Harmonizing with Him

Chapter 4

Here's the new chapter. Enjoy, and please comment if you like it. Thank you!

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"She's a nightmare, honestly!" Ginny exclaimed, "I don't know why she's even here. She's so unfit for a teacher!"

Hermione nodded absently, her eyes on the words of Magical Herbs in Modern Times.

It was Monday after the weekend, and Hermione was getting very irked by Ginny's useless complaints. The first class for the day was with Umbridge, and Hermione needed some peace to clear her mind and read her book before she attended it. But unfortunately, Ginny was making it impossible. To make matters worse, Harry and Ron weren't present yet. Them being here would have made Ginny's rants a bit bearable.

Must be sleeping in late, Hermione thought, groaning silently.

"I don't know why Dumbledore doesn't say anything," Ginny wailed, "She ought to be sacked!"

"Professor Dumbledore has a lot of things in his agenda," Hermione replied quietly, "Things more important than sacking Umbridge, you know."

Ginny rolled her eyes and looked at Hermione's book with disgust.

"Why are you always reading?" she asked rudely, "There are other things more interesting than books!"

The comment enraged Hermione, "But I prefer to read books over those things, thank you very much!"

"Ughh, you're so boring!" Ginny hollered.

"Who's boring?" a voice asked. It was Ron, followed by Harry.

Hermione's heart fluttered at the sight of Harry, as it has been doing throughout the weekend. This feeling was extremely awkward, especially since they were best friends. So she tried to force herself not to behave weird and bashful around him, even if she just couldn't put aside her actual feelings. It was a raging war unfolding inside of her.

"Hermione!" Ginny exclaimed, then batted her eyelashes at Harry, her voice dramatically changing, "Hey, Harry! What's up?"

"Nothing much," he answered, not looking at her, "And Hermione's not boring."

"She reads books, so she is boring," Ginny said firmly.

"Reading books doesn't make one boring!" Hermione hollered, unable to contain herself.

"Yeah. And besides that, she has done a lot of adventures and acts of bravery, so she is, in fact, not boring," Harry stated. Hermione blushed to her roots at his comment, but Ginny just glared.

"Do you know what she did?" Harry said excitedly.

"What?" Ron asked, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.

"It was nothing, okay!" Hermione refuted, shaking her head.

"She broke another rule. But this time for herself," Harry declared proudly.

"Shh, not so loud!" Hermione exclaimed.

However, both Ron's and Ginny's eyes were popped open.

"She did that?!" they asked in unison.

"Yeah, I did," Hermione told them, meekly, "I just felt like it."

"When do you ever feel like it?" Ron demanded, incredulous.

"The timing was right," Hermione giggled.

"Timing...?"

"That's a story for another time, Ron," Harry said, in a voice that indicated 'Not in front of Ginny.'