The Mudblood

Chapter 52 : Year 3

"If you want to harass me, I'm warning you now that I will hex you down this staircase," I stated, stiffening my posture as I glared down at him.

"Oh—I'm not here to harass you—really," Jeremy Reeves said sincerely. Though he was my least favorite Hufflepuff, everything about him reminded me of Cedric. I remembered them talking together, laughing together (at me), playing Quidditch together—

"What is it, then?" I prompted tautly.

"I—I wanted to apologize—for the way we treated you—all of us. All of...Cedric's friends..." he said, trailing off as he stared past me. "We shouldn't have been so mean to you—I mean, who didn't like Cedric?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, pondering my response. "Well, thank you for apologizing."

"Do you—accept? Do you accept our apology?" he urged, staring up at me earnestly.

"I don't think that Cedric should have had to die for you to realize that how you treated me was wrong," I replied curtly. His mouth fell open as he fumbled for a response, but I didn't give him time to blabber before I scurried down the staircase.

Walking away, I knew that would be the last time I ever saw Jeremy Reeves, and it was. This was different from the last time I'd seen Cedric, right before the third task, when I thought I'd see him again. This goodbye with Jeremy, though hostile, somehow felt much more resolved than my last goodbye with Cedric.

∆

After another somber week at Hogwarts, the students finally went home on the Hogwarts Express. I'd never been more relieved to leave the school; I'd never been more relieved to leave anywhere. I was dreading two months away from my friends, of course, but every part of me longed to be with my family again. They wouldn't remind me of my mourning, because they wouldn't understand it like the other students at Hogwarts did. It would be better that way; it would allow me to forget.

I hadn't spoken to anyone much in the past week, though I thought they all understood. There hadn't been much laughing or smiling at Hogwarts, and the aura of misery seemed to plague everyone, even those who hadn't known Cedric. Though she attempted to be strong, Cho Chang cried during almost every meal, and it made me feel incredibly guilty about having ever wanted to take Cedric from her.

What had surprised me almost more than Cedric's death was the fact that Draco Malfoy hadn't harassed me about it once. I'd been expecting his harassment—almost craving his harassment, because of the sense of normalcy that it would bring. But...it never came. He didn't speak to me once over that last week of school, and that was just another fact that had added to my midnight crying-into-my-pillow sessions.

I walked onto the Hogwarts Express alone, ready to spend the rest of the ride in silence, but as I was looking for a compartment, someone came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder.

"I told you, Astoria—" I stopped talking abruptly when I turned my head and saw that it was Fred Weasley standing next to me. "Oh—hey. Er—where's George?"

"Helping Ginny with her trunk," he replied simply. His face was set in a neutral expression: unreadable. He and George hadn't seemed nearly as glum as the rest of the school over the past few days, though they weren't joking or pranking as usual, which was enough to show they were mildly grieving.

"And why aren't you helping Ginny with her trunk?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Because I wanted to come find you, obviously," Fred said, his lips bunching into a crooked grin. "You may have been able to avoid me for a week, but I'm not sure why you thought you'd be able to get away for two months without saying goodbye."