Some Things Never Change...Others Do

a/n: Apologies for the shortness of this chapter. I hate making them so short, but it was either this, or make it into a SUPER-long one, and I'd rather do it this way. Enjoy, shouldn't be too long before another chapter is up.

Harry's eyes were huge. "Hermione!" He exclaimed. "Why're you still up?"

"Waiting for you, obviously," She said. "Where've you been?"

Harry tried like mad to quickly come up with a lie he thought Hermione would believe, but the only excuses his mind could think of involved getting lost. Seeing as they were in their 6th year at Hogwarts, he knew she would never believe it. So he ducked his head and mumbled an indiscernible answer as he headed across the commonroom toward the boys' dormitory.

"Not so fast," Hermione said, leaping out of her chair and running toward him. I know you were with Malfoy, Harry."

Harry stopped in his tracks and spun around to face her. "I don't know what you think you know, but you're wrong," he said.

Hermione silently held up an un-folded piece of parchment with perfect emerald green writing on it and a red ribbon, and raised an eyebrow. Harry's face contorted with anger "Where'd you find that?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't mean to find it, it was an accident. I needed to use that book we borrowed from the library, and I remembered you had it, and when I was looking for it in your trunk upstairs, I found the note. I'm really sorry, Harry, I never meant to invade your privacy, and I was going to just ignore the note, but I saw Malfoy's signature on it, and I just had to find out what was going on. Are you very angry with me, Harry?"

"Of course I'm angry with you, Hermione, why shouldn't I be??" Harry snarled. "You went through my things without my permission, you read my note without my permission, you STOLE that note without my permission, I have every REASON to be angry with you!!" Harry clenched and unclenched his hands as he told off his friend. "How dare you do this? As if it's not bad enough with Ron throwing questions at me all the time, I never would've expected you to do something like this. You, of all people. So yes, Hermione, I am angry with you."

Harry spun on his heel and stormed up the stairs to the boys' dormitory. He yanked his trainers off and threw them against the wall. They hit with a loud THUD and fell to the floor. Harry heard the angry grumbles of is dormmates.

"What the hell?" "What was that?" "Go away." "Affnulllll-"

Harry ignored them and changed into his pyjamas, then flung himself onto his bed, not bothering to shut the curtains.

"Harry?" Harry heard Ron's voice in the darkness. He ignored him. "Harry??" Ron whispered again, more urgently. Harry continued ignoring his friend. "HARRY!"

"WHAT, RON??" Harry thundered, not caring that he was disturbing his dormmates.

"What's wrong with you, mate?" Ron asked.

Harry chose not to answer.

"Fine. Don't talk to me," Ron grumbled.

"Fine, I won't," Harry thought to himself. He angrily lay awake for hours before sleep finally took hold.


~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry woke up to a sharp pain in his side. Someone was jabbing him in the ribs.

"Mmph," Harry mumbled. The jabbing continued. "Go away," he muttered. The jabbing still continued. "WHAT IS IT?" he yelled. The jabbing stopped.

"Wake up, Harry. It's time for breakfast, and we have classes today," Ron grumbled, clearly angry at Harry for ignoring him the night before. He walked off and slammed the door before Harry had a chance to respond.

"Great. Now not only will I never speak with Hermione again because of what she did, but Ron's mad at me too. Just great," Harry thought as he kicked off his covers and proceeded to get dressed.

He didn't sit with Ron and Hermione at breakfast that morning. Instead, he chose to sit with a group of 4th years who seemed ecstatic that Harry Potter chose to sit with them.

He got through the first three classes of the day without having to utter a single word to Ron or Hermione. He didn't sit with them, so he barely even had to acknowledge they existed. In fact, he hadn't uttered a word to anyone

Unfortunately, the fourth and last class of the day was Potions. Harry still chose not to sit with his friends, but when Professor Snape entered the room and ordered everyone to get into groups of three, his heart sank. He miserably covered his face with his hands for a moment before he stood up to find two people to make a group with. When he uncovered his face and looked around, he saw that everyone was already in groups of three, except Ron and Hermione. He rolled his eyes and walked over to the table they shared.

"Everyone else is already in groups," Harry muttered without looked at either of his friends.

Ron and Hermione shared a begrudging look, but allowed Harry to join their group. They worked in near silence for over an hour, only speaking when they had to. When they were finished, their potion looked nothing like it was supposed to and smelled oddly of mustard, but Harry didn't care. He helped Hermione ladle it into a flask as Ron began carrying ingredients back to the supply closet.

Hermione corked the flask and carried it to Professor Snape's desk and Harry gathered up the last of the ingredients and headed for the supply closet. His arms piled with bottles, he couldn't see the spiteful look on Ron's face when he stuck his foot out as Harry approached him. Harry, of course, tripped on Ron's foot and lunged forward, slamming into a wall of shelves, all of them filled with bottles and boxes of potions ingredients. Glass shattered, and random ingredients flew everywhere, and Harry fell to the floor right in the middle of the chaos.

Snape leapt to his feet and hurried over to the supply closet, his black robes billowing behind him. "What is going on here?" He shouted before he even reached the closet. His expression changed from anger to utter shock, then back to anger when he laid eyes upon the mess in the supply closet. "DETENTION, POTTER!!" he roared. "You'll be cleaning up this disaster! And you won't leave until it's SPOTLESS!" Snape stormed back to his desk.

Across the room, Draco Malfoy's heart sank. He'd had a plan to drag Harry off to the Room of Requirement again that evening, but a detention would severely hinder that plan. He thought quick and hastily came up with another plan. "Potter, you're such a dunce!" he shouted, then threw a bottle full of banshee saliva across the room. It shattered on the wall, and the liquid inside hissed and smoked as it exploded out of the bottle.

Snape's head snapped up and he looked to see what the new ruckus was. He saw the liquid sizzling on the wall, with shards of glass still stuck to it. Across the room, he saw Draco standing on his chair, a surprised and expectant look on his face. He sighed. "That'll be detention for you as well, Mister Malfoy," he said as he rolled his eyes.

Satisfied, Draco plopped back into his seat, then looked in the direction of the storage closet where Harry was standing with his eyes as big as quaffles and his mouth hanging open in awe. Draco spun around in his chair and quickly scribbled on a piece of parchment, then threw it across the room at Harry. The paper hit Harry in the arm, then fell to the floor.

Harry picked it up and read: "At least we'll be there together." He snorted and pocketed the paper. He looked up and saw Draco smirk before he turned back to clean up his own ingredients.