The Book Nook

Hermione paced round her bed one last time; she had already been up for quite a while, having been woken much earlier than necessary by the alarm clock she forgot to adjust. It was 7am on the last day of term, and in an hour the first carriages would be ready to take everyone to Hogsmeade. She had decided to bring along her whole spare wad of parchment, a few quills and a spare ink pot, her purse full of change left over from buying Crookshanks and some gloves to keep her hands warm.

Pulling back the window curtains, Hermione looked outside. A light, powdery snow was falling gently onto the lawn. As far as winter days go, it didn’t look to be too cold. On her left, Lavender stirred and pulled back her hangings, rubbing her eyes.

‘How come you’re up so early, Hermione?’ said Lavender, picking up a brush to brush her hair. ‘Looking forward to seeing that certain someone eh?’

Even though she looked half-dead, Lavender still managed to sound teasing. It was a talent, really.

‘No, I just like getting up early,’ replied Hermione, pointedly ignoring Lavender’s question. ‘It gives me a nice, calm time to think.’

‘Like you need to do more of that.’

Lavender wrinkled her nose, as if ‘think’ was a dirty word she dared not utter.

Soon enough, the rest of Hermione’s dorm mates had risen, and Lavender didn’t bother her anymore. She grabbed her bag, and set off towards the hall.

Ron and Harry were already eating breakfast. Ron looked cheerful, but Harry gloomy. Hermione felt desperately sorry for him. Must be terrible being the only 3^rd year to stay behind again. She made up her mind to buy him something nice from Honeydukes.

‘What’s all that in your bag?’ Ron asked Hermione as they climbed into one of the horseless carriages. ‘Surely you’re not going to do work?’

‘I’m going to look at some of the historical points of interest around Hogsmeade. They really are fascinating, you know…’ she argued as Ron made a face. Technically, that was a lie, but it was something she would say, so Ron didn’t think much of it.

‘Do you have to go-’ he started to ask.

‘Look, Ron, I didn’t say you must come with me,’ said Hermione gently. ‘Go do something fun, if you want.’

‘Really?’ said Ron, disbelieving. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? I mean, you don’t usually encourage me to have fun-’

‘It’s Christmas,’ said Hermione simply. ‘I’ll meet you at Honeydukes in the afternoon. We’ll get a present for Harry.’

‘Good idea,’ Ron murmured.

The carriages stopped right outside Hogsmeade station. Hermione saw hundreds of Hogwarts pupils disembark eagerly, running off with their friends towards the main street. She bid goodbye to Ron, who walked off to look at the joke shop with Fred and George.

Hermione waited until most of the students had disappeared. An eerie silence had descended over the station. She walked onto High St. slowly, putting on her gloves as she went to keep her fingers from going numb.

Oliver was waiting for her outside the Three Broomsticks, just as he had promised. His face was turned slightly away, and he didn’t see her at first. Hermione didn’t yell out or call to him. Not yet. She wanted to observe him first.

He fidgeted; she watched as he rolled up the sleeve of the black jumper he seemed to like so much, and take a glance at his watch. He leaned against the window pane, and crossed one foot in front of the other, tapping impatiently. He had his hands in his pockets, his robe collar turned up to block more of the wind.

Hermione decided to put him out of his misery. ‘Hello Oliver,’ she said warmly, and went to stand by his side. He looked down at her, there was a pause before he spoke.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were watching me?’ he asked exasperatedly, but also half in amusement.

‘Because then you would have been all self-conscious,’ Hermione replied, smiling. She was glad to be by his side. His whole self radiated a sense of warmth; it made her feel cozy and protected and was even better than one of Mum’s hand-knitted jumpers. Hermione was surprised when he slid his gloved hand into hers, but she didn’t mind.

‘You know,’ he said suddenly, pausing just before they were about to enter the Three Broomsticks, ‘it’s lovely out here today. I don’t really feel like going in there right now. We could, that is, if you don’t mind, we could go for a walk.’

‘That’ll be lovely,’ Hermione replied before she had even thought about it. Where did her brain go? It seemed to ditch her at these times. To tell the truth, it really was a beautiful winter’s day, and going anywhere with Oliver was fine with her.

