The Study Group

Chapter 1

Beginnings of the Study Group

Harry

Harry sighed as he tried to go over once again the mountain of study material that Hermione had given him.

"I'm never going to remember all this," Harry complained.

"Of course you are Harry, it's easy," Hermione tried to reassure him.

"Maybe for you," He pointed out, "you just barely found out that you're a witch several months ago and just barely started school and you're already top student in our year if not the school."

Hermione blushed at the compliment but insisted, "well yes I am doing better than I thought, but I'm sure that there is still plenty that students that come from magical families know that we don't...that's why we're studying and trying to prepare ahead of time so much. Besides there are also lots of other good students that I've noticed: Susan Bones in Hufflepuff for instance, or Padma Patil in Ravenclaw."

"Great, yet more super smart and magically powerful witches who can kick my butt," Harry answered sarcastically.

At a look from Hermione he then hastily added, "not that there is anything wrong with that. Besides I'm sure you could beat either Susan or Padma too when it comes schoolwork."

"It isn't a competition, but I'm sure if they studied and prepared ahead of time as much as we have they would do just as good if not better," Hermione replied.

It had only been a month since starting Hogwarts and Harry had very quickly become best friends with Hermione Granger, a very smart Muggleborn witch that he had hoped would be on the same level as him since she had also grown up without a magical background. Unfortunately that soon proved to be not at all the case and he found himself working hard to try to catch up to her.

This however suited him just fine. He like Hermione also felt the need to try to make up for his lack of magical knowledge by learning as much as he could as quickly as he could, it also helped that he just plain found the magical world and all its interesting spells, history, magical items, and more all fascinating.

He also felt like he needed to prove himself, not because he was the boy-who-lived, but because simply he'd been pushed around and beaten up by Dudley and his Aunt and Uncle so much growing up that he was just fed up with it and he wanted to never be treated like that again.

Hermione was the first person who had ever treated him like a real person that actually cared about him. Most people in the magical world treated him too much like a celebrity with the whole boy-who-lived thing, a status he was quickly getting annoyed by. He felt he was really no different than anybody else and he shouldn't be worshipped for something that had not only caused the deaths of his parents and him growing up an orphan as a result, but also it was an event he couldn't even remember as he was just a baby and constantly having it brought up was not at all enjoyable. Yet people didn't seem to realize or care about that.

Take Ron Weasley for example, the boy who had tried to sit next to him on the train to school soon proved to be unbearable in his hero worship of him and he was grateful when Hermione had come along, looking to help another student find a toad that he had lost. Harry had immediately taken the opportunity to try and get away from Ron and go help her. In the process of looking for the toad they had struck up a conversation and then soon became friends after that. She seemed mildly interested in him and his story for a moment but then switched to talking about other things which he was grateful for and she hadn't brought it up again knowing that he didn't like it.

Getting back to the present after reminiscing about how he and Hermione had become friends, he noticed Hermione thinking.

"You know maybe some other students could benefit from a study group," Hermione observed, "it might also help lessen the workload as we share it amongst each other and collaborate and help each other with what we've learned. We would need some good solid students for that though."

"Not any of my roommates that's for sure," Harry commented, laughing at the thought, "can you imagine Ron ever studying for anything, especially not way ahead of time?"

Hermione couldn't help but smile at that.

"Yeah, no," Hermione agreed, "I was thinking maybe students who have proved that they actually care about their education and are already really trying."

"Such as Susan and Padma," Harry suggested, echoing Hermione's earlier comment about the two of them being good students.

"Yes them," Hermione agreed with a nod, "I think they would be great for that."

"No harm in asking them," Harry replied before not being able to resist teasing her, "Of course, wouldn't that mean they might actually get ahead of you then?"

"It isn't a competition!" Hermione insisted before then admitting, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a few others on our same level to bounce ideas and get help off of."

"Anyone else you can think of you want to invite?" Harry asked her.

Hermione seemed to think for a moment as she said, "well we would have us 2 in Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff, and a Ravenclaw, it would admittedly be rather nice to include someone from Slytherin as well to show Inter-House cooperation."

Admittedly this was another good idea, Harry had already noticed that people seemed to be sticking to their own houses which was a real shame as it only created rifts and problems between each house. Still he had to admit that there were at least some students from each house that had some rather negative qualities he didn't care for very much.

"Not Malfoy," Harry insisted.

Malfoy had tried to offer him a hand of friendship right before the Sorting but he had also just insulted Hermione just before that, making fun of her being a Muggleborn and he could never be friends with someone that would treat Hermione like that.

