The Anti-Heroine || A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter V

Chapter V:

Harry's POV:

The weeks following the troll incident, he and Hermione had been hailed as some sort of heroes. Hermione dealt with this with the same cool indifference she treated most things- well, in front of others anyway. Behind closed doors was quite the different story that involved her storming back and forth across a room while muttering about what complete and utter "brain-dead morons" their classmates were.

Harry listened to her rants while making the appropriate noises while trying not to smile with how happy he was that she felt comfortable in letting down her defenses around him.

Entering November, the weather turned very cold and despite her constant application of warming charms Harry noticed that Hermione seemed to be shivering more and more. It was when he noticed during one Potion's lesson that her lips had acquired a blue tint that with the help of Blaise Zabini, one of his dorm-mates, he managed to send off an Owl Order for a black winter cloak with silver fastenings.

When it arrived he half expected Hermione to object to his purchase but instead she let out a sigh of relief and gave him a tight hug. "Thank you," she'd told him later, very quietly but voice full of sincerity. "Thank you for knowing what I need even when I'm too stubborn to admit it myself."

"What are best friends for?" he'd replied, meaning every word.

The Quidditch season had begun and Harry found himself quite entranced by the sport unlike Hermione who had refused to even mount a broomstick in their flying class, instead handing Madam Hooch a two and a half foot essay on the theory of flying and the mechanics behind it in compensation. Madam Hooch had reluctantly allowed her to stand to the side and after Longbottom's incident had asked her to take the Gryffindor boy to the hospital wing while she stayed behind and taught the class. Hermione had been only too happy with that and Harry hadn't seen her again until the next class.

When he asked her why she hated the idea of flying so much her face closed off and he quickly realized it was one of those topics. The topics that, despite how much they truly cared for each other, they just weren't ready to talk about and perhaps they'd never be. He didn't ask again.

The first Quidditch match was Slytherin against Gryffindor and Harry had dragged a reluctant, complaining Hermione to the stadium to watch with him. Draco, Blaise and Theo had joined them, laughing at the scowl on Hermione's face.

His dorm-mates really weren't that bad. Blaise seemed to enjoy riling people up and was always able to find something to complain about or pick fault in no matter what the topic was and yet the Italian was still one of the most cheerful people Harry knew. Draco was a cocky, somewhat shallow and spoilt-rotten brat but he was genuinely friendly towards Harry and didn't harbor any ill feelings towards Hermione either. Theo, a slightly weedier boy then the other two, was the one Harry liked the most out of the three. Theo understood what it was like to be the underdog, something neither Blaise or Draco ever could and Greg and Vince were too thick to even realize– to use Hermione's words: "such shining examples of inbreeding at its finest, those two".

"Why anyone would ever want to play an outside sport in conditions like this is a mystery to me," Hermione said angrily as she wound her silver and green scarf tight around her neck. The scarf had been borrowed from one of her dorm-mates, Daphne, a pretty blonde Pureblood 'princess' who was gracious in all her actions with exceptional manners and a hidden sweet side that she only showed to those she approved. Iago, from where he was draped over Hermione's shoulders getting cat-fur all over the scarf, gave a grumbling, ill-tempered snarl of agreement while Mrs. Norris, who was curled up on Hermione's lap, purred, the sound reminiscent an old car engine that wouldn't start properly.