Oliver seemed pleased with her answer. He adjusted his grip on her hand into a more comfortable position, and the two set off. They walked down High St., past Honeydukes, past Dervish and Banges, into the area where High St. was less of a road, and more of a snow covered path. Oliver wore the same boots he always had on, with every step they made a satisfying crunching noise on the dirty path. The properties were less thickly clustered round here; it was mostly houses, with the odd shop stuck in between.

‘This is where I bought my first broomstick,’ said Oliver, pointing out a little secondhand shop that Hermione hadn’t noticed till now. It was nestled between two bungalows, stumpy and crooked, but with lots of interesting things in the windows.

‘Your first broomstick? Do you live round here?’ asked Hermione, surprised. Judging from his accent he was probably Scottish, but she had never entertained the thought that he might be a local.

Oliver shook his head. ‘Not anymore. We used to, though. But then dad got promoted and we moved to London. I bought my first broomstick with my pocket money. Wretched thing it was, but it managed to keep me in the air long enough, and was all I could afford.’ They moved closer to look into the window better. While he admired a pair of Quidditch training gloves, she glanced briefly at a very old copy of "Hogwarts, A History". ‘But right now I’m rich,’ he said smugly, patting his pockets, ‘got my Christmas present early.’

They moved away from the shop, back onto the main path, towards the hill on which the Shrieking Shack stood. Hermione had always wanted a closer look, but Ron had refused to go anywhere past the sign at the bottom of the hill. "‘Most haunted house in Britain,’ he had said, ‘no one goes past here.’" To keep the conversation going, Hermione asked Oliver if he liked London.

‘Absolutely not. Too many people, too many cars, too much everything. Can’t play Quidditch anywhere. Every summer I come back up here, my grandparents still live here. Much better atmosphere, and no one cares if you decide to play Quidditch in the middle of the night. Hey, they even join in!’

She wondered if the whole of Hogsmeade was as crazy as he was.

‘So you would know everybody that lives around here.’

‘Pretty much.’ As if answer to her question, an old wizard who resembled Father Christmas waved merrily to them as they walked by, and Oliver waved back.

He suddenly stopped, so that Hermione nearly tripped when he jerked her hand.

‘What?’ she said irritably.

‘Do you know where you’re going?’

Hermione looked back down the street, then up the Shrieking Shack. She could see a set of fallen logs, felled by the storms, no doubt. She couldn’t see what they could be doing wrong. It wasn’t like the area was fenced off or anything like that. ‘Yes, the Shrieking Shack. Why?’

‘That place is haunted.’ He said flatly, and letting go of her hand, he crossed his arms and refused to take another step.

‘Yes, I know that, but I’m not actually going inside,’ she stressed, ‘I just want a closer look.’

Oliver just shook his head stubbornly and didn’t look at her. Honestly, Hermione thought, why were magical folk such cowards? ‘Just up to the path,’ she pleaded, ‘it can’t be that dangerous.’

He looked doubtful, standing there with his arms crossed and a suspicious expression on his face. Being higher up the hill, Hermione was level with Oliver’s face. Somehow, it was much easier to look at him when he didn’t look too pleased. She knew she was never going to win the argument by pleading that nothing would happen, so she turned to her only other option.

‘Alright,’ she said, not annoyed, but rather the look of a defeated parent, ‘let’s go back to the Three Broomsticks.’ And she started to march past Oliver, and back down to the path.

Oliver turned around, looking very confused. He didn’t try and pull her back, but he didn’t follow her down either. He had the look of someone who had won, but wasn’t quite sure how. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure even sure if he had won.

Hermione had stopped a couple of metres down, watching him bemusedly. Boys were so funny when they were confused. He stood there, eyes up to the sky, frowning in concentration.

‘Did you want to have a look?’ he said at last, slowly, as if to be absolutely sure of what he was saying.

‘Yes,’ Hermione encouraged, ‘right up to the top. But because you don’t want to, we should go back down where it’s nice and safe.’

Somewhere deep in Oliver’s brain, that remark had struck a nerve. Not many people had that particular nerve, usually only Gryffindor boys and people who’d had too much to drink.

‘Right, that’s it.’ He said, and stomped up the hill. Hermione, thinking she had won, followed him eagerly. But at the last minute, a blast of icy wind blew bits of snow from the trees that hit them both in the face, and he seemed to remember exactly where he was.

