The Slytherin Table

AN: This is a story that has been playing in my head for a while. It's a derivative point from canon in third year, after Scabbers' supposed death when Harry is fed up of Ron and Hermione's fight and frankly would welcome any place where tense fighting and awkward conversations are not the normal.

Harry rubbed his eyes sleepily as he made his way down to the Great Hall. It was 6:30am in the morning in February and Harry had had yet another bad dream. This time, Snape chased him around the Quidditch pitch, whacking him over the head with his newly-gained Firebolt, before morphing into Lupin who cowered from the Trelawney holding a whole bunch of crystal balls which reflected the image of the grim in them.

It had woken him at 5 and Harry had been unable to make it back to sleep, so blearily made his way down to breakfast, hoping that food would bring back some life to him.

To his surprise, the Great Hall wasn't completely deserted. The Slytherin Table, which was usually only half full when Harry went to have breakfast, was bustling with people, quietly chatting, laughing and writing. The Ravenclaw table looked like they hadn't moved from their position since dinner, absentmindedly spooning cereal into their mouths, while flicking through the pages of a book or writing an essay. The Hufflepuff table was also sparsely filled with some brave souls who looked quite cheery to be awake or completely exhausted and dripping with sweat (Harry thought of their strong Quidditch team and wondered just how much hard work they put in if they looked used to getting up this early).

The Gryffindor table, was however, nearly deserted of people he knew, apart from Neville who was looking dolefully at his toast. Harry sat down at the bench opposite him and tucked his bag under the table. He was about to pour some cereal into a bowl when Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil flanked his sides.

"Hello Harry! Hi Neville!" Parvati chorused, looking at him and the other boy with expressions of what felt like hunger. Harry resisted the urge to shudder.

"Hi, Parvati, Lavender. I didn't know you usually got up this early." He answered politely.

"We don't." said Parvati, quite bluntly, "Lavender has a dilemma we feel that you could help us with."

At this, Lavender's usually tanned skin turned a shade of red, he thought only Ron could achieve.

"What is it?" Harry asked cautiously, a part of him telling him to run as far as he could away from them.

"Well, she has a boyfriend in Hufflepuff, Stephen Cornfoot? He's been ignoring Lavender, so she wants to go talk to him. But she says that she'll feel awkward going to another table without someone else doing it, so I said that I'd go to Ravenclaw. I've been wanting to copy Padma's arithmancy homework anyway. But then, that's still a little strange so we thought that maybe, the two of you gallant gentlemen," At this, Lavender and Parvati batted their surprisingly long eyelashes at Harry and Neville, "Would help us by going to sit at the other houses as well."

Harry was still struggling to think straight with the fact that it was very early and that Parvati was now simpering at him, with her very attractive eyes and face that Harry had not noticed before. This was the only reason that Neville's eyes had flashed before Harry and he had called. "I bagsy sitting at Hufflepuff house!"

"What!" Harry said, snapping out of his dazed stupor. "You can't!" he said, feeling annoyed as he realized the last house he was left with. "Look Parvati, Lavender, I like you both a lot, but even I'm not going to play nice with Malfoy for you. He'd rip me apart and I'd fight back and I'd get a month's detention from Snape and Wood would murder me because we'd lose the Quidditch House Cup."

Parvati rolled her eyes. "Don't exaggerate Harry! It's a bad habit! Anyway, Malfoy isn't the only Slytherin there is in our year."

"Yeah," said Lavender, speaking for the first time, her voice pitched very high, in a fake and obnoxious tone. "Like, there's a boy called Blaise Zabini. He has the perfect manners and he's so handsome and foreign. If he wasn't a Slytherin, I'd drop Stephen and date Blaise."

Parvati started giggling and Harry felt very uncomfortable between the two of them. Whatever Hermione's faults were, she didn't giggle like that, in a very sinister and conspiratorial manner. "Okay, I'll go do that then. But you two owe me. Tenfold."

"Sure. Thanks again, Harry!" said Parvati, smiling at him with her very white teeth. Harry nodded, picked up his school bag and took a deep breath in. Slytherin table. He was going to go sit at Slytherin table for breakfast. He was going barmy.

He made his way over to the other side of the Great Hall and saw the Italian boy, Blaise Zabini sitting alone, immediately recognizing him from Potions as the boy whom Snape never acknowledged at all.

