Draco Malfoy was in a foul mood.
Understandably so. Hermione's attitude toward him was nothing like it had been two weeks ago. The passionate kisses of the Yule Ball felt like something from a dream; the cold shoulder she was currently giving him felt very much like reality.
He genuinely could not work out the logic. All he knew was that he hadn't had a proper conversation with her in a fortnight. She was avoiding him — clumsily, conspicuously, and with a commitment he found both maddening and somewhat impressive.
Once, in the corridor, he had caught her eye and managed a smile. She immediately raised the book in her hands, covered her face entirely, and walked in a different direction.
"She's avoiding me, isn't she?" he said to Goyle, standing beside him.
"Well... maybe she didn't see you," Goyle said vaguely, chewing something.
In the days that followed, her avoidance only became less subtle.
In Herbology, he had gone to a corner of the greenhouse to collect his tools and found her already there. She almost tripped over a bag of dragon dung on the path. He reached out instinctively and caught her.
She looked up to thank whoever had saved her — recognised him — stood up straight, pushed him away, dusted herself off, and proceeded to look directly through him as though he were part of the shrubbery.
"Are you blind?" he said, with a double meaning he regretted instantly.
Why would someone as self-respecting as himself casually compare himself to dragon dung? He had outwitted himself. It was utterly foolish.
Hermione's response was nothing short of brazen. She turned past him and addressed Neville Longbottom, who was coming up the path behind them. "Neville, did you just call me?"
"No! I — I didn't —" Neville looked at the back of Draco's platinum head and, with the acute situational awareness of someone who had learned to survive, quietly abandoned his plan to collect any tools and reversed course.
"Neville, where's the spade?" Susan Bones called from somewhere nearby.
"I'm going to use my hands," Neville said faintly, and began digging with both palms.
"Could you please —" Draco began.
"I'm quite sure I heard Neville." Hermione gave him one brief, defiant glance, flung her cloud of brown hair in his face, and walked away.
The scent of her hair was infuriating. He stared at her retreating back, and something flickered across his otherwise composed expression.
This wasn't the shy, evasive avoidance she used to default to when she was embarrassed — that, he could work with. This was deliberate. She was genuinely angry with him.
He was deeply tempted to drag her back, press her against the nearest umbrella-flower bush, and kiss her until the anger went out of her entirely. He entertained this fantasy with some viciousness before letting it go.
"Draco, what are you still standing there for?" Harry said, appearing at his elbow. "She's long gone."
"Has it been noticeable — that she's avoiding me?" He looked at Harry darkly. "She's being completely naive about this."
Harry laughed, awkwardly. He looked at Draco's expression — particularly at the way he was glaring at the umbrella flowers — and decided not to comment on it.
"I noticed something was off between you a few days ago," Harry said. "Did you say something to upset her?"
"She is being completely unreasonable," Draco said.
He knew why he worried. He had lived through a war, in another life. He had known, in the end, which side the giants had chosen, and the werewolves too — not all of them, but enough — and that knowledge sat in him like a stone that never quite warmed. Hermione's instinct to see the best in everyone was something he loved about her, and something that could genuinely get her killed. He was trying to protect her. He was *always* trying to protect her.
He had not expected that a well-intentioned warning would produce this reaction.
When had he ever shown her the faintest contempt? He had been talking about giants and werewolves — not her. He still didn't understand how she had managed to put herself in that sentence.
"Can't you just apologise?" Harry said, with the air of someone trying to preserve his own quality of life. "She's been redirecting all her nervous energy at Ron and me. She's asked me about the golden egg four times this week."
"I've tried to apologise. She ignores me."
"She mentioned —" Harry chose his words carefully — "that you don't seem to think you've done anything wrong."
"Because I haven't done anything wrong!"
"I genuinely can't take a side here without knowing what actually happened," Harry said reasonably. "What are you two arguing about?"
"None of your business." The affair was private, and besides, Harry was close to Hagrid — he'd simply take Hermione's side and be useless.
"Your answers are exactly the same," Harry said, clicking his tongue. "You even make the same expression."
Draco returned to his flowerpot and moved soil around without seeing it, stealing glances at a curtain of brown hair across the greenhouse, regretting that he hadn't held her arm a second longer.
---
The 21st of January was the Hogsmeade open day, and Draco was still miserable.
He arrived at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes feeling deflated — and found himself surprised out of his own bad mood almost immediately.
