The next morning, Ginny and I woke up late.

"Hermione, come on. We woke up a whole hour late. Class starts in twenty minutes!"

"What? Why didn't you wake me up an hour ago?" Ginny knew that I liked to wake up early, especially on the first day of classes. I couldn't believe she had failed today. Today of all days, and I had wanted to ask Harry and Ron what girls they had gotten in the hat drawing.

"It's not my fault you just woke up now, Hermione. I just woke up too but we need to get going so we can get our schedules from McGonagall at breakfast." Ginny looked annoyed.

"What do you mean get our schedules from McGonagall? Don't we have a new head of house?" The head of house usually handed out schedules and our head of house had been Gryffindor. She was now Headmistress so I had just assumed the new teacher got the position.

"No, Hermione." She rolled her eyes at me. "Weren't you paying any attention last night? They didn't hire any new teachers this year. More ghosts are teaching in their places and McGonagall is still head of Gryffindor house. Anyway, let's get a move on!"

"Ok, ok, I'm coming Gin." We raced to get dressed for the day as fast as we possibly could. I threw on a nice white tee shirt with my Gryffindor tie and matching pleated skirt. For shoes, I put on my favorite pair of black flats. I turned around.

"Ginny!" I looked and she was wearing a strapless halter top that ended just above her belly button and shorts so short you could almost see her underwear.

"What?" she asked. She started to blush slightly as she looked down at her own outfit. "It's not like McGonagall is going to kick me out. I mean — I did help to save Hogwarts last year. But, yeah, it isn't exactly appropriate I guess. Oh well, we have to go down to breakfast now or we will miss first class."

We walked down to the Great Hall talking about nothing in particular. When we entered the Great Hall, a couple of people looked up, but most people didn't pay us any notice. Ron and Harry got up and started waving like maniacs for us to come over. When we got over to our spots at the table, Ron gave me a big, rib crunching hug. When I finally broke free, we were both laughing with enormous grins on our faces. I leaned up and kissed him on the mouth.

I looked over at Harry and Ginny. I watched as he lifted her up, spun her around and set her lightly on her feet again. Then Ginny got that burning look in her eyes and she tilted her head upwards and kissed him, full out on the lips. They kissed for about a whole minute until people around them started staring and Ron coughed. We all sat down at the table together and I started scooping various breakfast items onto my plate.

"So, Harry, " Ginny started, "who do you have to spend a day with?"

"Ya, Ron," I joined in, "who do you have to spend the day with?"

"Um," Harry started.

"Well," Ron said.

"We."

"Aren't."

"Exactly."

"Supposed."

"To."

"Tell," Ron finished. "Sorry, Hermione."

"Ya Ginny," said Harry as Ginny and I pouted. "Don't look at us that way. Please. It's not our choice. McGonagall's orders." Before we could say anything else to the boys, Headmistress McGonagall proceeded down from the teachers table and started handing out schedules. Ginny and me had the same schedule with the boys.

"Look at this Hermione," Ginny was waving her schedule around in the air. "First class of the day: Defense Against the Dark Arts with Nearly Headless Nick.'' Out of seemingly nowhere, a voice interrupted.

"That is Sir Nicholas de Mismsy-Porpington or Professor Nick to you as long as I am a Hogwarts professor or you will get a detention." We turned around and saw Nearly Headless Nick glaring down at us.

"Alright then," Ron supplied awkwardly. "Let's head to class. See you soon, Sir. "

We all laughed and ran off to the class as fast as we possibly could. After running through the castle about fifty times back and forth, we finally realized we should slow down. When they rebuilt the castle, they made some seemingly minor changes in the design that was making it very hard for us to find our class. Finally, we looked around and found the room numbers on the door that were close to the one we were looking for.

After a whole twenty minutes of looking, we found the classroom we were looking for. The rest of the class was already there and turned around to stare at us.

"Well," Nearly Headless Nick, I mean Professor Nick started, "you are fifteen minutes late to class you four so I'll take fifteen points from Gryffindor and be glad it isn't more."

"But Professor, we got lost." I stated lamely.

"And aren't you the Gryffindor ghost?" Ron said skeptically.

"Never mind that now," Nick said. "It's fifteen points from Gryffindor and please take a seat already." We all took our seats and Nick began the lesson. It wasn't his fault, but honestly, it was one of the worse Defense Against the Dark Arts class I had ever attended, only because he was obviously an incompetent teacher on this subject.

When class ended, Harry and Ron took off to lunch as fast as they could and when Ginny and I were about to follow, we were stopped by Malfoy and Zabini.

"Well Draco," Zabini started with an enormous smirk growing on his lips. Malfoy just looked tired and confused. "Who would have thought that Granger, the mudblood, the smartest witch of our age, would be late to her first class. Well I don't know if that's acceptable for you, Draco, I really don't know."

Before I could say anything in response, Ginny had her wand in the air and pointed at Malfoy.

"You. Malfoy. Leave Hermione alone, why don't you?. Now leave before someone gets hurt!" Malfoy and Zabini just walked off laughing and I turned on Ginny.

"Why did you say that to Malfoy? It's not as though he did anything. It was all Zabini. Malfoy didn't even say anything."

"Well sorry for me trying to save your sorry behind," Ginny smirked. And we raced each other to lunch.

***

That night, I lay in bed wide awake. I was not confused as to why Zabini was so rude to me. He always was. It was a little strange, however, some of the words he used, and that Malfoy just stood there and didn't say a word. Oh well. Boys are just strange I guess. I really hope that I would get a nice boy for the date day though. That's what we had decided to call it: Date Day. It was in about a week. I was excited and scared.

"Ginny," I whispered into the dark.

"Hm?" she sounded almost asleep.

"I hope we both get someone good for Date Day."

"Yeah, me too." Ginny replied. She let out a huge yawn. "Now go to sleep Hermione. Good night."

"Night," I responded. I really did hope I got a good date.