Ok, guys, I am unforgivable: it took me two whole weeks to write this chapter, and I am SO sorry about that! But at last I had done it, chapter 8 is on! To make the writing worth the waiting, I made this chapter longer -much longer-, and I put some good stuff in it, mostly funny and cute stuff. I hope you like it! Enjoy, Read and Review! :)

Chapter 8: Of Snakes and Lions, Crazy Old Men and Ice Cream Parlours

The next morning I woke up even earlier than the previous day -it was barely six, and the sun had just come out-, feeling happy without a real reason. The hot water of the shower awoke me completely, and I got back to my room singing softly while I towel dried my hair.

I smiled as I took my new uniform out of my closet and put it on, once again thanking silently the thick tights which concealed my scars. I was knotting my tie in front of the mirror in the corner when a soft knock echoed in the room. Just seconds later Emma's bushy head poked in, and she yawned hugely.

"Sorry, honey," I apologized, smiling at her. "Didn't mean to wake you up." She shrugged and yawned again before smiling.

"No problem, it was time anyway," she said, bouncing toward me.

"Why are you so happy?" she asked, climbing on my bed and hugging her knees.

I laughed softly and plopped down beside her, hugging her tight.

"Don't know, I just am," I replied, shrugging and reaching forward to grab my red Gryffindor jumper before pushing it over my head. She gave me a funny look before jumping down and running to the bathroom.

"I will be down in five minutes, leave me some breakfast!" she called as she went, and I scowled at her.

"I am not the one who eats like a whole army!" I reminded her, taking my crutches and stepping in the corridor. I heard her laughter, muffled by the closed door, and shook my head, rolling my eyes.

Aunt Elspeth was already in the kitchen, of course, reading her newspaper with a plate of eggs and bacon in front of her.

"Good morning, dear," she greeted me, smiling and pushing a mug of coffee towards me as I sat down. I smiled back at her, taking it gratefully.

"Morning, Aunt," I said, taking a plate and filling it with three pancakes, a slice of bacon and an egg.

Emma joined us a few minutes later, and we ate together, chatting about school and such.

At seven forty the horn of Luna's father's car blew twice in the yard, and we hurried outside, grabbing our coats and bags and waving at Aunt Elspeth, who watched us go from the threshold -well, Emma waved; I just called 'Bye', since it is a little difficult to wave when you have crutches-.

We dropped Emma at the playschool as we went, and at five to eight precisely we were in front of the castle.

"I think I will never get used to it," I said softly, looking up at the massive stone walls. Luna smiled kindly and nodded.

"Yes, it is pretty unusual, is it? I have been here for six years now. And I still think it is incredible," she said, looking dreamily around the crowded hall. I wondered why she always looked so vague and distracted, almost…detached from reality, and yet slightly sad, despite her constant kindness.

Luna helped me find my locker, and we just stood in front of it, chatting, and soon Ginny joined us too, her bag slumped on one shoulder.

"Hi, Luna," she said, linking arm with her. Then she smiled at me.

"Hi, housmate." I grinned back at her.

"Hi back, housmate," I said, amused by her greeting.

"Ron told me what Snape did yesterday -how unfair!-. That man gets more and more acid every day, he should really have a good-"

The bell -thankfully- interrupted her, saving Luna and I from any obscenity she was about to say. I quickly stuffed my books in the locker -I didn't want to drag all of that weight on my shoulder back and forth from class to class-, keeping in my bag only what I needed for first and second hour, and hurried to Classroom 9, for English. I really didn't want to disappoint Professor McGonagall getting late at her first lesson, she looked pretty strict, no matter which house one was in.

Luckily, when I got there the classroom was still half empty; there were just a few Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs chatting in a low voice from desk to desk, waiting for the lesson to start.

I muttered a polite 'Good morning,' to the Professor and started to look for a good place to sit in, when a movement in the back caught my attention. Ron and Harry, the black-haired boy from Chemistry, were waving at me, pointing at an empty seat by their desk and smiling.

I shook my head, but joined them, wondering if they had kept the seat for me. Oh, obviously not: what was I thinking?

As I went, I recognized a few faces from the previous day's lessons -Parvati Patil, that time without her twin, a chubby red haired Hufflepuff girl I was almost sure was named Hannah Abbott and a tall, goofy Gryffindor boy with large front teeth and a childlike face who had Botanic with me, but whose name I had forgotten-; it was good not to feel that lost anymore.