The shop had been transformed. The ground floor had been Disillusioned to appear twice its original size, the shelves reorganised and stacked to the ceiling, each section marked with colour-coded, self-updating labels. Near the entrance, a set of enchanted baskets displayed running totals as customers placed items inside — the handle lit up with the price of each new addition; a strip along the rim updated the cumulative sum in real time.
"Lupin came up with that one," Fred said cheerfully. "He borrowed the concept from Muggle shops. Nobody asks us for prices anymore, and checkout is half the work."
"Brilliant," Draco said, with genuine admiration.
"And downstairs—" Fred led him to the cellar, which had also been expanded, goods neatly organised on new shelving. On the far side was a small kitchen: a row of ovens, a long, gleaming worktable, and a cabinet of matching crockery. "He'd cook for us sometimes. Not bad, either."
"Where is he now?"
"Upstairs, I think. I need to talk to Verity — can you head up on your own?"
Draco went up alone. He could hear it before he arrived — faint, upbeat jazz drifting through a curtain at the top of the stairs. Pulling it aside, he found a workshop considerably more spacious and organised than he remembered: neatly divided into distinct work areas, tools arranged on pegboards, natural light coming from a freshly installed skylight.
Lupin stood with his back to the door, swaying faintly to the jazz, his wand describing a slow arc over an ornate witch's hat.
He heard Draco and turned.
"A rare visitor," he said, and smiled.
Draco took him in. Lupin had put on a little weight in his face — the gauntness had eased. The magenta shop robes suited him better than his old teaching clothes had; the colour put warmth into his complexion. He looked, frankly, a decade younger.
"How was last week?" Draco asked.
Last week had been the full moon. It had also been the week Lupin took the Wolfsbane.
"Manageable," Lupin said. He lowered the music with a flick of his wand. "The potion was effective. I'll admit I had my doubts about your skill when you first offered — but I was wrong."
"I'll accept a formal written apology at your earliest convenience," Draco said, striking a pose of aristocratic indifference.
Lupin registered the bad mood beneath the performance and decided not to poke it. He gestured to a chair, summoned a Butterbeer, and went back to the hat. After a moment, casually: "Has the necklace been given away?"
"Yes."
"Did Hermione like it?"
Draco stopped. "How did you know it was for her?"
"I still remember your Boggart," Lupin said, with great mildness.
"I'll say this once more: I find it deeply objectionable when people pry into my private life."
"That was a compulsory class exercise! I didn't choose to learn everyone's deepest fears — believe me, I would have preferred not to." Lupin looked at him over the hat. "How long are you planning to hold that against me?"
"A lifetime."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." He set the hat down and folded his hands. "You and Hermione have been having some difficulties lately, haven't you?"
"...Where exactly are you getting this information," Draco said, in a flat tone.
"Fred and George." Lupin raised his Butterbeer in an unapologetic gesture. "I'm shut in a shop all day inventing things. I need Hogwarts news to stay sane."
"I don't appreciate my personal life being treated as entertainment."
"Of course not." Lupin smiled. "What happened?"
Draco looked at him for a moment. He thought of what Harry had said. *Find someone who understands this.*
Remus Lupin — one of the very targets of Hermione's protectiveness — might be the only person at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes who actually understood what she was thinking.
And he already knew about the Boggart. There was nothing left to protect.
"I told her that giants are dangerous," Draco said. "I was trying to warn her — to make her more careful. Instead, she decided I was looking down on Muggle-borns and on her. What exactly is the logic in that?"
"I imagine you also said something about werewolves," Lupin said, with the serenity of a man who has heard worse.
Draco realised, a beat late, what he was doing — sitting in a room with a werewolf, explaining how he'd quarrelled with the girl he loved over werewolves being dangerous. He had walked into this completely.
Lupin noticed his expression and waved a hand. "It's all right. I can't stand werewolves either. Fenrir Greyback bit me when I was a child. Nobody has more cause to be wary of them than I do."
"I'm sorry," Draco said, and meant it.
"Don't be." Lupin was quiet for a moment. "Hermione, in some ways, reminds me of Lily. Intelligent, driven, kind. She has a gift for seeing what's best in people — things those people often haven't noticed about themselves."
"She really does," Draco said softly. "She always seems to believe there's something better in me than what I show. She's been pulling it out of me, in increments, since the beginning." He looked at the workshop hearth. "Do you know why I offered you this position?"
Lupin raised his eyebrows. "I've wondered."
"Because of her. She doesn't know it yet — I haven't told her."
