Chapter 57: Quite a gentleman

- Hogwarts, December 12th

In the last weeks, Draco and Hermione were always in a good mood, they always spent a lot of time chatting and socialising with everyone in Gryffindor and other houses.

After the two of them killed the basilisk with Severus' help, they took the opportunity of their trip to Hogsmeade to go on their own to the forest outside the village of Little Hangleton where the Gaunt Shack was located, which was the ancestral home of the Gaunt family.

Yes... they went there to look for one of only two Horcruxes they knew where it was at this time.

Both of them knew that after the death of the Gaunt family, the house was deserted and that Lord Voldemort decided to use this place to hide one of his Horcruxes, which was the Gaunt ring.

They visited the small ruined hut and found the ring.

Hermione along with Draco found the ring under the floorboards in the ruins of the house in a golden box with some sort of curse placed on it.

Of course, it was not easy to access this Horcrux as they both had to deal with many powerful spells that protected the place from intruders such as themselves.

It was Draco who destroyed the ring with one of the fangs that had the basilisk venom in it...

Well, actually, Hermione wanted to do it on her own, but Draco's reasoning telling her that it was better for him to experience for the first time how it felt to destroy one was enough to convince her to let him do it while she watched that everything went well, after all, she already had experience dealing with Horcruxes and he did not.

Now... they had actually thought about finding and destroying Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem first, as they knew it was at Hogwarts in the Room of Requirement among the many other things in the Room of Hidden Things...

But Hermione thought that the Diadem could be very useful, so once they found it they didn't destroy it instantly, but kept it..., she was still researching some method by which she could destroy the Horcrux without destroying the Diadem.

After they destroyed the ring, Hermione was in charge of safekeeping the Resurrection Stone.

It came as a shock to them when they returned to Hogwarts and found out everything that happened in Hogsmeade with the Dementors, the giants, and the death eaters.

They regretted not being there when such a bad situation required them but were relieved to know that there were no deaths among the students.

This new incident finally made them realise how much their time travel had begun to alter things, as that attack on Hogsmeade village should never have happened, or at least not on that day.

They were also quite intrigued by Alice and Lily's description of the figure in black who had helped everyone and who apparently wasn't a death eater...

Draco and Hermione thought that maybe it could be Severus...

Of course, that was only because of the description of the sword that was similar to the one he had used against the basilisk, but beyond that, they couldn't draw any more conclusions and they weren't going to ask him directly.

Also, they didn't think it was possible that Severus could do all those strange movements Alice and Lily mentioned that this figure did, neither that he could defeat those giants on his own with that sword..., but the doubt remained.

Until then they could only be grateful that this figure in black had decided to intervene to help.

Another surprise was what they read in the newspaper about the attacks of the Dark Lord's followers on different villages, the Minister of Magic and the former minister who ended up being killed along with her whole family.

Anyway, in the past few weeks, Hermione and Lily had become good friends, although she was still not as close to her as Alice and Marlene.

Hermione was also beginning to accept that James was not yet Lily's current love interest and that it would take time for that to happen, after all, it was only in the 7th year that James Potter began to mature and behave that Lily really took notice of him.

The marauders also became closer and more friendly with Hermione and Draco, telling jokes and even laughing at many things with Draco, with Sirius being the one who got the closest to him.

As strange as it sounded, Draco and Sirius seemed to have a lot in common and Sirius Black loved the idea of having a partner to flirt with young women, and with his friend James Potter getting more and more lost in just Lily Evans, it was great for him to have a new partner to pick up girls.

Initially, Draco seemed very uncomfortable, as it was strange to get along with the Marauders, but strangely he didn't have a bad time hanging out with them...

Although he and Hermione always kept an eye on Peter Pettigrew, even though that rat was not yet the despicable man he had been in the future, they couldn't be too safe around him.

Still, none of these things stopped the Marauders from playing a lot of pranks on the two of them...

Although with Hermione they were much more reserved and careful since she hung out with Lily a lot and James didn't want to leave a bad impression on his crush.

Draco wasn't as lucky as her as in his own dormitory the marauders had played all sorts of pranks on him, although he always got back at them, but this only made them get along even better with each other...

Yes..., unlike with Severus who was a Slytherin, with Draco who was a Gryffindor who didn't let himself be teased so easily, and who also used to give Avery and Mulciber a good kicking, the marauders were quite pleased with him.

