Harry Potter does not belong to me, but to JK Rowling.
Chapter Six
By Saturday Heather was afraid that her friendship with Hermione was seriously on the rocks. Ginny had approached them both earlier wanting to see if they could sneak off to the Room of requirement that weekend to 'let Heather out again.' Hermione had agreed, but not as quickly as Heather would have expected. With her first lesson with Dumbledore scheduled for that evening, the three of them made their way up to the seventh-floor corridor after lunch. Reaching the familiar stretch of blank wall, Heather paced back and forth asking for her haven. After the third pass, she turned expecting to see the door materialize out of nothing. To her surprise, it wasn't there. She tried again, and nothing.
"What gives?" she asked to the other two.
"Maybe it's broken?" suggested Ginny.
"More likely someone is already in there" grumped Hermione.
Heather shot a look of annoyance at her friend, before setting off for the second-floor bathroom. A quick check revealed that Myrtle was not hiding in one of the stalls. Following them in and crossing her arms, Ginny asked "So does one of you want to tell me what's going on between you?"
Heather looked at Hermione, who was determinedly staring at a point on the wall past Ginny's shoulder.
"Hermione thinks I'm cheating in Potions." She said, and launched into an explanation of her new textbook and its modified directions. At first Ginny was alarmed at Heather taking directions from a book, evidently remembering her first year. A closer inspection of said book alleviated those fears, but did nothing to help Hermione's mood.
"She is cheating. She's getting credit for someone else's work."
"So?" asked Ginny, "I mean yeah you shouldn't be using those directions Heather, but why is this bugging you so much Hermione?"
"Because..." Hermione started before pausing hesitantly.
"Because I look smarter than you for once?" asked Heather, realization coming to her at the look on her friend's face.
"No!" cried Hermione, but the tint of her cheeks told a different story. At Heather's words they had gone a bright pink.
"I think it is. I think that for once you don't look like the smartest witch in our year and you hate it" accused Heather, heat rising inside her.
"Well, that's what's happening, isn't it? And all because you happened to get a book someone scribbled in!" answered Hermione.
The air was electric between the two girls. Heather glared at her friend. Any willingness to admit that Hermione had a point was gone in a flash. Ginny, sensing trouble, moved to stand in the middle, looking back and forth at them.
"So, you're jealous?" Heather asked.
"Jealous? Jealous of what?" Hermione sputtered with indignation
"I already told you," growled Heather. "The thought that one teacher here might think that you aren't the smartest person in whichever classroom you happen to be in."
"I am not jealous of a cheater who can't even brew a simple potion without extra help."
"Hermione!" admonished Ginny.
Heather stood rooted to the spot, her hot anger turning cold. "If that's how you feel Hermione, then give me the ingredients you bought and the recipe. I'll brew my potions myself."
At these words Hermione deflated slightly, "W-what?"
"You heard me. I'll take that stuff and just do it myself. Since you're obviously too good to help a cheater."
"Heather!" admonished Ginny, "That's not fair."
"You're going to take her side?" asked Heather, gritting her teeth.
"No, I'm not. But you're being a prat. Both of you are."
Heather looked away from her and back to Hermione. Tears were forming in the corners of Hermione's eyes, but her expression remained defiant. Slowly her anger faded and she, almost grudgingly, realized that Ginny was right. It made sense that Hermione was upset. She was cheating, at least slightly, even if she didn't feel like that warranted how angry Hermione was.
"Fine, I guess you're right." She finally said, not looking at either of them.
"I am right." Ginny said with a very assured voice. "Hermione, Heather has a book with other instructions, ones that happen to work very well. So long as she's doing the work, what does it matter how?"
"It's still cheating" Hermione persisted.
"Maybe, but are you both going to let a class come between you?" asked Ginny.
That seemed to give Hermione pause. Heather knew that lessons came before almost anything to her best friend, and knew that Heather being given credit for something she hadn't actually done would obviously rankle.
"Of course not." Hermione finally said
"Yeah, me either." Said Heather quietly.
