A/N: Remember, broolo = horse polo on brooms!

1 December

This morning Hermione ate her breakfast as usual with Malfoy, Blaise, Joel, and Gabryel. Ellie had ditched them for eating with Dean who she at the moment flirted unbridled with. She smiled a little at her two friends before she turned to Malfoy and asked with a soft voice:

"Malfoy, can you send me the marmalade please?"

"Why do you and Draco call each other by your last names?" Gabryel asked. "I know that you do it in Britain with people you don't know very well, but you two are friends!"

"Fine…" Hermione said, too tired to argue with Gabryel "… Draco, can you send me the marmalade please?" She found that his name rolled nicely on her tongue.

"Here you go, Hermione." Mal-Draco said with an emphasis on Hermione. When he said her name she felt an odd, but warm and fuzzy feeling erupt in her stomach. Almost sensing the perplexed expression she was supporting she turned down and took the jar and focused on her marmalade-sandwich. The guys quickly started talking about broolo, they had seen their first match yesterday and Hermione had found herself to enjoy the game, much more than Quidditch!

"Excuse me, could I have everyone's attention please?" They heard a strict voice call out. All the students in the room turned their heads toward the teachers table from where the voice had came. They saw Mrs. Nord stand up, and for once, looking quite happy. It was not only Hermione who noticed the happy look on the Head Mistress.

"I don't think I have ever seen her so happy." Gabryel said. Joel leaned his head closer to Hermione's ear and whispered "I have." with a smirk. Joel had told her about his little affair with the Head Mistress about a week ago and to her own surprise she had found that she thought it was kind of funny that Joel was Mrs. Nord's little "crush". Their personalities, as Hermione knew, had absolutely nothing in common. The funniest part was that Joel actually seemed to like her.

"I am glad to tell you that we have found a proper teacher for Charms-class" Mrs. Nord said, talking loud and clear so the whole hall would here. "Let me introduce you for your new charms-teacher…" Mrs. Nord continued pointing at middle-aged, handsome of course, man at the end of the teachers table, next to Dumbledore.

"He does look nice!" Joel said, still having his head close to hers. "Ops, looks like Draco doesn't like me to be so close to his soon-to-be girlfriend." he said as he saw the death glares Draco was sending him and returned to lean back, comfortable in his chair.

"Don't you start too!" Hermione said, thinking about all the times this week Ellie had said that Draco liked her. Joel smirked at her but the smirk soon washed when he heard Mrs. Nord finishing with her introduction of the new teacher:

"… My husband, Mr. Elliot Nord."

Now, instead of smirking, he looked like someone had told him his cat had been run-over.

"Hey, Joel, do you feel alright?" Gabryel asked his best friend with concern in his voice "You look like you did when you and Rebecka broke up." he said with a little chuckle, but quickly stopped when Hermione shoot him a glance that would have made Lord Voldemort proud.

"I-I'm just going to take some air." Joel

"I'll think that I'm going to go check on him." Hermione said, after two awkward minutes

"I'll go with you." Draco said and gave her a smile that gave her cheeks a light blush, luckily it was no one who saw.

ooo

After a few minutes searching they found Joel sitting, curled up like a ball with his back against them, on a bench looking out at the rainy schoolyard.

He didn't turn when they walked closer but asked with an unsteady voice

"W-what do you want?"

"Just to make sure that you are okay." Hermione said with a soft, comforting voice simultaneously as she walked over and dropped to the floor so she had her head at the same height as Joel had. She gave Draco a nod that showed him that he would sit down next to their friend and when he did what she wanted, he saw that Joel had tear stains on his cheeks. Draco really wasn't big fan of tears. Father had always told him that Malfoy's didn't cry, hence he felt uncomfortable with people showing strong emotions in public.

"Well, I'm not, so can you just leave me alone?" Joel answered Hermione's question.

"It won't help you know." Draco surprised himself to say.

"What?"

"Shutting your friends out." He meet Hermione's glance and he knew that it was she was surprised that he had said it. He never shared any of his problems with anyone. It was his father's fault that he was too proud to let anyone help him. He didn't even confess his problems to Blaise and Pansy. They had to force it out of him, so they would know how to help him.

"Exactly." Hermione said, still looking a bit shocked about what he had said. She stepped up from the floor and sat down on the other side of Joel.

"You know, everything is going to be just fine." Hermione said as she put her arms around him and gave Joel a hug. He let her fuss him over and rested his head against Hermione's shoulder and soon Draco could see new tears rolling down.

