Ramblings...

Harry Potter couldn't have been more annoyed. The nerve of Snape! As if he wanted to work on his Potions project with that pansy, Draco Malfoy. In Harry's opinion, Malfoy was the foulest slime ball to ever cross the Hogwarts threshold, not including Lord Voldemort. And to spend a class period, a whole hour and a half, with Malfoy in the library was unthinkable. He cringed when he thought of just how much Malfoy was going to poke fun of Harry, or perhaps just piss him off really bad. So Harry's first idea was to think of some really witty comebacks...

Sure, he thought, like I have the time for that.

After all, he was very busy, what with D.A. meetings to coordinate and letters to write and essays to do and, of course, girls to think about.

And, to top it all off, Hermione and Ron had been assigned partners, which Harry thought had been Snape's way of punishing Harry for singeing Snape's eyebrows last lesson. It's not like it was Harry's fault, Snape shouldn't have been leaning into the acidic smoke spewing from Harry's cauldron. In any case, Harry was still stuck with Malfoy, which made Ron and Hermione feel guilty.

"Cheer up, Harry - want one of my Chocolate Frog cards?" said Ron unhelpfully as he tossed Harry a card.

"It's not like your sympathy is going to make this project go away," snapped Harry, turning over the Chocolate Frog card. "Hey - look who I got!"

"Cho Chang?" read Hermione over Harry's shoulder. "But Cho still goes to Hogwarts! She can't have possibly done anything great enough to be on a card yet!"

"Lemme see," said Ron, turning over the card to read the information on the backside. "Hmmm... 'Miss Chang is the celebrated Seeker of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team at Hogwarts, and she also once went out with Harry Potter, a.k.a. The Boy Who Lived, which is, by far, her greatest achievement'."

Ron's eyes widened at the last bit of the sentence, and immediately his cheeks puffed out as he turned red with suppressed laughter. Hermione snatched the card from his hands and read over the back, making sure that Ron was not joking.

"It really does say that..." she muttered to the card.

"Great... gimme that, would you, Hermione? I need to burn it," said Harry, taking out his wand.

"No... I think I'll keep it, if you don't mind," she said, still staring at the card. "Besides, you can't start fires magically in the common room... it was in Hogwarts, A History. Precaution, you know, since Godric Gryffindor was once lit on fire by one of his students...." She got up, gathered her books from off the table, and slipped the card in her pocket as she walked up the stairs to the girl's dormitory, balancing her books precariously on one shoulder. Harry turned to Ron, who was still red.

"Shut up," Harry said nastily, and started to gather up his things. He had had a long day, and couldn't wait to find out what tomorrow's excursion to library with the delightfully charming (not) Malfoy would bring.

****

Harry woke up a bit earlier than usual the next day. He was in a bad mood, since the reason he had woken up early was because he had had a dream where Malfoy was handing him chocolates shaped like Dobby, and saying, "I know your secret, Potter!" which Harry took to mean that Malfoy knew about the Chocolate Frog card with Cho on it (though he was sure Trelawney would have said that it was a sure omen of his impending death). Since he had realized that Cho was such a girl, always whiny and crying all the time, he hadn't really cared to be associated with Cho, but now that she had a Chocolate Frog card... People would be sure to talk.

Sure enough, Malfoy had somehow procured the very same card that Ron had handed to Harry the previous night, and he was animatedly telling his fellow Slytherin year-mates about the inscription on the back.

"How come she got a card for being a leaky faucet and I don't have one for my good looks?" whined Pansy Parkinson to Malfoy.

"Because you're an ugly prat who worships the Ferret," muttered Ron to Harry. Harry didn't smile. "Cheer up, mate, I'm sure he won't even talk to you this entire class period," said Ron.

"And that does me good how?" said Harry.

"Because he can't insult you," said Ron.

"Yeah... one, this is an oral presentation, so some dialog has to go on between us, and two, he can't possibly resist that Malfoy urge of his to insult anything that'll stop long enough to listen to him, namely, me," said Harry, annoyed. He wasn't in exactly the cheeriest mood right now, but Ron took offence.

