Hmm… well I don't really think this is one of the better chapters… actually, I don't think it was any good at all, but I was too lazy to delete it and start over, so here it is. It's shitty. Don't even read it. No, really.
Chapter 3
When Harry got down to the common room the next morning, Hermione was already there. And she was giggling. Again. Because Neville was already there. And he was grinning. It was enough to give anyone a headache. And it didn't help that Harry already had one.
"Well, my dear, you look stunning!" Neville was saying. "However do you manage to look so fabulous so early in the morning?"
She giggled again, and blushed. And Harry's head nearly exploded. He had never made her blush before…
*
"Oh, really Harry. Why don't you just tell me what's bothering you?" Hermione said, nibbling on a bit of toast.
Harry took a rather large bite of a muffin and mumbled something unintelligible. This only made Hermione make a disgusted face and throw a napkin at him. She was a bit huffy for the rest of breakfast, and nothing Harry said cheered her up, because, as she put it, "if you would just tell me what's wrong, maybe I could help, but instead you insist on keeping everything to yourself!"
Harry was mentally hitting himself. He couldn't tell her what was wrong, because then she would know, but he couldn't not tell her anything, because by the looks of her, tears were rapidly approaching. So, he did the only thing left to do.
"I, uh, think maybe I'm getting a cold. But it's nothing big, promise." He knew from the minute it left his mouth that she wasn't going to believe it. She could always tell when he wasn't telling the complete truth. He could feel a big row coming now.
He looked slowly up at Hermione, expecting her eyes to be popping out of her head with anger. But she wasn't even looking at him. "Yes, right, well that's nice, Harry."
That's nice? Nice? He's just lied to his best friend, and for the first time in the years they'd known each other she hadn't noticed. She had thought what he had said was, as she had so deftly put it, nice.
He turned to see what she was looking at, but he knew before he even turned his head by the hundreds of girls who were turning their heads at the same moment. Neville had entered the Great Hall.
What was the world coming to?
*
"Mr. Longbottom?" Professor Snape sneered. "May I ask why you're so late?"
Neville lounged into a chair at the back of the classroom. "Yes, you may," he said, looking at Snape expectantly.
Snape's face turned purple, and Harry felt sure that his brain was melting. Fireworks were coming.
"Well?" he asked in a strained voice.
"I thought I'd come in late. You know, make an entrance," Neville said grinning, and then winked at a girl sitting in the seat in front of him, who promptly passed out on the floor.
Harry smiled. Any minute now, Snape would spin out of control, and then Neville would be in trouble.
He must have stared at Neville for at least a minute, with Neville staring right back, until he said, "Well, Professor? Don't you have a class to teach?"
Harry could have jumped for joy. There was nothing he wanted more than for Neville to be knocked off his high horse, and nothing he could have said to Snape could have assured it to happen more than that.
Snape, whose face now resembled the color of a grape, stared at Neville some more, before turning right back around and continuing with what he was saying. And Harry's face fell.
Nothing? That was it? Neville wasn't going to get anything for talking to a professor like that?
Harry slammed his head onto the desk.
No one noticed.
Well, despite my attempts to warn you, it seems you've read this chapter anyway. How silly. But since you've taken up your precious time to read this chapter, you might as well just waste a bit more to tell me just how much you hated it… so go ahead. Maybe if enough of you tell me how terrible it was I'll write a better one next time…
Doubtful… but worth a try, right?
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