cedric sighed and closed his eyes.
"You have got to be kidding," he said.
Bonnie smiled sweetly.
"You're not kidding. Are you?"
She shook her head, and watched him watch the smoke pouring from her ears. And then, she watched him decide.
"Fine," he said. "But you do realize this will look just as ridiculous..."
"Yes, but now I'm not the only one looking ridiculous, am I?"
"Wonderful. Just wonderful."
She grinned, Cedric slapped his hands over her ears, and they made their way like train cars down to the Hufflepuff entrance.
"Thank goodness that smoke doesn't burn," Cedric said, laughing as they crawled into the Common Room.
"Thanks, Ced!" she called, stumbling through the Common Room as she made her way toward her dormitory. "You saved me!"
Cedric shook his head and waved as the blonde disappeared behind the large, round door across the room.

Bonnie threw herself across her bed, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she watched smoke drift up from her head.
"This," she told the empty room (or not so empty - Milton, and Thalia's cat Emmy both looked up from their respective perches) "Is ridiculous."
She rolled onto her side, to a curious crunching noise. Scrambling to press herself up on her hands, she found an envelope, now slightly crumpled, had been sitting on her bed.
She must've narrowly missed it when she'd thrown herself across the bed.
"Bonnie," it said on the front. "Hufflepuff House, Fifth Year Girl's Dormitory."
The handwriting was the same as the envelope she'd received over the summer, cramped and spiky. She opened it slowly and pulled out a single piece of paper.
Bonnie, it read.
I would very much enjoy your company for the next Hogsmeade trip. If you would care to join me, would you please meet me before departure in the entrance hall?
Yours,
Ian Rosier.

His signature was entirely different from his normal handwriting, a great, graceful, swooping thing with little flourish.

Bonnie sighed and let her head flop against the mattress. She'd forgotten about the Hogsmeade trip entirely.
And if she went with Ian, what would the rest of the students think? What would her friends think?
ANd why in the world did she care so much?
"Fine," she mumbled, and shoved her face into her pillow. "Fine, I'll go."
"Go where?"
Tess, Thalia, and Patricia had walked in without her noticing them. Bonnie rolled over and looked at them, ears still smoking.
"Ced finally got you to go to the Hospital Wing, I take it," Patricia said. She sat at the end of Bonnie's bed, leaning against one of the posts. Thalia and Tess both perched on the edge of Maggie's bed, looking pointedly at Bonnie.
"Go where?" Thalia repeated.
"Nowhere," Bonnie groaned. She shoved the letter, as yet unseen, beneath her. "Hogsmeade."
"And why is going to Hogsmeade such a complicated decision?" Tess asked, raising an eyebrow.
Tess never missed anything.
"Because someone asked me to go with them."
"Someone, like a boy?" Patricia asked, grabbing one of Bonnie's feet and shaking it slightly, as if she could extract an answer that way.
"What do you think, silly goose?" Thalia giggled. She swatted Patricia with a pillow and ducked when the other girl tried to retaliate.
Bonnie rolled over again, covering her face with her hands.
"Yes," she said, voice muffled by hands and pillow.
"Who?" Patricia cried, bouncing back onto the end of Bonnie's bed, "Tell us, Bon, come on!"

In reply, Bonnie grabbed the now-wrinkled envelope and held it, stiff-armed, out to her friends.
Then covered her face again.
As she could have guessed would happen the giggles died down and the room went quiet.
"Ian Rosier?" Tess asked, unbelieving.
"I knew you were kind of friends with him," Thalia added, "But Hogsmeade..."
"We're still just friends!" Bonnie retorted, sitting up and turning to face them. "It's just..."
"A date," Tess said flatly. Maggie, of course, entered just in time to hear the mention of a date.
"Who has a date?" She asked, all breathless voice and the threat of laughter. "With who? When?"
"Bonnie, with Ian Rosier, in Hogsmeade."
"Tess! My life is not a game of Clue!"
"Clue?"
Bonnie always forgot that not everyone had Muggle relatives.
"Muggle murder mystery game? Colonel Mustard in the library with a crowbar? No?"
The rest looked at her, confused and more than a little amused.
"Ian Rosier?" Maggie said. "You're going to say no, of course. Right, Bonnie?"
"She was agreeing to it when we came in," one of the twins said, then slapped her hand across her mouth at Bonnie's pointed stare. "Sorry, Bon."

