Faith .|. H. J. POTTER ✔

Chapter ninety-five

After Harry and Faith had arrived at the party in the common room, lots of drama had already happened. Ron was declared a hypocrite by Ginny for snogging Lavender Brown in the middle of the crowd. That had led to Hermione storming off. Faith had told Harry to do some damage control whilst she stayed behind in the common room since she still had a hard time to walk on her own. 

The days that followed were mostly spent by Faith with the arms of her friends around her to help her walk. It was usually Harry since they decided they had to stick together after Ron and Hermione didn't talk to each other anymore now.

It had started to snow since Christmas was creeping closer. They had already seen Hagrid carry the usual twelve Christmas trees to the Great Hall which was already decorated with tinsel and banners. Someone also had hung up mistletoe in about every corridor which was really annoying for both Harry and Faith. Every time Harry walked through the corridors, girls would block the path for him and pretend to find mistletoe hanging there. So far, Harry always escaped them and now insisted on taking the secret passageways to avoid the hallways with mistletoe. Faith was once cornered by a seventh-year Ravenclaw called Eddie Carmichael who apparently still had a crush on her but she accidentally kicked him in his shins and then escaped with Harry.

They finally got the old Ron back, the cheerful one, but this Ron always came with Lavender Brown who apparently thought every second not kissing Ron was wasted. Ron talked to them a lot about Hermione but they never really said anything about it, desperate to stay his friend. 

"She can't complain," Ron said to the two in the common room. "She snogged Krum. So she's found out someone wants to snog me, too. Well, it's a free country. I haven't done anything wrong,"

Harry and Faith just shared a look from over their books but didn't respond. They only really talked to each other as even with Hermione they tried not to talk much. 

"I never promised Hermione anything," Ron continued. "I mean, all right, I was going to go to Slughorn's Christmas party with her, but she never said ... just as friends ... I'm a free agent ..."

Harry and Faith had little to no time to talk to Hermione due to her busy schedule. They only chatted in the evenings when Ron was snuggled up with Lavender in a corner in the common room. Hermione took the two to the library most of the time. 

"He's at perfect liberty to kiss whomever he likes," Hermione told them as she dipped her quill in the ink again. "I really couldn't care less," She was dotting the 'i' so harshly, she stabbed through the parchment. 

Harry was bent over the Prince's notes on Libatius Borage's text, not really responding. Faith was writing in her gemstones book again, deciding to pick it up after so much time. 

"And incidentally," Hermione said, "you need to be careful,"

"For the last time," Harry cleared his throat after such a long silence, "I am not giving back this book, I've learned more from the Half-Blood Prince than Snape or Slughorn have taught me in -"

"I'm not talking about your stupid so-called Prince," Hermione grumbled, sending the book a nasty look as if it had offended her, "I'm talking about earlier. I went into the girls' bathroom just before I came in here and there were about a dozen girls in there, including that Romilda Vane -"

"She's annoying," Faith mumbled as she closed her book. 

"- they were trying to decide how to slip you a love potion. They're all hoping they're going to get you to take them to Slughorn's party and they all seem to have bought Fred and George's love potions, which I'm afraid to say probably work -"

"Why didn't you confiscate them, then?" Harry asked a little panicked. 

"They didn't have the potions with them in the bathroom," Hermione rolled her eyes. "They were just discussing tactics. As I doubt whether even the Half-Blood Prince could dream up an antidote for a dozen different love potions at once,"