At breakfast, everyone was looking at me in one way or another, sometimes smiling, giving me a thumbs up. Well, the Slytherins didn't participate, of course, but still. Potter was worse - only ours praised him, and the only friend, Weasley, ignored the guy. Well, like, Potter's a cheater. That's what everyone says.
"By the way," Hermione began the conversation when dessert and tea were left. Tea here in Hogwarts, for us at least, is served in big wooden mugs. Not in English at all, but oh well. "You never told me how you got around the defense."
The students, who heard the question, immediately got close and listened intently.
"What's there to tell? Spent half a day around the half-sphere of the defense, studying it. I examined it from all sides. It's an interesting thing. You can't fool it with aging potions and other things. It very clearly gathers data from the body, and you cannot cover yourself with magic. The dome was not solid, like a bubble, but of the smallest threads. Eventually, I isolated the individual supporting structures, weave the threads together, and gently pulled them apart with a little spatial manipulation. Then you saw what happened."
"What kind of manipulation is that?" asked Seamus, and the twins nodded in agreement.
"Oh, it's probably from the area of enchanting objects for invisible expansion," Hermione nodded as I tried to formulate an easier answer. "That's where you have to... play with space, too."
"I didn't understand anything," Seamus nodded importantly. "But it was very beautiful."
We could witness everyone's dislike for Harry throughout the day, and Hermione began to get annoyed with how many girls began to study me as we walked the corridors. So now, in the evening, while everyone was going to dinner, we were going to study, and food could be asked to be brought by our familiar house-elf, Timmy.
"All the time, they didn't pay any attention to you, but when you became a champion, they made eyes at you."
"Miona, we've only been seen in class before."
"That doesn't change anything."
A girl from Hufflepuff smiled coquettishly, and Hermione grabbed my hand in a proprietary manner. I had to bend her arm at the elbow.
"At least some benefit from them."
"Hmm?"
"You were kind of against relationships while you were studying. What changed?"
Hand in hand, we made it to one of our study rooms that way. Maybe we should move to the RoR? Or the Secret Room?
"I'm beginning to question the rationality and sanity of that approach."
"Then let's be a couple?" opening the door, I let the girl go forward.
Hermione cleared the office of dust with a couple of strokes of her wand.
"I haven't decided yet, frankly. Okay, according to the standard program?"
"Yeah."
"Then, please, give me your wand."
We spent two hours slowly practicing creating spells with someone else's wand, practicing just releasing and feeling magic. We were trying to do things like ignitions and other stuff with underage magic, but, as always, the most effective was the practice with water levitation. Of course, I had Rowena's help in this, and my efficiency was higher, but Hermione didn't give up, and most importantly, she did not envy me.
A little snack of sandwiches and tea, brought by the happy Timmy, and then I started practicing various attacking and defensive charms. However, for this and subsequent workouts because of the tournament, we decided not to kill ourselves and worked on the speed of spell creation, marksmanship, and speed of target changing - for this purpose, we transfigured simple targets. One quickly levitated them and hid them behind transfigured hiding places while practicing controlling multiple objects and dividing attention, and the other was attacking.
"Meow," came from behind me.
"Who said: "Meow?" glared Hermione, stepping to the side in a dancing step just in case and holding her wand to her face as she felt more comfortable.
I glanced around the classroom and noticed a cat in the corner of the chair. It was white, with blue eyes. She was sitting in a typical cat pose and just staring.
"Oh, kitty..." a slight smile appeared on Hermione's face. "Isn't that the kitty they're talking about these days?"
"Maybe. Also, it could be an animagus."
"It could be," Hermione nodded, quickly throwing an Animagus reversal spell at the cat. The cat, however, only looked at us perplexed. "It's all right. It's just a normal cat."
Hermione quickly got close to the cat that was examining her closely. Before she could squeak, she was captured, on her knees, and stroked.
"It'll be funny if it's still an animagus but somehow protected from all sorts of magic."
I crouched down next to Hermione and scratched the sluggishly resisting cat behind the ear. A couple of minutes later, the cat was majestically sprawled on the girl's lap, purring softly.
Suddenly the cat raised its head and looked toward the door, jumped off Hermione's lap, and quickly disappeared in an unknown direction, much to our puzzlement - the classroom was closed.
The door opened, revealing Professor McGonagall.
"Mr. Knight, Miss Granger."
"Professor," we stood up and nodded respectfully in greeting.
"You are summoned by the Headmaster, Mr. Knight. Do you need my presence?"
"No, Professor."
"Good. The Headmaster has a preference for sugar toffee today."
With those words, the professor glanced around the classroom, appraised the piled targets and other transfigured junk in the corner, and left the classroom.
"I'll go to the common room, then," Hermione began to undo the transfiguration of the objects, tidying up the classroom at the same time.
"I will accompany you."
"Okay."