His love for Potions II

Extra: Luna's reading aloud

Ron and Hermione going to the prefect's carriage on the train was really not pleasant at all. Harry also was really not used to the way Greg walked, just behind his shoulder on the left, but Ginny seemed to find it funny and was walking just behind his shoulder on the right. It made him feel like he was in a gangster movie.

They ended up squeezing in with Neville and Luna, who Harry hadn't met. Neville was giving Greg a very odd look.

"He's, er, had a row with his family," Harry said quite awkwardly. "He stayed with me this summer."

More or less.

Neville seemed to have no comment on this, and they fell into conversation with Luna, who was lovely. Being covered in Stinksap in front of Cho Chang was not.

Greg, apparently, thought Luna was lovely too.

"Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me?" Greg asked her, a few hours into conversation and the train ride.

"That's not a very funny joke," she told him, blinking large eyes.

"It wasn't a joke. I like your hair."

She considered this, looking very vague.

"Well, if you like."

Greg grinned.

"The girls on this side are much prettier," he told Harry as an aside.

Harry stared at Greg in some bemusement. He was pretty sure they were friends, but sometimes Greg was just... still himself. Harry couldn't get over the impression that Greg considered himself a minion on loan. Harry wasn't even sure how you lent a person, but it seemed to help to consider Greg a very large, potentially violent house elf.

#

Draco and Crabbe stopped by to do some taunting, in classic form, with a nice half-veiled reference to Sirius.

Greg watched this with a blank, stolid expression. It was exactly the same as his normal expression, which Harry found frustrating. After the door had closed again, Harry tried, "Alright, Greg?"

Greg thought about it. He went on thinking about it so long that Harry had gotten diverted by Chocolate Frogs and general conversation for about half an hour before Greg said, "Luna. Could you read that out loud?"

"Which part?"

"Any part," he said. "Draco always used to read things for me and Vince."

All of a sudden, Harry put Draco's gleeful, dramatic renditions of the news at mealtimes into the context of Greg and Vince not reading at all.

He wondered if in the Slytherin common room Draco did gleeful, dramatic renditions of textbooks, to hold their attention. It was as if the world shifted and realigned, and things suddenly made both more and less sense.

"Certainly," Luna said solemnly. "I shall read you the true tale of Stubby Boardman."

Hermione did not like Luna reading Greg the true tale of Stubby Boardman. ("He gets confused!") Greg, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content sitting beside a tiny blond girl, listening to her read aloud.