"Can I tell you two a secret?" asked Ron rather casually as they marched down the corridor. "Part of me was hoping Ginny wouldn't get into Gryffindor."

"Ron!" exclaimed Hermione. "How could you say that?!"

"Well, obviously I'm glad she's not in Slytherin!" Ron said quickly. "It's just gunna be annoying having her in the common room all the time."

"Okay... why?" asked Harry.

Ron shrugged. "She tells Mum everything. She'll probably tell her everything I get up to."

"Like what?" Hermione scoffed. "It's not as though you're always up there kissing girls!"

"Eurgh, not bloody likely!" he crinkled his nose. Behind them, they heard jeering laughter. They looked over their shoulders to see Draco Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle cackling behind them.

"What was that, Weasley?" teased Draco. "Not a fan of girls, eh? I'm sure the feeling is mutual!"

"Piss off, Malfoy," grumbled Ron, going pink.

"Ignore him, Ronald," growled Hermione. "Remember what Mrs Potter said about harmless little words?"

Before Ron could respond, Draco interjected.

"Oh, I know all about what Potter's mother said to my father in Flourish & Blotts, Granger!" he retorted, swaggering up towards her. "It's obvious where Potter gets his vicious pitbull persona from!"

"You can talk, Malfoy," said Harry, stepping right up to him. "I can't imagine your father has many friends with the way he speaks to people."

Draco's upper lip twitched into a snarl in much the same way to the way Lucius Malfoy's face had done just days before.

"How dare you talk about my father like that!" spat Draco.

"Second years!" called a voice from the other end of the corridor. The group turned to see Professor McGonagall watching them with raised eyebrows. "Less chatting, more walking to lessons!"

"Come on," sighed Harry, grabbing his best friends by the shoulders. "I don't want to give Snape a reason to give us a months' detention on the first day back..."

The trio, uncomfortably flanked by Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, squeezed their way through the hoards of lost first years as politely as they could, managing to get to their seats in the classroom seconds before Snape arrived.

"Silence," he droned as his welcome-back greeting. "Desks to the edge of the classroom, wands out."

"Are we having a practical lesson today, Professor?" asked Hermione eagerly.

"You astound me with your observational skills, Miss Granger, now push your desk to the edge of the room."

Hermione huffed and obeyed, eliciting a smirk from Ron. She scowled at him. The second years arranged themselves in a horse-shoe shape around the newly-formed space in the middle of the room, hesitant to jump into whatever experiment Snape had planned.

"Today we'll be practising the Severing Charm. If you don't pay attention, you'll fail the homework task..."

As he began to explain the severing charm, Ron leaned towards Harry to whisper something in his ear.

"Severus is teaching the Severing charm. D'you get it?"

Snape was now facing their section of the room as he was talking. Harry kept his eyes fixed on Snape.

"Harry? D'you get it? His names' Severus. Severing charm. It's Severus' charm."

Harry tried so hard to keep a straight face, but any sentence with Severus and charm in it was deadly to composure. As such, he burst out laughing.

It was amazing, really, how pale and stone-like a person's face can be. That's the first thought that came to Harry when he was finished cackling with laughter and he looked up to see Snape and the rest of the people in the room staring at him.

"Enlighten us, Potter," said Snape. "What is it that you find so amusing about the Severing charm?"

Harry's stomach churned as he bit his lip, suppressing another giggle. Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Perhaps it's the simplicity of such a spell. I recall that your father never failed to make his spells prowess known to all."

Harry's humour left him. Now, he was just as stone-faced as his teacher.

"Malfoy, step forward. You and Mr Potter shall demonstrate the severing charm to the class."

Harry shot a wide-eyed look to Ron and Hermione as he shuffled forward into the centre of the room. Ron shrugged and gave him a pitying look. Hermione theatrically mouthed something that looked like divvy-toe.

