Experience

Hermione was poised to enter the Great Hall. She just couldn't make her feet work. She knew that she would have to go in there and face Harry after she'd said those outrageous things the night before and she wasn't looking forward to it. Harry had muttered something about taking a shower and stumbled out of her room after her double entendre. She also knew Draco Malfoy would be sitting at the Slytherin table looking smug, superior, and, let's face it. . .sexy. She was grateful that he wasn't a mind reader. Wait a minute. . .he wasn't a mind reader, right? Deciding she was going to drive herself crazy if she stayed in the corridor any longer she forced her feet to move forward.

Inside, she found Harry, Parvati, Ginny, and Ron seated together. They were eating and joking, enjoying being all together again. She sat down next to Ginny, looking a little pale. She made herself peek across the table at Harry only to find him watching her with a knowing smile. "Good morning, Hermione."

"Good morning," she managed. She leaned forward and whispered. "About last night-"

"What *about* last night?" Ginny asked, drawing her attention away from Ron and looking back and forth between them. She didn't like the 'I've got a secret-ness' about them. "What happened?"

"Ah, Hermione has a crush on someone." Harry said as evasively as possible. "She was just asking me for some advice."

"A crush on who?" Ginny asked suspiciously.

Hermione tried not to laugh. "A guy at this school."

"Oh, well that's. . .that's. . ." Ginny threw her arms around Hermione. "Terrific! Good luck!"

Hermione shrugged out of her arms. "Well, we'll see."

"Who've you got a crush on?" Ron questioned, his protective instincts rising to the fore. "Do we know him?"

"Most definitely," Harry quirked an eyebrow at Hermione. "We know him very well." He was enjoying needling her about this.

"Well, what's the big secret?" Ron asked.

Hermione hesitated. "It's. . .well. . .I-"

"Leave her alone, Ron," Parvati said, placing a hand on his arm. "She probably wants to see if he likes her first before a rumor gets started. The Gryffindor rumor mill is legendary. "

"That's right!" Hermione said gratefully. "Thanks, Parvati."

"You told Harry!" Ron said, indignantly. "I can keep a secret. You could have come to me for advice."

"Oh, Ron," Hermione sighed. "I didn't mean to. . .look, it would be weird telling you because we went out." This part was the truth at least.

"I guess so." Ron nodded. He did feel a bit possessive of her. The only guy he didn't mind sharing Hermione with was Harry.

"You know, Hermione, if I were you, I'd go over and say 'hi' to him," Harry challenged. He wanted her to get this out of her system. Malfoy, true to form, would be an ass about it and Harry'd at least get to punch his lights out. Frankly, he'd never heard a more harebrained scheme. He chalked it up to Malfoy's dubious charms. The way the girls in the school reacted, you'd swear he was part Veela.

"This isn't the time or the place, Harry." She insisted as she grabbed up a scone. Now that her stomach wasn't doing flip flops she could eat again. But she couldn't resist a glance at Slytherin table. Seated about fifteen feet from her sat Draco Malfoy. Woah! He was watching her. As he noticed her interest, Draco brought his fingers to his mouth and licked them, lapping up a bit of jam that had escaped his toast.

Hermione's knee connected with the underside of the table as she hastily struggled to her feet and beat a quick retreat. The sound of Malfoy's laughter followed her out of the room.

*~*~*~*~*~*~

"How much does a freelance wizard make?" Harry pondered as he looked at his questionnaire.

"Good or evil?" Ron asked.

"Good," Harry said definitively.

Ron grinned. "Not that much. If you were evil, you could. . .I dunno rob people. Oh! Or break into Gringotts." All the 7^th years were participating in a preliminary career survey. Hogwarts always tried to place its graduates in the Wizarding community.

"Shh!!" Hermione scowled at them. "You should be taking this seriously. We're supposed to be answering these honestly. You should be reflecting on yourself and your goals before you answer." She had managed to recover from the debacle of this morning. Thankfully, they hadn't had any classes with Slytherin yet.

"This coming from the girl who knew what she wanted to do in preschool!" Ron shook his head.

"As a matter of fact, Ronald Weasely, I wanted to be a dentist in preschool. I used to practice on our cat, Snuffles."

Harry smiled at the image of Hermione in one of her parent's white voluminous lab coats fixing the family cat's teeth. "Was he a good patient?"

She laughed. "He was horrid! Snuffles used to howl and moan. I was only trying to clean his teeth."

"If you tried that with Crookshanks, he'd take your arm off," Ron commented.

