Connected

Chapter 22 'Awareness '

 “What is similar between you and Draco?” Evanna asked, making a face.

 Myrtle didn’t seem to notice the face Evanna had made and continued, looking somewhere at a distance outside the window, “I mean he’s sensitive, people bully him too, and he feels lonely and hasn’t got anybody to talk to, and he’s not afraid to show his feelings and cry!”

 “Cry!?” Evanna was shocked to hear Draco crying and someone bullying him. It seemed impossible to her.

“Never you mind!” said Myrtle, her small, leaky eyes fixed on Evanna, “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I’ll take his secret to the —”

“— not the grave, surely?” said Evanna with a snort, side tracked form the real truth, “the sewers, maybe.”

 Myrtle gave a howl of rage and dived back into the toilet, causing water to slop over the sides and onto the floor.

“Oh no, Myrtle. I didn’t mean that. Don’t take me wrong!” Evanna shouted behind her but Myrtle did not return, “Stupid, stupid me.” She kicked the puddle forming on the floor.

“So Draco is crying in a bathroom,” Evanna thought to herself.

And the next thing she was up to was peeping into boy’s bathrooms on every floor and luckily slipping out of them without being noticed as they were mostly empty due to the peek time of classes going on.

“Draco you own me big,” she thought as she was about to go into a boy’s bathroom at the fourth floor when suddenly she saw Professor McGonagall coming her way.

“Professor McGonagall!” she greeted in a too excited way which easily made McGonagall suspicious about her doings.

“And what are you doing here, Miss Weasley?” McGonagall asked as she came nearer.

“Nothing, Professor. Just lost my way to the class like always,” Evanna lied.

“Then follow me.”

Evanna sulkily followed Professor McGonagall to Transfiguration and just as she was about to turn a corner; she turned to see that Myrtle was sticking her head out of the same bathroom that Evanna was about to enter.

Myrtle first saw left then right and when she spotted Evanna looking at her; she took out her tongue and then slipped back in.

Seeing Myrtle made sure that the bathroom Evanna had just left behind was the one.

*

Hermione raised her quill and dotted an ‘i’ so ferociously that she punctured a hole in her parchment. Evanna said nothing. She thought her voice might soon vanish from the lack of use. She bent a little lower over Advanced Potion-Making and continued to make notes on Everlasting Elixirs.

“And incidentally,” said Hermione, after a few moments, “you need to be careful.”

“For the last time,” said Evanna, speaking in a slightly hoarse tone after three-quarters of an hour of silence, “the bathrooms were empty—”

 “Still, Evanna. What if you had been caught,” said Hermione, giving a nasty look, “Who are you going to go with… to Slughorn’s party?” 

Sudden change in the subject surprised Evanna, “Umm, I don’t know. And Hermione please there are more important things in the world then Slughorn’s party!”

“Still Evanna, don’t you think you should stop saying ‘no’ to all the proposals. I went into the girl’s bathroom just before I came in here and there were about a dozen girls in there, including that Romilda Vane, trying to decide how to slip Harry a love potion. They’re all hoping they’re going to get him to take them to Slughorn’s party, and they all seem to have bought Fred and George’s love potions, which I’m afraid to say probably work and they do mean business —”

 “Why didn’t you confiscate them then?” demanded Evanna, it seemed extraordinary that Hermione’s mania for upholding the rules could have abandoned her at this crucial juncture.

 “They didn’t have the potions with them in the bathroom,” said Hermione scornfully, “They were just discussing tactics.”

“What does that has to do with me? And there isn’t anyone I want to invite,” mumbled Evanna, trying not to think of Harry.

 Hermione gave Evanna a long stare, then hitched up the long roll of parchment on which she was writing her Arithmancy essay and continued to scratch away with her quill,

“Well, I just thought that it’s time you choose because the party is not far away.”

Hermione stopped dead; Evanna had heard it too. Somebody had moved close behind them among the dark bookshelves. They waited, and a moment later the vulture-like countenance of Madam Prince appeared around the corner, her sunken cheeks, her skin like parchment, and her long hooked nose illuminated unflatteringly by the lamp she was carrying.

“The library is now closed,” she said, “Mind you return anything you have borrowed to the correct shelf.”

Evanna and Hermione slipped out of the library, enjoying the fact that they could speak normally again. They made their way along the deserted lamp-lit corridors back to the common room, arguing whether or not Filch and Madam Prince were secretly in love with each other when suddenly Luna came in view.

“Hey, Luna,” both of them said.

“Hello Hermione. Hello Evanna,” Luna said as she came nearer.

“I heard you’re going to Slughorn’s party,” Hermione asked.

 “With whom?” Evanna piped in.

 “With Harry. You see, I was by the lake, searching for Crumple-Horned Snorkack when Harry came along and asked me to go with him to Slughorn’s Christmas Party… just as friends, of course. ”

 The two first words were enough for Evanna to lose hope and all voices were tuned out. She had started to feel that her friends didn’t doubt her and it was all her own imagination but what Luna had said proved her wrong.

 Her feelings for him had changed so drastically and without any much of a warning. She had thought that Harry felt the same way about her like she felt for him but her guesses were proved wrong.

 “Evanna? Evanna?” Luna said, waving her hand in front of Evanna’s eyes.

“Uh, oh yeah,” Evanna said, trying hard to keep her voice balanced.

Hermione saw what had happened and she was now looking at Evanna with worried eyes.

“Well, I’ll be off. It’s going to be curfew soon. Good Bye,” Luna said and skipped away.

 “Evanna?” Hermione said, taking hold of Evanna’s arm.

Evanna was looking at nothing in particular; she was blinking hard to keep tears away from her eyes.

“Yeah, Hermione. What’s the matter?” Evanna said, trying to play cool.

But Hermione knew her too well, “He must be nervous to ask you…”

“What are you talking about, Hermione?” Evanna asked and started walking further, pulling herself away from Hermione’s grasp.

Hermione did not push the matter further and they both silently walked towards the Gryffindor common room, Evanna; over and over again swallowing hard and blinking her eyes and Hermione looking at her with concerned looks.

“Baubles” said Evanna thickly to the Fat Lady, this being the new, festive password.

 “Same to you,” said the fat lady with a roguish grin, and she swung forward to admit them.

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‘Who would Evanna be going to the party with now?

And why is Draco crying?’

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