Hermione peeked over her book at Draco as he read. It was beyond her why he wanted to sit here but she wasn't gonna press the matter. She also wondered whom the blue-haired girl was and why she seemed to know him so well. Draco's eyes flew up to meet hers.

"What are you looking at?"

"You."

He seemed taken aback by her honest answer, obviously expecting a smart-aleck response.

"Lose your spunk over the summer?"

She rolled her eyes and went back to her book. He watched her for a minute and went back to reading too. By the time the train came to a stop, their little interaction was on neither of their minds. Draco snapped the book shut and handed it back to Hermione, leaving without muttering a word. Hermione slowly followed after him watching as he jumped into a carriage. To his obvious dismay the blue-haired girl, followed by Luna, jump in right behind him. Luna waved for Hermione to join them but she shook her head as Ron and Harry came into view.

"Where were you?"

"Your concern just oozes Ron…I couldn't find you so I sat by myself, well kind of. After a while Malfoy came and sat with me."

"What'd he do that for?"

Ron's obvious anger made Hermione raise an eyebrow. Harry shook his head quickly at Ron and guided them both to a carriage. The entire way to the castle Ron guessed at why Malfoy had sat with Hermione. Finally Neville who had sat quietly unnoticed spoke up.

"Maybe he found her fetching."

Ron glared at me.

"Are you kidding me? This is Hermione we're talking about!"

"Jerk!"

Harry and Neville stared at Ron, unsure of what he possibly might have been thinking. Hermione jumped quickly out of the cart without waiting for it to pull to a stop and walked the extra 100 feet to the castle. Ron called after her.

"That's not what I meant!"

He turned to Harry who was shaking his head.

"You know that right? I just meant he's into that pureblood mumbo jumbo and all."

Harry and Neville jumped out of the carriage and Ron scrambled quickly after them, suddenly not sure he had any friends. By the time they reached the Great Hall though, they had forgotten Hermione and were discussing the new Broomstick that was about to be released the following week.

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Hermione decided to skip dinner and headed towards the dorms but stopped halfway there and turned towards the library. She wasn't sure why she ran. She knew what Ron had meant; that to Malfoy she would always be a "Mudblood". Sinking down behind one of the last rows of books, she drifted to sleep. In her dream she had sat with the blue-haired girl and Luna instead of looking for Ron and Harry. They sat there and chatted like old friends about everything, school, boys, etc. Suddenly Malfoy stormed in and grabbed the blue-haired girl by the arm, shaking her, screaming at her to stay away from Hermione.

Suddenly Hermione woke up to find the blue-haired girl standing above her with her hand extended. She smiled brightly as she shook Hermione's hand.

"Hi, my name's Alice. We should be friends. Call me Ali."

The hand Hermione was shaking pulled her up off the ground and then let go. Alice disappeared around the corner but her head quickly popped back into view.

"Come on!"

Hermione followed after her. After following a maze of hallways, some even Hermione didn't know existed, they reached a small room.

"Um where are we?"

"My dorm silly!"

Hermione looked around her. The small room was decorated in cast iron furniture and enchanted roses, which grew up the walls and across the ceiling.

"But…" Alice interrupted her.

"I'm not actually a student here. I'm an orphan and Dumbledore agreed I could stay here."

"Don't you have to go to school?"

Alice shook her head.

"I don't have to do anything I don't want to do."

"Oh, that must be nice."

"You have no idea!"

Hermione spent the next couple hours listening to Alice's life story. She had been orphaned as a child and spent pretty much all her time causing trouble. This assured she wouldn't last anytime at all when placed in a foster home. Eventually Dumbledore had agreed she could stay here and to her delight she wasn't even required to take classes.

"It doesn't matter though cause I'll be 17 in 3 months and then I can go wherever I like as well."

Eventually Hermione bid her goodnight and she left smiling. It was good to have a friend who was a girl but wasn't an airhead. Alice was different from most people; her life goals were different. When she got to the Gryffindor dorm Ron was waiting up for her.

"I'm sorry I said…"

"Don't worry about it."

Despite Ron's lack of common sense, he was one of her best friends.

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I love you all!