Ridiculous!—Or Is It Ridikulus?

Disclaimer: Does anyone ever read these at all anyway? Honestly.

A/N: This one I think is okay. By the way, this is not DH compatible.

"Settle down, people," called Remus Lupin, the current DADA teacher for Hogwarts, who had not—yet—succumbed to the supposed jinx on the position. Then again, Voldemort was dead, so maybe that was it. This class was combined Gryffindors and Slytherins seventh years. The war had had a peculiar effect on inter-House rivalry. On the one hand, it was difficult to hate someone you had worked with, stayed alive with, and risked your life with for the past year. On the other, some Houses, especially Slytherins, had lost many family members at the hands of the Order, many of whom were from Gryffindor. So you had Slytherins who secretly mingled with Gryffindors and Slytherins who hated Gryffindors with all their guts. It was like sneaking out after curfew—you weren't proud of it, you never talked about it, you despised people who did it, but you did it yourself when no one was looking.

The line between the two Houses, now, were much blurrier, much less defined, but it was still there, as present as any of the students—invincible. Remus sighed and hoped that one day it would disappear. For now he would be content with his—his! He was still grateful that he had been welcomed back after the exposal of his condition— class settling down so he could do a review on the boggart.

"Now, I'm going to assume you all know what a boggart is and how to get rid of it." The class was silent. Fighting boggarts seemed such a trivial thing after the War, and no one liked to admit it, but—

"Sir?" Predictably, it was Neville Longbottom who raised his hand to ask the question that many of them longed to ask but did not dare. He had done this all his life, after all. "I forgot the spell."

A collective breath of relief passed through the crowd like a gust of wind as they all let out the breaths no one admitted to have been holding. "A good question, Mr. Longbottom. Anyone?" Remus scanned the crowd for the one hand he knew would pop up.

Sure enough, Hermione Granger's now scarred hand hit the air and she called out, "Ridikulus!"

"Very good, Miss Granger. Five points to Gryffindor. Now, I am going to call on certain of you to step up and defeat the boggart. Please do not be shy, and refrain from laughing at other students' fears, unless you would like to be laughed at in turn. Patil, Parvati!"

Parvati walked up, her once long black braid shorn to a bob, and faced a hooded and masked Death Eater, pointing his wand at her. Harry briefly remembered a third-year whose greatest fear had been to appear in public without makeup, and smiled to see the girl say, "Ridikulus!" in a clear, firm voice. Seamus Finnigan faced dementors, Daphne Greengrass a shattered broomstick, Ron—as expected—gigantic spiders. Harry laughed along with everyone else in relief that one thing at least had not changed. "Miss Granger, if you will?" the class fell silent as Hermione's eyes widened and she walked up the aisle suddenly cleared for her.

"Oooh, whaddya think it'll be, Drakie?" whined Daphne Greengrass, clutching the aforementioned 'Drakie's' sleeve and simpering. Draco Malfoy grimaced in poorly-concealed disgust at the slut. Pansy hadn't been so bad. Pansy had been a friend as well as an infatuated girl, Pansy had been under the influence of a love potion, Pansy had grown up with him, and Pansy, even with a besotted simper on her face, had been pretty. Pansy now stood and gave him a sympathetic glance, but he noticed her glancing towards the Boy-Who-Should-Have-Died-But-Managed-To-Mess-That-Up-Like-Everything-Else-He-Did. He would never like Potter, and would always argue with him, but much to his dismay, over the course of the War they had become tentative friends, and Pansy, to his horror, had become Harry's secret girlfriend. Blaise Zabini had been no different. Draco hadn't known him well before the War, but had seen enough of him to hope that he would be different from—but no. Blaise was as goofy as any other besotted man, and he was now grinning stupidly at the Weaselette, aka Ginny Weasley, who was, besides the twins, the most passable member of the Weasley family now that Bill and Charlie Weasley were dead.

Draco glared at Blaise and Pansy, silently demanding them to do something. Pansy only giggled, and Blaise only rolled his eyes and mouthed, "Poor Drakie—poo."

"Fuck," he muttered. Remus—Draco swore, that man had uncanny hearing—gave Draco the famed 'look' that had spread throughout the Order with the rumor that it made you feel like a first year at Hogwarts again. It did. Draco grimaced apologetically at Daphne, and he could have sworn that he saw the slightest hint of a grin on the professor's face as he turned back to Hermione, who was now shaking slightly as she approached the wardrobe. Merlin, Her—Granger was really falling to pieces over this. Who would have thought? Briefly he wondered what her boggart was.

