The Royal Witch

Chapter 15 - The little ones

Fly without wings; Dream with open eyes; See in darkness

-Dejan Stojanovic

As they left Potions, Harry and Hermione left early in the hopes of escaping Ron. But as luck would have it, he caught up to them. He ignored Hermione and proceeded to talk to Harry. 

"What did you think of the git Harry?"

"Who?"

"Snape"

"He's not that bad. Professor McGonagall would have transfigured me into a table if I had been absent for classes over a week. He just made a snide comment."

Ron gaped open mouthed at Harry's reasoning. He recovered and said "Yeah, well! Anyway I'm going to go help Fred and George with one of their pranks. Want to come?"

Before Harry could say something or Hermione could say something  for him, Scabbers bit Ron and jumped to Harry. And giving him a nip that barely hurt, scabbers ran off down the corridor. Ron ran after him and Hermione successfully dragged Harry away. 

It was too late by the time Harry realized that Hermione was dragging him to the Library. He slouched in the table and spread his homework on the table they occupied. But eventually he grew interested in actually learning magic and forgot to glare at Hermione every other minute. After a couple of hours he was actually finished and there was still an hour left to meet Draco. Hermione was still scratching on the parchment obviously writing way more than asked, so he took out his wand to practice the spells he had learned that week. 

He was growing quite confident and found that most spells came easy to him. Not as easy as it came to Hermione however. He wondered why that was and decided to just ask her. After he was done practicing all the spells and was satisfied with himself, he poked Hermione in the side. She slapped at his arm without looking.

"Mia" he whined. 

"Shush" she continued writing. 

"Mia, it's almost 5."

"So?"

"Ugh, Draco."

"What about him?"

"Flying. I'm going to meet him. To fly."

She finally turned to look at him. 

"Promise me, you'll be careful. No stupid stuff."

His grin was so wide that Hermione couldn't help but smile herself. He reminded her of James at that moment and she realized with a pang of sadness that that's what they would have been if he hadn't been left with the Dursleys. Brother and Sister.

Harry left skipping all the way and after waiting for a minute she touched the ring on her left hand. Within five minutes, several students from all the houses made their way to the library. They all submitted reports they received from their countries and their families. 

Hermione spoke with each of them for a minute generally asking them about their school life and how things are going. Everyone mostly gave positive reports but one or two timid first years had initial troubles with bullies, but it was all sorted out by friends in higher years and their fellow  year mates. Overall, Hermione was satisfied and she gives them leave.

She slowly went through all the reports reading them thoroughly. She was feeling fatigue an hour into it and wished she had a drink. She craved for a lemonade missing the sunny drink made in her home. Then she face palmed realizing that she was in a castle full of elves. She snapped her fingers and called "one elf from the kitchen."