"You are!" Hazel said, rather more quickly and forcefully than she might've wished to.
Later on this evening when she was in her bed in the girl's dormitory, she'd mull over this conversation and think about all of the really nice things she might have said, how cool she could have sounded if she were somebody like Cho Chang, or Ginny Weasley. Heaps of brothers probably helped them learn how to talk to boys. Having two younger brothers had done absolutely nothing for Hazel, though she suspected it might be a personal defect.
"And I am," she said more quietly, pacing her words with a little breath. Getting through to the Easter hols seemed more difficult even than it had in years past, when only taking tests and finishing essays had stood in the way. "Sometimes I wish I were better at the spells so Professor Carrow wouldn't have any reason to notice me, and then I feel bad for wanting to do something so terrible well."
Maybe it was because she only had a proxy for a best friend that year, and a silent one at that, but saying how she felt aloud to Ernie lifted a weight from her shoulders that had nothing to do with her momentary blush.