"Touchy... I was just trying to help... Get a clue, Harry." And he stalked off to a table in the corner, closely followed by Hermione, who gave a little wave to Harry before she sat down beside Ron.

Since when does Ron say 'Get a clue?' thought Harry, before following Malfoy's entourage to a table surrounded by Slytherins who all gave Harry threatening looks, least of all Crabbe and Goyle, who looked more constipated and confused than threatening. Harry sighed and sat as far away from Malfoy as possible, with the small technicality that he had to be sitting at the same table as Malfoy.

Snape droned on about their research project on the potion that he had assigned each group. All the groups had already brewed sample flasks of the potion for the class to observe, now all that was left was researching the ingredients and compiling the information into a presentation, something that Harry found terribly dull, so he zoned out during Snape's lecture. When he came to, he found that he was not on his Firebolt as he had been dreaming, but rather he was still in the library, and Malfoy was in fact standing right next to Harry, saying something about how he was going off with Pansy to "look" for a book that they needed.

"Fat chance," said Harry out loud.

"What was that, Potter?" said Malfoy dangerously.

Harry decided right then that he wasn't going to take any crap from Malfoy. "I said 'fat chance', didn't you hear me, Malfoy? Or maybe the thought of skiving off our presentation to go make out with Parkinson is just too much for you one-track mind." Harry's voice sounded sinister, and very unlike his own. And he hadn't even prepared that comeback, so where did it come from?

Malfoy looked stunned for a moment, and then snapped out of it. "Clever Potter, did you think that up all by your onesies? Or did you get help from Granger? Because that sounded like a swotty Mudblood's insult to me."

"So you are going to go make out with Parkinson in the Charms section of the library, then, or not?" said Harry indifferently. When had he grown so callous? Harry wondered to himself.

"No, Potter, I'm not," said Malfoy dangerously. "And if you want to make something of it, then you'll keep talking."

Harry glared at Malfoy. Malfoy glared determinedly back. He was slightly pink in the face.

"Well, I'm not shutting up just yet," said Harry coldly. "While you're off exercising your lips, be sure to pick up a copy of Mind-Bending Potions, seeing as we need it to do our research and report. You know, our presentation, the reason why we're here?"

"I know," snapped Malfoy. "And I don't run errands for the likes of you, Potter, get it yourself. I'm going to pick out books that I actually think are useful to this project, unlike you. And let's keep this as simple as possible: You're writing the report and I'm doing the oral."

"What? But the oral's just a shortened version of the report--"

"Come along, Pansy," he said in a commanding drawl, turning away from the table. Harry noticed that he deliberately avoided the Charms section.

"Don't hurry back," he muttered to his quill as he stood to go look for Mind-Bending Potions.

On the way he almost ran straight into Hermione, who was yet again carrying a tottering pile of books. Once she had regained her balance, Harry took half the stack so that he could see her face.

"Oh, thanks, Harry," said Hermione, leading the way over to her and Ron's table. Ron was at the table, scribbling furiously away and muttering incoherently to himself. He jumped when Hermione set down her stack of books with a loud thump.

"Way to leave some books for the others, Hermione," said Ron said sarcastically as Harry set down his stack of books on top of Hermione's. "Hey, Harry, how's Malfoy? Haven't bitten his head of yet, have you?"

"I wish," said Harry. "Mind if I set up here?"

"Where's Malfoy?" asked Ron, making room for him amongst all the crumpled pieces of parchment that littered the table.

"Oh, he's gone off with Pansy Parkinson. He's probably snogging her as we speak," said Harry bitterly.

"Pansy Parkinson is such a tart," said Hermione from somewhere behind the gigantic stack of books. "I don't know what on Earth Malfoy sees in her."

"More to the point, what does she see in him?" asked Ron as Harry went and got his things from across the room and dragged them over.

Harry had just set up when Snape came over, a nasty sneer prominent on his greasy face.