"Hello." said Harry as pleasantly as he could, "Can I sit here?"

Blaise looked surprised as Harry sat on the opposite bench to Blaise. "Well well. Harry Potter, the boy wh—"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm famous. I get it. Can we cut to the part where I actually get to eat something? I'm actually hungry for once." said Harry, as he reached for some toast.

Blaise laughed and looked at him. 'That was unexpected."

"I do that a lot. I'm a very unexpected person." said Harry dryly, reaching for a knife to butter his bread with and stopped dead still as he saw five different knives on the table next to him.

"Blais-Can I call you Blaise? Okay, that's great. Which knife do I use to butter my toast?" asked Harry as he unrolled the ample collection of cutlery from his silken napkin.

Blaise looked severely amused and pointed towards the smallest knife, at about 6 inches, with a rounded tip. "That one. The butter knife, it's called. Aptly named, don't you think?"

Harry nodded as he looked at the large collection of spreads, deciding on an orange spread which looked like marmalade. "It's very posh here, isn't it?" Harry asked, as he spread the orange substance over the bread.

Blaise nodded. "Somehow, I do believe the pureblood couture of Britain never made it out of the Victorian era. We're much less formal in Italy. Of course, when it comes to our dinners and our parties, we are the most sophisticated. But you British act like stick-in-the-muds all day."

Harry stifled a smirk; he wondered how Malfoy had reacted to that particular sentiment. "I like you. You are funny." Harry said as he bit into his bread and widened his eyes. "This is delicious! How come food tastes so much nicer on the Slytherin table?" asked Harry staring at the delicious combination that was marmalade on toast (which had never tasted this good on Gryffindor table!)

Blaise shuddered and laughed a little as he ate a bit more of his cereal. "The house elves like us better." Blaise said, smirking and Harry frowned.

"There are house elves at Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

But before Blaise could answer, a low, Scottish accented voice sounded in behind him, "What's Potter doing here?"

Harry turned around to see Theodore Nott, whom had never outrightly been mean to Harry, but had been hanging around Malfoy nearly all the time that Harry had seen him. "Nott." Harry said, as mildly as he could manage.

"Actually, what are you doing here? I never asked?!" asked Blaise and Nott looked at the Italian boy incredulously. "The Gryffindor golden boy decides to sit at Slytherin for breakfast and you don't question why?"

Blaise shrugged. "We were too busy being entertained by each other."

"That sounds so wrong, you have no idea!" chimed another, British voice and Harry looked around to see a very pretty blonde girl sashaying her way down to where Blaise and Harry were sitting (with Theodore like a looming shadow.)

"Probably does." said Blaise, not looking altogether fussed. "Morning Daph, Morning Theo. You can sit down you know, instead of being overbearing shadows. We were having a rather nice conversation, before you interrupted."

"Oh?" asked 'Daph' said, as she stowed her bag under the table and cosied up to Blaise, much to his displeasure.

"We haven't been introduced," said Harry, quickly ridding his hands of bread crumbs. "Harry Potter," he said, extending a hand.

"Daphne Greengrass," said Daphne, quite regally as she shook his hand delicately.

"And you?" asked Harry, turning towards Theodore, despite knowing who he was.

"Theodore Nott." He said, sulkily, as he reached for a croissant from the middle of the table.

"Well then, now we're acquainted, we can get back to the topic on hand. House elves? In Hogwarts?" asked Harry, as he polished off the last of the most delicious toast.

"No wait," said Blaise, "You still haven't explained why you're here."

Harry was about to dive into the whole debacle when he glanced at the three of them. "There aren't any more of you coming, are there?"

The three exchanged looks. "Probably, yes. Tracey Davis and Alison Moon like to join us on occasion. And they'll want to join us today." said Blaise.

"Okay," said Harry happily putting off his rather embarrassing explanation of coercion by their flirting, "We'll wait for them. And while we're waiting, you can explain where the house-elves are, why we don't see them and how you know they are there."

"Well," said Blaise, "I would explain it, but Theo's the clever one, so he can. He'll quote dates as well, if you really want."

