As the next few days passed, Slughorn still beamed at me each time that he saw me passing in the corridors and I was rather pleased with myself.
On Saturday morning, Hermione and I were sitting in the Great Hall having breakfast while Ron and Harry had gone to change their robes for the Quidditch trials, and we were to join them in a short while.
But as we were standing up from the Gryffindor table, Slughorn approached us, smiling.
"Good morning, Miss Granger — Miss Hooper," he nodded brightly at us.
"Good morning, sir," we said politely.
"Good that I saw you two here! I was actually planning on throwing a small dinner party tonight; just a gathering to know my students better. Would you two care to join us?"
"We'd be delighted to, sir," said Hermione quickly, looking really glad.
"Splendid!" he said happily. "Mr. Zabini is going to be there, along with Mr. McLaggen. I've already asked Harry, but turns out he has detention with Professor Snape tonight. Shame, shame... But I will being seeing you two tonight, hopefully."
"Of course, Professor," I nodded at him and so with one last smile at our direction, he left our side.
As promised, Hermione and I left the Great Hall and went down to the Quidditch Pitch. We sat by the stands, watching the trial.
Poor Harry was having a hard tine controlling the crowd who had showed up, shouting at them and having to answer the complains of the ones he had rejected.
When it was time for the Keepers' tryouts and Ron was up, an enthusiastic Lavender Brown cried out from behind us, "Good luck, Ron!"
I grinned as I saw Hermione roll her eyes. But my smile widened when from the corner of my eyes I caught Hermione casting a Confundus Charm when McLaggen was up, causing him to miss the last goal and losing the spot of Gryffindor's Keeper to Ron.
***
That night, Hermione and I got ready in our dormitory to go to Slughorn's gathering, to which Parvati, Lavender, and Katherine were not invited.
I was still wondering why Katherine had not appeared in the books. But seeing as I had enough going on in my mind, I just tried to reason myself that perhaps she just wasn't an important character to mention, just like many others.
"Do you think the dinner party's going to be any fun?" Hermione asked as the two of us made our way toward Slughorn's office.
"Judging by the people who are invited, including Zabini and McLaggen, then I'm pretty sure I would want to kill myself halfway through. So no, I don't think it's gonna be too much fun."
Frankly, I didn't suppose it was going to be an interesting gathering, but I was still amused by the fact that I had gotten in a club with one of its previous members being Lily Evans.
By the time we reached the office, almost everyone else had arrived and gathered around the dinner table. Slughorn greeted us warmly as we took our seats.
He went on asking everyone about their parents, showing the most interest in the ones who had the best connections around in the Wizarding world.
"Now, tell me, Miss Granger," Slughorn started, turning on her. "What do your parents do in the Muggle world?"
"Um... they are dentists." By that word, everyone looked at her in confusion. "They tend to people's teeth."
"Interesting, interesting," he smiled, even though didn't look as if he found it too amusing. "How about your parents, Miss Hooper? What do they do for a living?"
"Well," I started uneasily, "my mother is an art collector and my father is a business man."
"Oho!" Slughorn raised a brow. "They're both Muggles, I've heard, aren't they?"
"Y-yes, sir," I answered briskly, happy that he moved on from me quickly and turned once again to McLaggen.
After the dinner was over, Slughorn got to his feet to escort everyone to the door as they said their goodnight and left.
Founding the opportunity perfect, I told Hermione to go on without me as I wanted to stay behind to take a quick look at Slughorn's shelf, in hopes of spotting Lily Evans's picture.
Walking hesitantly towards where the shelf stood at the back of his office, I started looking all around at the moving pictures.
Finally, on the front frame, I saw Slughorn posing with a drink in his hand and a girl standing beside him.
I immediately recognized the girl with red hair and green eyes as Harry's mother, who had sacrificed herself to save his son.
"Miss Hooper?" I was startled at the voice, jumping around to see Slughorn looking at me curiously. "I see you've spotted my shelf."
He chuckled, walking toward me. I once again turned back to look at the picture, smiling to myself.
"Sorry, Professor," I said nervously. "I just find old pictures really fascinating."
"They were all my students," said Slughorn in a proud tone. "All very talented. All very bright."
I started looking around at the other photographs with high fascination, but other than Lily whom I had recognized by her red hair and green eyes, the others were unknown to me.
My heart gave another exciting lurch when I found another picture of Lily, although it was a group shot this time. I figured that they were the whole members of the Slug Club at that era.
My attention was then caught by a girl standing next to Lily, with wavy blue hair and hazel eyes.
I bent down slightly, wanting to take a closer look at the picture and see the others, that I suddenly felt the air get knocked out of my lungs and my eyes widened in shock.
"Professor?" I said breathlessly, my gaze now fixed on one of the boys inside the moving photograph who was standing in the far corner, raising his glass.
"Yes?" said Slughorn.
I pointed down at the person smiling at me from the frame and muttered weakly, "Who – who is that?"