"What is it that you think you are doing, Potter?" said Snape from behind him.

"Writing my report, sir," said Harry non-confrontationally.

"And are either Miss Granger or Mr. Weasley your partners, Potter?" asked Snape, his eyes glinting dangerously.

"No, sir," said Harry, taking out parchment, ink and quill.

Snape became frustrated with Harry's lack of fear of being interrogated. "So move your things back to where your partner is, Potter. Though you may not be aware of it, this is a group project, one that counts for fifty percent of your grade this term. So I suggest you work with your assigned partner."

"But, sir, I am. He's doing the oral presentation, and I'm writing the report. I don't need him to help write the report. So I think I'll just stay over here, thanks."

Snape's malevolent grin grew wider still. "Alright then, Potter, have it your way. You will be getting a zero for the project, of course--"

"WHAT?" snarled Harry, jumping to his feet. He completely lost control of his rising temper and pointed a finger right at Snape's heart, while his other hand grasped his wand handle in his pocket. "You can't do that! It's your fault; YOU assigned me to work with that moron! You just came over here, wanting a reason to take my points away like you always do because you can't get over my dad hexing you or whatever! You know, you really need to get over it!"

Snape looked slightly shocked, but recovered quickly. His evil grin started creeping it's way onto his face, but then his mouth twitched and the grin faded. He looked serious, and oddly sincere when he spoke.

"You know, Potter, maybe you're right."

Harry, Hermione and Ron's jaws all dropped.

"Come again?" choked Harry.

"I said, maybe you're right. It's taken me all this time to realize it, but I have only treated you differently all this time just because of your father. James Potter wasn't exactly nice to me, though--I had a trying enough childhood without him ruining it all the time, making fun of me and hexing me every chance he got, just because he was bored and had nothing better to do. And just because you're the spitting image of old Potter senior, with that same... outlook on rules he had, doesn't mean that I should treat you any differently than Mr. Malfoy, does it? I wanted to make you suffer, because it was like I was making James suffer too..." He grew silent and pursed his lips together.

Harry gazed around at Ron and Hermione, who looked as if Christmas had come early. Harry turned back, trying to oppress a huge grin. No more taunting from Snape! No more detention every time he put a toe out of line, no more zeros for work he did do, no more sarcastic comments...

But when Harry saw the look on Snape's face, he knew something was wrong. His malevolent grin was back, only now it was three times as big as it was before....

"April fool's," Snape said in a tone that was barely audible to Harry, much less Hermione and Ron. "And twenty points from Gryffindor. That should teach you to go snooping in my stuff again."

Harry had a bewildered expression on his face as Snape strolled off to go sort out Crabbe and Goyle, who had spilled potion all over themselves and reeked of rotten cabbage.

"April fool's? Since when does Snape celebrate that holiday?" asked Ron when Harry had told them what he said. Hermione just looked sheepish.

"What?" asked Harry and Ron in unison.

"Well, you know the Chocolate Frog card with Cho on it? I was looking at it last night, and there's this really small print at the bottom. I was able to read it with a simple magnification charm, though..." And she pulled the card out of her pocket and flipped it onto the side with Cho's picture. In the photograph, Cho was flying on her broom, alternately chasing a Snitch and tossing her hair and waving to the invisible crowd below.

"See her robes?" said Hermione, jabbing at Cho's blue Quidditch robes with the tip of her wand. "If I magnify them..."

Hermione tapped the card four times, and instantly the picture of Cho turned into a giant mass of blue, with white words written upon it. Harry moved in for a closer look.

"This special edition card brought to you by the We Hate Potter Club! April Fool's!" Harry read out loud. He furrowed his eyebrows moodily.

"I suppose Snape's president of this club then..." said Ron unhelpfully.

"I hate this bloody holiday," said Harry angrily, grabbing a book from Hermione's stack and opening it at random. "Remind me to get Snape back, and the We Hate Potter Club too."

"Duly noted," said Hermione with a grin.