I sat down by the two boys, smiling, and they welcomed me with twin grins.

"We have saved you the seat," said Harry, fussing with his hair.

"Of course, we couldn't let you sit by someone you don't even know," added Ron, leaning back in his chair and almost falling over doing so.

"I mean, what kind of people would we be, leaving you in the lions' cage without any help?" I raised an eyebrow at him, taking my book from the bag.

"Aren't we supposed to be the lions here?" I asked ironically, and they shot me amused glances.

"Sorry, he should have said the reptile house," Harry corrected with a smirk. I sighed and rolled my eyes, but then laughed, along with the two of them.

"Well, thank you anyway, guys," I said, trying to pull myself back together for the lesson -the class was almost full and Professor McGonagall was starting to scowl at us three in the back, the only ones still talking-.

They nodded, straightening their backs and putting on innocent, I-am-a-good-boy-like faces in order to avoid McGonagall's anger; as soon as she looked away, though, they went back to smiling, exchanging an amused glance.

"You are welcome, New Girl," they said.

When the bell rang, we headed to History together, and the boys insisted for me to sit by their desk again -a thing I was very grateful for, since we had that lesson in common with the Slytherins-.

It took me less than five minutes to find out that Professor Binn, the History teacher, had an incredible talent for making the students fall asleep during his lessons; I tried to take notes in the beginning, but after a while I desisted, too bored to follow the low buzzing of the Professor's lecture.

So I just looked around the class, from the Slytherin students, who were sniggering and passing a paper to one another, writing something down quickly before handing it to the next desk, to my fellows Gryffindors, who were chatting in a low voice or passing notes.

"Is it always like this?" I whispered to Ron, beside me. He grinned, pointing at the Professor in the front.

"Oh, no, of course not," he said, an amused glint in his dark blue eyes. "This is one of the most exciting and interesting lectures he has ever given us. You are lucky starting with that, you know."

I looked at him with wide eyes, thinking he was joking: how could that be one of the most interesting lessons?

"Oh, you'll get used to it," said Harry, leaning in and yawning, ruffling his hair -he did that a lot, I was starting to notice-. "No one listens to Binn, not anymore anyway. And he is resigned to that fact: he doesn't mind if we chat, sleep, play cards or do anything else during his hours, unless we try to blow up the school or something like that."

I laughed under my breath, shaking my head.

"Oh, what a pity: I have always dreamed of blowing up a castle, I have no greater ambition in my life," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

"Well, you have found the right ones to ask for help in your mission," said Ron, flashing a grin at me.

I playfully shoved him, snorting, and Harry leaned away from me, laughing, his hands lifted with the palms toward me in the universal No Harm sign. I would have never admitted that, but I felt incredibly at ease with the two of them, like I had known them for my whole life.

Then the bell rang, and we quickly collected our things, heading to Trigonometry.

The hour passed quickly, and we split up for fourth hour, Harry and Ron heading to Zoology while I tried to find my way to the greenhouse. The castle was really huge, with dozens of rooms and stairs which led everywhere but where one meant to go, so it was extremely easy to get lost.

Anyway, eventually I got in the gardens, and from then to the greenhouse, joining a small group of my classmates which included Padma and Parvati, and that Hannah girl from Hufflepuff. The four of us got along pretty well, and the hour flew by, much faster than I thought possible.

"See you later!" said the girls, running outside. I waved back and then slowly got to my feet, taking my crutches and slumping my bag on my shoulder.

I got to the Great Hall, and it took me a few seconds to take everything in: there were four long tables in the large room, each crowded with students from one house; in the back, under three huge windows made of coloured glass, there was a fifth table, much shorter than the others, where sat the professors, along with the Headmaster.

"Hermione! Here!" I looked around to see who was calling me, and I saw Ginny sitting at the Gryffindor table, waving her arms to catch my attention.

"I saved you lunch and a seat," she said proudly as I sat down beside her. I smiled, taking my sandwich from the tray in front of me.

"Thank you, Ginny," I said sincerely, looking around. "No Luna today?" I asked then, not seeing the girl's almost white head anywhere around the Ravenclaw table.

Ginny made a face, taking a sip from her bottle of water.

"She is somewhere with her boyfriend Neville, probably doing things I don't want to know about," she said, flicking her long red hair back with her hand.

"Hey, there she is!"

Ron plopped down in front of us, smiling and pointing at me, with Harry close on his heels.

