Together (A Harry Potter love story) 1

36

MILLIES POV

Harry had explained to us at breakfast about his night, and how Dumbledore had convinced him not to go looking for the mirror of Erised again.

"About time," I muttered under my breath, and to my slight happiness, Harry's famous smirk appeared on his face.

"Missed me, did you?"

"No, but everyone else did," I said, gesturing to people down the table. "You were being distant."

He sighed. "I'm sorry, but they are my family and-"

"You don't have to apologise," I told him, a small smile breaking onto my lips. "They are your parents."

"Thanks, Mills," he said. And for the first time, I thought we were having a normal, civilised conversation, but that thought soon vanished, when Harry leant further towards me and whispered, "Have you finally figured out that you don't hate me?"

His question brought me to stop and think about our relationship. His obnoxious comments and actions could be reasons for me to dislike Harry ... but all those things were trivial and could even be fun if we were friends. I think my stubbornness was the only thing stopping me from being friends with him.

Because the sad thing was, I didn't have a reason for it.

"No, I don't hate you," I said, and he looked at me in surprise. "I just really dislike you."

Harry grinned. "Oh, so it's getting better it is? I told you, you'll be in love with me soon."

"Don't push it, Potter," I said, sighing. But then I did something that I had never done before; I asked Harry Potter a question ... politely.

"Could you pass the bacon," I cringed before saying the next word, "Please." Ron rolled his eyes and watched as Harry handed me the plate. "Thank you."

"No problem," Harry replied, smiling amusingly.

Mione, who came back the day before term started. We told her about the invisibility cloak and the mirror, and she was torn between horror at the idea of Harry being out of bed, roaming the school for nights in a row ('if Filch had caught you!') and disappointment that we hadn't at least found out who Nicolas Flamel was.

We had almost given up hope of ever finding Flamel in a library book, even though Harry said he was sure he'd read the name somewhere. Once term had started, we were back to skimming through books for ten minutes during our breaks. Harry and I had even less time than Mione and Ron, because quidditch practice had started again.

Oliver was working the team harder than ever. Even the endless rain that had replaced the snow couldn't dampen his spirits. The twins complained that Oliver was becoming a fanatic, but I was on Oliver's side. If we won our next match, against Hufflepuff, we would overtake Slytherin in the house championship for the first time in seven years.

Then, during one particularly wet and muddy practice session, Oliver gave us some bad news. He'd just got very angry with Fred and George, who kept dive-bombing each other and pretending to fall off their brooms.

"Will you stop messing around!" He yelled. "That's exactly the sort of thing that'll lose us the match! Snape's refereeing this time, and he'll be looking for any excuse to knock points off Gryffindor!"

As soon as the name 'Snape' had rolled out of his mouth, my eyes flicked over to Harry, who nearly fell off his broom.

"Snape's refereeing?" He spluttered through a mouthful of mud. "When's he ever refereed a quidditch match?"