The Sun, Moon & Stars

44. The Viscount of Privet Drive

4 days, 84 hours or 5,760 minutes; whichever you fancy to refer to it as, had passed since that day in Hogsmeade. Four days usually didn't seem like a lot. It was the time period from a Monday to a Thursday; but in this case it felt like an eternity had passed. Their classes seemed to drag on and on; and the hours, minutes and seconds seemed to take longer, if that was even possible.

Today was the 21st of December. Four days until Christmas. The first day of the holiday break. Four days since that day. And just one day until Ginger would arrive; an event that all her friends had been looking forward to before the falling out—which somehow made it all the more sadder, despite her excitement to see her.

'Today is a new day!' Hermione announced, as she sat down in front of Ophelia in the Great Hall with a smile on her face and a stack of parchment.

It was barley nine in the morning, and the Great Hall was considerably empty since the students going home for Christmas had left on the Hogwarts Express the previous day. And with the full moon being last night, Remus Lupin was also not at breakfast—the only teachers being Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick and Hagrid that sat at the teachers table.

They were the only Gryffindors at breakfast this morning. Notably, Harry and Ron were nowhere in sight; as she had expected. The entire break would likely be this way.

Ophelia frowned as she took a bite of her slightly burnt raspberry toast. 'Good lord here we go.' She muttered.

'No need to be bitter.' Hermione frowned. 'I'm trying to help you, if you haven't noticed.'

She straightened up a little bit, mumbled an apology and let Hermione continue. She was right, of course. Hermione had a revelation the previous day, and made it her life goal to reunite the two split sides of their once friend group—a noble act, but with Ron's stubbornness, Ophelia's avoidance and Harry's straight up absence, it didn't seem likely. Still, Hermione had her heart set on having a "Jane Austen" type ending; a happy one.

'So this is it.' Hermione stated, gesturing to the stack of parchment.

'This is...?'

'The plan.' Hermione corrected herself.

'The plan?' Ophelia gaped. In a conversation yesterday, Hermione had mentioned creating a plan; she didn't think she would actually go through with it though, or that it would be the size of a Charles Dickens novel.

'It might be hard to explain, so you should read it.' Hermione suggested, sliding it across the table.

'Read this? It'll take me past Christmas to read this.' Ophelia scoffed as she placed her toast down, wiped her hands and pulled the stack of paper towards herself.

'You can just skim it, really.' Hermione nodded.

'Yeah, no.'

Hermione blinked.

'This isn't exactly something a detailed plan can fix.' Ophelia stated.

'And what? Your avoidance is doing much better?' Hermione questioned accusingly.

'Well excuse me if I don't see the point in trying to fix this. They hate me already and to be honest, I don't blame them. I should just let it go.'

'Yeah, no.' Hermione shook her head, mocking her previous words. 'First of all, they don't hate you.'

'Really? How do you figure?' Ophelia challenged, eyes narrowing at her.

'They're just cross with you-'

'They haven't spoken to me in four days.' Ophelia said flatly.

'And if the situation was flipped would you have spoken to them?' Hermione accused, eyes narrowing, knowing she was right.