In Between The Lines

Chapter 12

Hermione's POV:

November arrived and with it came Quidditch, something the others seemed to like much more than I did. Ron taught Harry and I all about the current professional quidditch teams, raving about the Chudley Cannons, his favorite team, but Draco told me the Cannons weren't very good. Aside from talking about the competing teams outside of Hogwarts, Ron and Harry talked a lot about the Hogwarts teams and what the Gryffindor team was planning for the first game. After every practice, which was beginning to take place every night, Harry would stumble up to the Common Room and give Ron and I a recount of what the practice was over, and the two boys would go on for the next hour discussing each play. After the first week of being friends with the two boys, I figured out that most of the time Harry was just acting like her knew what Ron and I were talking about, so I told him to check out Quidditch Through the Ages from the library to learn more about his new favorite sport.

For my part, I didn't see much of the appeal to Quidditch, or flying in general. Why everyone wanted to hover hundreds of feet above the air, on a flimsy stick that could break at any moment, was beyond my comprehension. For the most part, when I got sick of Ron and Harry talking about Quidditch, I took refuge in the Library where I spent time with Draco who didn't talk about flying nearly as much as the boys do. He did like to talk about the boys a lot however.

"I don't understand why you had to become friends with them." Draco would complain whenever Harry or Ron got brought up in a conversation. "You hated them for three months and now they're basically you're best friends."

"They saved me from a troll. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them." Was always my reply, and then I would do my best to steer the conversation far away from Harry and Ron.

With a Weasley and the Boy-Who-Lived as friends, it seemed like people could put up with my annoying tendencies a lot more, and more people would talk to me in and out of class now. However because I befriended his enemy, Draco refused to hangout with me outside of our corner of the Library or when we saw each other in the corridors and Harry was at practice and Ron was watching. I always made sure to make plans to see Draco though, because he was my first best friend and just because I now had two more best friends didn't mean I was going to forget about Draco just like he didn't forget about me. He said that he didn't hangout with me in public because he didn't want Harry and Ron to turn their backs on me just because I'm his friend, but I knew there was another reason too. Being Harry and Ron's friend just gave him an excuse, but he had avoided me in public before I was their friend.

Aside from Quidditch, the other topic Harry and Ron liked to talk about was Professor Snape. Harry was determined that Snape was out to get him, and only him, a theory with a growing pile of evidence with every new Potions class, however Harry's theory that Snape was trying to steal something guarded by the three headed dog on the third floor was ridiculous. Ron ate up Harry's theories, especially after Harry discovered Snape had been bit by one of the dog head during our Troll encounter, but I withheld judgement until there was more proof. Professor Dumbledore and the rest of the staff trusted Professor Snape, and despite wanting to dislike him as a person, I trusted him as a teacher. Ron was still mulling over the theory as we walked down to the Quidditch Pitch for Harry's first game.

At eleven o'clock the whole school appeared to be out in the stands around the Quidditch pitch. As Ron led the way to the Gryffindor section, I noticed many students holding binoculars. The seats were raised high in the air, but Ron said it will still be difficult to see what was going on at times. As we made our way up the stairs, I saw Draco walking with the dark skinned Slytherin boy that was last to be called to the Sorting Hat. He saw me catch sight of him and nodded in my direction with an almost smile, I waved back then hurried up the rest of the stairs.