Anmarie Island

The next morning Hermione awoke to Hedwig gently pecking at her ankles. She hastily untied the note as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

'Mione-

It's amazing, isn't it? I can't believe we'll both be prefects next year! Oh, and don't worry about Ron, Fred and George asked him to help them set up Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, so he'll be fine without us this summer. In fact, we'll all be at Diagon Alley this afternoon to see where their store will be, so it'll be the perfect opportunity to get our supplies for the summer. We'll meet you outside of Ollivander's at 1:00, okay?

Harry & Ron

"Mum! I'm going to Diagon Alley this afternoon!" she called down the stairs, then returned to her room to get ready.

She was outside of Ollivander's at 12:45, looking for the boys. They showed up ten minutes later, eating ice creams and laughing.

"Thanks for getting me one," she said grumpily. The boys saw the twinkle in her eye, though, and gave her a sticky hug.

"I'll see you two later, I've got to find the twins," Ron said, looking around. "Meet you here in three hours?"

"Okay," Harry and Hermione replied.

"Well? Where to first?" Harry asked with a smile.

"Honestly, I haven't even looked at my list yet," she said, giggling at the shocked look on Harry's face. "Let's see here... Well, it looks like we'll be using our course books for next year, and the usual quills and parchment. Ooh! We need a lot of new potion ingredients...and more defense against the dark arts books..." she mused to herself. Harry had already read the list and was waiting for her reaction to the last book on the list. "Wait, what's this rubbish? 'Advanced Divination?' Well, there is no way I'm wasting my money on that."

Harry suddenly burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Hermione glared at him.

"You! You're going to be forced to do divination! It's like forcing Ron to ask a girl for a date!" he laughed heartily for minute, before calming down enough to speak again. "Aw, come on 'Mione! It's not that bad. Just pretend you know what you're talking about."

Hermione grumbled for a few moments, but then brightened considerably and said cheerfully, "I'll just predict the death of Trelawney constantly. If that bat can do it to you, why can't I do it to her?"

"Come on, let's go shopping," Harry said with a grin.

They parted a few hours later, heavily laded with many bags, promising to see each other on Monday. As Hermione fiddled with her purse, trying to fix the broken clasp, she felt a sudden shadow pass over her and glanced up to see Draco Malfoy striding past with a house elf in tow, which was carrying as many bags as Hermione was. She opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it and instead walked in the opposite direction.

Hermione hated the idea of Draco being a prefect alongside herself. In fact, she practically hated Draco himself. Forcing his sneering face from her mind, Hermione focused on Anmarie Island and her excitement welled. She refused to let that prat Draco ruin her time.

"Hurry up!" Draco Malfoy commanded of his panting house elf. "We've still got one more place to go to." After a moment he turned around abruptly and stared icily at his scrawny servant. "I said move your arse," he said in a threatening tone. The elf shook uncontrollably in fear and nodded instantly, his large ears flopping back and forth. After one more stern glare, Draco spun on his heels and headed toward the Three Broomsticks to treat himself to a mug of butterbeer.

Hermione swallowed hard. Her throat was dry. She glanced at her watch and decided that she had time for one glass of butterbeer before heading home for the day. She kept her eye out for Malfoy as she walked toward the Three Broomsticks.

The inside of the store smelled sweet and inviting. Hermione breathed in deeply and the urge for butterbeer overwhelmed her. After setting her array of bags on the wooden floor, she began fishing through her purse for the right amount of galleons when she heard a familiar voice.

"Give me one butterbeer," the voice drawled.

Hermione didn't want to look up. She knew who that voice belonged to.

Dropping her galleons back into her bag, Hermione attempted to quickly gather up her things and leave. But in her frantic state she only made things worse by knocking over her bags and having to pick everything up. She felt gray eyes watching her.

The clerk handed a mug of butterbeer to Draco, who took a generous sip before setting it down on a nearby table. He sauntered toward Hermione, sneering the whole time. She tried to ignore his presence.

"So, two of the great trio will be prefects next year," he grinned slyly to himself. "Poor Weasley. Well at least they spared him the embarrassment of forfeiting his position for not being able to afford his supplies."

Hermione shook her head. She wouldn't glorify him with a response.

He circled her, black cloak swishing as he walked. "What? You don't want to talk, Granger?" he tempted her.

