𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗿𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗹, draco malfoy

˗ˋ 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
✧
-: third year :-

── IN WHICH THE FIREBOLTS RETURN

. . .

The week after Harry and Marlie's first lesson Ravenclaw played Slytherin a week after the start of term. Slytherin won, though narrowly. According to Wood, this was good news for Gryffindor, who would take second place if they beat Ravenclaw too. He therefore increased the number of team practices to five a week.

This, alongside the lessons that Lupin continued to schedule to help them with anti-dementor techinques were more draining than six Quidditch practices, Marlie and Harry had just one night a week to do all their homework.

Even so, they were not showing the strain nearly as much as Hermione, whose immense workload finally seemed to be getting to her. Every night, without fail, Hermione was to be seen in a corner of the common room, several tables spread with books, Arithmancy charts, rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles lifting heavy objects, and file upon file of extensive notes; she barely spoke to anybodyand snapped when she was interrupted.

Nobody knew how she was doing it - and Ron and Marlie, the female twin having the tendency to lose focus in her essay, would end up watching her trying to work. "How's she doing it?" Ron ended up muttering to Harry one evening as the twins sat finishing a nasty essay on Undetectable Poisons for Snape. They looked up and Hermione was barely visible behind a tottering pile of books.

"Doing what?" Harry asked, and Marlie went back to her essay, only listening into the conversation rather than actively participating in it.

"Getting to all her classes!" Ron said. "I heard her talking to Professor Vector, that Arithmancy witch, this morning. They were going on about yesterday's lesson, but Hermione can't've been there, because she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures! And Ernie McMillan told me she's never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of them either!"

"It's strange, but-" Marlie said, before cutting herself off as her eyes landed on the portrait hall, and the two boys opposite her twisted in their seats to see who entered. "I'll just be a second." She said, putting down her quill and getting up.

"What's she talking to him for?" Ron asked, and Harry shrugged, watching as Marlie talked to Dean, who had walked into the common room clutching a bag overflowing with scrolls of paper. "Why's she acting so weird?" The Weasley boy had a disgruntled look on his facce as he watched the two interacting.

"Dunno." Harry said. Even though Marlie was his twin, he could not have told a single person why she was acting the way that she was. He could even identify what was different from her usual behaviour - but there was something.

"What was that about?" Ron instantly asked as Marlie sat back down. The girl could only shrug, raising her hand to her cheek for just a moment, checking for something - they were rather pink - before looking satisfied and getting back to work on her essay.

She looked up again, but only because she felt Harry and Ron watching her. "I was simply thanking Dean for the gift he gave me whilst we were in the Hospital Wing. I hadn't had the chance to do so yet because I've been rather preoccupied since then, and it was very thoughtful of him, kept me entertained through the weekend. Oh, and I agreed to help him with his Transfiguration work in the library after Quidditch practise tomorrow, and I can only hope that I don't fall asleep."