Alexandra Weasley: Book 5

27

"Who is that girl glaring at me?"

"Cho Chang." Hermione responded without looking away from the match.

"You didn't even see who I'm talking about." Hermione turned to glance in the direction Alexandra was looking.

"Yeah, that's Chang."

"Why is she looking at me like she wants to hex me?"

"Because she probably does. She already tried once."

"What?" Alexandra jumped in alarm.

"Relax, she didn't succeed."

"Did I do something to her?"

"No, she had a crush on Cedric and wanted you out of the picture. It's not your fault."

"So she tried to hex me?" Hermione nodded. "Because Cedric was going out with me instead of her?"

"Yes."

"But that makes no sense. How would hexing me have solved her problem?"

"Wow." Hermione said. "You were so innocent."

"What do you mean?" Hermione just smiled.

"Nothing, don't worry. I just forget how different you are sometimes." Alexandra frowned.

"Is it a bad thing?"

"It's never bad to be you." Luna spoke up. "You taught me that."

"Were we close?" Alexandra turned to her.

"I like to think so."

"I haven't seen you around in my classes. I think I have charms with the Ravenclaws, but you're never there."

"We didn't meet in class." Luna smiled kindly. "I'm in the year below."

"Loony is the only person from Ravenclaw you like."

"Loony? That's mean."

"No, it's okay." Luna assured. "It's a friendly nickname. You came up with it first, actually."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because everyone always made fun of her for being a little loopy."

"You always said being different and even a little loony doesn't mean anything's wrong with me. That there's no such thing as normal so I should embrace it."

"Yeah. Just like when I got upset when people called me a know it all, you said it was a good thing and to ignore them."

"Calling us those names was your way of helping us accept ourselves as we were."

"Oh." Alexandra smiled. "That's actually quite nice."

"I told you." Hermione said. "You're directly rude but never in a mean way. It's usually a roundabout way of being nice."

"I should be kind and nice."

"You have your reasons to be the way you are." Hermione explained.

"Reasons you won't tell me."

"You're not Alex anymore. Those reasons don't matter." Alexandra thought about the sentence for a second and acquiesced.

"That is true, I suppose. I wouldn't want to go back to being rude."

"Finally, you get it." Hermione sighed.

"I do still want to know what I've forgotten."

"It'll come to you." Luna assured. "When you're ready."

"Thank you."

Alexandra tried to focus on the match, she really did. But it was boring. There was nothing duller than a quidditch match. She must have really been in love with Cedric to watch his matches and go to the World Cup with him. She couldn't think of any other reason she'd ever want to otherwise. She ended up spending the match scanning faces in the audience to see if anyone looked familiar. She found that when she read her previous schoolwork, she could remember going through it the first time. She'd read past essays she wrote and remembered writing it. She'd read through her books, books she hadn't gotten around to before starting Hogwarts and remember reading them before. She didn't tell Hermione, she wasn't sure if she could trust her like that yet. What did puzzled her was the stack of potions essays that were unmarked and that she'd clearly never given in.

Still, after reading those assignments and not having a single spark of familiarity regarding them, she decided to set them aside and focus on seeing if other things could jog her memory. She started at the Ravenclaw who'd glared at her. Chang wasn't looking at Alexandra anymore so she tried to see if she could evoke any memory or emotion from looking at her. There was nothing. Alex turned away and looked around.
"Who's that girl in Slytherin? Third row of the Slytherin section." Hermione looked over scanning the faces.

"Your cousin, Mafalda. She started Hogwarts last year." Alexandra nodded. Okay, maybe feeling like she knew the girl had nothing to do with her trying to jog her memory. Mafalda looked older than Alexandra last remembered seeing her, but she did look similar to the little girl she knew. Really, the familiarity she felt when seeing the girl might not be anything more than recognising her cousin, despite how much she'd grown.

But maybe, just maybe, it was more than that. Maybe she was remembering.

A/N- So that's a new development 👀

Favourite line is "That was my attempt at a joke." She's trying to fit in with her old friends 😭