Theodore scowled at Blaise who smiled sunnily, looking innocent. "Fine," Theodore said, "There have been house-elves at Hogwarts since the day it was built. Helga Hufflepuff had a penchant for saving people, and ended up with a contingent of people's house elves as gifts of gratitude. So she asked whether they wanted work and they all said yes and agreed to serve the headmaster of Hogwarts and make sure the school runs smoothly. We don't see them because they don't want to be seen. House elves are generally shy and don't want recognition for their work. The mark of a good house-elf is that it is never seen or noticed at all. And they are usually found in the kitchens, which is first floor, with the painting of the fruit bowl. Tickle the fruit bowl to get in."

"Hey!" said Blaise, looking annoyed, "How come you didn't tell me this? We could have used it last year, when Millicent Bulstrode refused to come out of the dungeons to even eat after her cat died! We could have gone straight to the kitchen and come with plates, rather than smuggling food through bags and pockets! We could have had proper midnight feasts instead of just sweets and chocolate! It would have stopped Malfoy complaining about his teeth, anyway, the little ponce. "

Harry stared. "You don't like Malfoy either?" he asked, feeling a little incredulous.

"It depends what you mean by like." said Daphne, "We tolerate him, because he's in Slytherin, he's from an old pureblood family and can be quite funny when he puts his mind to it. Do we like him as a friend? Not really. He's a bit too spoilt and self-centred for that. Also, he whines about nothing. And he likes Parkinson."

Blaise looked amused. "Let it all out Daphne. It's okay. You're with allies. But, are you just saying that because he's engaged to your younger sister?"

"Shut up Zabini." She said, her perfect pronounced dialect, just a little frostier.

"Hello, everyone!" came a girl's voice. A pretty girl with dark brown hair in pigtails and a very short green skirt sat down next to Theodore. Another girl with wide grey eyes and mousy brown curly hair sat down on the other side of Blaise, looking quite lost in thought as she studied Harry.

"Hello Tracey! Hello Alison!" said Blaise. "Tracey, this is-"

"Merlin's pants! You're Harry Potter!" said Tracey, her voice nearly breathless as she tackled him with a hug.

"Now, now Tracey," said a low voice from the other girl, Alison as she got up and removed Tracey from Harry, "Don't smother the poor boy. Then how would he save the world again?"

Tracey pouted, but removed herself from him. Harry straightened his glasses and tie, feeling himself go a shade of red that he'd thought only Ron could turn.

"Well, you already know who I am, evidently. I'm assuming you're Tracey Davis," Harry said, addressing the girl with pigtails, pushing away the stammer from his voice with force. She nodded enthusiastically, puffing out her chest. Harry looked away a little, to glance at the other girl. "So, I presume that you're Alison Moon?"

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," she said sensibly, as she extended a hand out to him.

Harry took it and firmly shook it. "Okay," said Blaise, "Now tell us why you have decided to sit at Slytherin table."

So Harry recounted the whole sorry debacle from Crookshanks eating Scabbers to the debacle that morning, in between bites from a second piece of toast, this time with strawberry jam(still more tasty than Gryffindor bread.)

"So you came over here, because you were persuaded by Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil? That's sad, Potter. I was expecting some epic tale where you didn't want to alienate all of the school and wanted to make friends in another house to save the world and stop Sirius Black. Not because you were escaping your arguing friends and were persuaded by two pretty girls." said Theodore Nott, as he polished off his third croissant.

"Yes, well. My life isn't some epic adventure. Everything is blown severely out of proportion," said Harry, quickly looking at his wristwatch. It was 7:15 am already. Ron would be looking for him.

"So, what they said about you slaying Slytherin's monster, the basilisk, was false?" asked Tracey, sounding forlorn.

"No, that was true," said Harry, absentmindedly scanning the Gryffindor table for the tell-tale sign of red hair. Ginny Weasley was chatting with Colin Creevey, Fred, George and Lee were plotting something, huddled up on the bunch together, Percy was reading and eating but there was no Ron.

"And you rescued Ginny Weasley from the basilisk?" questioned Daphne.

"Yes, yes," Harry said, again as he looked around the bustling people for red hair. Susan Bones was sitting down at the Hufflepuff table, playing with her long plait, someone in Ravenclaw, a first year, had vivid red hair. But no Ron.

"And you went down the forbidden Third Floor Corridor to save the Philosopher's Stone from Professor Quirrel." stated Blaise.

"Yes," said Harry who was now frowning. He wondered whether Ron had gotten into another shouting match with Hermione or was futilely waiting for Harry in the Common Room.