"Good, because you too are too good of friends to fall apart over something so stupid." Ginny said, shaking her head at each of them in turn.
It was as though the chill between them hadn't existed. Hermione set up her spare cauldron in one of the stalls, the same one incidentally that she had used to brew the Polyjuice Potion, and got to work. Heather changed clothes and helped Ginny conjure the armchairs they had procured for their clubhouse.
"Ginny..." Heather whispered, "I need your help with something."
"Sure, what is it?"
"How do you flirt with a boy?" Heather asked, blushing crimson.
Ginny let out a loud giggle, causing Hermione to stick her head out. When she asked what had happened Ginny called back, "Heather's asking how to flirt."
Her face turning even more red at the glee on her friends' faces, Heather learned from Ginny several ways of letting a boy know she liked him, that hopefully they would pick up on. Once Hermione was done with the first stages of Heather's potion, she asked who exactly it was that Heather wanted to flirt with.
"So that explains why you keep borrowing things from him in class." She said
"And why I wanted to sit at his table in Charms, yeah." Heather admitted.
They had two charms classes a week, and with Flitwick's more or less open admittance to anyone who could get an 'Acceptable' on their O.W.L., almost everyone in their year took it. At the beginning of their first lesson Heather, Ron, and Hermione had attempted to get a table together, but before she could sit down with them, Lavender Brown, dragging Pavarti Patil, had swooped in to claim the last two seats. The reason for this strange behavior became evident as Lavender proceeded to giggle at anything Ron said.
Unsure of where to go, Heather noticed that another table was waving at her. With a small thrill she saw that it was Justin, Hannah, and Ernie. Moving quickly to the open seat before someone else could snatch it up, Heather joined the Hufflepuffs. She had a lot of trouble focusing on the lesson, as Justin sat directly in her line of sight when gazing up at Professor Flitwick. Often, she found her eyes drawn to him, admiring how his hair managed to be both curly and neat. Heather was sure that Hannah, who was sitting opposite her at the table, caught her staring at Justin several times.
Once Hermione was done with her work on Heather's potion, they enjoyed a rather pleasant afternoon in their bathroom. Both Ginny and Hermione teased Heather mercilessly about her crush on Justin, but as Ginny had known about it since last year it was hardly a surprise.
Her lesson with Dumbledore that evening was extremely interesting, but it left Heather wondering exactly where the headmaster was going with them. Together they dove into the memory of an old Ministry wizard who had been sent to arrest a man that turned out to be Voldemort's uncle. They watched as Merope, Voldemort's mother, was tormented by her uncle and brother, something that Heather could almost relate too. Her heart went out to the young girl, she hadn't asked for the family she had been born into, but knowing the evil she would bring into the world made Heather shudder.
The following week was far busier than the first had been. Instead of the hours of leisure Ron had predicted, even though he had more of them than either Hermione or Heather, their free periods were spent completing the exceptionally large amounts of homework that each teacher seemed intent on assigning. Non-verbal spells had become required in most classes, something that Heather was still having some difficulty. She had managed most basic spells without speaking, but anything evenly slightly complex eluded her ability.
Potions remained her best class, thanks mostly to the Half-Blood Prince's help. After their argument, Hermione had stopped treating the book with open hatred, but still bristled whenever Heather's potion outperformed hers. During the lessons she shared with Justin, Heather tried several of the methods that Ginny had showed her. She was sure she looked like a fool twirling her hair in her fingers while talking to him, and as far as she could tell it was having no effect. Justin was polite and friendly, but there didn't seem to be anything more.
Heather wasn't the only girl in sixth year who was laying on the charm. Everywhere she went with Ron, Lavender Brown was sure to be there, giggling at Ron's slightest joke and making doe eyes at him. Ron, who was not used to this kind of attention, blushed whenever he saw Lavender, who in turn went bright red. Heather watched all this with, caught between mirth and interest. Without intending to she caught herself copying the things Lavender had done during lessons with Justin.
