“Are you mad at me?” Hermione sat alone in thought and Harry was worried she was upset for learning he didn’t trust her enough to tell her things.

“What? Oh, no, I was just thinking about something related. I’m actually proud of you, and I feel very warm and cozy about it, because knowing you kept her secrets means you would keep mine as well, and that makes me feel secure. No, I was thinking about Ron. When I told you something, it remained between us. But when I would tell Ron something, it was in the public domain. He would even mock me over it in public, and that made me furious. But somehow, I always forgave him for it. During our first two years at school, I can remember a dozen things he said to me, or about me, that hurt me as much as anything Lyra ever said, and yet we locked Lyra out instantly as an enemy, and Ron was seen, I don’t know, as an insecure, well-meaning buffoon, I guess”, she seemed to be angry at herself.

“I was thinking about that too. Not now, but other day. How we just assumed his heart is in the right place – he’s a Gryffindor. He’s a Weasley. They’re all good folks. But Lyra felt dangerous, focused, in enemy camp. If Ron said something hurtful, we assumed he’s insecure and trying to prop himself up. If she did it, we assumed it was a weapon intentionally aimed to hurt us. I don’t even understand how he got sorted into Gryffindor, but then again Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor. I just foolishly assumed then that everybody in Gryffindor has to be good, and everybody in Slytherin has to be bad. And they all kept giving us those baleful looks, unlike the Hufflepuffs who were nice to everybody, or Ravenclaws who were aloof”, he reminisced.

“Part of it was just childish competitiveness. If you sort kids in two classes, each class will start trying to prove they are better and see the other as the competition”, she noted. “Even if the classes are sorted completely at random, and they are called A and B”.

“That’s true”, Harry conceded. “However, when you add serious politics and war into the mix, it becomes really bad. I was told – by Ron, as a matter of fact – that Slytherin produces the most dark wizards of all houses, and that the Dark Lord and all his followers were from Slytherin, and their children are now going to be sorted there as well. You can imagine how I reacted to that. Also, I saw Ron in rags and looking neglected, complaining about being the youngest in his family and how everybody is appreciated more than him and whatever he does will not be seen as special, and I saw myself in that – I was also in rags, I was always told I don’t matter and I’m just a waste of space and food. When I look at it now, I see him as an inherently insecure, ungrateful kid who never really learned to appreciate anything and was just entitled, felt everything he had was nothing and wanted more because he thought he deserved it. And you don’t even know the half of the nasty things he said about you when you weren’t there, and I’m not repeating those”, he grinned.

Hermione giggled. “And then Lyra came to our compartment, looking confident and important, well dressed, dignified, and we both interpreted that as haughty, spoiled and nasty, and she made faces at Ron’s clothes and even more when I said that my parents were muggles, and made that hamster joke when I was already sensitive to having those big front teeth”.

“Nice hamster you’re having, Potter. Did you buy it in Diagon Alley, or did it follow you on its own?”, Harry reminisced. “That felt like such a nasty thing to say to someone, that I instantly sorted her in the same box as Dudley and all other nasty bullies I ever met”.

“It was nasty, and it hurt”, Hermione remembered, “But it was by no means worse than what Ron kept saying about me, if you remember”.

“I do, in fact, and I can’t understand why I didn’t react the same way to him. Probably because he looked poor and neglected, and in my mind people were either poor and neglected, or bullies”, he frowned. “Now that I think of it, he was a terrible pig who cared more about food and his personal comfort than people, and she was a wonderful person who just managed to say all the wrong things”.

“And then she got sorted into Slytherin and we took it as a confirmation that she’s an enemy, and he got sorted into Gryffindor and we took it as a confirmation that he’s a trustworthy friend”.

“Exactly”. They looked at each other in silence.

“Whenever she tried to approach me in the hallways, I would give her a nasty look, because she was the enemy, a bully and a nasty person, and never even talked to her if I could avoid it. I didn’t see her as a person – she was just something you need to fight and defeat, and the fact that she looked like a pretty girl felt like a trick of the enemy that made her worse”, Harry remembered.

“And then she had enough and saved us from our own nastiness and stupidity by ordering you to take out your wand and kill her, if she’s the enemy and vermin, and if not, to treat her with dignity”, Hermione smiled.

“I was too self-righteous to feel ashamed of anything at that time, but she really made me feel ashamed of myself”, he smiled. “She forced open the box I put her in and made me realise that she’s a girl with feelings and that I actually treated her horribly”.

“That, and how smart and dignified she was, and how articulated and sophisticated under stress. I already knew she was a top student, but class is one thing; seeing that display was quite another. I went from having classified her as a nasty cow, to wanting to be like her”, Hermione smiled. “And when you talked to her and explained how she was, I felt really miffed for missing out”.

A perfectly balanced tray levitated itself beside them.

“Snacks”, Lyra shouted from the kitchen.

“Thanks”, they shouted back. “Smoked salmon, buttered toast, Earl Gray tea”, Hermione noticed. “You’re spoiling us”, she shouted.

“Shut up and eat, you’re pregnant”, Lyra shouted back.

“I’m not missing Ron any more”, she gave Harry a conspiratory whisper as he snickered.