𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑

the one with the thunderstorms

"Glory and Gore
go hand in hand."

•

MY LIFE WAS PERFECT. It was as perfect as it could get. I had my picture published in the newspaper, first thing. With an article about how the "Wizarding World was worried I'd turn to the Dark Arts like my parents to win this tournament," and how "I'm lonely like a wallflower with only my cousin for my companion." I guess both of them are true. The newspaper says it, so it must be true. Draco and Ron, both of them are still not talking to me. Ron for reasons I understand and want to punch him for. Draco for reasons I don't understand and want to kill or kiss him for. And, except Gryffindors everyone hated me. But, on a brighter note, Sirius was going to FaceTime me and Harry through the fireplace soon and I was excited to see him again.

It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. The days until the first task seemed to slip by as though someone had fixed the clocks to work at double speed. My feeling of barely controlled panic was with me wherever I went, as everpresent as the snide comments about the Daily Prophet article. Harry wasn't holding up too well either. He had way too many bruises around his fingers where he scratched off his skin from anxiety. It was so unhinging to look at that I barely spent any time with him.

"Give me the goddamn badge," I snapped at the seventh year Hufflepuff who was blocking my and Harry's way out to Hogsmeade. It was Saturday morning, before the first task, and we were allowed to go to Hogsmeade. She smirked at me.

"Oh yeah, what will you do?"

"I can do two things. Disarm you, which mind you I'm awfully good at, or call Dumbledore. This has to end!"

At this, she unclipped the badge and shoved it in her pocket. Harry grabbed my hand and we made our way out of the campus.

Hermione was waiting for us.

"Where's Ron?" Harry asked, still gripping my hand.

I was younger than him by exactly six months, but of the same height. I'm imagining both my parents were tall and my tallness made me feel bigger. Except my strange red-brown hair gave the appearance of a primary school girl and people tended to not take me seriously.

"Well, I thought we'd meet up at Three Broomsticks -"

"No. I'm getting under the cloak," Harry said pulling out the cloth. Hermione looked at me helplessly.

"Boys will be boys. Nothing we can do," I said shoving my hands in my pocket.

"Hey, Sky. I'm just curious, what's going on with you and Malfoy?" Mione asked. I bit back a curse.

Should I tell them about the kiss? Probably not. Harry can be fairly overprotective when it comes to me. He's recently started doing that. He's getting very serious about the older cousin brother thingy. Sometimes, both of us drop the term cousin altogether and refer to each other as siblings. But either way, I'm not used to having family and it's quite disarming to have one suddenly. A famous one at that. There's got to be something strangely poetic about it all - parents on opposite side of the First War, sister estranged from twin brother, both having children who were unavoidable targets of the Dark Lord, both children orphaned and estranged by the same man, reunited after thirteen long years. But I couldn't see it. All I could see was the running thing Pansy liked to call the "Potter Curse". Horrible things seemed to happen to both of us quite a lot.

"We had a fight. And then he's avoiding me," I said groaning.

"Oh," Hermione said and somehow sounded conflicted.