"Thought you had been eaten by one of Professor Sprout's Venus flytraps," he joked, placing a tray down before sitting beside the other boy.

"Very funny," I said, taking another bite from my lunch. I chewed quickly. "Anyway, Venus flytraps don't actually eat meat, you know. Their main sources of nourishment are flies and mosquitos, which contain a lot of carbon and nitrogen," I said, smiling and not looking at him. Ginny laughed softly.

"You sounded a lot like the professor," she said, wrinkling her nose.

I blushed, feeling slightly embarrassed: sometimes I tended to be a bit of a knows-it-all, a thing that kept a lot of people away from me back at my old school.

"Well, to do so she should have spoken two octaves higher: I mean, Professor Sprout's voice is so high-pitched only bats can hear it sometimes," said Ron, laughing along with her sister. It took me a second to realize that they weren't laughing of me, but with me.

"Hi, Hermione." Parvati joined the four of us, along with four Gryffindors boys I was sure I had seen around, but who I hadn't ever talked to.

"Guys, this is Hermione," she said, sitting down on the long bench beside me.

"Hermione, these are Dean Thomas," a tall boy with dark skin and black hair and eyes smiled at me from across the table, "Seamus Finnegan," a short boy with sandy hair and light green eyes, the opposite of Dean, waved at me, "And Colin and Dennis Creevery."

The last two boys were obviously brothers, with identical large front teeth, dark blonde hair and dark eyes, and they were a little younger than us -Colin looked maybe like a sixth year, and Dennis was probably a year younger than him-.

"Hi," they chorused politely before attacking their lunch, wolfing down incredibly quickly the huge amount of food piled on their trays.

"Don't mind them, they are walking black holes; they would eat the table too, if they could," said Ginny, waving carelessly towards the two boys.

"I have noticed," I said, even if it was hard to believe that those two skinny kids could eat so much. Just then Harry looked at his watch and groaned.

"Guys, we would better head down to the dungeons: Chemistry is in ten minutes, and if we get late Snape will take God knows how many points from us," he said with a sigh, standing up and taking his bag. I mimicked him, taking my crutches.

"I agree," I said without enthusiasm.

A few seconds later every seventh year Gryffindor had stood up, each of them with looks of various intensity of reluctance and dismay in their eyes. We all walked to the dungeons in a close group, Parvati in the front and I in the back, with Harry and Ron by mi sides, almost like they were guarding me. Very kind of them, but a little funny too.

We got there pretty early, and we all slipped in the desks to the right, the ones closer to the door; I was sitting with Ron, between the desks of Harry and Dean and Seamus and Parvati.

I had made the mistake of sitting in plain sight in the front the previous day, but I wasn't stupid: I wouldn't have done that again, first, because I didn't want to have Snape's cold face in front of me the whole hour, and two, because I felt safe and shielded sitting among my new friends and housemates, and I wouldn't have given up that sensation for anything.

The worst part came just after the lesson started, though, when Snape assigned us an experiment -a graded one, of course-, handing us a paper with the instructions.

"It's impossible," groaned Ron as we took everything we needed for the assignment, "We will take a T, and Snape will sneer the whole time!" I shook my head slowly as I read the instructions carefully.

"I think we can make it, instead," I said, chewing my lip and thinking. "We will just have to be careful doing the maths to balance the ingredients."

He looked at me like I was crazy, but didn't say anything.

So I started to work carefully, controlling each point twice, and when I put the last ingredient in I started to stir the boiling mixture anti-clockwise with a long, thin stainless steel spoon.

"Are you sure of what you are doing?" asked Ron, peeping at our work with doubtful eyes. "It should turn blue," he added in a low voice. I gestured for him to shut up and wait, counting silently.

Twenty-three…twenty-four…twenty-five…

And then, just as the paper said, the mixture turned a soft, deep blue which reminded me of forget-me-nots. I glanced at the work of our friends; Harry and Dean seemed to be a little behind us, but doing well,while Parvati and Seamus' experiment was an intense lime green colour, and it was boiling in an alarming way.

I quickly raised my hand, calling the professor to our desk.

Snape looked at our experiment with a critical look on his pale face, but when I saw his lips purse in a tight line I understood we had done it right.

"Very well, Ms Granger, Mrs Weasley. The brew seems…perfect." He looked like he had just swallowed a toad. "Ten points to Gryffindor for your work," he added quickly before heading towards the Slytherins.

