Treacherous | Hermione Granger Book II

|15| Chapter Fifteen

F I F T E E N

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Saffron felt unbelievably hot and bothered when she walked out of Herbology. She was sweating profusely, her muscles were aching and her hands were so dirty that they caused her face to be patched with earth too. Everybody else was noticeably messy too, hence, all of them went off into the toilets to wash up, using the few minutes break they had between Herbology and their next class, which in the Gryffindors case, was Transfiguration.

She tried to find out what Lockhart had said to Harry, but Harry shoved it off for the most part. All she got out of him was that Lockhart seemed to think that Harry had done what he did in order to get publicity. According to Lockhart, Harry had been craving more attention since after the book signing and this was his way of getting more. Even though Saffron thought that Lockhart was a remarkable individual, both internally and externally, she knew he was off about that. That wasn't Harry. He hated the attention, but she could understand why Lockhart felt that way, as for a long time she felt similarly.

Whilst in the toilets, Saffron decided to ask Hermione about who had joined her group.

"Who was the boy with you three?" Saffron asked Hermione, who was scrubbing her hands harshly, in an attempt to scrub the dirt off of them. Saffron too was rushing to get as much off before going into Professor McGonagall's class.

"Justin Finch-Fletchly," Hermione told her. "He was actually quite interesting, he's Muggle-born and was telling us that he was going to go to Eton, can you imagine?"

"Eton?"

"It's a prestigious all-boys school in London, Prince Charles' children go there,"

"Huh," said Saffron interestedly.

"How was your group?"

"It was really good, actually," said Saffron. She wasn't sure if Hermione was taking a dig at her for abandoning the group she usually would have been a part of, regardless, she kept speaking undeterred and told her the truth. "Neville really knows what he's doing, which is great considering I don't,"

Hermione gave a noise of assent as she glanced down at her watch. "We better hurry up, we don't want to be late for Professor McGonagall,"

Saffron had never quite taken to Transfiguration with their head of house Profesor McGonagall. The woman always taught at a high standard and the bar had been raised sizeably since their first year. Her attempts to turn a beetle into a button were futile and she ended up accidentally killing the beetle with the tip of her wand, after a failed attempt at the wand movement, much to the dismay of Professor McGonagall. It took much explanation from Hermione to finally make some progress, although not nearly as perfect as Hermione's coat buttons.

"At least its Defence next," said Saffron, with a small smile.

After lunch, they were going to have their first lesson with Professor Lockhart, much to the excitement of everyone, less Ron and probably Harry too after what had gone on that morning. Everyone else, however, was eagerly anticipating getting taught by a man who had done so much. His resume was impressive, that couldn't be denied and Saffron felt herself feeling rather nervous when they waited outside of his classroom after lunch.

"I feel like how women feel right before they're going to have a baby," Lavender said to Saffron and Parvati loudly, as they stood leaning against the wall waiting for Lockhart to come.

"How would you know how that feels like?" Hermione said to her, taking her nose out of Voyages with A Vampire to inquire about what Lavender had said.

"I don't," said Lavender, not taking Hermione's words as a jab (which she often did). Lavender and Hermione didn't dislike each other, but they were two very different extremes. They laid on totally different ends of the personality spectrum. Naturally, they clashed from time to time because of this. "But I will one day, so before I have the baby, I'll say 'Oh, this is just like waiting for our first class with Professor Lockhart',"