Not that he cared—he most certainly did not care, about her or her boggart. The only slight feelings he had for her were that of a war comrade—fighting on missions together tended to bring you together, if no other reason than that your life was in your partner's hands. And if he found her slightly attractive—well, anyone would find her slightly attractive after being stuck all that day with that cow—he groaned. Speak of the devil.

"Hmmm?" Daphne tugged at his sleeve again.

"He doesn't know, Greengrass," said Blaise exasperatedly. Finally he was taking his eyes off Ginny to do do something!

"Shut the fuck up, Zabini," said Daphne coldly, affronted at his impertinence in butting in a conversation with her and her sweet Drakie-poo.

This time it was Daphne at the end of Remus's 'look.' Draco was never more grateful to the werewolf.

"No really, Dra—" she began.

"Daphne?"

"Yes?" she asked, delighted at being noticed and being called by her first name.

"Shut the fuck up." This time he did not receive 'the look,' but rather a look of pure gratitude from the harried werewolf.

"I can't do this," Hermione whimpered as her hand trembled over the handle. She cast a quick look at Remus, who was smiling at her encouragingly, and opened it. She couldn't resist a gasp as the object of her fears tumbled before her, but she hadn't gotten through the War for nothing.

"You can do this, Hermione," she muttered, and cried, "Ridikulus!" before anyone could see what the object was. At least, most people. Students stirred and muttered as they caught a glimpse of white and silver and green, which quickly dissipated into a puff of smoke. Only five students saw what had been Hermione's boggart—Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and Draco Malfoy.

"Hermione," Harry called. "Meet us at the deserted classroom after lunch. We need to talk. You'd better come too," he added to the three Slytherins when they glared at him.

Lunch was strained and awkward, and to Draco it seemed to stretch on for an eternity. It didn't help that Blaise and Pansy were casting him curious—or was it something else?— glances and Daphne was trying her level best to make him retch up the little he'd managed to eat. Finally, finally, he cleared his plate and escaped the slut, with Blaise and Pansy hurrying right alongside him. They reached the classroom and hurried into it, locking the door behind them.

"Well?" Harry demanded after a long, heavy silence. "Are you going to talk about it?"

"I'm sorry, Harry, Ginny, I really am. I—I just—I mean, it's—like, oh, I don't know, I just—look, can I talk to Malfoy alone? Please? I'm really sorry, but—please? Blaise? Pansy? You too?" Hermione's eyes were fixed firmly on the floor, as if nothing before had ever been of such interest to her. Reluctantly, the aforementioned four trailed out.

"Um—Malfoy?" her voice was timid, and Draco instinctively wanted to do something to allay that.

"Call me Draco," was the first thing that popped in his head.

'I—what?" her head jerked up.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," he said, feeling vaguely defensive. Years of emotional neglect from his parents had made him wary of opening up to anyone.

"No, I mean, I'd love too!" she said. "Call me Hermione!" and her face was cheerful again, so he'd gotten what he'd wanted.

"Um—about that boggart. I know it was really stupid, and I didn't mean it, and it was some fluke I know, and I know you can't do anything about it, and it was all my fault, and I'm really really sorry, and I hope we can just forget about it and move on you know and maybe—"

"Hermione?" the sound of his voice was abrupt, cutting her off. "You talk too much."

"Really sorry—what?" she said again.

"Shut up," he said roughly.

"Make me!" flared up the proud Gryffindor. She was, after all, headstrong.

"All right," he muttered before stepping closer and crashing his lips to hers. After a startled moment, her lips responded, and they spent the rest of their time getting to know each other quite a bit better. From where they crouched against the wall, Harry, Pansy, Blaise, and Ginny exchanged triumphant glances as they high-fived each other exultantly, grinning like madmen—or women. Their bet had paid off.

In the DADA classroom, cleaning up, Professor Remus Lupin wondered why Harry, Pansy, Blaise, and Ginny had suddenly expressed such wild interest in boggarts. Surely they had covered enough of them in third year?

Meanwhile, pacing in the Potions classroom while brewing a calming potion for himself, was Professor Severus Snape, with a great deal of mental trauma going on in his mind. This was what he got for snooping around the DADA classroom. From now on, he decided, he was never going near there again, even if it was the job he had wanted for all his life. It was making him hallucinate. It was to be expected of a man who had had to spy for the Order and deal with a bunch of dunderheads as well. He—he had been seeing things. After all, it was ridiculous! Totally out of the question!

He resolutely pushed out of his mind the little tidbits that made sense—Draco's face lighting up everytime that know-it-all Granger managed to win another few points from Gryffindor, his stalking her everywhere, his picking up her books and quills for her before conveniently discovering who she was and backing off in horrified astonishment that managed to hold a bit of pleasure—no. He was imagining things. After all, there was no way on earth that he had just seen Hermione Granger bending over the dead body of Draco Malfoy.