Ron looked at me with wide eyes, and smiled.

"You are a genius, Hermione, has anyone ever told you that?" he asked, pointing at our experiment, now cooling down and losing its blue colour.

"Thank you-" I started to say, but a loud noise in front of us interrupted me, making me jump.

Seamus had blown up his experiment, and a thick, nasty-smelling green smoke was lifting from the former brew, quickly filling the classroom.

"Out, everyone, NOW!" screamed Snape, opening the door and motioning for us to exit the classroom.

I took my bag and crutches and ran out as fast as I could, Harry, Ron and the others close to my heels.

"Finnegan!" yelled the Professor, pressing a handkerchief to his nose and mouth in order not to breathe the smelly fog. "Detention-for the whole week!"

The Slytherins came out behind us, coughing loudly.

"I hope they got intoxicated," said Ron, smirking.

"The lesson ends here for today-go! And Finnegan," said Snape, glaring at the sandy-haired boy, "Come to my office after the end of the lessons. Punctual."

And then he went away with a flick of his long black coat, quickly climbing the steps to the main part of the castle.

Poor Seamus looked like he wanted to disappear in the stone floor, his eyes fixed on his shoes while the Slytherins sneered at him. I glared at the boys dressed in green and silver, wishing I could hit them with my crutches or something like that.

"Come on, Guys, let's go," said Harry, motioning towards the stairs.

"And Seamus," he added, smiling and slapping the other boy's back with a smile, "I am sorry for that brew, but try to see it this way: we skipped almost half the lesson."

Seamus nodded, lighting up a bit, and we all went upstairs, out of the creepy dungeons and in the large corridors bathed in the pale sunshine which came through the large windows.

We spent the rest of our free time chatting and joking, and when the bell rang we split up, each of us headed to a different classroom. "See you later!" we all called to each other, walking away.

Latin passed quickly -the Professor gave us a few lines from the Iliad to translate-, and then I was in the corridors again, headed to my locker to get my Art book. I sighed as I took it, wishing I had chosen Astronomy or Zoology for my last hour instead of that useless subject; and besides that, Professor Trelawney really gave me chills.

I was about to close my locker, when an unknown, annoyed voice came from beside me.

"This school's standards got even lower than I thought. Like it wasn't enough having to attend classes with all of the scum around here…Now I have even this filthy Gryffindor owning the locker next to mine…The Headmaster will hear me, he can't force me to stand this, he will have to assign me another locker, I swear!"

I turned, frowning at those angry, offensive words, looking straight at the boy who was complaining so openly about having my locker next to his. He was tall, even if not as much as Ron or Harry, and really pale, with silvery blonde hair resembling Luna's and a narrow, pointed face. "Hey, what's wrong with you?" I asked, my voice sharper than I intended it to be. When he turned to look at me, I saw his eyes were steel grey, and just as cold as metal.

I didn't like him, and my dislike only grew stronger when I saw the colours of the tie he had around his neck. A Slytherin, how lucky I was.

"How dare you speaking to me, you scum?"

I flushed at his rude words, anger quickly making its way into my veins, pushed forward by my bad temper.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, slamming my locker shut and looking at him, incredulous.

"How dare I talking to you? How dare you talking to me like that? Who are you, the Inheriting Prince?"

The pale boy sneered, his upper lip curled up in a cruel smile.

"My name is Draco Malfoy, you little Gryffindor, and I am the Inheriting Prince, compared to you."

Ok, now he was really pushing his luck too much: was he joking, or was he so full of himself to actually think what he was saying?

"I have seen you, you know, walking around with those filth: Potter, too wrapped up in his glory of Popular Blockhead Football Captain, and those Weasleys, with their red heads, freckles, and second-hand clothes and books. Curious, how losers always end up in Gryffindor…"

No, he was serious, he really believed he was the king of the world.

His mocking expression turned in one of disgust, as he said: "I would be careful if I were you, new girl. Hanging out with rubbish, you could become rubbish too. And there are people, here, who wants the castle to remain clean. Oh, sorry, wait a second: you are a little filthy Mudblood, so you are rubbish yet as well."

Mudblood. I had never heard that word before, but it was without any doubt an insult from the way he had said it, with such hate and disgust. And that made me even angrier.

"Sorry, what did you just call me?" I asked, straightening my shoulders and looking at him defiantly in the eye.

"Hey!"