Bonnie sighed, turning to look at Maggie.
"He's a friend," she said. "Why would I say no?"
"Because it's the first big Hogsmeade trip of the year, and everyone will think it's a date? And are you even sure it's not, Bonnie? He very well could think it would be."
Bonnie didn't have a response to this. She merely snatched the letter back from Maggie's hand, and fell backward into her pillows to stare at the curtains of her four-poster.
"I just don't see," she said, flinging her arms out to the side, "Why this is anyone's business but mine."
"Because we're your friends," Maggie responded promptly. Though Bonnie could not see her, she could clearly picture her expression as she said this. "And we don't want you to get hurt. And he's a Slytherin, Bonnie. Not to mention the child of an infamous Death Eater. He took a piece out of Alastar Moody, Bon..."
"Wouldn't be the first," Bonnie grumbled darkly. Thalia and Patricia giggled, but Maggie and Tess didn't seem quite as amused.
"Bonnie," Maggie said, "this is serious. Just...know what you're getting yourself into, alright? He won't exactly be an easy friend to have."

Bonnie bit her lip and let her ears smoke instead of replying.
Despite the obvious displeasure of Maggie and the twins (Patricia, as always, seemed only to want everyone's happiness) Bonnie met Ian Rosier in the entrance hall on the morning of the first trip to Hogsmeade.

It was a perfect autumn day, crisp and cold with a clear blue sky and distant sun. The leaves were in full color, drifting through the air and crunching under shoes.
And Bonnie was already beginning to regret allowing her friends to help her dress. Maggie, who had let go of her disapprovement long enough to engage in clothing choices, had done most of the work, and the dress Bonnie now found herself wearing, a close-fitting long-sleeved black wool dress that could easily have been worn in the sixties was, in fact, Bonnie's. The black tights were hers, the black boots were Thalia's. The black wool cap was Patricia's, and was her favorite part of the whole getup - Patricia had even done something to her hair so that it fell in soft almost-curly waves. They'd decked her out almost entirely in black, and so it had been up to Bonnie to add the color. Her Hufflepuff scarf, too long for her, was wrapped many times around her neck, and she'd brought a yellow double-breasted coat.
It had been something she'd bought on a whim, spotted while out with her mother in Muggle London a year or so previously. Much to her mother's apparent chagrin, Bonnie had fallen for it at first sight. Now, she was glad she had.

"You look very nice," Ian said, she thought, rather generously. But she smiled nonetheless, pulling on a pair of black gloves as she joined him.
"Thanks!" She said, bouncing along beside him as they made their way out onto the grounds. "You don't look bad yourself, Mr. Rosier."
Ian glanced at her from the corner of his eye and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his grey wool coat. He'd let his hair grow long enough that it now just brushed the upturned collar. It looked quite soft, Bonnie thought before she could catch herself. Quite soft indeed.

With the abnormal amounts of black hidden beneath the yellow coat, Bonnie Hargrave looked like a canary flitting along next to a panther. As Maggie had warned her, people immediately began to talk - she could hear her name on voices she immediately ignored. But she could tell by Ian's shifting eyes that he noticed, too.
"Listen," he said just as they reached the gates, "You...I'm really very glad you came, but if this is going to make you uncomf..."
"Ian." She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder at the other Hogwarts students. "It's nothing. Let's just...let's go enjoy Hogsmeade, okay?"
In fact...
She skipped around until she was standing next to him, facing the gates, and slipped her arm under his, letting her hand rest in the crook of his elbow. Might as well give them something else to talk about, she thought.
Ian looked more surprised than any of them.
"Let's go," she said, and tugged him forward.
"As you wish."

They followed the crowds, who soon became used to their combined presence, down from Hogwarts and into the village of Hogsmeade.