‘I’m not going any further.’ He informed Hermione curtly, and promptly planted himself down on fallen log. ‘You can go up if you like, but I’m not coming with you.’

Hermione scowled. She had been so close. ‘But what if something happens to me? What would I do?’

‘Well, you could try screaming.’

A little voice inside Hermione’s head told her it was futile trying to convince someone as stubborn as Oliver. She sunk despondently down on an overturned stump at the foot of his log. As soon as her weight was fully on it, the stump rolled and pitched her backward, and she fell onto his knees.

It felt like a pair of hammers had whacked her on the spine simultaneously. She let out an exclamation of pain, but before she could push herself up again, a pair of strong arms grabbed her under the shoulders and pulled her up onto the log to sit beside him.

‘Ow,’ she winced, rubbing her back at the spot that had collided with Oliver’s knees. She tried to sit up straight, to make sure that nothing was damaged. It hurt like hell.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll be right,’ said Oliver after a bit, as he rubbed a gloved hand down her back and thumped it a few times for good measure to prove that nothing was broken.

She leaned her body against his side for support. Her back still ached, but the pain was subsiding slowly. It was mainly shock that had provoked such a painful response. Oliver slipped an arm over Hermione’s shoulders.

‘I suppose it would be pointless to ask if your knees are okay?’

Oliver laughed. ‘I’ve taken much harder knocks than that.’

‘By those big, black things? You know, in Quidditch.’

He let out a sigh. ‘Those would be Bludgers.’ Bludgers. Just the way he said the word made Hermione go tingly. He had the most melodic accent, it was incredibly soothing. Too bad he had never used a telephone, at the moment she couldn’t imagine anything better than an hour long conversation with him over the phone.

Oliver went on. ‘Sorry, didn’t really answer your question. Actually, no, I haven’t been hit by many Bludgers. Most Beaters are too busy trying to keep the Bludger on the opposing Chasers to pay much attention to the Keeper. It looks hard, but it’s quite a safe position, as long as you have reasonably good Chasers on your team.’

‘And what would you rate your team as?’ asked Hermione. It was nice passing the time with him, sitting on a log together and just talking. She was in no great hurry to leave.

‘Bloody good. You wouldn’t believe how much they’ve improved - Fred, George - even Harry - I mean, he was always going to have potential, but I wouldn’t have called him a champion till this year. Angelina, Katie, Alicia - they work so well as a team. You wouldn’t be able to tell from first sight just how much potential they all had. Angelina and Katie were picked by the captain before me - Matthew Eddington, his name was - and I took Alicia off the reserve bench. I picked Fred and George because I knew they’d have natural chemistry, not because of their skills back then. Harry… Harry was discovered by McGonagall.’

‘Yes,’ Hermione mused, ‘because he broke the rules.’

‘Lucky thing it was McGonagall though. If Snape saw him it would have been a detention and straight to Dumbledore, and then I’d still be in a mad rush to find a new Seeker.’

‘But that doesn’t excuse the fact that he broke the rules!’

‘When did I say it did?’ replied Oliver. ‘So, he screwed up once. People do it all the time. Sometimes even me.’ He paused, then added, ‘but not very often.’

‘Done a bit of rule breaking yourself, have you?’ Hermione said tartly. She felt a bit guilt that she sounded so accusing when she saw him draw in a deep breath; however much everyone saw her as a model student, deep down that didn’t excuse the fact that she had done quite a bit of rule bending herself.

‘Actually, it’s a matter of deepest shame that I have a clean record,’ he smirked.

His arm slid off her shoulder as Hermione sat up straight, quite surprised. ‘Really? Truly?’

‘There are such things as law-abiding maniacs, believe it or not.’

‘We should get some work done,’ Hermione said, out of the blue. However nice it was to sit here, the assignment had to come first. She stood up in a hurry, and brushed some stray bits of snow off herself. Gathering up her bag, she hoisted it over one shoulder and tried to make her hair stay relatively neat.

‘I should have known you’d say that,’ Oliver said, bemused. He stood up as well, and out of instinct offered his hand to Hermione, who took it gingerly.

