Sunday morning turned out to be surprisingly overcast, but the clouds promised to disperse by lunch, and that was good. A walk in Hogsmeade is an inspiring and pleasant event even without the sun in the sky, of course, but I would still like to see that very sun.
Immediately after breakfast, practically all students from the third year onwards gathered in the castle courtyard—some settled on benches around the big tree, some by the fountain, and some by the walls or between the columns of the galleries. Everyone was dressed in casual clothes or civilian, completely individual robes—no school sacks. Everyone was waiting for one thing—Professor McGonagall's appearance and the go-ahead, like: "Get lost to Hogsmeade already."
McGonagall herself didn't keep us waiting long and appeared exactly at nine-thirty, starting the standard check of permissions. And of course, she finished with the phrase:
"And remember," the Professor looked importantly at everyone present. "Trips to Hogsmeade are a privilege. Bad behavior during the trip, or poor academic performance during studies will deprive you of this privilege."
Finding someone in this crowd was problematic enough, and I hadn't managed to cross paths with Daphne earlier. But no matter, as soon as our huge group of students of all ages moved in a single stream through the castle gates towards Hogsmeade, I finally spotted the person I was looking for in the company of Slytherin classmates. Naturally, I immediately made my way through the crowd to them.
"Ladies and gentlemen, good morning," I smiled, greeting the Slytherins.
"Ah, Granger," Malfoy, as always, took upon himself, without asking anyone, the difficult burden of leadership in the upcoming conversation. "It seems Greengrass decided to choose more worthy company for a walk in Hogsmeade. So there is no place for you in our company."
Draco seemed to smirk purely on reflexes and looked behind him, and his two eternal comrades giggled obsequiously. The others, actually, also held a light smile on their faces, but it was practically impossible to understand what it meant—they could be anticipating some skirmish, or simply supporting Malfoy with their smiles.
"Oh, you, ladies and gentlemen, seem to have misunderstood everything," out of the corner of my eye I watched Daphne's reaction, and she seemed by no means intending to pull me up short, as if accepting certain rules of the game. "It is not I who am joining your company, but you who are going to Hogsmeade in the company of myself and Miss Greengrass."
Offering my hand to Daphne, as if inviting her to dance, I waited, and I had to wait no more than a second—Daphne accepted the invitation.
"Granger," she smiled, but no one saw it except me.
"Greengrass. I cannot help but notice that this coat suits you incredibly well."
Blue, with a thin strip of black fur on the collar and along the edge of the short cape, which is, apparently, an integral part of the coat itself.
"Thank you."
Draco got angry, albeit not much, and since he had taken the burden of leadership upon himself, no one else hurried to contribute to the conversation, but I bet that when this conversation ends, the smirking Pansy will definitely say something like: "Mudblood."
"What gave you the idea, Granger," Draco took a step forward, looking angrily at me. "That we are interested in your company?"
"No?" I was surprised. "Well then, I dare not detain you, esteemed ones. I assume you will find the way to Hogsmeade without me."
"Pff," Pansy snorted. "Arrogant Mudblood."
But in her quiet words there was no desire to insult, but rather a desire to say something that would support Malfoy and some other classmates from Slytherin.
"Stop crowding on the only path, youngsters," the Weasley twins moved swiftly in the company of their classmates and not only. "Or neither right nor left."
"And you generally..." Malfoy wanted to wave them off, but ran into the gaze of a bunch of older guys.
"Problems?" one of the twins looked at Malfoy with a grin, just like the second one.
The other older students just looked on with slight superiority.
"Verbal diarrhea?" the second twin asked the first.
"Or constipation? See, brother Fred, silent, suffering."
"We have tasty sweets for one ailment..."
"...as well as for the second."
"Don't want any?" the twins asked Malfoy together.
"I'll decline."
"In vain..."
And they went on with their company along the path towards Hogsmeade.
"So, ladies and gentlemen? Hogsmeade awaits."
One shouldn't have even expected the other Slytherins from my year to follow me and Daphne, although it should be noted that Parkinson clearly thought about it, but decided to stay next to Draco and drip on his brain as only she can. Well, and we just walked among other students, approaching Hogsmeade.
"When will this ridiculous confrontation of yours end?"
"I don't know, Greengrass, I don't know. I generally consider all these conflicts stupid. We have to live in a tiny magical world on the territory of not the biggest island state. We are, literally, neighbors, whether we want it or not. And right from the school bench we create conflicts."
"What can you do?" Daphne shrugged philosophically and almost imperceptibly.
We entered the territory of Hogsmeade and almost immediately found ourselves in a whirlpool of human movement. Students or even adult wizards ran back and forth along the paved road from shop to shop, from stall to stall, and these very shops and stalls, located on the ground floors of stone and wooden houses with very sharp high roofs, were literally teeming with colorful signs intended to attract the attention of schoolchildren who had finally escaped the gray school days.
"Let's leave Hogwarts affairs aside," Daphne looked with interest at Honeydukes. "They say this year the assortment of Hogsmeade shops has been significantly diversified."
"Want to visit, preferably, all of them?"
"Undoubtedly," Daphne smiled.