"You hired me for her sake without telling her?"
"I was thinking about something she said once. When the werewolf incident happened in third year — I asked her afterward if she'd been frightened." Draco turned his Butterbeer in his hands. "She said yes, of course she'd been frightened. But she said that if there was anyone more frightened than her that night, it must have been you. She said you would be devastated when you came back to yourself and understood what had happened. That even though she was afraid, she couldn't blame you for it."
The room was quiet except for the jazz.
"She's extraordinarily generous," Lupin said, after a moment. His voice was careful.
"She's an idealist to the point of being impractical, and kind to the point of sometimes frightening me." Draco looked at the fire. "I would never have that kind of thought on my own. She wakes something up in me. Some better version that I normally keep fairly well buried. She's always been the one doing the waking." He paused. "I hired you because I heard her say that, and I thought — if she sees enough in you to offer forgiveness before you even asked for it, then perhaps there's more to see than I've allowed."
Lupin cleared his throat, very quietly. He took a drink.
Draco, watching him, arrived at something. "You loved Lily, didn't you. The way I love Hermione."
Lupin said nothing. He looked at the fire.
They drank in silence.
"I've never met anyone like her," Draco said, after a while. "She's completely foreign to the world I grew up in. I found that terrifying for a long time. I tried staying away, then tried provoking her, tried drawing out her flaws, tried anything to make her seem more ordinary — just so there was somewhere to put what I felt about her." He gave a short, self-mocking smile. "None of it worked. I got closer instead of further away."
"Provoking her and trying to make her look worse," Lupin said, with a hint of a smile. "That's a fairly spectacular approach to romance."
"I know." He looked down at his glass. "I've made nearly every wrong choice there is. By the time I understood that, I'd already made a complete mess of things. But then I had a chance, and I finally stopped wanting to run from it. I've tried — I've genuinely tried — and I still can't understand what she's angry with me about now."
Lupin studied him. "I think she's insecure."
"No," Draco said immediately. "She's one of the most self-assured people I've ever met. She doesn't crumble over this sort of thing —"
"She's confident in her abilities. She's not always confident about how she's perceived by people she cares about." Lupin chose his words slowly. "You're a pure-blood wizard, Draco. You move through the world without certain questions ever occurring to you. For people who grew up being treated differently — half-bloods, Muggle-borns, those of us who aren't quite... standard — there's a constant, low-level awareness of how others see you. It doesn't come from one person saying one terrible thing. It accumulates. Indirectly, subtly, from attitudes all around you."
Draco was quiet.
"You didn't look down on her," Lupin continued. "But your manner when you discussed those other groups — the certainty of it, the casual way you drew those lines — is familiar to her. She's heard versions of that her whole time at Hogwarts. And the closer you are to someone, the more that kind of thing stings."
"I thought Gryffindor would be different," Draco said. "I thought at least there —"
"Every house has its enlightened people and its unenlightened ones. The Sorting Hat doesn't screen for prejudice." Lupin laughed, a little bitterly. "Gryffindor produced Peter Pettigrew."
Draco frowned. "I thought you'd be more biased."
"Leaving aside whether I am or not — the question today is whether *you* might be. Not maliciously. Not consciously. But the assumptions woven into how you were raised, the habitual arrogance you sometimes don't even notice you're projecting — could that hurt her? A clever, perceptive witch who's spent four years being dismissed because of her background?"
"But I was stating facts —"
"Even true statements can carry an attitude that makes them unbearable. Especially from someone whose opinion she values above most." Lupin looked at him steadily. "She may not be angry at you for being wrong. She may be afraid that one day you'll look at her the same way."
There was a pause.
"She's being stubborn," Draco said finally.
"She might be," Lupin said, with patience. "And the more important someone is to her, the more intensely she'll react. There's something rather telling about that, if you care to look at it."
"So I have to what — apologise indefinitely? Even when I'm right?"
"You have to tell her clearly that she isn't included in any of it — and then you have to keep telling her, whenever she starts to doubt it." Lupin looked at him with the expression of a teacher who is very fond of a difficult student. "It won't be resolved once and never again. You'll have to keep choosing her, and keep saying so. That's not a hardship. That's just what it looks like."
Draco considered this for a long moment. "How are you this knowledgeable about this? Have you actually ever been in a relationship?"
"I wouldn't say I understand love well." Lupin smiled, and there was something rueful in it. "But I watched Lily and James for years. She was furious with him constantly — his arrogance, his showmanship, the way he didn't notice the space he took up. But she treated him differently from everyone else. She cared too much to accept anything less from him than his best."