She remained silent as she put her divination book into its bag. Hermione stood, brushed herself off, and began to slowly and carefully gather her things.

Draco stopped circling her like a vulture as she got up. For the first time she looked him in the eye. He gave her his iciest stare. "I can't imagine why they'd make a mudblood a prefect."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. She couldn't believe what he had just uttered. At a loss for words harsh enough to strike Malfoy with, Hermione grabbed her things and stormed out the door, Draco pleasantly smiling to himself as she left. "This is going to be a great summer," he mumbled.

Monday was just one day away. Hermione had spent a lot of time at the Weasleys' with Harry and Ron while forcing herself to think of other things besides Draco Malfoy's cruel remark. Harry and Ron tried to cheer her up. They even offered to beat up the ferret boy, but Hermione figured they should just ignore him and not take anything he said to heart.

"I really wish I was going to Anmarie Island now," Ron clenched a fist. "I'd like to give Malfoy a piece of my mind...and my fist."

Hermione laughed, but then grew serious and grave. She looked at Harry. "You know they're assigning us roommates don't you? No people from the same class can share a room. No coed sharing either. Harry, what if you get stuck with Malfoy as your roommate?" She bit her lip in worry. "That could be a disaster."

Harry shrugged. "I'm not scared of him, 'Mione."

"Yeah, but he could ruin your whole time there. Oh Harry I would be so upset."

"Aw, Harry's not worried about that dumb prat, are you Harry?" Ron nudged Harry's arm.

"Nope. Malfoy's the last of my worries. Passing all the courses is another thing..."

The door to Ron's room flew open. Fred and George strode in. "Hullo Hermione," they said in unison.

"What's that?" Ron motioned to a red bowl Fred was carrying.

"Mum baked some cookies," George piped up. "She asked us to take some to you."

"What's the catch?" Ron eyed them suspiciously. "What did you do to the cookies?"

Fred put the bowl down and put a hand on his heart. "It's hurts me that you'd think we did something to the cookies, Ron," he said, with mock sadness.

Ron rolled his eyes. "If you didn't do anything to them, then you eat one."

"We will," George piped up again. Each boy took one cookie and shoved the entire thing into their mouth. "See?" George said, spewing cookie crumbs on the table.

"All right, all right," Ron gave in. "Tell mum thanks."

Both boys smiled amidst the gooey mess in their mouths and left the room.

Harry leaned across the table to take a cookie when Ron's hand slammed down on his extended arm. "Harry are you crazy?"

"No," Harry said, curious at Ron's question.

Ron sighed and pulled Harry's arm back. "They took the top two cookies, Harry. They obviously did something to the others. Mum never asks Fred or George to bring anything to anyone. It's best we avoid those cookies," he said, pushing them from the middle of the table.

Hermione saw the need for a change of subject. "I can't believe we're leaving tomorrow, Harry," she said with a smile.

"Me neither," he smiled back. "I wonder what Anmarie Island's like."

Hermione grew even more excited. "I've read up on it. It's named after this witch from the fourteenth century named Anne Marie Drogwell. She discovered it and put as many anti-muggle spells on it as she could so they couldn't find her island. Apparently the area surrounding it is known as the 'Bermuda Triangle' to the muggles. Anyway, Drogwell lived there with her husband and six children when one day she became very ill. No one could offer a cure, so her family began planting all sorts of rare herbs and plants there to possibly cure her sickness. They even brought in magical creatures to live there, thinking they might be able to help Drogwell. But no cure was ever found and once she died her family deserted the island. So now it's filled with amazing plants and animals. Some of the plants have even crossbred to make new plants we'll be studying. It'll be like nothing we've ever experienced before, Harry. If only Malfoy and Snape weren't..."

A loud explosion cut her short. They all looked at the forgotten cookies, which were now spewing green flames and smoke.

"Ugh," Harry pinched his nose. "It smells like rotten eggs!"

Hermione coughed violently as the thick green smoke spread through the room.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Ron said as he ran from the putrid room, followed closely by Harry and Hermione.

Fred and George watched in sheer delight as the three ran gagging from the room. "That was too easy," Fred smiled as widely as he could.

"If only they had eaten those cookies," George said, "then this problem would have never happened." He gave in to another fit of laughter.

"They need to learn to trust us," Fred said, watching the green smoke thin out.