Harry and Ron waved and smiled at me as they approached, but their smiles faded as soon as they saw the pale boy standing in front of me, replaced by looks of cold distaste.

"Any problems here?" Harry asked me, standing by my side, along with Ron. Before I could reply, Malfoy shrugged, a mocking grin plastered on his face.

"Well, see who has joined us: Scarface Potter and Hand-Me-Down Weasley. I was just having a chat with your new little friend here," he said, gesturing carelessly toward me, "But I was leaving; you know, I have things to do, people to meet."

His cold grey eyes fixed on me, and I stared back without faltering.

"Well, I will see you around, I guess," he said, sniggering. "Unfortunately, it will be unavoidable."

Then he turned and walked away, his hands in his pockets.

"What did he want from you?" Ron asked me, as the three of us headed to Art, just a corridor ahead. I chewed my lip for a few seconds, deciding whether or not I should have told them about it; then spoke.

"Just making trouble, I guess," I said honestly, not looking at him or Harry. "It was actually my fault, though: I heard him complaining about having his locker next to a filthy Gryffindor's, and kinda…started an argument with him."

I stepped in Professor Trelawney's class and walked to the farthest desk from the teacher, slipping in my seat. Harry and Ron sat down as well, one to my right, the other in front of me.

"I know I shouldn't have had, but he was talking about how losers always end up in Gryffindor, and how I should be careful because some people wants the school to be clean from rubbish like, well…me. Us. And I…lost it a bit."

Harry's brow furrowed as he leaned across the aisle towards me.

"Did he say anything else?" he asked under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear him above the Professor's blabbering. I nodded, biting my lip.

"He called me a-I am not sure if this was the exact word-Mudblood."

Ron's POV:

It took me a moment to actually understand what she had said.

Mudblood.

He had dared to call her a Mudblood, that filthy, white-haired snake. The prejudiced bastard. Like anyone could care anymore about that rubbish, only him and his little gang still blabbered about ancient privileges and blood purity. They made me sick, they and their disgusting mental tricks.

I looked at Hermione, sitting behind me in silence. There was no way she could know what that word meant, but obviously she had understood it was an insult.

"So, what does it mean?" she asked after a few seconds, looking hesitantly at me.

Bloody hell, why hadn't Malfoy slept in that day and skipped school? God knows how much trouble he would have saved us.

Harry and I exchanged a worried glance; then I spoke, hesitantly.

"That means…that your blood is not pure."

Her brow furrowed, and she looked confused. "You have lost me there," she said, grimacing. Of course she didn't know what I meant, how could she? I bet there was no idiocy like that in America, where she came from.

"It's just some idiocy he and his snake friends like blabbering about," I said, shrugging. "You see, many Slytherins come from ancient families, powerful ones, which descend from noble houses. They consider themselves as purebloods, and think they are better than everyone else just because of that."

"Too many marriages between consanguineous must have damaged their brain developing," Harry muttered, making her smile. I felt a little relieved, but got on anyway.

"That's just because you are not English by birth, that's all," I said, smiling. "But if you want, we could always trap him somewhere after school and beat the hell out of him for insulting you. All you have to do is ask."

She laughed softly and shook her head, amused.

"No need for that," she said, shrugging. "But thank you."

I nodded, bowing my head slightly.

"My pleasure," I replied.

"Our," corrected Harry, throwing a ball of paper at me.

We spent the rest of the hour like that, joking and chatting in spite of the professor's lecture going on -not that anyone cared, anyway-, and by the end of class the Malfoy accident seemed forgotten, at least temporarily.

That was when I got the idea.

"Hey, Hermione…" I said as we gathered our things, "Harry and I were thinking of going downtown and walk around a bit after school today. Would you like to join us?"

Her eyes lit up immediately, but after a few seconds they became sad.

"I would love to, but I don't think I can make it from the castle to the town," she said apologetically. "It's still too much for me."

I shook my head, smiling.

"Oh, we won't get there on foot," I assured her. "My older brothers turned eighteen last spring, and they have a car. It's old and a bit rusty, but it works, and it's big enough for all of us to sit in the back, if we squeeze a bit."

She smiled back, taking her crutches and standing up.

"Are you sure I won't be a weight for the two of you?" she asked, still unsure. "I am slow, you have seen that."

"Then we'll slow down too. You don't have to worry about that."

She nodded, a shy smile tilting her lips upwards.