Draco sat with that for a moment.
Then, very slowly, he smiled.
"You absolute idiot," Lupin said, with great affection. "That's not the moral of the story. The point is that you need to apologise — sincerely, for the arrogance and not just the words — and make absolutely clear where she stands. And then never make her wonder again."
"Right. I'm going." Draco drained his Butterbeer in one go, set the glass down with a decisive crack, and glared at Lupin with the expression of a person who has just had something very obvious pointed out to them in the most inconvenient possible way. "For the record — you just called me an idiot. This idiot brews your Wolfsbane every month."
"And I'm deeply grateful," Lupin said serenely.
Draco stormed down the stairs.
George, coming up the other way, stepped aside and stared after him. "Remus, did something happen? He looked ready to fight someone."
"Quite the opposite. We had a perfectly productive conversation." Lupin rubbed his eyes, and a peculiar warmth settled in his expression. "A frozen Slytherin snake, thawed out by the heart of a Gryffindor lion."
George stared at him. "Right," he said slowly, and continued up the stairs.
---
**Goyle's Diary, Part Two**
*Weather, 1 January 1995: Snow*
The Christmas holidays are my favourite time of year.
This is when I perform my greatest feat: devouring a roast turkey in three bites. My parents always look as though they want to cry (actually, I think they're both appalled and impressed at the same time). I am fairly certain they are proud.
The holiday table is usually piled high with roasted meats and boiled potatoes, but I didn't have much appetite today because it's the last day of the holidays and I could only manage one bowl.
My parents seemed relieved.
They did not know about the large plate of mini sausages and the entire bowl of buttered peas I had eaten before sitting down to dinner.
300 hits on a Bludger at home. Soon we leave for King's Cross.
I'm not writing anymore. Before I go, I need to figure out how to mix braised meat and cranberry sauce into my rice.
---
*Weather, 2 January 1995: Cloudy and unpredictable*
Yesterday evening, Vincent and I were eating flaming Christmas pudding when we heard a horror story: we had homework due. From the holidays.
Nott happened to be walking past, saw our expressions, and for the first and possibly only time in his life, gave us a useful suggestion.
That night, we cried in front of Draco in the common room.
He didn't speak for a long time. Then his face went very pale, and he glared at us, and told us to start writing immediately.
We wrote from 9pm to 5am. Finished!
While Draco was catching up on sleep and too exhausted to move, Vincent and I ate 20 chicken drumsticks at the breakfast table to celebrate completing our assignment.
Draco probably found out.
After his Arithmancy and Divination class, he coldly demanded we run twenty-five laps of the Quidditch pitch.
Why five more than usual?
Neither of us dared argue. We had some guilty feelings about the drumsticks.
25 laps. 300 Bludger hits.
---
*Weather, 3 January 1995: Light snow*
I have discovered something: Draco didn't notice the drumsticks at all.
He's in a bad mood because Granger is ignoring him.
Today in the corridor he spotted Granger. Granger raised her book, covered her face with it, and walked away.
Draco asked me, "She's avoiding me, isn't she?"
I couldn't answer. I had a Jelly Slug in my mouth.
I mumbled, "Well... maybe she didn't see you..."
While Draco stared into the middle distance, I quickly swallowed it.
His face was terrifying.
25 laps. 300 hits.
---
*Weather, 5 January 1995: Sunny*
Today in Herbology, Granger nearly tripped over a bag of dragon dung coming around the corner.
She didn't fall — because Draco happened to be passing and caught her.
This was quite remarkable timing.
Vincent thinks she did it on purpose. I don't think so. Because the very next second, she went bright red, yelled at Draco to let go, and ran away with her books.
Draco watched her go with a smug expression.
He stared after her for a very long time. His hair looked noticeably shinier than usual.
I think he's in a good mood today.
This afternoon he told us we could run five fewer laps from now on.
FIVE FEWER LAPS.
Merlin. You heard my prayers.
I have been placing honey sweets and liquorice wands at your portrait every single night and it has paid off.
May you ascend to paradise.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
— Actually, I ran fewer laps but added flying practice. Why am I more tired than before?
---
*Weather, 6 January 1995: Gloomy*
Actually the weather wasn't bad. But there was a very cold atmosphere at dinner.
Draco was glaring across the room at the Gryffindor table. His fork was dismembering his ham sandwich with unnecessary force.