"But that's all heroic!" said Daphne.

"I had help!" said Harry, looking away. Ron would make it down when he wanted to. "Ron and Hermione and clues from everything!"

"Stop sounding so modest, Potter." said Theodore, "Even I can see that's heroic. You make the rest of us look bad."

"Speaking of looking," said Alison who was throwing amused looks at the Head Table, "Have you seen Snape's face at this 'display of unnecessary affection'?"

"Better yet, is Malfoy's!" said Daphne, with an eager grin that looked vaguely scary.

Harry laughed at the furious and reddening face of Malfoy's as he looked at the six of them. He then noticed a pale girl, with black hair and green eyes who didn't seem to be human at all.

"Who's that?" he asked, "The girl with black hair who doesn't seem to have any emotions?"

Daphne smirked. "Oh, she's Sally-Anne Perks."

"Sometimes, I think her parents hated her." said Blaise, conspiratorially, "Sally-Anne Perks has got to be the worst name for her possible."

"I swear the girl is carved from marble!" said Tracey, "She doesn't have any emotions! And she never talks either. Not in class, not out of class, not unless something is really interesting. She's really strange. No one likes her, apart from Pansy. And I think that's because Pansy can just talk at her, without Sally-Anne butting in and saying anything that puts that cow in her place."

Harry snorted a little. "I suppose. Say, you haven't seen Ron Weasley anywhere, have you?"

"He's over there." said Alison, who hadn't really been paying much attention to everyone.

Harry turned around. Ron was looking rather accusingly at Harry and Harry waved him over, smiling. Ron merely raised his eyebrows and sat down at the Gryffindor table, looking moodier than usual.

Harry sighed. "Hold on, I'll be right with you."

Leaving his bags there, he went over to the Gryffindor table. "Hey Ron." Harry said.

Ron didn't respond and Harry rolled his eyes. "Come on, stop sulking. You would not believe how tasty Slytherin food is. It's ten times better than Gryffindor food."

"Just like Slytherin friends are ten times better than Gryffindors?" asked Ron, his voice tight.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, feeling a sense of horror creep over him.

"You said that we could try out your Firebolt today, since you got it back from McGonagall a couple of days ago. You said we should do it this morning. I was waiting at the Quidditch Pitch for an hour, feeling so stupid as Hufflepuff practised. So I came here, thinking that I'd misheard you and you wanted to meet in here, and I see you cozying up to Slytherins. Having a great time being evil? Planning a 'let's be little evil twats' party with Malfoy now?" said Ron, looking furious and Harry put a hand to his mouth,

"What can I say, Ron? I'm sorry. I completely forgot." Harry said, his voice sounding dull and weak. "It's inexcusable what I did, and I don't know how I can make it up to you."

"You can make it up by going away." He said fiercely, but Harry could hear the tremble in his voice.

"No, Ron. That's exactly how I'll screw it up even further. Now come on. Food." said Harry calmly, forcing the urge to shout at Ron for being illogical to disappear. He grabbed Ron's hand with one of his arms and took Ron's bag in the other, before dragging Ron forcefully to the Slytherin table. Harry was sure that if Ron had not been so surprised, Harry would never have been able to manage it, as Ron was considerably bigger than Harry, but he was surprisingly docile as he stared in Harry in surprise.

Harry pushed Ron down onto the bench and Harry turned around towards the table and grabbed Ron a plate and some cutlery. He came back in time to hear "-We stole Malfoy's underwear." from Blaise and Theodore.

Harry nearly did a spit-take. "What?! Why would you want to steal Malfoy's underwear?"

"Because he was being a prat about how rich and perfect he was, so we stole his underwear and hid it around the dorm. We wouldn't tell him where they were until he took back his statements." said Blaise, really quite casually, for something that Harry couldn't even imagine without feeling a little bit ill.

"Yes, but why underwear?" asked Daphne, looking quite disgusted, "Couldn't you have stolen his robes instead?"

"It's a boy thing," Theodore said, not looking up from his book.

"It is most certainly not!" Harry exclaimed, closely mirrored by Ron's, "No self-respecting boy would want to steal Malfoy's underwear!"

They glanced at each other, realising that all was forgiven between each other, before Ron dove into a speech about why it was unnatural accompanied by Daphne's fervent nods and happiness while Blaise tuned both out, as he casually chomped on an apple. Harry on the other hand leaned towards Alison.

