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────────────── 'IT'S JUST POLYESTER' ──────────────
♡
The Great Hall ceiling, bewitched to appear as the sky, was eclipsed in dark, gloomy clouds that seemed to promise rainfall, and the stone castle halls were bitterly cold.
"Great day for quidditch," Josiah said sarcastically as he joined Ella and Mina at the Hufflepuff table. "Why do they always pick the worst days for us to be standing outside? Mins, you have to make Harry to catch the Snitch as fast as possible or I'll lose my shit."
"You're just grumpy because you couldn't sleep past noon this morning. I think it's great when it's stormy during quidditch." Ella took a swig of her steaming hot chocolate. "Makes things interesting."
"I'm with Jonah," Mina shivered as she buttered her bread. "It's always so cold in the stands. Like, why..." she glanced up to see Josiah and Ella trade looks. "What?"
"Nothing," they said simultaneously. Mina eyed them for a moment before returning to her toast—when, thinking she couldn't see him, Josiah snuck a glance over his shoulder.
Looking up, she followed his gaze to the Gryffindor table. Harry, already in his quidditch robes, was walking hand-in-hand with Heather to their usual spot. This would have been a normal, albeit painful, sight—except for the fact that Heather was wearing his quidditch sweater: the exact sweater Harry had leant Mina those months ago on the third of December.
She knew the warmth of its interwoven threads. She knew how it felt to walk around with 'POTTER' in bold yellow letters across her shoulder blades. She knew the way it smelt just like him: the soft smoke of fireplaces and something faintly sweet beneath his cologne. Now Heather did, too.
Mina stood with an aching chest. "Excuse me while I go pitch myself off the Astronomy Tower—"
"It's just polyester," Ella sighed at her friend's dramatics, pulling her back down. Mina slumped helplessly onto her seat, eyes trained miserably to the backs of their heads.
"But it's not just polyester," she said, too deflated to elaborate. Thoughts swarmed her mind. If Harry giving her that sweater last December had meant anything, it clearly didn't anymore. And if it hadn't meant anything at all to begin with...maybe none of his gestures did.
Maybe he just wore the locket all the time because he liked it, not because she gave it to him. Maybe he was teaching her to fly just to uphold their bet, not to spend extra time with her. Maybe he was so tense around McLaggen because he didn't like him, not because he was protective over Mina.
Maybe she had been looking at it all wrong.
Josiah, who sat opposite Mina, slid across the bench to eclipse her view of the two. Her sullen gaze met his. "You can't let your feelings for him consume you this much, okay?" he said quietly, tapping her foot with his beneath the table. Mina looked down at her plate. "Besides," he snatched a glance over his shoulder, "I doubt they'll last very long, anyway."
"What makes you say that?" Ella asked before gulping down the rest of her hot chocolate, and Mina looked back up curiously.
Josiah leaned closer to the two girls over the table. "I've heard she's switched schools half a dozen times in the last three years or so. Maybe it's her family situation, or she just can't sit still..." he lowered his voice, "but rumour has it she's been expelled from every school."
"Who'd you hear this from?" Mina's brow furrowed skeptically.
"I know what you're going to say, Mins, and no, it wasn't Inez who said it. Everyone's been talking about it," he said. "Just snippets of conversation here and there, you know, but she's been to so many schools, met so many people. It's not surprising what gets around—even from her old Australian schools. My dormmate's cousin even goes to one of them, and he said that she left abruptly halfway through the year."
"Okay, then..." Ella said, tapping her chin absently. "Let's say she had been expelled however many times. Would Hogwarts even take her in with that kind of record?"
Josiah shrugged. "I mean, they took Draco Malfoy in."
"He's been expelled before?"
"No, but he's a complete wanker." He grinned. "Anyway, my point is, I don't think she's going to be around here much longer. Statistically speaking."
"Dumbledore's a bit of a softie, though. I mean, I could stuff an Acromantula in his desk and he'd keep it as a pet." Ella said. "What could she possibly do to get expelled from here, let alone, like, five other schools?"
"That's what no one really knows," Josiah said. "But even so, I'd steer clear of her. It'd have to be something bad." He peered over his shoulder again. Able to look past him, Mina caught a glimpse of Heather tucking something in her pocket, but her view was blocked as Josiah turned back around. "I hate to say it, but there's just something off about her...and if the rumours are true, I don't want to be collateral damage the next time she does something worthy of expulsion."
"But what about Harry?" Mina asked. "Shouldn't we warn him?"
"Gryffindor is swarming with everyone's different theories--he would've already heard it all by now," Josiah said wearily. "And by the looks of it...I guess he just doesn't want to believe it."