Hermione on the other hand, was not reacting to Lavender's flirting well at all. She found the constant giggling and fawning to be extremely annoying, especially when she was trying to complete her homework. When Heather asked her about it Hermione tried to pass it off as simply distracting to her studies, but she wasn't entirely convincing.
Thankfully the second Saturday of term brought a fresh distraction for Heather. Quidditch trials had been set for that morning, to fill the empty spots in his team's roster. More than thirty students had shown up to try out. Before Heather could set to work trying to weed out the weaker candidates, she found her path blocked by what appeared to be a human wall. Cormac McLaggen, a seventh-year that Heather had met in Slughorn's compartment, towered over her. He thrust out his hand, taking on air of joviality.
"Potter, good to see you again. I'll be your new keeper." McLaggen said with all the confidence in the world.
"You mean your trying out for Keeper?" Asked Heather pointedly. After the initial shock of his sheer breadth and height, she found that the tall boy wasn't quite as intimidating as he attempted to be.
"Well, I'm sure you'll see I'm the best of this lot" he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the mad gaggle of students, half of them fighting over the collection of school broomsticks.
"Right, well if you just go wait over there for your turn to try out, I'll get to you in time." Heather said, putting special emphasis on the words. She pointed over where Ron and two third years were standing, already waiting. For a brief second there was a flicker of annoyance at Heather's dismissal. Obviously he had been expecting to be given the position by default.
Quidditch trials ended up taxing Heather's patience more than it had been in a long while. After assigning groups of students to perform laps around the pitch in order to show they could actually fly, more than half of them washed out. First up after that were the chasers. Once three of them had been selected, including Katie Bell and Ginny Weasley, Heather had to have a rather heated argument with one of the rejects in order to get him to leave the pitch.
The beater tryouts were over thankfully quickly, though not without several more arguments. Heather wasn't sure why playing for the Quidditch team had suddenly become far more popular, but it seemed like something of a mixed blessing. By lunchtime the stands were packed and it was time for the keepers. Cormac was up first and Heather had to admit, grudgingly, that he really was a skilled player. He saved four out of the five penalties put to him, barreling off completely the wrong way for the last one. Several people let out derisive snorts at this, and Cormac returned to the ground, face red with anger.
Heather had been hoping for less of a crowd for Ron's turn. She knew his nerves never help up well to pressure. Her fears proved groundless however as Ron achieved a perfect score stopping all five attempts cold. When he landed with the rest of the new team, heather started to make her way over to them but again found her path blocked by a red faced Cormac.
"That wasn't fair. Give me another go." He growled
"No." said Heather, watching the older boys face darken. She thought for moment McLaggen was going to punch her, but then he turned and stormed off. Under his breath as he walked away, Heather almost thought she heard him say "You're going to regret this you little..."
Before letting her new team leave, Heather set the first practice for the following week, feeling optimistic about the upcoming season. Leaving the pitch with Hermione and Ron, the three set off for Hagrid's cabin. None of them had spoken to the gamekeeper since the welcoming feast their first night back. Ever since finding out that they hadn't elected to continue in his subject, Hagrid had been giving them a very cold shoulder, ignoring them if he saw them in the corridor.
It took a great deal of persuasion, and a threat to blow his door in, before he opened the door and let them inside. His small cabin was is disarray, and several large tankards sat empty on the table. It turned out that, beyond being upset at his favorite students abandoning his class, his once pet Aragog wasn't doing to well. Heather had a hard time working up a great deal of sympathy at this news, having once almost been eaten by Aragog, but she did her best to convince Hagrid how truly sorry she would be if the spider died.
Mollified, Hagrid warmed and they spent a very pleasant afternoon discussing the Quidditch tryouts. When Ron made a comment about McLaggen flying off in the wrong direction, Heater was almost sure she saw Hermione look away and turn slightly pink. Now that she thought of it, Hermione had been sitting just behind the goal posts during try outs. Not entirely minding if she had done anything to McLaggen, Heather laughed internally at her friend's obvious crush on Ron.