They set off back down the path, hands entwined. Hermione didn’t really know what to say to him, so she said nothing. This love business was a lot more confusing that she bargained. They weren’t speaking…was that good or bad? He hadn’t said anything to her that even hinted at a relationship, should she give up hope? Fair enough, she didn’t give him any sign either, but it wasn’t it usually the guy who was supposed to initiate things?

Hermione scowled, annoyed at how she saw both sides of the argument so easily. It made proving your point very difficult when you could sympathise with the opposition.

Hermione hadn’t realised that Oliver was watching her facial expressions the whole time. Being taller, it was much easier and much less obvious for him to glance down at her than for her to cast her eyes up to him. He had been watching her, and mistook her grimace for boredom.

‘Boring you, am I?’ He said matter-of-factly. Hermione started.

‘No-what?’

This time he stopped, and did a quick half turn so that he blocked her way down the hill. Somewhere along the line he had also taken her other hand into his, so that they were holding both hands together and facing each other.

‘I asked if I was boring you,’ he said seriously, without a trace of affection nor any other sort of emotion, ‘you looked bored.’

‘I didn’t look bored!’ Hermione replied quickly, perhaps a little too strongly, for Oliver flinched and leaned ever so slightly away. ‘I…frowned. That doesn’t indicate boredom.’

‘It indicates anger-’

‘No-’

‘Depression-’

‘No, I’m-’

‘Unhappy.’

Hermione paused. The word lingered in the air between them like the remains of a smelly deodorant. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it was starting to foul up the area. No one said anything. Oliver looked down at his shoes, thinking that he must had said too much.

Hermione closed her eyes. Was she unhappy? No, definitely not. How could he think such a thing? Unless…

No, it was unthinkable. Wishful thinking. She was definitely treading hard into dreamland here.

‘Perhaps you’d be happier off with your friends.’

Hermione blinked, not wanting to believe what she had heard. Happier off with her friends? But…she was with a friend, wasn’t she? Didn’t he say, just a week ago…? Or did he change his mind? Or was it just a slip of the tongue? Maybe she was hallucinating, or something…

Hermione cast her eyes downwards again, not wanting Oliver to see in case a tear slipped down her cheek. The remark had wounded her deeply. It was just like in first year…when Ron had made that cruel (yet at the time, accurate) observation that she had no friends. She gulped deeply, wanted desperately to tell him everything; she was sick of bottling things up. She didn’t want to pretend anymore. Not with him, not with Harry, not with Ron.

However long they stood there facing each other, not daring to look each other in the eye, Hermione didn’t know. Her hands had lost a bit of feeling. Oliver hadn’t let go yet, but she could feel that he was merely holding on out of politeness like in primary school when the teachers told you to hold hands and stand in a circle. It was similar to that, totally devoid of any feeling. She blinked furiously, then resolved to give him an answer.

‘I can’t leave now,’ she said resolutely. ‘My assignment…’

‘Ah, the assignment,’ he said passively. There was a sigh in his voice, as if that was the very last thing he wished to hear. ‘I had forgotten.’ Hermione was just a tad miffed that he had accused her of being miserable in his company, when he sounded so forlorn himself.

‘We better get back to the Three Broomsticks,’ she said determinedly. If Oliver was out of her reach, then at the very least she was going to make sure she got a spanking good interview out of him. She let go of his hands, turned, and walked back down to the level where the road was smooth and straight.

Oliver let her go without much of fight. He shoved his empty hands into his pockets roughly, and marched on behind her. Such a little figure, but with the intelligence and diligence of the best University professors. He shook his head sadly; she only wanted him because he knew about Quidditch. Still, he couldn’t say that he hadn’t enjoyed talking to her; most girls he had met previously seemed only interested in one thing, and that thing was him. The least he could do was make sure she got a spanking good interview out of him.

Hermione didn’t look back once as she made her way down to the crowded part of Hogsmeade. She didn’t even bother to find out if Oliver was following her anymore. If he was, he was being very silent.

Hermione was just about to push open the door to the Three Broomsticks when it seemingly opened by itself.

‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she told Oliver, ‘I can open doors perfectly well on my own.’

He shrugged. ‘Call it my inner gentleman coming out.’

‘Didn’t know you had one,’ remarked Hermione, as they made their way over to an empty table.