"What's with the really young engagement between Daphne's younger sister and Malfoy?" he hissed and Alison's face contorted just a little.

"It's a pureblood thing. An engagement to make sure the blood runs pure all the way through to the next generation. One of many traditions that ensure your life is dictated from birth. It's why my brother took me and my other brother and we ran away to America." She said, scowling.

"Is Daphne engaged to anyone?" asked Harry, feeling confused.

"Why, you like her?" asked Alison, looking skeptical.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm sure she's very nice but I've known her for less than an hour. No, I'm just trying to get my head around all of this. "

"Well, Daphne wasn't as restrained as she is now, when she was younger. When the Malfoy's came round, it was like an inspection of cattle. Astoria was pretty and clean and Daphne wasn't. So the decision was made that Astoria would marry Draco." said Alison, whispering as Blaise now started pointing out the flaws in Ron's argument.

Harry scowled. "That's so archaic!" he said and Alison smirked.

"I think you're picking up vocabulary from the Mud- Muggleborn girl. Granger, right?"

Harry didn't comment on her near slip but nodded grimly. "Yes. She's very clever."

"Much to Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein and Theo's displeasure." said Alison calmly, her attention being diverted again by a loud chuckle from Blaise.

"I think that I win that round." He called out, with a smirk.

Daphne frowned. "You must have cheated. Right, Ronald?"

Ron nodded. "She is right! There is no way that stealing Malfoy's underwear in condonable in way, sort or form."

"I didn't realize you liked him so much." commented Theodore dryly from where he was reading his book.

Ron roared, turning bright red and dived at Theo, resulting in all of the Slytherins springing into action, knocking Ron backwards as everyone made to protect Theo.

Harry's eyebrows rose as everybody looked like they were going to explode at each other. The Slytherins especially were on edge, some going as far to hiss at Ron. "You guys take loyalty more seriously than the Puffs! I doubt Ernie, Hannah and Susan would do that for one of their lot."

The tension broke a little and everyone sat down and went back to their places. Blaise offered Ron a hand up. He still looked a little dazed but took it, much to Harry's pleasure.

"Sorry, it's something ingrained in us." said Daphne after a while. "Because Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff can safely say they are the good houses and they can ally with each other easily. Slytherin is all alone."

Tracey nodded, looking upset, "The occasional Ravenclaw doesn't mind siding with us every now and then. But we're so isolated, because everyone thinks that we're evil."

"How can you brand an entire house evil?" Alison burst out, looking upset. "How can you say that out of the 70-80 students in Slytherin, every single one is evil?" Ron shifted uncomfortably in his seat at this.

"The fact is," Blaise said, "that Slytherin Rule Number One is 'Have each others backs'. Slytherin are united in front of other houses. If you have any qualms with who's in your year and who is with you, you keep it away from other houses. Slytherins come first."

"So that's why no one objected to Malfoy in First Year!" Harry said.

"Yeah, that and he wasn't too bad in First Year. In first year, you kind of cling to everybody because you are all new and scared and want to do well. You don't want to start fights amongst the people you room with yet. And he was funny. Really." said Theodore, playing with his mousy-brown locks.

"I mean, I thought he was pretty stupid for doing the broomstick incident, but no one wanted to say it directly in first year. In second year, he was a bit of a prat, but it was safety in numbers because of the Chamber of Secrets debacle. Even if we were all purebloods or half-bloods, no one really wanted to risk the Heir's wrath. No one was mean to each other in second year." said Alison, as she started scribbling something on some parchment.

Harry glanced at his watch, 7:45am. Almost class time.

"You know," said Daphne after a moment of silence. "We kind of broke the 'don't reveal things to other houses' rule."

Blaise shrugged. "Doesn't count. Harry instigated it. All his fault. If Snape asks, we'll blame him!"

"You can't!" Harry protested, "Snape hates me enough already! You simply cannot do that to me! He'll give me detention for the rest of the year! He'll flay me alive!" he said, feeling his voice go embarrassingly high pitched.

"Aww, is Harry afraid of the Potions teacher?" teased Daphne and Harry nodded.

"Merlin, yes. If he hated your guts, you'd be afraid too." Harry said, as he flicked to his schedule. Charms next, with Ravenclaws.

"Doesn't stop him being a greasy, bitter git." said Ron, in between mouthfuls of cereal.