Snape gave his wand a flourish and from the corner of the room, a small wooden box drifted through mid-air towards him. He impatiently stepped forward, grabbed it, flipped open the lid and held it out to Harry and Draco. Inside was a matted tangle of thick string.

"Take one each" Snape ordered. Both boys stuck their hands in and Harry, with trembling hands, wrestled with a particularly big clump of string.

"While we're young, Potter."

At the back of the room, Seamus Finnigan snorted. Snape shoved the box in Harry's hands while he went over to scold him. While he verbally crushed Seamus, Harry looked back at Hermione desperately. She mouthed divvy-toe to him again.

"What?!" he hissed. She shot a glance in Snape's direction. When she was satisfied that he was distracted enough, she hissed back "Diffindo!"

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and quickly yanked on a loose bit of string in the box. When Snape came back, Harry felt a lot less scared than he did before.

"Potter first," he commanded. "By your apparent confidence, I predict that you'll be able to successfully cut the string exactly in half with the correct use of the severing charm."

Harry immediately pointed his wand at the string that Draco held outstretched between his fists. Draco wore the same smug expression that he'd worn at the moment he spoke badly of Harry's mother.

"Diffindo!" Harry growled. The string dropped to the ground in one piece. Draco staggered back, howling in pain as he clutched his nose. Harry watched in horror as Snape swooped in and wrenched Draco's hands from his face, revealing a deep cut all the way down his nose. Snape dropped Draco's hands.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor."

There was a communal gasp.

"WHAT?!" cried Ron from somewhere behind Harry, who couldn't tear his eyes away from Draco, who now had tears sliding down his cheeks.

"I said fifty points from Gryffindor," said Snape coldly. He turned to Harry. "I'll be sending an owl to your parents, Potter, explaining your vicious attack on a fellow student!"

"Vicious attack?!" exclaimed Ron, his voice getting impossibly higher with every syllable. "All he did was follow your instructions!"

"If you don't stop disrupting my class, Weasley, I'll make it a hundred points."

"Excuse me, Sir?" squeaked a voice from somewhere in the back of the room. They all turned and watched the crowd part. Lavender Brown stepped forward.

"I think what Ron is trying to say is that maybe it would be more suitable to punish Harry rather than the whole of Gryffindor..."

Snape glared at her. "Miss Brown, you failed to say a single word in my class last year and you decide to start participating by getting yourself involved in something that isn't your business-"

"Oh, but it is my business!" said Lavender calmly, and with a little smile. "I'm in Gryffindor! And I was merely suggesting that deducting so many points from Gryffindor would be a bad move, because my Mummy's on the board of governors, and she said that the chairman is considering a serious appraisal on the excessive deductions made to house points."

Everyone in the room stared at her with wide eyes and slack jaws. She gazed around at her silent audience and blushed. "It was only a suggestion..."

Harry was sure his glasses must've been dirty, because Snape's face almost flushed red with anger. He was visibly shaking.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," he seethed. "And your parents can still expect an owl by the end of the day, Potter. The rest of you, get into pairs and practice the severing charm until you can do it in your sleep."

Students tentatively stepped towards the small wooden box of string, which was now on the floor, and attempted to get on with practicing the spell as casually and inconspicuously as they could. For the rest of the lesson, Snape sat at his desk at the front with his hawk-eyes shifting in between Lavender and Harry.

oOo

"I'm so sorry, Ron!" Hermione cried, her face bright pink.

"Bloody humiliating, that was... humiliating!" grumbled Ron, his face still as pink as Hermione's.

Harry had been so bored of watching Neville fail to sever his piece of string during the pair-work that he'd observed Hermione casting her spell at Ron's string. Somehow, when she cast it, she did not cut the string but instead managed to sever Ron's belt. His trousers had fallen to his ankles.

They walked down the corridor, all of them visibly traumatised by the previous lesson. Ron was walking a little awkwardly, clutching the hem of his trousers to hold them up.

"Oh Merlin, I'm really sorry, Ron! I really didn't mean to-"

"S'alright," he said begrudgingly. "At least it distracted Snape from trying to laser Harry to death with his eyes..."