‘It pops up every now and then. Not often, mind you, so you better not go letting on to the rest of the girls otherwise they’d all be demanding their doors opened.’

Hermione laughed. ‘Drinks?’

‘Certainly. I’ll get them.’ Oliver got up and disappeared towards the counter.

No sooner had he left, Parvati and Lavender turned up, sidling into the benches next to Hermione.

‘Fancy seeing you here, Hermione,’ said Parvati. ‘Where’s your other-half?’

‘My- what?’

‘Significant other. You know,’ Parvati lowered her voice, as if it was some great secret she was revealing, ‘Oliver Wood.’

‘Oh, him. He’s gone to get drinks.’ Hermione replied matter-of-factly.

‘We’ll be leaving you then,’ whispered Lavender, on Hermione’s other side. ‘You must be sure to tell us all about your first date when you get back.’ For a moment, Lavender looked almost wistful. ‘Never knew you’d be the first…you were always so…sensible.’

They both left with half amused, half envious looks.

Oliver slid back into his seat, placing a tankard of Butterbeer and a glass of Gillywater on the table. He had taken off his jumper; Hermione could see that he wore a plain white button-up shirt underneath. He frowned at Parvati and Lavender’s retreating backs.

‘What was that all about?’

Hermione panicked for a second, how much did he hear? But then she merely gave a shrug. ‘Just some friends. They wanted to know why I was sitting here alone…’ she let that sentence trail off.

‘Ah…but you’re not.’ He smiled. ‘You’re with me.’

That thought and the way he said it made Hermione feel warm all over. She ducked to retrieve her things from under the table, this also allowed her to grin away without anybody else seeing. She reached down and opened her bag. And shrieked.

Immediately Oliver’s head appeared under the table. ‘What is it?’ he asked, looking worried. ‘Did you lose something?’

‘No…no…no…’ Hermione was rifling through her bag, not wanting to believe it. Where did her interview sheet go? She was absolutely sure she had it with her, where did it go?

‘What did you lose?’ Oliver persisted.

Hermione pulled her head back out from under the table. Oliver followed suit. ‘It’s gone,’ she said hollowly.

‘What’s gone?’

‘My assignment. All the questions I wrote. My draft essay structure. My notes. All of it.’

‘No worries…it’s just your assignment, that’s not too bad. You can always do it again.’ Oliver tried to reason.

‘No, I can’t!’ Hermione snapped, not noticing that Oliver flinched. ‘How would you feel if something you’d taken ages to come up with, something that would have been brilliant, twenty succinct questions that don’t overlap each other, and all in perfect logical order too just went missing?’ she whispered. ‘Now I’m going to get a mediocre mark because you’re going home for the holidays. What do you have to say to that?’

Hermione knew that it wasn’t his fault; that he was a saint for even agreeing to do this in the first place, but it was much easier to give into anger than to reason. She fumed slightly for a few seconds, though it seemed longer.

When Oliver spoke, it was in an odd, tight voice. ‘You spent half the night on that?’

‘All the night,’ Hermione sniffed, ‘and a good deal of the afternoon as well.’

‘I’m…flattered.’ Hermione gave him an curious glance, so he continued. ‘ Flattered, that you would spend so much time on something which could all go to waste if I didn’t show up. Flattered that you asked me instead of Harry, Ron, Fred, George…’

‘You know more about Quidditch than they do.’

‘Yeah?’ he gave a wry smile, but then he turned serious again. ‘Still, I don’t see how you could be so upset over just a school-’

‘What about if the Captain of the Slytherin team stole your notes?’ she challenged.

Hermione could have sworn that Oliver’s hand reached compulsively into his breast pocket. She grinned in spite of herself.

‘Don’t tell me…’

Oliver feigned ignorance. ‘What?’

‘You keep your notes in your pocket, don’t you?’

‘Best place for them,’ he said defensively. ‘Keeps nasty gits like Flint getting his grubby hands on them.’

‘And yet you make such a big deal about me making such a big deal about my missing notes.’ Hermione said, shaking her head in mirth.

‘Well, my notes are more important.’ Said Oliver haughtily.

‘How?’

‘Well, if my notes get taken it’s doom for the Gryffindor team.’

‘Yes, that’s really bad compared to me falling bottom of my Muggle Studies class even though I’m a Muggle-born.’ Replied Hermione sarcastically.

