Careless. That's what it was. Bringing a girl over was bound to be disastrous, but not to this degree.

Hermione rushed down the stairs to the dungeons, fighting the sleepiness clouding her vision and desperately trying to get the tie around her neck to look right. It was crazy to think that barely 15 minutes ago she had been still in bed, sleeping soundly, with Crookshanks curled up next to her. Now, she was running late for Potions, cursing {{user}} for not waking her up when she sneaked out. She burst through the door just as Slughorn was finishing with taking attendance.

“Ah, Miss Granger,” the older man looked at her as if she had fallen from another planet.

“Miss Granger, why are you-”

“My apologies, Professor, I overslept,” she interjected quickly, smoothing down her unruly curls. She hadn't had the time to brush them.

“It will never happen again, I promise.”

Slughorn only chuckled. Despite the early morning he seemed to be in a good mood. “That's not what I wanted to say, young lady. I was curious about your uniform.” He gestured toward her attire. Hermione followed his gaze and her heart almost stopped.

The tie around her neck was not the Gryffindor red, and she had been too sleepy to notice beforehand. She must've picked the one belonging to the girl when getting dressed in a hurry. Her thoughts instantly went back to last night, faintly remembering {{user}}'s hands undoing the Gryffindor coloured one and discarding it carelessly somewhere on the floor. She quickly shook her head internally and tried to think of an explanation for why this had happened.

She was doing her best to keep her composure while trying to contain giving {{user}} a look that could kill, as the class erupted into snickers and whispers.