"Then, let's start with Honeydukes, and then just go clockwise."
The village had a circular structure, so the idea itself seemed not bad to me.
. . . . .
To say Hermione hadn't intended to go to Hogsmeade would be an understatement. Yet somehow, she had been wandering through the shops for a while now with her roommates, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. And it wasn't that she wasn't having fun... Why lie to herself? Of course she was having fun, but that didn't stop her from getting lost in her thoughts.
A recent conversation with her brother had given her far more food for thought than she could have imagined. This was good, as it had revealed many nuances Hermione hadn't paid due attention to while developing her idea of freeing house-elves from slavery.
"What are you thinking about?" Lavender literally wedged herself into Hermione's musings.
Glancing at the curly-haired blonde, Hermione marveled once again at how one could be a typical, stereotypical blonde girl, yet under certain conditions, display surprising knowledge and wit. Actually, Parvati was about the same—a flighty girl worrying mostly about appearance, all sorts of frills, magazines, fashion... And the love both roommates had for Divination was entirely beyond Hermione's comprehension.
"Oh, just trifles."
"Really? Alright then..."
Having bought various trinkets like cute notebooks, colorful quills, and some incomprehensible hairpin-cufflink things, Hermione left the novelty shop with her roommates, whom she could technically call friends. Literally for a brief moment, they were joined by the Ravenclaw twin of the Indian girl—Padma Patil. Not a second passed of their conversation at the shop entrance before Lavender saw something and smiled stupidly.
"Oh..." Lavender sighed and, as they say, melted. "Look at that..."
Turning around, Hermione saw her brother—Hector—in the company of the Slytherin elder Greengrass girl, accompanied by Hector's Hufflepuff classmates—Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott.
"What a hottie..." Lavender drawled. "Hermione, you're lucky."
"Meaning?"
"Such a handsome brother..."
Hermione decided not to fully contemplate Lavender's phrase, and generally, it was better not to think about the extent of the girl's susceptibility to stray hormones.
"...are you serious?" Greengrass's voice reached Hermione. "You decided to perform a moss-covered, useless ritual?"
If an outsider had paid attention to Hermione, they could have said with certainty—the word "ritual" made the girl almost stand at attention like a hunting hound.
"And why not?" Hannah shrugged. "Broadening the horizons of our comrades is quite a worthy topic."
Hermione simply couldn't miss something like this, rituals and all that—before you know it, that snake Greengrass will befuddle Hector's brain with her Dark Magic. Nonsense, of course, but anything could happen.
"You are all from the Sacred Twenty-Eight..." Hector smiled at his comrades as they strolled closer, almost right up to Hermione and her friends. "And such different opinions on old traditions?"
"Hi, Hector," Parvati and Padma greeted Hector completely suddenly and absolutely synchronously, smiling coquettishly and batting their eyelashes.
"Good afternoon," Hector replied with an absolutely neutral and strictly polite light smile, which Hermione could easily call forced. Not tortured, but forced, as if strictly out of politeness. "'Mione..."
But to her, he smiled normally, sincerely. That was pleasing, undoubtedly.
A standard exchange of greetings began, and what surprised Hermione was the slight difference in the behavior of Macmillan and Abbott—there was more restraint in them, more slight arrogance, as if Greengrass had infected them. And all these polite nods, surnames—formality.
Some third-year student skirted the gathered company with slight apprehension and doubt, striving to enter the novelty shop, and succeeded—the trill of bells rang out above the door.
"We should probably go," Padma and Parvati grabbed Lavender by the arms, who stood there glitching, staring at Hector like a boy at a Veela.
"Hermione, how are you doing?"
"More than excellent," she nodded to her brother. "Working on a project. By the way, if it's not a secret, what ritual?"
"Oh, it will be useful for you to attend for the sake of immersion in the history of wizarding society."
"Unless, of course," Greengrass smirked. "Miss Granger considers a simple, old, and purely symbolic ritual to be terrible Dark Magic."
"Naturally, I won't think that," Hermione nodded importantly. "When? Where?"
"Just be present at the feast tomorrow," Hannah replied friendly, with whom Hermione had chatted quite nicely in the summer at Finch-Fletchley's.
"By the way, 'Mione," Hector looked around, clearly looking for someone among the students walking back and forth and cheerfully discussing something. "I thought you'd be with Potter and Weasley. You seemed to have started communicating again."
"They found themselves other adventures where girls don't belong..." on the last words, she involuntarily parodied Ron's manner of speaking, and judging by the slight smiles of the guys, she did it realistically. "So I'm with friends. And yes, before they run off, I'll go to them."
Hermione quickly left this company, in which she felt simply uncomfortable.
. . .
"That was fast," Parvati nodded to her.
Lavender was singing Hector's praises, discussing his wonderful personality with Padma, and this group of girls headed further to the shops. But first, it seemed, they would either have to urgently find some cute trinket to change the vector of the blonde's thoughts, or go to the Three Broomsticks—thankfully, from the fourth year onwards there are no restrictions on such things—and fill her with Butterbeer.
Actually, Hector reminded her of what idiots boys are. Almost all of them. At least Potter and Weasley definitely belong to that number.
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