"Ok, I'll come."

We went in the Hall to look for Ron's brothers, and it wasn't hard to spot them, with their dark red hair and freckles which were, I was starting to understand, Weasleys' trademark.

They were both tall, with green-brown eyes, long noses and mischievous grins which spread from ear to ear. And they were absolutely identical, to the point that, for a moment, I thought I was seeing double.

"Hermione, these are my brothers, Fred and George," said Ron, pointing to a twin, then to the other.

"Guys, this is Hermione, Elspeth Granger's grand-niece."

The twins smiled at me, then bent deeply and chorused, "Enchanted!".

"So, is she coming with us?" asked one of the two boys, probably George -I really couldn't tell the two of them apart-.

"Aye, bro, I think so. Is she, Ronnie?" asked the other brother.

Ron's ears went an impressive shade of dark pink, as he replied mockingly, "She is indeed, Freddie." Fred -it had to be him- grinned and raised his hands, showing he meant no harm.

"Just kidding, little brother. Come on, we will drop you by on the way home," he said, taking his twin's arm and dragging him along.

We followed them outside, in the sunny early November afternoon. It was chilly, but the pale sunlight was still warm enough to make us comfortable with that. Harry, Ron and I squeezed together in the narrow backseat of the twins' car, and we went down the hill, towards the town.

"Could you drop me by the playschool?" I asked sheepishly as we went closer to the centre. "I don't know if my aunt is there yet to take my sister, and if she is, I can tell her I will be around for a while before coming home."

George, who was driving, smiled and nodded, turning to the right and stopping in front of the large building.

"Thank you, guys," I said, taking my crutches and carefully getting off the car.

The twins grinned and waved, almost kicking their brother out before leaving. Ron glared at their car as they turned and disappeared behind the corner, but I hardly noticed that, because a little bullet with a pink hoodie and a head of bushy, untamed hair flung itself at me the very same moment I got steady on my crutches.

"Mione, you came!" Emma squealed happily, looking up at me with her stunning blue eyes. I smiled back at her, managing to half-hug her in spite of my crutches.

"Of course I came, honey; how could I stay away from my favourite monkey in the world?" She stuck her tongue out at me, and then noticed Harry and Ron behind me.

"Who are they?" she asked suspiciously, grabbing one of my sleeves and tugging at it lightly. I smiled, looking at the two boys who stayed a little behind.

"They are my friends, Harry and Ron. They are in Gryffindor, like me." At those words she relaxed a bit, looking at them with curiosity.

And then, "Your hair is orange," she told Ron, very matter-of-factly.

We all laughed, and the boys came over, shaking their heads. "Clever girl you have here," said Harry, amused, ruffling Emma's hair. Emma scoffed and hid behind my back, pouting and scowling at the black haired boy.

Just then Aunt Elspeth came over, smiling and putting a hand on my shoulder.

"She ran from me as soon as she spotted you among the crowd of parents and siblings," she said, gesturing towards Emma. I smiled, feeling a wave of affection as Emma looked up at me, her eyes filled with happiness and trust.

"But, why are you here? And with an escort too, I see," Aunt Elspeth said, smiling at the two boys by me.

"Mrs Granger," they said, smiling and politely nodding their heads. I fidgeted with my sleeve, shrugging.

"Actually, I hoped to find you here to ask your permission: Harry and Ron invited me to join them for a stroll around town, and I wanted to know if I can, you know, go."

Aunt Elspeth smiled, taking Emma's hand in her.

"Of course you can, dear," she said, "Just don't push your strength too much." I nodded quickly, my hands tightening on my crutches.

"Don't worry, we will keep an eye on her," said Ron, grinning at me.

"Of course," added Harry, a little more seriously than his mate. "And we will get her home too; my father will pick us up in a couple of hours, and we will drop her by on our way home."

Aunt Elspeth nodded, with a satisfied look on her crinkled face. "Well, have fun, then!"

Ron's POV:

"How about taking her to Florian's?" I asked Harry, smiling, as we walked in no hurry along the main street.

Harry's face lit up and he smiled as I mentioned our favourite place -which was, by the way, the main reference point for any kid in town-.

"Bet you'll like it," he told her as we crossed the street and stopped in front of a shop. It had a large front window which showed the inside, where a few boots were crowded with students from every year and house of Hogwarts; over the white door, a large sign reported Florian Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. Hermione looked at me, surprised.

