𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 72

CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH HARRY
COMFORTS HER

. . .

Her face was stony as she left the office behind, deciding not to go further within the dungeons and back to the common room but rather heading back into the castle, intending to smoke the cigarettes she had stolen from Theo when he wasn't looking until she felt better. She was sober now, more than sober, and itching to do absolutely anything but sit by herself in her room.

Of course, she was going to sit somewhere out on the castle grounds by herself until she felt remotely better about the whole thing, her heart thudding in her chest, temper rising, emotions pushing forward, threatening to explode out onto the surface, ruining everything that she had ever worked for.

It became more and more apparent with each day that went by, that Aviana's fate for the following school year was not going to be a pretty one. Each remarkable thing she participated in went down the drain before the sun even set. A matter of hours, and any emotion within her that was remotely related to happiness would spoil with the reminder of a new punishment.

But it seemed to have been like that since the very moment that the end of the previous school year came to an end, and she was to be constantly made aware of some of the worst things that had happened to her over and over again. It was that woman. It was all her fault, and Aviana couldn't escape it.

And she had to get away. As far as she could go, whilst still confined to the castle and hidden away in the Scottish Highlands. 

"Hey, hey - where are you going?" Harry looked confused as Aviana breezed past him, stopping in his tracks despite her complete lack of reply. "Didn't you just get back from... what's wrong?"

She had stopped several feet from him, somehow standing out from the blur of students trying to get back into the castle - they were all seemingly in a hurry, wanting to get back to their dorms to drop off their new purchases before heading down to dinner. And as Ron and Hermione stopped too, paces behind him, looking concerned, Harry somehow managed to see, through a parting in the never-ending crowds, the look on her face.

And it was something he recognised, so plainly. Had only ever seen it once before, and there was that sort of heart-wrenching tug of pain in his stomach because he hadn't really expected to see it again. Even so, he managed to push through the onslaught of teenagers to stand in front of her, pulling her aside, out of the fray.

"I hate her." Aviana stated, simply, biting at the skin of her cheek. "I hate her."

"What's happened?" Harry asked, because that tug of pain was quite quickly, worryingly-quickly, turning into something more of a panic, exacerbated not only by the expression on Aviana's face but also the thought that, just hours ago, he had been sitting in the Hog's Head planning with a rather large group of students - some of which certainly did not like him - to rebel against Umbridge and the Ministry as a whole. "Did something... are you okay?"

Aviana didn't say anything, her eyes sat stubbornly on something over Harry's shoulder. At that point, by no coincidence, Hermione grabbed Ron by the wrist and pulled him back into the hoards of students returning to the castle

"Come on..." He murmured, head tilting as he attempted, in any way possible, to catch her focus. It was an impossible task, because even in her weakest moments Aviana remained some kind of impenetrable fortress that he couldn't even try and look into, gain some perspective. "For fuck's sake, Aviana." He sighed, something striking deep within him and somehow giving him a surge of confidence in which he grabbed her hand and tugged her from amongst the students and further out of their way.

They stood beneath an archway, between them and the stream of students nothing much more than half the length of a corridor and a corner, shadowed in the little light that was left in late hour of an afternoon in the beginnings of October. The hand he held, the one that had unfurled from a clenched fist to allow her fingers to lock with his, to stop the silver of her many rings from digging too deeply into the already harmed expanse of skin, hung between them.

Her eyes shone with tears when she glanced at him. "I hate her. I hate her. I don't know... I don't know what I can do." She said, in a sigh, the tone of her voice so shockingly honest, so unlike her that Harry was taken aback. "There's nothing I can do... nothing that'll work. Nothing that can actually stop her." 

"What happened?" Harry asked, almost uncertainly. What could have changed, so drastically, between the meeting in Hogsmeade and now? The last he had seen her she had been ordering shots of Firewhiskey in the Three Broomsticks with a smile on her face, and now she stood in front of him almost in tears, and somewhere within him he could feel his heart break for that change. "Why... what did she do?" 

"She acted like she didn't remember." Aviana sniffed, her spare hand lifted to press away the tears that threatened to spill. She refused to cry. Not again. "I know that my father is one of them and he did kill those people and I'm not supposed to care that she sent him to Azkaban but she did. And then she could sit there and say that... and say that there should be a meeting with my parents because obviously Hogwarts isn't working out for me anymore-" she cut herself off to catch her breath, sniffling as she went. "And I haven't seen my mother in months and I don't even know where she is and there's nobody that can sit there and be concerned about me because they're convicted criminals or in hiding or both." 

Harry stared at her, for just a moment longer than he should, then his hand pulled away from hers and he enveloped her in a hug, arms tight around her waist. 

And he knew, when her temple rested on his shoulder and his chin turned down to whisper promises that everything was going to be fine and she actually listened, that the fake situation that had been created to manipulate Umbridge had very quickly become real. 

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