‘No need for sarcasm,’ said Oliver, pretending to look hurt, but failing miserably because he was on the verge of cracking up, ‘you could always write some more. If Flint gets my notes I can’t write a better version to counter it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because my notes are already the best, of course.’

‘No, they aren’t.’

‘Yes, they are.’

Hermione screwed up her face. ‘Alright, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you.’ Oliver looked smug. ‘But I still don’t see how it could compare to me possibly failing a subject. Do you know who’s in my class? Terry Boot, Adrian Nott, and Mandy Brocklehurst. Geniuses if I ever saw any.’

‘The word you used is possible, m’dear. There isn’t a hundred percent chance you’d fail. Gryffindor goes down the drain if the notes go.’

‘That’s not for certain,’ refuted Hermione, ‘you could still win.’

‘No, we couldn’t.’

‘Yes, you could.’

Oliver glared. He stroked his chin. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, pointedly ignoring Hermione’s triumphant smile, ‘but very, very rare. Besides, you’re being selfish and only thinking of yourself. The whole of Gryffindor’s reputation is at stake for the Cup.’

That stopped Hermione. She racked her brains for an argument. This debate was fun, and she was enjoying herself, but she couldn’t let him win, she just couldn’t!

‘Yes, but you’re being selfish if you think you’re Gryffindors’ only hope of salvation. The Quidditch Cup isn’t as important as the House Cup, and we win that every year.’

‘But we haven’t won the Quidditch Cup for the past seven years,’ Oliver grimaced, as if that fact caused him a great deal of pain. ‘We need it more than you do.’

‘Exactly my point. People don’t expect you to win, so you don’t need to.’ She didn’t take notice of the fact that Oliver was now staring at her as if she had two heads and they were both on backwards. ‘I need to keep my place at the forefront. People will lose respect for me if I don’t keep my status as a know-it-all.’ Ordinarily Hermione would have cringed at using the title bestowed upon her by almost all her classmates, but in this lighthearted argument she felt that nothing could possibly insult her.

‘You know, sometimes I wonder about you.’ Oliver started. Hermione tilted her head and looked attentive. She couldn’t see where he was going with this one. ‘I think you must be a Ravenclaw in disguise.’ She raised her eyebrows. Was he giving up? ‘I mean, you’ve got brains-’ he started to list attributes using his fingers, ‘talent, you like to start arguments over little things, you really don’t want Gryffindor to win the Quidditch Cup-’

‘I never said that! I want Gryffindor to win the Cup, I do!’

‘Well, if that’s the way you think, then you can’t deny that my notes are more important than yours. So ha!’ he laughed, then got up and did a little victory dance.

Hermione blinked. Did she just lose a debate? Of course not, but there wasn’t much point going on. Oliver doing a victory dance was too cute to miss.

He sat back down, grinning devilishly and waggling his eyebrows. ‘What do you say to that eh?’

Hermione mustered all the self-control she had to try and not laugh. ‘Oh…you’re impossible!’ she burst out, then did something very unexpected and unHermione-like. She reached over and ruffled his hair.

There was a pause. Then the two of them laughed themselves silly. People were beginning to give them strange looks.

‘See, things did turn out okay,’ said Oliver, slightly sobering up.

‘That Gillywater must have caffeine in it,’ said Hermione. ‘There’s no other explanation for why we just turned into lovable idiots.’

‘But I haven’t drunk any yet,’ said Oliver. ‘It’s still full to the brim.’

‘But you’re always a lovable idiot.’

‘I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.’ He paused for a moment, then went on, ‘I was thinking, I could still do the assignment of yours, just send me an owl. It won’t take long, I’ll be in Hogsmeade most of the time.’ He said, before taking a sip of Gillywater.

‘You’re staying the whole two weeks with your grandparents?’

‘Yep. Ask anyone who’s a local, they all know where I live.’

Hermione rubbed her forehead. ‘That could work out…but I still don’t know how I’m going to redo all of it…’

‘You’ve probably just left it somewhere in your dorm. Happens all the time to me.’

‘Hopefully…’ Hermione trailed off and looked down at her watch. She gasped.

‘What did you lose this time?’

