"Are you guys in trouble?" Pansy asked later. Her attention lingered on Draco far more than Hermione would have liked.
"No," James said. "We had to talk to Flint though. He's real nice."
Hermione and Draco regarded him. His use of sarcasm was surprisingly subtle. They only noticed it because they knew exactly how James felt about Marcus Flint. But they were all excited for the possibility that he offered.
They did homework and went to bed but all of them had difficulty sleeping. The three were too wound up to sleep well. When they awoke the next morning, they all felt horrible.
Hermione looked the most put together. Her hair was plaited and her uniform pressed. Dark circles under her eyes betrayed her exhaustion but there wasn't much that she could do about that. Her parents didn't allow her to have cosmetics.
Draco looked like he had at least combed his hair, but it was falling in his eyes and his collar was sticking up. But he looked better than James who looked like he hadn't brushed his hair in weeks and had put his shirt on inside out. Somehow.
They were all about to sit down to breakfast when Professor Snape walked up to them.
"Dumbledore has allowed it, but he hasn't allowed full possession of the items. They will remain in my office aside from when Flint requires. You're to stay after potions today to pick out models."
They sat down and started to eat. After the first cup of tea, Hermione started to perk up a bit. She always had at least one cup. By the end of the second, which she felt she needed that morning, Ron Weasley walked over.
"Guess I heard wrong," he said.
"What did you hear?" Pansy asked. She'd arrived at the table a little after the trio and looked far more rested.
"That someone had gotten expelled. Or at least points taken away," Ron said. "The hourglasses don't say anything."
"What gossip are you listening to?" Draco asked. "You know that Gryffindors speculate too much. You're one of them."
"We didn't get in trouble," James added. "Professor Snape just wanted us to be more careful and not show off in class."
"No one asked you Potter," Ron said.
"It's Evans," James complained.
"Technically you did when you spoke generally," Hermione retorted.
"Enough of this chit-chat. If you're so inclined to take me on you'll meet me in the trophy room at midnight."
He strode off and the entire Slytherin table watched him go, somewhat aghast.
"We're not going, are we?" James asked.
"Of course we're not going," Hermione said. "We're Slytherins. We're not supposed to break the rules that brashly for some stupid challenge. After all, everyone watched him fall off his broom."
"He just wants us to get hurt with some stupid spell he doesn't know how to do properly," Draco added.
Content that they weren't going to get themselves into too much trouble, James tucked back into his breakfast. Before long they were all satisfied and ready to head to their first class of the day.
They made it through everything without running into too much trouble. Vincent and Greg got a few points taken off for talking, but otherwise the day was mostly unremarkable. Until potions.
Somehow Finnigan managed to blow up his potion. Ronald Weasley got caught trying to sabotage Hermione's potion. Which turned out poorly for him. He got half a cup of unfinished potion poured over his head and sent to the hospital wing without much more than a cursory snip from Snape.
Then they were finally done and the three friends stayed behind. Blaise and Theo looked at them a little confused but were quickly assured that there wasn't trouble. They just had some things that needed to be taken care of.
"I do admire your dedication to making sure that Weasley knows to respect your boundaries Miss Granger, but I will have to ask you to be more discrete in the future," Snape said.
"Yes Professor," Hermione said.
She figured that if Ron was going to try to make her potion explode in her face, she might as well spill some of the solution on him. It seemed only fair. Although she did know how to correct adding a few extra beetle eyes.
"Good. Now to the matter at hand," Snape said. "What sort of models of brooms do you think would be good?"
"Anything other than the school brooms," Hermione said immediately.
"We'll want brooms of the same quality," James mused. "We wouldn't want any of us to outfly each other."
"And we won't want to outfly our brooms," Draco added.
That was a concern he and Hermione had discussed. Lucius Malfoy had mentioned that he wasn't particularly inclined to purchase a new broom each year just to find out that Draco and Hermione had advanced onto a higher level of talent.
"What would you suggest?" James asked.
Snape pondered for a moment taking in the three youngsters. He knew that they would all need good brooms. And he knew that money wasn't exactly a problem they had to consider.
"I would recommend the nimbus 2000," Snape said.
"That's the newest broom," Draco exclaimed.
"Yes Master Malfoy. And I hope you two don't outfly it too soon." He looked at Hermione and Draco. "They haven't come up with a better model yet."
Draco looked to Hermione and smirked while she rolled her eyes. He wasn't too likely to outfly it too soon between lessons and rugby practice over the holidays. She was slightly more likely to outfly it than he was.
With that business finished, the three headed back to their common room. Hermione had a letter she wanted to write, and all three of them had homework they wanted to finish.
"Are you seriously going to expect me not to believe that you three are in some sort of trouble?" Pansy demanded when they got there.
"We didn't," Hermione sighed.
"As if I'm going to believe you Granger," Pansy snipped. "You didn't even tell us that you were almost a full year older than Draco."
"She's not," James said.
"What do you know Potter?" Pansy sneered.
"It's Evans!"
As James heaved out his exasperation, two wands found themselves right next to Pansy's neck. She blinked.
"I would apologize if I were you," Hermione said in a calm tone. It sent shivers down everyone's spine.
"Quickly," Draco said.
"Sorry Evans," Pansy mumbled.
"Like you mean it," Hermione said. Her wand jabbed Pansy in the neck.
"I'm sorry James," Pansy said a little louder. She didn't sound that apologetic, but the wands were pulled back and put away.
"Firsties," Gemma Farley, one of the prefects, said with a warning in her voice. "What is the first rule we told you?"
"Don't point a wand at someone you don't intend to hurt," Hermione repeated.
"And what do you call that?" Gemma asked.
"Intent to hurt," Draco said."We would do it."
Gemma looked from Hermione to Draco. They both wore expressions that didn't indicate that they would have cast a jinx in a second had Pansy not complied. It frightened her and awed her at the same time.
"Alright then," Gemma said. She walked off.
"Don't punish them too harshly Gemma," Marcus said as she walked past."I need my star players to not lose too many points. Besides, it's good that they've got some fight."
"Your what?"
"Don't say that so loudly. They're my secret weapon."