The three of them managed weak laughter. Ron was right. Snape had stopped glaring at Harry at that point, but only so he could shout at Hermione. Harry frowned at the memory.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" he asked. "He laid into you a fair bit."

Hermione frowned. She opened her mouth to speak

"Ron!" called a girly voice from behind them. The three of them spun round to see Lavender Brown skipping up the corridor towards them. She came to a halt in front of them.

"Ron, are you alright? You looked ever so embarrassed earlier, when..." she glanced down to his hands, which were still grasping the hem of his trousers. Ron blushed.

"Er, yeah... what about you? I heard that Pavarti severed your hair!" said Ron. Lavender sighed and brought both of her braids round to her shoulders. One of them almost reached down to her waist. The other hung down to her chest, which was oddly prominent for a twelve-year-old.

"I'll have to cut the other half of my hair. Gosh, how embarrassing! I hate this length of hair, it's so... undecided! I'm sure Hermione understands!" she smiled brightly at Hermione, who self-consciously tucked her frizzy hair behind her ears and blushed even pinker.

"Nah, your hair still looks nice!" said Ron, in a bizarrely convincing tone. Both Harry and Hermione slowly turned to give each other confused looks. Ron and Lavender were both still smiling to each other when someone else joined the conversation.

"Well, look who it is!" called Draco Malfoy as he sauntered towards them with Crabbe and Goyle waddling behind him. He had a huge plaster taped to his face. Ron snorted back a laugh.

"Dunno what you're sniggering at, Weasley!" grunted Crabbe. "Nice pants, by the way!" he and Goyle guffawed while Draco walked right up to Harry, as he often did when he was about to cut him deeply.

"No-one can deny your vicious pitbull nature now, Potter. Even Snape called you up on it."

Ron stepped forward with narrowed eyes and shoved Draco's shoulder. "Back off, Malfoy. Harry might make you cry again!"

Lavender giggled. Beside her, Hermione rolled her eyes. Draco scowled at Ron, but then seemed to change his mind. He glared back at Harry.

"My father will hear about this, and he won't be impressed. Especially not after your mother's repulsive behaviour in Flourish & Blotts."

"Watch what you say about my mother..." Harry warned.

Hermione stepped forward, scowling at Draco. "Leave Mrs Potter alone, Malfoy. None of us have forgotten the severing charm, you know."

Draco laughed at her. "D'you hear that, boys? Lily Potter's got herself a fan club!" he bent down so that he was right in Hermione's face. "I'm not surprised, really. You're both mudbl-"

Before Draco could even finish speaking, Harry and Ron had both charged forward towards him. Harry shook with blind anger. Before either of them had the opportunity to damage Draco's face any further, Crabbe and Goyle had formed a wall in front of him, blocking Harry and Ron from Draco with their burliness.

"You're both mental!" Draco shouted as he and his bodyguards backed down the corridor. "And I don't know why you're crying, Granger!"

Harry and Ron looked back. Lavender stood very awkwardly next to Hermione, who had tears falling freely down her cheeks.

"After all," began Draco again, this time from the other end of the corridor. "It's just a harmless little word, right? Isn't that what the almighty Lily Potter always says?"

Hermione spun round, whipping Lavender in the face with her hair as she marched off down the corridor. She did not look round, nor did she wait for her friends. A sob escaped her and echoed down the corridor as she turned the corner and disappeared.

"Oops!" giggled Lavender. "Clearly, Draco didn't get the owl about blood being a touchy subject!"

oOo

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/favourited/followed so far. I do know where this story is going and I'm very excited for you all to read it. Please bear in mind that what I write here is from my own imagination. As much as I adore getting reviews, suggestions and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, I would appreciate it if people put more than just "this is bad" in their reviews. Can't do much with that, really.

See you next Sunday! The next chapter is entitled "Old Age"

Nel X

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