Hermione frowned and agreed, "no definitely not Malfoy, or any of his usual posse of followers. I can just imagine how that would go."

Harry adopted his best fake Malfoy voice and said: "How about I teach you both about the insides of all the Hogwarts toilets?"

"Yeah no," Hermione said shaking her head, "how about Daphne Greengrass though? She seems to be a decent enough student already and she doesn't seem to have any pureblood supremacist ideals as far as I can tell."

"We can invite her too at the very least and see if she wants to," Harry agreed.

….

Daphne

Daphne Greengrass, new and proud Slytherin was walking down the halls when surprisingly Hermione Granger came up to her and tried to introduce herself.

"Hi, I don't know if you know me but-"

"I know who you are," Daphne interrupted her, "you're Hermione Granger right?"

It wasn't exactly hard not to at least know of Hermione Granger by now, her constantly trying to answer questions in class made her stick out as well as her being a Muggleborn and being clearly unfamiliar with wizard ways. Of course Daphne also prided herself on knowing at least a little bit about each of her classmates in case such information proved useful. As her father always told her, it often didn't matter so much what you know, but who you know. Then of course her mother would always tease her husband with the fact that it certainly was the case in him being very lucky to be married to her then.

Hermione looked a bit nervous but glad to see that Daphne already knew who she was as she invited, "well me and Harry, you know Harry Potter were planning on starting a study group with some of the better students, Susan Bones and Padma Patil already accepted and we were wondering if maybe you might like to join as well?"

Daphne was a bit surprised that Harry and Hermione would think to invite her, it wasn't that she was a bad student, she was trying very hard to make sure that she got off to a strong start in her school career, but it was surprising that they would invite her a Slytherin to join their study group. She even briefly considered that this might be some sort of trap, before tossing such an idea aside. Not everyone was out to get her and Hermione at least seemed nice enough and her devotion to her education was already becoming legendary.

"How often would we be meeting for this study group?" Daphne asked her curiously.

"Maybe several times a week assuming that works for everyone," Hermione admitted, "it is really just to help each other out in improving our education, so we are prepared and even get ahead if possible."

"I see," Daphne said, still thinking about it. In truth this actually seemed to be a big commitment and had much more far reaching implications for her than just what Hermione had in mind, a study group.

Associating herself so much with other students not of her house or of pureblood status would undoubtedly cause her some issues with her fellow Slytherins. She was already getting plenty of pressure to join what many of her other Slytherin classmates were doing, becoming what she termed secretly Death Eater wannabes or in the case of the first years, Draco Malfoy's fan club, Draco using his family's vast wealth and power as a way to encourage others to follow and listen to him.

So far she had acted rather coy and pretended to be interested in such offers but not willing to commit which so far just made her seem like she was just weighing her options like any Slytherin might, but secretly she was very much hoping that she wouldn't have to, she just plain didn't believe at all in pureblood supremacy as it was quite a ridiculous notion, plenty of Muggleborns in fact were just as good if not better witches and wizards and Hermione here was a good example of that. A bit bossy and a bit of a know-it-all but still a very smart and magically capable girl.

At any rate, Daphne had been concerned about choosing to not join Draco's group, as doing so would likely make Draco mad and cause her to be retaliated against or shunned by her fellow Slytherins. If she was going to cross them, she would need powerful and loyal allies to protect her and whether Hermione knew it or not, she apparently already had some to offer her if she joined her group. Susan Bones who apparently also was joining the study group was very highly connected, being of an ancient and noble family and her Aunt being the Head of Magical Law Enforcement certainly helped too. Hermione and Padma were not at all connected, but at least showed signs of promise as powerful and intelligent witches. Yet the real prize was Harry Potter. No one, not even any of the Slytherins would blame her if she chose to throw her lot in with Harry Potter instead. He was easily the most famous as well as the most influential student in the school and he was only a first year like her. It also helped that he was rather cute...not that she would admit that however.

After thinking it over, Daphne realized that this study group could be exactly what she needed in order to avoid having to join Draco Malfoy's fan club and instead befriend some other better and more powerful allies.

"Alright I'll join your little study group," Daphne told Hermione finally, "we'll see how it goes."

….

Harry

Surprisingly all 3 girls that they had planned to invite to join their study group had accepted, even Daphne and they all met in the library after classes were over for their first official study group session.