"Ice cream? But…we are in November!" I grinned, gently pushing her forward, into the shop.

"Yes, but Florian's ice cream is so incredibly great we could happily eat it in the middle of a snowstorm. You will love it, I swear." I then waved to Florian, smiling.

"Hey, Florian!" I greeted, "How's it going?" He smiled back, while handing a giant cone to a first year boy who was so small he didn't even reach the counter properly.

"Good afternoon, Ron, Harry," he said, nodding his head.

"And…may I ask who this young woman is? I have never seen her around here before." I grinned, pointing at Hermione.

"She is Mrs Granger's grand-niece; she had arrived here just a few days ago from America," I explained, as she blushed slightly. Florian smirked, winking at her.

"Well, welcome here then. Whatever those two blockheads tell you, think always twice before even considering believing them or following their advice. Trust me, it's really useful with them." Hermione smiled, the corners of her lips twitching up.

"I will keep that in mind, thank you," she said, giving Harry and me a funny look.

"Is there a free booth, Florian?" asked Harry, looking around in the crowded parlour. Effectively, it really seemed like there was no room for the three of us to sit.

Florian laughed, motioning for us to follow him in to the farthest corner. There was an empty table there, a piece of paper with the words reserved Weasley and Potter written on it attached to one of the chairs with Sellotape.

"You are great, man, we owe you one!" I said sitting down, quickly imitated by Harry and Hermione.

"For my best customers, this and much more!" he said, his light blue eyes sparkling with amusement. "Wait for me, I'll be right back with three Special Sundaes: it's on the house today, to celebrate Ms Granger's arrival!"

I grinned as he went, and we started to talk again, chattering lightly about Seamus' Chemistry assignment.

We immediately shut up as soon as Florian brought us our ice creams, three giant sundaes with lots of caramel on it. Harry and I attacked ours immediately, but Hermione hesitated for a moment.

"Come on, it won't bite you. And Florian will get offended if you don't eat it," I said, smiling.

She nodded and took a spoonful, almost reluctantly, but then she smiled, pressing a hand to her mouth as she gulped it down.

"That's delicious!"

Harry and I both laughed at her expression of surprise, and she made a face, starting to eat. We spent the next minutes in silence, wolfing down the wonderful sweet; after a while, though, Hermione spoke.

"Harry, can I ask you a question?" she said tentatively, fidgeting with her spoon. Harry nodded, gulping a mouthful of ice cream and making a face when the cold sensation made him shudder.

"Of course," he said as soon as he could speak again.

She chewed her lip for a moment, probably thinking about what to say, and then: "Before I heard Malfoy calling you Scarface, and I was wondering, well, why that was," she said in a low voice.

Harry laughed at her words, and lifted his jet black fringe from his face, revealing the thin, bolt-of-lightning-shaped scar he had on his forehead.

Typical, only he could have had a cool scar on his forehead.

Hermione's eyes went wide.

"How can you have a scar like that? I mean, its shape is…unusual," she said, almost in awe. Harry shrugged, ruffling his hair and hiding the scar again.

"I was very little when it happened -two or three, I think-, so I don't remember how it happened. But my parents say we were having a walk on the hill, when I fell off my tricycle and hit my head on a rock on the ground. I didn't get hurt badly, just a cut, shaped like this. I am still wondering how it could be possible," he said, smiling. Hermione gave him a funny look, wrinkling her nose.

"At least you are lucky, it's not much evident and it is cool if someone sees it," she said; something in the slightly forced light tone of her voice made me think there was something about it that made her feel a little upset. I didn't ask, but the sensation lingered for a while as we ate our ice creams and then went out, thanking Florian for the ice creams. It was pretty warm in the shop, so when we stepped out in the chilly November wind we all shivered, tucking our hands in the pockets of our coats.

"So, where do we go now?" Hermione asked, pushing a stray curl from her face and tucking it back behind her hair.

Harry looked up at the clear sky with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Well, let me think…there's Honeydukes, Zonko's…"

"And the shops of Nocturn Alley too, like Borgin & Burkes and such. We should show her the dark side of the town too, that's the coolest part," I added, smiling and pointing at the end of the street, where a small, dark alley was barely visible.

"Well, we have time," Hermione said, smiling. "Choose where to go, and I will follow."