"Too close," he muttered.
I asked Vincent why Draco was taking his feelings out on a perfectly good sandwich. Was the Gryffindor ham more appetising?
Vincent said a seventh-year Gryffindor boy had been talking to Granger and displaying a full set of teeth.
While Vincent was explaining, I took an extra sandwich from the bread basket.
Stolen food tastes better. This is a fact.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
---
*Weather, 7 January 1995: Sunny*
Saturday.
Finished training early. Vincent and I are always much more energetic on Saturdays than during the week. I don't understand why.
On the way back to the castle, we heard Draco talking to the Weasley twins in a corridor.
"...the Big Boil looks promising. I think you ought to find a few willing testers... such as..." His voice was very low. I couldn't hear it properly.
"...We've been meaning to get around to this since last year..." the twins said, grinning at him.
---
*Weather, 8 January 1995: Sunny*
While eating our tenth baked flatbread at breakfast, Vincent and I heard that a Gryffindor boy had developed boils all over his body overnight and been taken to the hospital wing.
Parkinson and Zabini went to visit, came back, and laughed for half an hour in the common room.
"Kenneth Toliver is unrecognisable!" Parkinson shrieked. "He was crying and trying to take off his pyjamas when I walked in!"
Vincent covered his clothes in alarm.
Kenneth Toliver, by the way, was the Gryffindor boy who smiled at Granger a few days ago.
I don't know why I'm mentioning this.
Granger seemed completely unaware of any of it, and continued to glare at Draco with the ferocity of someone who has decided to glare at him indefinitely.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
---
*Weather, 9 January 1995: Cloudy*
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
Also — Gryffindor's Cormac McLaggen was admitted to the hospital wing this evening. Boils. He had been sitting across from Granger at breakfast and apparently spent the meal pulling faces.
---
*Weather, 10 January 1995: Strange*
Patricia Stinson of Gryffindor was the third. Also boils.
This one was more sudden. She had been perfectly well at noon when she announced loudly in the corridor that Granger was probably an expert at brewing love potions.
Parkinson refused to visit the hospital wing this time.
She earnestly told us there might be fleas in the Gryffindor common room and that we should keep our distance.
Fleas are quite frightening.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
I brushed past Stinson at noon. Could I have caught fleas?
I took a very thorough shower.
---
*Weather, 11 January 1995: Cloudy*
No boils. I am safe.
Extra honey sweets and a liquorice wand for Merlin overnight. Worth every Knut.
May Merlin bless us all.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
---
*Weather, 12 January 1995: Quite bad*
Draco confiscated all the offerings I had left for Merlin.
He wouldn't let me explain what they were for.
I watched my sweets get poured away like a waterfall.
It was heartbreaking.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
---
*Weather, 13 January 1995: Cloudy*
The flea problem has spread beyond Gryffindor.
Eddie Carmichael of Ravenclaw — who yesterday visited the Gryffindor table to introduce Granger to some kind of buffet — is in the hospital wing.
Zacharias Smith of Hufflepuff — who this morning loudly announced that Krum had shown "great wisdom in not choosing a Muggle as a dance partner" — followed shortly after.
How did the fleas travel from the eighth floor to the dungeons?
The Slytherin common room may be the last safe location at Hogwarts.
Draco appears completely unafraid of catching fleas from Gryffindor. He sat directly beside Granger in History of Magic today and stared at her profile for the entire lesson. She did not speak to him or look at him once.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
---
*Weather, 14 January 1995: Cloudy*
Slytherin has fallen.
Not Draco. Malcolm Baddock, a first-year.
That Baddock is always running around without looking where he's going. He ran straight into something he shouldn't have. No great surprise.
Actually — he might be the same student who nearly knocked Granger over at a corner last month.
What was once a peaceful Saturday is now a day of fear and suspicion in the Slytherin common room. Everyone is keeping their distance from everyone else.
I was worried, so I showered extensively.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying. Then another shower.
I got up in the middle of the night and left Merlin new offerings without Draco's knowledge.
---
*Weather, 15 January 1995: I don't remember*
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
Parkinson walked past the training pitch today and commented that Vincent's hair looked like a pot lid.
Vincent was so furious he couldn't stop in time and collided with the stands. Broke his arm.
Draco was very agitated when he came to check on him. He said things to Parkinson that made her cry.
Zabini confronted Draco and demanded an apology.
Draco told Zabini he'd apologise if Zabini could beat him at Wizard's Chess.