"Maybe we should move to a more private place?" Draco asked, still very uncomfortable with Joel's tears. In his opinion, men don't cry in public, but Joel was more opened minded than Draco ever was going to be. But Draco still thought that Joel did not want the whole school to see that he cried.

After they led Joel to Hermione and Blaise's section, they gave him a bottle of dreamless draught and put him in Hermione's bed (Draco felt like he was Joel's father all the time, a very unpleasant feeling! But Hermione had made him sit there with them till Joel fell asleep) the two friends had seated themselves in one of the couch.

"I think that we should skip classes today and take care of Joel." he heard Hermione said. When he stared at her like she was insane, she continued:

"I know it is irresponsible and that we really should go to class. But I think that it is important for Joel to have us here!" Hermione said. "And I think that if we went to Dumbledore and explained the whole thing, okay, not the whole thing, just the 'Joel is very sad part' and if we studied the same things as in classes, I think that professor Dumbledore would let us stay here. I mean, we are both top-students, it's not like we're going to fail classes just because we stay here in my room."

"You really surprise me sometimes!" Draco said with a genuine smile. "But sure, if you go and ask, I'll babysit."

"Just because you don't want to ask professor Dumbledore…" Hermione muttered as she walked out of the room.

15 minutes later she returned through the door.

"Dumbledore said that if we studied really hard and concentrated, it would be alright for this time. Then he said that it was good that we have become so good friends with the students here. He is talking to our teachers to make sure that they send up the homework after each lesson is finished."

While they waited for their first workload of homework Hermione wrote letters to Potty, Weasel and She-weasel and he read a book he had found in Hermione's room. Nothing special happened until Joel woke up at 5 a.m. and Hermione walked in to talk to him. After 20 minutes she came out and said:

"We're having a sleepover tonight."

"We're what? I haven't been on a sleepover since I was 5!"

"Well tonight you are!" Hermione told him with a stern voice "And now, before dinner, you are going to talk to Gabryel that he has to make sure that Blaise stay's out late so he don't notice you walking into my room with your and Joel's sleep stuff."

"Why do I have to do everything?" He asked angrily.

"Because I think that it would seem a bit weird if I walked into your room and took things from it! And because Gabryel is your friend!" He shot her an evil glance before walking out with angry steps. Half an hour later at dinner he gave her a nod that showed that the things she had ordered was done, then he excused himself from the table, picked up his very full bag and walked out from the Hall.

Ooo

"So how are we going to do this?" Hermione asked when it was bedtime. "Do any of you want to sleep at a particular place?"

"Don't take this wrong Joel, but I don't want to sleep next to you, so Hermione, you sleep in the middle."

"Is that okay with you, sweetie?" Hermione asked Joel, taking this "babysitting"-roll very serious. Draco rolled his eyes and when Joel answered "yes" the three of them laid down. Draco was very happy that Hermione's bed was a double, one of the good things with being Head Boy/Girl.

"So what do you want to talk about?" Hermione asked excitedly.

"Talk about?" Joel asked, not as sad anymore as Draco could see.

"When you have a sleepover, you always talk or discuss something before going to bed." Hermione explained.

"Girls do that, not boys!" Draco said, killing the excitement from Hermione's face.

"Well, lets' just sleep then." She said with a slight crestfallen look on her face.

Ooo

The next morning, Hermione woke up by a flash filling the room. Closing her eyes hard she snuggled deeper down in her warm cozy bed.

"You two are so cute!" She heard Ellie squeal and tried to look up at her Swedish friend. She found that to be impossible since she was stuck in a tight embrace. She was surprised to found herself being wrapped up by two pale arms. She dared herself to continue looking up and found that her face was very, very close to Malfoy's and felt that under the cover, their legs where entwined. "This was so awkward! She had do move away quick and not wake Malfoy up!" Her thoughts were interrupted by Ellie.

"I'm going to enlarge this picture and hang it up over the fireplace in the common room so everyone can see how cute you are!" She heard Ellie chuckle evilly as she walked out of the room.

"No you're not!" Hermione shrieked, trying to get out of Draco's embrace, only to find that her shriek had woke him up and found him looking first at her, and them past her.

Then she remembered that Joel was also in the bed, she quickly turned and found him sitting up at the edge of the bed smirking down at them.

"Well this definitely cleared my bad mood!"

A/N: I hope that you like this chapter! Thanks to Freakyella as usual and don't forget to review!

Just so you know, the photo Ellie took is a Polaroid-photo!