The Potter scion stiffened in surprise, only to relax at seeing a familiar mess of bushy hair next to him. Hermione Granger had finally deigned to speak to him for the first time in months, "Hey, Harry."
The young Slytherin nodded to her, "Hermione."
The girl was fidgeting in apprehension, "I see that you got into the duelling club."
Harry shrugged, "I'm just a probationary member. I'll be an official one in a month after Professor Flitwick sees if I catch up."
Again, the girl seemed to not know what to say. Harry could understand her pain. He was also extremely socially awkward, "Did you get my present?"
"Yeah, it was a nice book. Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't get you anything. I thought that we weren't friends anymore."
The girl couldn't really hold it anymore, "I'm so sorry, Harry. I didn't know how horribly I treated you. I was like the mean kids in muggle school who ignored me. I hope you could forgive me."
Harry couldn't help but pity the girl slightly, "I have forgiven you months ago, Hermione."
"So, does that mean that we're friends again?" the girl asked with a hopeful smile on her face.
That was a very weighted question. Being friends with Hermione was surprisingly easy. They just connected, oddly enough. But with her having chosen Longbottom and Weasley over him, he just couldn't trust her. And with the boy who lived being a trouble magnet and the centre of attention of Dumbledore and Voldemort, Harry didn't want to get involved. It was why he didn't take credit for saving Hermione from the troll in the first place. A friendship with Hermione was more trouble than he knew how to deal with it at the moment.
"No," Harry simply answered, "I said that I forgave you. I don't hate you nor am I angry at you, I'm just disappointed that our friendship didn't last. Look, all you proved to me is that you didn't think that being friends with me was worth the effort of sneaking away. You chose Longbottom and Weasley, and I will respect your decision. What I will not respect is you changing your mind over and over again. Just stick with the choice you made."
The girl's eyes were teary, "But I'm sorry…"
"Look, being sorry is good and everything, but the reasons why you chose your housemates are not gone. We won't be friends again, but that doesn't mean that we have to hate each other. If you near help with anything, I'll hear you out. At most, we'll be friendly acquaintances. What do you think?"
The girl sniffed, "I guess I'll take it."
Harry snorted and went back to reading his book. A couple of minutes later, Hermione hit him on the shoulder, "Um, there's something I don't understand about our transfiguration assignment. The book says that you need to change the entire set of wand movements to turn the mouse into a snuffbox, and why the spell to do the opposite is a lot more difficult."
The Potter scion inwardly groaned. He had spent an hour the day prior explaining this very topic to Daphne, "Well, the previous semester we were focusing on Inanimate to Animate transfiguration. The most a spell had to deal with was turning a state of matter into another, like a liquid to a solid, and vice versa. But here, you're turning a being that is alive, and when you cancel the transfiguration, you want the mouse to still be alive. This means that excluding the material transfiguration, you need to preserve its consciousness as well, hence the extra wand movements. It's a really advanced transfiguration theory which we'll take somewhere after our OWLs since we'll need to know it before trying out any human transfiguration. It's also why the Animagus transformation is so dangerous. The two forms (animal form and human form) handle consciousness differently, which can somewhat overlap, making the casters react more like their inner animals even in their human forms."
The muggleborn looked thoughtful for a moment and nodded to himself. Harry was under no illusion that she wasn't going to research this on her own later, "What about the snuffbox to mouse transfiguration."
Harry snorted, "That's because you're not really turning a snuffbox into a mouse. You're turning the snuffbox into the body of a dead mouse and then animating it to act like it. It's a combination of two spells, a transfiguration and a charm, hence why it's more difficult, and will learn it after we're done with animation charms with Flitwick."
"How do you know all of this?" Hermione asked.
"I get bored easily," replied Harry while shrugging, "I thought you would do the same, to be honest."
"I get distracted by Neville and Ron's antics. They've been especially restless since Dumbledore decided to make Snape the referee in the next Quidditch game."
Yeah, it was a bit of a scandal when that happened. Apparently, for the first time in a decade, Dumbledore was personally attending a Hogwarts Quidditch game, and Snape of all people, was refereeing. Harry couldn't see the potion master being fair, and the Gryffindors felt the same considering how outraged they all were.
Harry snorted, "I still don't understand why people find that game enjoyable."
"Yeah, it's driving me mad. Ron and Neville spent the entire time practising for Quidditch. They even stopped helping me search for Nicholas Flamel."
The muggleborn immediately panicked; she probably hadn't wanted to reveal that tidbit, especially with the perceived danger involved. Harry really wanted to burst into laughter at her expression, but just gave her a questioning look, "Huh, why are you even looking for Flamel? He hasn't been seen in public for a while, as far as I know. It would be all over the French news if he and his wife did."
"Wait, you know who he is?" Hermione asked him with an incredulous tone.
"Well, yeah. Practically everyone who knows anything about the magical world knows who he is. Half the first years, at least, and almost all of the upper years."
"So, who is he?" the muggleborn questioned with an excited look on her face.
"You seriously don't know. It's like common knowledge. Hell, he's even known in the muggle world, I think," Harry replied.
"Just tell me who he is, will you?"
"Fine, Nicholas Flamel is the single greatest alchemist to have ever existed. He personally taught Dumbledore back in the day, and they made some discoveries about the properties of dragon blood. I didn't really read much on it, to be honest, since I don't know a lot about alchemy. Still, what Flamel is known for the most is his creation, the Philosopher's Stone. It absolutely circumvents the basic laws of Alchemy and can turn any metal into gold, as well as make something called the Elixir of Life, which extends the natural lifetime of its drinker and can even serve as a healing agent, as well as remove curses. There's not much known about his private life, only that he and his wife, Perenelle Flamel, have lived for over six hundred years. So, why are you researching Flamel in the first place?"
Harry barely finished speaking when he saw the Muggleborn girl had run away to another corner of the library. He suppressed a small grin. That girl was so predictable.
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