Zabini lost, of course. No one in this school has ever beaten Draco at chess.
While they were busy with the match and not watching me, I retrieved a toffee from my trouser pocket — in there for unknown weeks — and ate it extremely quickly.
---
*Weather, 16 January 1995: Cloudy, turning sunny*
Went with Draco to the hospital wing to see how Vincent's arm was getting on.
Granger was there.
She was standing behind one of the privacy curtains, talking to someone in a low voice. "Be confident. I think you're very lovely. Once those clear up, you'll see—"
"Hermione, who are you talking to?" Draco said, and pulled the curtain back.
Behind it was a girl with a spotty complexion who looked absolutely horrified and clutched her face with both hands.
I recognised her. That's Eloise Midgen, who accidentally removed her nose while attempting a spot-removal charm at the beginning of the year. Daphne Greengrass mentioned it in the common room.
"What are you doing?" the girl said.
Granger crossed her arms and looked at Draco. "Close the curtain," she said, in a voice like ice.
Draco looked at Granger. Then at the curtain. Then he pulled it shut again without a word.
As we walked briskly out of the hospital wing, his expression looked oddly like relief.
I quietly left a bag of peanut brittle under Vincent's pillow. "This is my last bag. Eat it and get better soon."
I had been keeping it hidden in a pair of old socks. That's why Draco never found it.
20 laps alone. 300 hits alone. 30 minutes flying alone.
Very hungry.
---
*Weather, 17 January 1995: Cloudy, turning to light snow*
Draco is in a bad mood again.
In Herbology, Granger still had nothing friendly to offer him.
At dinner, he stared at the entrance to the Great Hall for so long that his teapot overflowed and he didn't notice.
"She's laughing too much," he said.
I looked over. Krum and some Durmstrang students had just passed Granger, who was apparently smiling at something.
I have a vague but increasingly confident theory: Krum may be the next one to get fleas.
20 laps alone. 300 hits alone. 30 minutes flying alone.
---
*Weather, 18 January 1995: Snow*
Krum did not get fleas. I was wrong.
In any case, I no longer care about this.
VINCENT IS RECOVERED!
I will not have to train in the bitter cold alone any longer!
He was in excellent spirits. I pulled him straight down to the lake, where someone had sailed Durmstrang's ship to the middle of the frozen Black Lake during the night. The entire Durmstrang contingent had to walk across the ice to shore, slipping and sliding the whole way. The Beauxbatons girls were absolutely delighted.
Draco seemed to be in a good mood today — probably on account of Vincent — and started teaching us the Counter-Attack Bludger movement.
We practised it twenty times. We still can't do it.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying.
---
*Weather, 19 January 1995: Snow*
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying. 30 minutes Counter-Attack Bludger practice.
Astronomy class tonight was frigid. Vincent and I nearly turned solid.
Draco doesn't appear to feel the cold at all.
He took off his own robes and draped them over Granger's shoulders.
Granger said nothing, took them off, and handed them back.
Draco put them back on her shoulders.
Vincent and I turned our heads back and forth between them for the entire lesson.
What was tonight's lesson? I don't remember.
Why were the two of them the only ones who managed to hand in the classwork at the end?
Why are only Vincent and I in detention?
---
*Weather, 20 January 1995: Blizzard*
Day off. The ground is too icy and the wind too strong.
Vincent and I were overjoyed.
Then at midnight I couldn't sleep, so I went to the Great Hall to run a few laps. Vincent was already there, also unable to sleep.
We ran twenty laps together, huffing and puffing, then went back to bed.
Ate a toffee before sleeping. Better than any dream.
---
*Weather, 21 January 1995: Cloudy and unpredictable*
Hogsmeade open day!
At Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes I saw something called "Big Boil" that apparently causes boils all over the body. I didn't get to look at it closely — too many students crowding around.
Vincent and I were squeezed out like toothpaste and made straight for Honeydukes.
Wonderful day.
We spent the whole visit competing at the counter. Our pockets are completely full.
Even better: Draco, who was with us, didn't notice any of it.
He had a long face the whole way back to the castle, like Vincent when he's trying to decide what to eat for dinner.
Vincent thinks Draco and Granger probably argued again at the shop.
I nodded enthusiastically at him while quietly tasting a fresh pink coconut ice. Delicious.
20 laps. 300 hits. 30 minutes flying. 30 minutes Counter-Attack Bludger practice.
The Counter-Attack Bludger movement is really very difficult.