The Mistake

Slughorn's Party

I own nothing! J.K. Rowling owns everything!

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Hermione spent the next however many weeks it was until Slughorn's party avoiding Draco Malfoy like the she would the plague. She and Ron were most definitely not on speaking terms, not only was she jealous of his relationship with Lavender, therefore making her more short tempered, but he was still pissed at her for the bird attack. That being said, she decided that she shouldn't really feel disgusted at Ron's and Lavender's relationship as she had done a much more vile thing. She could feel like her eyes had been violated by the constant snogging show the two put on, but she did not allow herself to be disgusted by their relationship. Unfortunately, Hermione did not have as much self-control as she thought. She truly was thoroughly disgusted.

She still talked to Harry, but she tried to keep the conversations and possibilities for conversations short, excuses included a busy time-table and refusing to be in the common room at the same time as Ron. Therefore making it very difficult for Harry to spend time with her. She knew she should feel bad about it, and she liked to think that she did, as both she and Ron were making this very difficult for Harry. But deep down, she could feel herself laughing at Harry, who was attempting very hard to spend time with his two best friends. She knew she shouldn't find it funny, but she did, and that was slightly worrying.

She also found herself spending more time with Luna, as she wasn't holed up in the Gryffindor common room everyday anymore. She was a great comfort when Hermione would feel sad, lonely, rejected, embarrassed and isolated. Exactly the kind of person you want to be by your side when a former friend of yours cruelly impersonates you in the middle of Transfiguration class.

Hermione stood in front of the mirror and frowned at herself. "I can't believe your doing this." She scolded herself quietly. "I can't believe you let your jealousy drive you this far... drive you to McLaggen." She scrunched up her face and rubbed her eyes, before looking herself once over. She was wearing a peach dress, her hair was resting on her shoulders and she had the bare minimum of make-up on, consisting only of mascara. She decided she looked acceptable and headed downstairs to the common room, secretly hoping that McLaggen would not show up, she was disappointed.

"Hello Hermione." McLaggen greeted her.

"Hello McLaggen." Hermione responded, not sounding enthusiastic at all.

"What's with the surnames, Hermione? We're going on a date. Please call me Cormac." He wiggled his eyebrows at her. She groaned internally.

"Sorry Cormac. Shall we get going?"

"Much better." He said as he started steering her out of the common room. "Now, have I ever told you about the time I was playing Quidditch and saved a goal using nothing but the wind from my broom? I was going so fast, the wind made the quaffle turn and go in a different direction..." Hermione drowned out the rest of what he was saying, she really couldn't be less interested, but she put on a smile and nodded absentmindedly. She did, however, notice Ron glaring at her and McLaggen out of the corner of her eye whilst Lavender was trying desperately to direct his attention at her, making Hermione smirk a bit.

They walked down the various corridors, and Hermione really was regretting her choice of McLaggen over Zacharias Smith. McLaggen had no subject of conversation that was interesting, and everything he talked about either seemed to be about him, Quidditch or both. Hermione's nightmare, she really couldn't care less about Quidditch. Hermione was relieved when they finally reached Slughorn's party, at least there would be some relatively interesting conversations.

"Oh! People!" She announced, interrupting one of McLaggen's many tales of his keeper skills, and dragged him towards the throng of people. "Hello Professor!" She cried happily, anything was better than just talking to McLaggen.