The Sortinghat's Mission

Chapter 11

After her little run in with Riddle, Hermione made sure to not be alone with him again. She kept herself the company of the other Ravenclaw girls as well as Thomas Frank. And when it was time for her advanced classes that they didn't share with her, such as advanced runes, she showed up precisely on time. There was a slight inconvenience with this plan though, and that was the fact that she was paired up with the jerk during this particular class.

Their first class after the incident she had been extremely nervous, although she didn't want him to know that of course. So she had used occlumency to keep her thoughts clear and only focused on the work that was before them. To her great surprise, Riddle never mentioned anything about their incident. Never made a remark about it again. It was almost as if it hadn't happened. In fact, he barely talked to her. He made a few comments about their work, and that was it. Not even during the other classes, where he usually made some remark or at least made his dummies make one, did he say something. Even Malfoy was treating her better, with respect even. There was no more curd flirting or touching her inappropriately every chance he got. Malfoy simply gave her a few compliments on her spellwork and that was it. It was messing with her brain. Hermione couldn't figure out what had changed, except for that one incident in the corridor with Riddle. But had he actually believed her story? Had she fooled the great Voldemort himself? Maybe she actually had succeeded. Maybe she could actually have a normal life here. Maybe.

It was the week before the Halloween dance, and naturally it had all the girls giddy and jumping with anticipation. All but Hermione of course. No one had asked her to the dance which didn't bother her at all. She really just wanted to go and enjoy it with her friends. However, they all had dates and acting as Hermione not having one was the end of the world. Isabella and Prudence kept commenting on boys they knew were solo, urging her to ask them out herself. Something Hermione refused to do. It wasn't that she didn't want to ask anyone, she just wasn't interested in anyone. And if she went solo, she could always sneak off to the library to study. She really did have a few essays to keep up with. One was even due next week! Hermione's master plan quickly went into bits during a defense against the dark arts lesson though.

Lee Wood had quickly become her partner during these lessons, mostly because he saw to it. But Hermione didn't mind. He had a good mind for the class and was a nice person. They usually chatted a bit during class. Lee had even started greeting Hermione in the corridors between classes, to the girls content. Whenever he did so, they whispered that she ought to ask him out, or at least take him up on the date he mentioned after that dueling class. And she never did. But Lee, however, finally got the guts to ask her out.

"Hermione..." he whispered during professor Yang's presentation about protective spells.

She hmm'ed an answer, not taking her eyes off her notes.

"Do you... er, I mean... would you... that is to say... uh..." he struggled, ruffling his hair a bit.

She glanced up at him and saw that he was blushing ravishingly.

"Do I what, Wood?" she asked, a small smile on her lips.

It was cute the way he struggled to get his words out. Usually he was the fitting image of a quidditch player, all muscles and confidence.

"Uh... I'd like to ask you... you know, uh... the dance" he mumbled and fumbled with his notebook, not meeting her eye.

Hermione almost giggled. How in the world could she say no to someone who struggled so badly to ask her out? It would ruin him. But that didn't mean she couldn't mess around a little bit.

"What dance?" she said, a smile tugging in the corner of her mouth.

It took Lee a few seconds to answer, probably trying to figure out if she were messing with him or not.