So we dragged her to all of our favourite places, from Honeydukes, the sweets shop, with its long shelves of glass jars and boxes full of sweets of every imaginable (and unimaginable) kind, to Zonko's, the jokes shop, where Fred and George worked every summer break since they were twelve and where they regularly furnished for their pranks; and then to the Three Broomsticks, the local pub, where we met Dean, Parvati, Neville and Luna and stopped for a while to sit with them, and to Borgin & Burkes, the antiques shop, a small, dusty place stuffed with strange things from ceiling to floor.

When we stepped out of the last shop it was almost dark, so we started to head back towards Florian's, where Harry's father was probably waiting for us to get us home.

"Hey, what's that?"

I looked at where Hermione was pointing, and I had to squint in order to see the dark shape in the dim light of dusk. It was useless, though, because I knew what it was: she had seen the old house on the hill, the one which looked like it had been uninhabited for decades; it was bent and ruined, with its crooked roof covered in moss and the fissured grey walls, and the garden around it was wild and abandoned, the grass so tall it got to the waist of whomever was so stupid to venture close to the house.

"Oh, that!" Harry said, laughing and shaking his head.

"Hermione," I said theatrically, "That is old Riddle's house." Then I burst into laughter too, unable to restrain myself from doing so.

She gave me a perplexed look, and I cleared my throat, trying to be serious.

"What's so funny?" she asked, chewing her lip. She did it pretty often, I had noticed, mostly when she was worried or when she was thinking.

"Well, you know, old Riddle kind of lost it a few decades ago, if you understand what I mean. It's fifty years he says he is a powerful dark wizard came from another universe and that he could kill us all with a single word; he wants people to call him 'the Dark Lord' or 'He Who Must Not Be Named', and when anyone comes close to the house he points some kind of stick at them and screams Avada Ke-something, whatever that means."

She was looking at me with wide eyes, incredulous and amused at the same time, a smile tilting up her lips.

"And I used to think small towns were plain and boring," she said in a low voice, more to herself than to us.

A few minutes later Harry's father came to get us, and we all climbed in the car, glad that the heater was on: with sunset, the temperatures had dropped much lower, and the wind had gone from slightly chilly to freezing cold.

As Hermione got in, she stumbled, and I quickly grabbed her arm, steading her before she could fall. She looked up at me, surprised, and I smiled, feeling my ears going red.

"Careful," I told her, quickly releasing her and backing up. Mr Potter dropped her first, and we waved at her from the car windows as we went away.

"Nice girl," Mr Potter observed as he drove to our house.

"Yes, she is," said Harry, smirking. "She and Ron seem to get along very well."

I shoved him, and as he rubbed his shoulder where I had hit him his father laughed.

"Your fault, son," he said, shaking his head and fussing with his hair.

It was incredible how much he and Harry were alike: same tall, lean building, same untidy jet black hair and same round glasses. The only difference was the colour of Harry's eyes: while his fathers' were hazel, his were bright green, just like his mothers'.

We stopped in front of my house, and I quickly jumped down, knowing I was late and not wanting my mother to bite my head off.

"Thank you for the lift, Mr Potter," I said, throwing my schoolbag over my shoulder. "See you tomorrow, Harry!"

I ran inside and found Ginny lazily sprawled on the sofa with a magazine in her hands, turning the pages with a bored look on her face. She smiled mischievously at me, and said in a loud voice: "Hi, Ron!"

Less than three seconds later, my mother's voice echoed from the kitchen.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley, where have you been? You said you would have been home more than half an hour ago!"

I bowed my head and stepped in the kitchen as she got on: "You are an irresponsible, always making me worry about where you are and with whom, and don't you dare tell me it's not true!"

I half-smiled apologetically, bending down to kiss my mother on the cheek.

"You are right, I am an irresponsible git. Sorry, Mum. I'm going upstairs studying, ok?"

She shut up and stared at me in surprise, the wooden spoon she was using to stir the soup she was cooking raised in mid-air. It was kind of funny seeing her like that.

"Call me if you need me, ok?"

She nodded in silence, probably not knowing what to say: I usually argued with her when she scolded me like that, and it always ended up with her shouting and me slamming the door of my bedroom.

This time, instead, I had taken the yells without complaining, admitting I was wrong and asking for forgiveness -a thing I had probably done just once in my life, when I was six or seven-.

The thing was, for once I was happy of being late. I thought of the surprised, grateful look in Hermione's eyes when I had caught her, steadying her before she could fall, and I smiled.

Yes, just that look was worth a thousand of those yells.