Everyone at the table burst into laughter, surprising the last of the Slytherins who were departing from the table and eliciting looks from other tables.

"Well, even if Snape doesn't approve of this display, McGonagall and Dumbledore looked happy," said Harry, as he slipped his schedule back into his bag and buttoned it back up.

"Dumbledore always looks happy." snorted Blaise, as he too started standing up and packing his bag.

"Not always. You should have seen him when he came bursting in to stop me from completely killing myself when attacking Quirrel," Harry said absentmindedly, as he looked through the hall. Hermione was on the Ravenclaw table, clearly taking the lead from Harry, Ron Neville, Parvati and Lavender, chatting animatedly with Terry Boot.

"Wait, what? You attacked Quirrel?" asked Daphne as she too stood up.

Harry ignored her. "What lesson have you got next?" he asked Blaise.

"Transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs." said Theodore, not looking up as he packed his book back into his backpack.

"Okay, we'll meet you at lunch, yeah?" Harry asked as Ron too stood up, grabbing the last piece of toast.

The Slytherins looked surprised. "I thought that this was a one-off?" asked Alison, looking quite perplexed.

"Yeah, it was meant to be. But you are all far too nice. You know, from the impression, we all thought you tortured babies for a living or something." said Harry good-naturedly.

"No Harry, that's the Dark Lord and his followers. Not Slytherins." said Daphne. It was meant as sarcasm, but Harry saw how weary they were that the two had to be so interlinked.

"Yeah, you're right. You should have a choice. To be able to say that you are a Slytherin and still not a follower of Lord Voldemort." said Harry, tactfully ignoring the gasps, "I hope I'll be able to give you that choice one day, in the future."

There was something of a pause as everyone finished packing and stood up looking at each other.

"You're sitting at the Gryffindor table though," said Ron, breaking the tension. "This toast may be better than my Mum's cooking, but I've been too afraid of getting hexed every five minutes to properly enjoy it."

Tracey laughed. "But you sit at Slytherin for dinner. You need to learn some table manners, and I want to be able to say that I taught the Boy-who-lived his table manners!"

Harry laughed as the tension between them faded and they made their way to the Entrance Hall and up the Stairs. Harry and Ron made their excuses as they walked down the Second Floor corridor, past a group of nervous first years.

"Slytherins aren't evil." said Harry, as they queued outside the class.

"Yeah, you're right." said Ron, "They talked like human beings and Blaise mentioned something about chess. I'd love to play a game with him."

Harry smiled. "It's strange though, isn't it Ron? We talked to them for so long, yet we barely know anything about them apart from that they're nice and friendly."

"And sarcastic, mate. The sarcasm was worse than yours." said Ron as fumbled with his homework.

"Really?" said Harry looking quite surprised and Ron nodded.

There was a pause as they filed into the classroom and claimed their usual table at the back. Hermione did not join them this time, instead, made to sit with Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein. "The hat offered me Slytherin, y'know." Harry said, as he got out some spare parchment and his quill and ink.

"Really?" asked Ron, looking green. "I can't see that. You in Slytherin, I mean."

"Why, because the Boy-Who-lived couldn't be put in Slytherin for any reason, because he'll turn dark and evil?" asked Harry, feeling a little bitter.

Ron rolled his eyes. "Stop being so pessimistic, mate. That's ridiculous. Anyway, if you had listened, I say it's because I wouldn't have got to know you. You would have been best mates with them lot and I'd never have plucked up the courage to approach you again after the train meeting, because you'd have had lots of new friends, and why would the boy from the train matter?"

Harry threw a look towards Ron. "Don't be ridiculous, mate. You were the first friend I'd ever had. Even if I had been put in Slytherin, it wouldn't have stopped me being friends with you."

Ron smiled a little. "That's good to know."

Harry smiled and started writing down the title of their lesson. "If it makes you feel any better," said Ron after a moment, "The hat offered me Slytherin and Hufflepuff before Gryffindor."

"Now you in Slytherin, I can't see!" said Harry with a laugh.

Ron rolled his eyes and chucked his ink-splattered quill at Harry. Needless to say, by the end of the lesson, the ink had spread to most of the classroom and 20 points had been taken from the Gryffindor hourglass, much to Hermione's chagrin. Making up with her would be a different type of quest altogether.