"You know, this test is supposed to help us find out what we're good at it but the questions are so. . .bizarre. Here, listen to this one." Harry cleared his throat and read in an authoritative, 'teacherish' voice. "I sometimes like to brew potions." He frowned. "Well, that all depends. Is Snape standing behind me while I do it? Because, then. . .no, I don't like to. And what kind of potion is it? If its Polyjuice potion, count me out. "

"You might be over thinking these, Harry," Hermione replied, trying to stifle a snicker. "And I answered that one in the affirmative."

"Of course you did, Miss Perfect Potions Prefect," Ron teased.

Her silver prefect badge was newly shined and put in a conspicuous place on the collar of her robe. "You two could have been prefects if only you'd applied yourselves."

"We were too busy with Quidditch practice," Harry answered. "This year we're going to clean Slytherin's clock."

Ron and Harry high-fived each other and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Hey, Hermione, you want to come watch us tonight?" Ron asked.

Every year opposing Houses held informal scrimmage games to get back into practice. "Sure, is it down at the Pitch?"

"Yep," Harry answered. "You know, Malfoy will be there."

"You know what that means!" Ron crowed.

"Harry! I can't believe you told-"

Harry cut her off. "No penalties for unnecessary roughness."

"Oh," Hermione looked down at her hands. Harry gave her a look for doubting his discretion.

"What were you going to say, Hermione?"

"Nothing, Ron. I just. . .what do you mean by 'unnecessary roughness' ?"

"Usually, you lose points for bumping a person or. . . you know, being a bit rough with the bludger." the redhead answered.

"You mean, you're going to beat him up?" She asked incredulously.

"You make us sound like we're going to sucker punch him or something." Harry said defensively.

"Really, Hermione!" Ron admonished. "We may have dressed up as Crabbe and Goyle one night but we sure as hell don't act like 'em."

"We're just going to play for keeps," Harry said with conviction, ostensibly talking about the game.

But his eyes were fixated on Hermione.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The players were flying by at a breakneck speed. The bludgers were particularly nasty because they hadn't been used all year and they were going after the players with a single-mindedness that kept everyone on their toes. The snitch, ever and an elusive ball, was busy flittering around so fast it was a blur.

Hermione was seated in one of Gryffindor's bleachers. Parvati and Ginny were seated in the front row visiting with the other player's girlfriends and boyfriends. It was unseasonably warm and Hermione shrugged off her robes and fanned herself with the notes she'd been idly looking over. She looked through her magical binoculars and found Ron beating a bludger off of a team mate. She smiled as she saw him smack it thirty yards down the field. He was quite good at this game. She sought out Harry next. He was hovering at the opposite end of the field, watching for the snitch. He was also fanning himself. She told herself she would look for Mal--

"Never fancied you for a Peeping Thomas, Granger."

Hermione bit her lips. No, it couldn't be. . .? She lowered her binoculars. It was. "Malfoy."

"I'm glad you remembered my name," he said sardonically. Draco was floating directly beside her. She gasped as she saw what he *wasn't* wearing. He'd stripped off his cape and shirt completely, leaving him in the tight khaki breeches favored by Quidditch players. His chest was well-defined and creamy white. The muscles stood out in high relief. His skin was luminous; dozens of sweat droplets clung to him. She thought he resembled one of those perfect marble sculptures she was always tempted to touch in museums. There was a line of silvery white hair that began at his navel and traveled lower to disappear beneath his belt buckle.

"I'm not a Peeping Tom!" She bit out. "I was watching the game. What are you doing here anyway?" she grumbled.

He went for the obvious. "Playing Quidditch."

She glowered at him but became fascinated by the silver chain around his neck. On the end of it was a serpent pendant. It was cobra with ruby eyes, poised to strike. Draco quirked an eyebrow at her. "See anything you like, Granger?"

She swallowed thickly. "I wouldn't go that far."

"How far would you go?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and blurted out. "All the way?"

"Are you asking or telling me, Granger? Because I definitely 'go all the way.' " Malfoy was playing havoc with her central nervous system. He looked like a Greek god, a Greek god astride a large phallic shaped object. She had to admire the absurdity of it. Quite literally he was sex on a stick. . .and by the look of things it was a *big* stick.

"Well?" His eyes were icy hot and demanding. "Cat got your tongue?"

Just then, the Golden Snitch flew over their heads and to the back of the stadium.

Malfoy trained his eyes on the little ball. He spared Hermione a glance before heading off. "We'll finish this later."

Harry was right behind him. He flew over Hermione's head at so fast a speed it shook the bleachers. "Be careful!" She called. She wasn't quite sure who it was meant for.

