Sorry for a long wait, I had to finish Chapter 16 first! You know the drill by now.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Well?" Blaise prompted, his eyebrows raised. The two boys standing behind him had their arms crossed (Harry) or on their hands on their hips (Draco)

Hermione and Ginny exchanged a quick look.

"Blaise!" Ginny exclaimed, and beaming, she flung her arms around him. He rolled his eyes, and after returning her hug, he wriggled away.

"Nice try, but distracting me with your feminine wiles won't work. Most of the time. What were we talking about?"

Ginny, who had been giving Blaise a seductive smile after the hug, mentally pumped a fist in triumph. Meanwhile, Hermione's mind was working furiously for an excuse. Blaise may have forgotten, but Harry and Draco were still eyeing them suspiciously.

"May I enquire as to why you were spying on Potter and I?" Draco interrupted, sighing disdainfully at Blaise's incompetence to interrogate when faced with his new girlfriend making eyes at him.

"We wanted to see if you were ok after you left the common room. You seemed like Ron had really pissed you off," Ginny began.

"Then we saw Harry, and we wanted to make sure that you didn't get into a fight or anything. You seemed angry, and Harry does have a habit of provoking you," Hermione finished.

"So, you thought that two of-age wizards would get into a fistfight just because some ginger git annoyed one of them?"

"To be fair," Blaise interrupted, "the two wizards in question don't have the best track record."

Harry and Draco both snorted with laughter.

"That's an understatement," they said in unison.

They looked at each other in shock. Hermione and Ginny exchanged a knowing look. Blaise just wanted to bang their heads together and scream about the obviousness of it all. Harry and Draco that is, not Hermione and Ginny. Blaise had no plans of letting Ginny be with anyone else but him anytime soon.

"So, you can see why we had to follow you to make sure nothing bad happened," Hermione finished.

Draco gave a small nod. Harry was still regarding them curiously, but he didn't say anything. Hermione noticed.

"Harry, do you need me to help you with any homework?" she asked.

Harry looked taken aback. Hermione usually took more persuasion to give the kind of help she did (aka, doing it for him) and never asked outright. He decided to make the most of it.

"Yeah, thanks Hermione, let me just get my books. I'll meet you in the library?"

Harry quickly ran off before she could change her mind.

Ginny tugged on Blaise's arm.

"We're going to go for a walk," Blaise announced, "see you both around."

Draco huffed and folded his arms.

"Typical. My best friend deserts me to hang out with his Gryffindor girlfriend."

"Jealous? Wish you had one of your own?"

Draco wrinkled his nose. "I sincerely hope you're not offering."

"Of course not," Hermione laughed, "I still think you're a ferrety little prat. I was just commenting on the fact that you do seem to be quite lonely."

"Nonsense. I have plenty of friends other than Blaise. Pansy, Goyle and many of the younger Slytherins."

"I don't think the word for them is friends, as such. Maybe minions."

"I'd rather have minions than be a sidekick," Draco said, smugly.

"A sidekick, Malfoy?"

"Yes. You and Weasley are both Potter's sidekicks."

Hermione grinned. "Only superheroes have sidekicks."

"What's a superhero?"

"You know what a sidekick is, but not a superhero?"

Draco sighed. "I overheard a few muggleborns referring to you and Weasley as sidekicks and it sounded derogatory so I decided to use the phrase. Happy? So, what is a superhero?"

Hermione was happy. Especially with the use of the word 'muggleborns' instead of the term he previously preferred to use.

"A superhero is someone who battles evil and saves the world."

"So, Potter is a superhero then?"

Hermione was torn between laughing and squealing. She nodded, pressing her lips together so neither sound escaped her mouth.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to go and help said superhero with his homework."

"So vanquishing the Dark Lord is child's play compared to Charms homework?"

"Transfiguration, actually. Much more complex, and therefore acceptable for our hero."

"I never said he was my hero."

"He's everyone's hero."

Draco raised an eyebrow.

"You'd better go and help him then. He has to pass his N.E.W.T's if he stands a chance of becoming an Auror and saving us all again."

"I tell him this all the time," she said in a sing-song voice before heading off to the library.

Draco discovered that he was now alone in the corridor. Hermione was heading off to the library to find Harry. He didn't even want to think about where Blaise and Ginny had gone. His only option now was going back to the Gryffindor common room and spending time with Ron, or wandering around the school and hope to find a Slytherin companion. Pansy or Goyle would do. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, he found himself heading back to Gryffindor tower, wondering how his life had come to this.

...

Hermione found Harry sitting in the library with a mountain of books in front of him. He beamed when she sat down opposite him. It was a sight that she still wasn't used to. Draco's face with Harry's disposition.

"So what subject do you want to start with?" he asked.

His face looked so joyful about the prospect of Hermione doing his homework for him. She felt bad for crushing this dream.

"I'm not really going to do your homework for you, Harry."

"Fine, you're just going to 'help', alright..."

"No, I mean I wanted to talk to you in private."

Harry's face fell slightly. "What about?"

"Draco, of course." Hermione exclaimed. "Also, I'm astounded at how much homework you've left until the last minute."

Harry's grin returned immediately.

"What happened?"

"Well, Ginny and I lied that we spied on you to make sure you weren't fighting-,"

"I knew it! I knew I wasn't imagining seeing-" Harry interrupted, but was stopped by Hermione's disapproving glare. "Sorry."

"As I was saying, we were spying on you because we thought that something was going to happen between you. Ron had just reminded Draco of his past, which clearly made him upset, and Draco also called you Harry subconsciously. He left the common room, and me and Ginny went to go and find you to tell you about the Harry thing. Sorry I didn't tell you that as soon as I planned to. He called you Harry though, yay! Back to the story. We went to find you and we saw you went out to the tree, where Draco was coincidentally sitting, so me and Ginny hid in a bush."

Harry grinned. "Why did you want to hide in the bush?"

"To see if anything happened between you two?"

"And to watch?"

"It was Ginny's idea."

"I knew I saw you both in that bush. Your hair gave you both away."

"Thank you for not telling on us."

"Are you kidding? How would I have been able to explain that to Draco? My two friends are in that bush so if we start kissing, they'll be able to watch," he said, in a mocking tone, "Also, I wasn't entirely sure at first it wasn't you and Ron. From what I could see, you looked like you were in a rather compromising position. I didn't want to let on that I'd seen you..." Harry finished, looking uncomfortable.

"I fell on Ginny."

"Ah. That explains it."

"Ginny will not be happy that you mistook her for Ron though."

"It's the hair! And don't tell her that I think she looks like Ron. Because I don't, and she'll only make life painful for me if she thinks that I think that."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I won't tell her."

"Good."

Hermione took one of Harry's textbooks and started to read it, signalling for Harry to start his homework.

"Hey, Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Is there any chance of you helping me with this homework?"

I think the Harry Potter books are far more than just children's books. They represent friendship, love and some pretty serious stuff (racism, death etc) I can safely say they are my favourite books and nothing will replace them.

I also learnt that glasses don't automatically make you a loser. Harry Potter had glasses and he saved the god-damn world. That makes glasses cool. SHORT-SIGHTED NESS FOR THE WIN. (I don't know whether Harry was short-sighted...let's pretend he was. Just for that statement.)

Next question? Why not?:

If it were possible, would you rather that JKR wrote a new series about the Marauders Era or the Next Generation?