Well..., Sirius and James had a hard time accepting that they were familiar with Severus and that they had a good relationship with him, something Sirius Black and James Potter hated so much, but they reluctantly agreed, after all, they thought Severus was supposed to be the only family the "Prince" had left.

During this time, more and more news of attacks appeared in the newspapers about the Dark Lord and his followers, all of which clearly indicated that Voldemort was more active than ever.

This only made Draco and Hermione's interest in finding the 3 missing Horcruxes even greater.

But, despite all this, Draco and Hermione couldn't help but feel pretty good lately, things may have changed quite a bit but now they had already destroyed one Horcrux, were in possession of another, and only had three more left...

Besides, their practice with Severus had greatly improved both of their skills in magical dueling.

And their relationship with him was also quite good, even though they used to hang out with Lily, her friends, the marauders, and other Gryffindors, he never seemed bothered by it and never said anything to them about it...

In fact, to this day, Hermione was still in charge of summarising everything that Dorbuck the Prince's goblin manager at Gringotts would send Severus...

Yes, since she had helped him make a detailed summary of all the Prince's investments along with their total value, Severus had decided to give her a job in the Prince family in exchange for galleons, something she had accepted immediately since money was what they needed most at the moment with Draco.

It was strange working for Severus, but she got used to it pretty quickly and she even liked doing it since they had a lot in common so they could do things together efficiently and quickly, she was pretty sure that he had given her the job for that reason.

Today December 12th Hermione was getting ready to go to Professor Slughorn's feast, even though it was her first year at Hogwarts she had been invited by the professor because she got twelve Outstanding O.W.L.s.

And her date was none other than Remus Lupin...

Yes, he had been invited to go too.

Now, Remus used to go to every Slugh Club meeting or party with Lily, but this time she had been invited to go by the same 7th-year boy she had gone to Hogsmeade.

Lily was certainly grateful to this Ravenclaw for going to find a teacher to help them when they were in trouble, of course, she was a little disappointed that he had gone without helping them with the Slytherins that were intimidating Sirius and James, but she couldn't deny that he had a point in what he said that day either...

That was exactly why Lily had agreed to go with him to the party, of course, she had first asked Hermione if she could go with Remus since she didn't want to leave him alone...

And Hermione was delighted to do it, she had always wanted to get closer to Remus, but he never allowed it, so this was a good opportunity.

Hermione knew that Lily might have misunderstood some things, as she probably thought that since she always seemed to be looking to get closer to Lupin, she might be interested in him.

But since it didn't really bother her that Lily thought that, Hermione preferred to let her think that rather than tell her the real reasons.

On the other hand, in these weeks James became more and more fierce in his attempts on Lily after he found out that she wouldn't be going with Lupin like she always used to and that she would be going on another date with this 7th-year Ravenclaw.

It was more fun than anything else to watch these days James' unsuccessful attempts at flirting with Lily.

~~~~~~~~

Severus Prince sat quietly in the corridor waiting outside the Ravenclaw common room for Amelia Bones to appear.

So here he was, dressed in a simple white shirt that perfectly accentuated his body along with a black suit and black trousers.

Finally, he looked up as he heard the sound of someone coming out of the common room, and to his great delight, it was Amelia.

She dressed in simple black clothes just like him, she was wearing a sweater with long sleeves that only covered to the top of her stomach, leaving her beautiful soft white skin of her belly exposed, and along with this, she was wearing a long black skirt that fitted her body, revealing her beautiful figure.

Today Amelia had her blonde hair down, her eyes blue and her white skin tone looked great in contrast to the black colour of her clothes.

Observed him as she looked around the corridor.

She walked over to him when she saw him and he stood up.

"Wow, you look good" she commented, glancing at him.

"Thanks, it must be true if the compliment is coming from you" Severus joked.

"By the way, you look great too" he added with a smile.

"Oh, thanks, I can say the same for a compliment from you" she smiled amused.

"I don't know what you mean" Severus replied pretending ignorance.

Amelia just rolled her eyes at his audacity.

"So, would you like to walk together? I mean, we're going to Slughorn's, aren't we?" she asked.

"Yes, I do, and sure, let's go," Severus replied offering his arm for her to take.

"Quite a gentleman," she said playfully as she took hold of Severus' arm.

" Let's go then, I don't want to be too late. Otherwise, Slughorn won't leave us alone the whole night," she added with a soft laugh.

Severus only nodded with a faint smile and the two of them walked down the corridor together in the direction of Professor Slughorn's feast.