Malfoy almost had the ball in his grasp when Harry bumped into him, sending him careening to the left. Draco struck back and this time Potter flew off course. Just as Malfoy was about to seize the ball once more, Harry came up from behind and scooped it up. Draco let out a stream of curses. Gryffindor won the match.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Later on that evening, Hermione was resting on her bed. She'd had a roller coaster of a day with Malfoy and Harry had given her emotions quite a workout. Harry was always aggressive when it came to Quidditch but he'd seemed extra belligerent today. And Malfoy had stepped up his flirting -- or sexual harassment of her. It really depended on how you looked at it. She sighed as she rolled over and willed herself to sleep. She'd think about these things tomorrow.

Hermione's door flew open and shuffling was heard a the end of her bed. She seized her wand from her bedside table and shouted. "Revealez!" Just as Harry and Ron threw off the invisibility cloak. They stood there staring at her with dopy grins and a quart of pumpkin juice. She squared her jaw. "You're lucky. I was just about to magic you into oblivion. What is it with you two and that damned cloak?"

"Aw, come on, Hermione," Ron pleaded. "We're here to celebrate!"

"Yes! We have to gloat over our complete and total victory over Slytherin!" Harry picked up the jug and attempted to toast with it.

"You're breaking curfew, you know," she informed them archly, trying not to give in but there was a sparkle in her eyes.

"We used the cloak because we didn't want to get caught," Ron explained.

"You're not going to turn us in are you, Miss Prefect?" Harry got on his knees before her to 'plead' for mercy. "Please?"

Ron caught on to the game. He, too, bent down. "Please?! We brought you some pumpkin juice. . .and. . ." He reached into his cloak and pulled out a bag of chocolate frogs. "Chocolate!"

"Just shut the door before someone sees you," she gave in, a smile tugging at her mouth. "By the way, where are your 'better halves'?" As she spoke, Harry pulled three cups from his cloak and began pouring juice.

Ron stood up. "We thought we deserved some Trio Time." It was their code for spending time with just each other.

"Oh. . ." Hermione pulled him into a hug, her eyes tearing up a bit. "Thanks, I needed that. You have no idea how much I missed you this summer."

"Hey!" Harry interjected. "It was my idea. Where's my hug?"

Hermione eyed Harry over Ron's shoulder. "Wait your turn!" she admonished.

"Yeah, some of us are more important," Ron teased. "And I bet you missed me just as much as I missed you, Hermione!" Ron kissed her cheek. "And if you don't mind, I'm going to use your washroom." As a prefect, she had a half a bath attached to her room. Ron let out a low whistle as he entered the other room. "Scented candles and everything."

Hermione approached Harry. "Thank you, too." He eagerly pulled her into his arms. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but this was different from any other hug he'd ever given her. He held her closer, pressing their bodies together more intimately. And his hands were on her lower back. . .he normally placed them in the middle. She pulled back to look up questioningly into his eyes but Harry moved his face closer to hers as if she had unknowingly given him an invitation. He almost looked like he was going to kiss her mouth. She presented him with her cheek instead. Harry blushed a brilliant red as he released her.

"What are you doing in there?" Hermione called to Ron as she backed away from Harry. She was more confused than ever.

Ron came out with two lighted candles. "These smell nice. Parvati has a trunk load of them too." He looked to Harry who was watching Hermione with the oddest expression. "Does Ginny have any?"

"Ginny?" Harry repeated dumbly.

"Your girlfriend?" Ron reminded. "My sister?"

Harry stared at him blankly.

Ron tried again. "Chamber of secrets? Big snake?"

"Oh! Right. Girlfriend. Ginny's my girlfriend." His eyes widened. "Um, er, pumpkin juice. Anyone else thirsty?" He retrieved their glasses and pulled up a chair at the small table Hermione had in her room. She used the space to mediate student conflicts.

Ron looked at Hermione questioningly and then over at Harry. She shrugged.

Hermione cleared her throat. "I could go for some juice." She took the seat opposite Harry and he slid three glasses on the table. She drained her glass as if it were a shot of alcohol.

"What's wrong with you two?" Ron asked suspiciously. "Were you talking about me?" He absently filled their glasses as he waited for them to speak.

Hermione laughed, trying to lighten the mood. "No, Paranoid Pete, we weren't."

"Yeah, we were talking about something else. Um, Hermione, about that, er, *thing*, I-I'm really sorry," Harry beseeched.

She laid her hand on his. "It's all right. I forgive you," she blew out a breath. Hermione was eager to put it behind them. As far as she was concerned, it never happened. "So, what did you guys want to do?"

"We wanted to start the new school year out right! With a toast, of course." Ron enthused. He picked up his glass. "To our final year!"

"To us!" Harry said, raising his.

Hermione put her glass in the air and grinned. "To getting what we want!"