‘No, didn’t lose anything, but I do have to be somewhere else.’ She looked apologetically at Oliver. He shrugged.

‘No worries. You haven’t drunk any of your Butterbeer.’

‘Oh, you can have it if you want,’ said Hermione absentmindedly, frantically repacking the things she had taken out to search for her question sheet. ‘I don’t mind.’

She looked up in time to see Oliver finish off the whole tankard in one continuous gulp. How do they do that? Hermione wondered. She certainly couldn’t.

‘You’ve got a little moustache,’ she pointed out when he wondered why she smirked at him.

‘Not anymore.’ He licked it off with a sweep of the tongue. Then he proceeded to chug down the rest of his Gillywater.

They made their way to the door unobserved. Hermione was almost frightened someone was going to recognise them. Why she even cared, she couldn’t answer. All she had been doing was asking for help with a school assignment. And looking way too happy while doing so, she thought grimly. Thankfully she could see no sign of Lavender or Parvati, who would have surely pounced and tried to interrogate her by now, had they seen what happened.

There seemed to be a blockade under the doorway. There was a ring of bodies that Hermione couldn’t see past. The sounds of laughter and shrieks of delight filtered through.

They pressed closer to the group. Oliver stood on his tiptoes to try and see what was going on.

‘Mistletoe,’ he said, bending down to speak to Hermione easier, ‘all this fuss over a bunch of herbs.’ Hermione couldn’t tell whether he sounded disgusted or not.

‘Mistletoe isn’t a herb,’ she corrected him, ‘it’s a parasite plant that grows on other trees.’

He made a face. ‘Looks like we’ll have to barge through.’ He gave a great big sigh and took Hermione’s hand, as if some horrible penalty lay at the other end.

They would have made it out undetected, had not some big guy clapped Oliver on the shoulder and pulled him back.

‘Kip!’ He roared, slapping Oliver on the back, ‘cracking good to see you!’

Hermione raised her eyebrows. Oliver let go of her hand, so she could slip away, but the guy had spotted her as well.

‘Haven’t met you before,’ he grinned at her. ‘Name’s Dodger. Simon Dodger. And you are?’

‘Hermione Granger,’ she said without blinking, looking him straight in the eye.

‘Right, right. Well go on then, give Kip a kiss!’

‘What?’ Oliver and Hermione said at the same time.

‘Mistletoe, darlings,’ said Simon, gleefully pointing at the ceiling, ‘do I have to spell it out for you?’

‘Could’ve sworn it wasn’t up there before,’ growled Oliver. ‘Lemme guess, you put it up?’

‘Bingo!’ said Simon, grinning like a maniac. Hermione was strongly reminded of a homocidal clown. She wanted to escape, but there was no way through the crowd of Oliver’s contemporaries.

‘It’s very simple…’ Simon taunted. ‘Either he kisses you, or you kiss him.’

‘I-’ Oliver began, but was abruptly cut off when Hermione kissed him on the cheek. He looked amazed, then confused, then blank, then happy. It was quite interesting to watch.

Simon wolf-whistled, then the crowd in front of the door thinned a bit. Oliver was swamped by what Hermione assumed were his friends, she mouthed him a quick ‘see you later’ then disappeared out the door.

She walked quickly, with her head bowed down against the wind. She knew it was rude to leave him just like that, but had she stayed Simon would have probably complained that it wasn’t a ‘real’ kiss, and it’ll be another embarrassing ten minutes before she could disappear.

It was the first kiss Hermione had ever given anyone, that’s for sure. Sure, she wasn’t kissed back, (and she was glad that she wasn’t, she didn’t feel like getting snogged in front of his friends), but it still counted.

The thing she was worried about was whether he liked it or not. It was rather hard to tell. He was more surprised than anything, Hermione had flew out before she could see anything else. She wondered if she should say something to him tonight or tomorrow morning, before he left.

But what would she say? Good-bye? Have a nice Christmas? I’ll see you soon? They all seemed too generic, like something she would say to Seamus or Terry or Ernie. As the only person who had kissed her and gotten kissed back, Oliver deserved something better.

Hermione firmly pushed all thoughts of Oliver to the back of her head. That could be dealt with later, right now she had to meet Ron and have a good excuse for turning up late, with a face as pink as the Easter Bunny’s ears.