"So I took the liberty of creating study planners for each of us," Hermione began as she reached into her bag and began handing out planners, "it only goes over the first few weeks so far but after getting some feedback I would be happy to sit down and plan some things out with you all."

Each of them looked over the rather extensively planned out planners, complete with color coding when it came to each subject and how much time was allotted per area of study.

"This certainly must have taken a lot of time," Susan observed seeming a bit overwhelmed by Hermione's ambitious and meticulously created plans, "you didn't have to go through so much trouble on our account."

Harry could tell that Susan was just trying to be nice but didn't want anyone to be overworked or overwhelmed including herself.

"It does seem to be a bit much," Harry admitted to Hermione, trying not to hurt her feelings but also wanting to make sure that they didn't need to be this strict with studying.

"So what is the point of all this studying you want to do anyway?" Daphne asked, "what is the end goal?"

"Well I would say that gaining knowledge is its own reward," Padma said.

Hermione gave Padma a very pleased smile, loving that answer.

"It should be at least partially so we can help others," Susan suggested, "such as students that might be struggling more than us and could use some help."

"Why should we help them?" Daphne questioned, "if students are going to be lazy then that is their own fault, if we are going to study harder than them then shouldn't we be the ones reaping the rewards?"

"Well I think we can probably accomplish all of those things by studying and working hard," Harry pointed out, "helping others, helping ourselves, and gaining lots of knowledge."

"We would also expect to be better and stronger magic users," Hermione added, "we could use what we learn to eventually get good paying jobs and be able to do whatever we want to after school."

That seemed to satisfy everyone and Hermione began:

"So I was thinking we could start with tomorrow's lesson on that Cleaning Charm."

"Sounds like a good place to start," Susan agreed, "I actually already had taken the liberty of looking it over and-"

The conversation continued on from there.

Each of them were already opening up their Charms books and having a good conversation about the upcoming lesson.

He could tell that each of them had different personalities and different backgrounds but he was hopeful that they could all come together in a common cause, at least as far as studying was concerned, maybe they might even become good friends out of it, who knows?

At the very least for now, he had noticed that Padma seemed to be a bit more shy than the others as she wasn't really contributing but he could that there was plenty that she wanted to say.

"So what did you think about that Padma?" Harry asked her trying to get her more involved.

Padma blushed at him addressing her but was able to start explaining about her opinion on the Charm and how best to do it.

After about 15 minutes spent talking however he grew a bit bored as he felt they had talked about the spell to death and not even actually attempted it as he suggested, "well I think it's probably best that we get to actually practicing the spell don't you?"

"Agreed," Hermione said with a nod.

They each went out of the library and over to an empty classroom to practice the new spell.

As he watched each of the girls attempting to try it out, he couldn't help but look each of the girls over. He didn't really know them all that well yet except Hermione to a certain extent, but he was eager to get to know them better and hopefully become good friends with them. They each seemed to be smart, magically powerful, nice, and he couldn't help but notice, all rather pretty.

Hermione first of all had this thick, bushy brown hair that went down to her upper back and brown eyes.

Susan had long dark red hair that went to her hips as well as blue eyes. He also couldn't help but notice that despite her young age, she already seemed to be developing a bit on her chest.

Padma had very long shiny black hair that went below her bum, bronzed brown skin, and dark brown eyes.

Daphne had blonde hair that went to her waist and green eyes.

"See something you like Harry?" Daphne asked him with a bit of an amused grin as she had caught him staring at her.

"Sorry," Harry said apologizing as he shook himself.

"Oh don't be, I don't mind," Daphne said with a sly smile.

He couldn't help but blush at that before trying to get back to practicing the spell...which he did the first time much to his amazement.

"Good job Harry," Susan praised, "first out of all of us to do it too."

"Bet you can't do it again though," Daphne teased him.

Wow, it certainly didn't take Daphne long to open up he thought.

He however tried the spell again and once again did it perfectly.

"Did it," He told Daphne a bit smugly.

"I knew you would Harry," Padma told him, blushing a bit.

"Thanks Padma," Harry told her, giving her a smile, which caused her to blush more.

"Care to show the rest of us how you did it?" Hermione asked him.

"Of course," He answered as he tried demonstrating and going through the motions of just exactly what he had done.

It wasn't long before all 4 girls got it and were able to do it several more times before Hermione considered it good enough and they moved on to a Transfiguration spell.

They practiced and studied together well into the night and by the end they were all exhausted, mentally, physically, and magically but they all seemed quite pleased by the results and they made plans to meet up again tomorrow after classes.