Here We Go Again

What Feels Like Fate

Here We Go Again

Chapter 31: What Feels like Fate

POV: Scorpius

There was an echo of a groan taking over the little huddle of students that was gathered in Professor Longbottom's greenhouse that night. Students were there in order to finish separate projects for Herbology, but it usually just became a little common room for all classmates to come and waste time when they wanted. And currently that's exactly what they were doing.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Lucas Zabini shoved his way through the crowd that was looking past the glass walls of the greenhouse. "Spring is right around the bloody corner and we're having a storm? That's unfair!"

Surely enough, to torment and tease the Slytherin, thunder cracked against the darkening sky. More groans left the students with their noses pressed up against the glass walls.

"Earlier today in Divination class Professor Trelawney promised me clear skies all Easter holiday!" Zabini marched back to our table, lowering himself on the stool left of me. "Bloody bint lied! I was looking forward to playing Quidditch with Dad and my cousins! Mum will never let us now."

There a was a light giggle on my right and I was almost tempted to turn and lose myself in it. I needed a distraction, but for the life of me, I couldn't be torn away from looking at the redhead girl that worked on her own at the furthest table by the doors of the greenhouse. Her red curls were a bit frizzy, courtesy of the moistness and electricity that had abruptly plagued the air, but I still wanted to run my fingers through it; I knew that her hair would still be silky. I still wanted to cup the sides of her pale face, lift her chin up so that her brown, beautiful eyes could look deep into my silver ones and never look away. I wanted to pull her into a hug and hold on until the rain turned to sun and the sun turned to the endless moon.

But she didn't want me near. For two weeks she hid in the shadows of the castle. For two excruciating weeks, I had not seen the golden flecks of her brown eyes, nor had I smelt the vanilla scent that radiated off her skin.

"Trelawney promised me a horrific incident happening today, but I made it out of Care of Magical Creatures intact." On my right, Emily stretched her pink palms to wiggle her fingers as close to Zabini's face as possible.

My fellow Slytherin's previous annoyance faded as he chuckled at Emily. "What happened, Em?" he questioned as he traced the fingertip of his index finger over the scabs that were scattered on the girl's palms. "Did the Blast-Ended Skrewts get you again?"

"They were crabbier than usual, pun intended," offered Emily with another giggle that somehow became music in the greenhouse. "The professor said they were sedated enough, but obviously that was a lie. I was lucky I left with all my fingers."

"It could have been worse, Em. Imagine if our nutter Divination professor was right and they ended up burning you into a pile of ash?" Zabini pinched the unscathed skin of the girl's hands. "What if that was the horrific incident and you just cheated fate?!"

Emily laughed again as she pulled her hands back. She rested one hand on the surface of the worktable as the other went into the pocket of her robes. She pulled out a little vial and unstoppered it. "I think she was referring to the time I tried killing myself," she dabbed a yellow paste on her scabs, Zabini and I turned to her, our eyes wide, "and she was just a few weeks behind with the news. You know, maybe the spirits were on vacation and just barely informed her that I tried drowning in the Black Lake."

"Okay, let's not be talking about that like it was nothing," I growled at her.

"My Healer said I should stop feeling ashamed about it," Emily replied, looking up at me with a sort of glitter in her eyes that she never had before. It was the type that gave evidence that maybe, just maybe, she was going to be okay. "What better way to get over it than with a bit of humor? You've got to admit, Scor, my joke was pretty hilarious."