Chasing Time (Seamus Finnigan)

twelve

After the Yule Ball, Ron didn't avoid me, but he didn't talk to me either.

It was time for the Christmas holidays. Normally, I would have been excited, but not that year. I had to stay at Hogwarts, whilst most of the students were leaving. Hermione was going on vacation with her parents, the Weasleys and Harry were going to stay at the Burrow, and Chantry was going home to see her grandmother.

Only Seamus and Dean were staying here too, so we hung out together often.

'Did you hear anything from your dad?' Seamus asked when we were sitting in the common room with the three of us.
'No. Do you know if Draco's staying at school too?'
'No, why?'
'I want to talk to him.' I had got that idea just then. I stood up and walked to the portrait hole. 'Where are you going?' Dean said.
'I'll go and find him,' I said matter-of-factly.

'What? You just go out and search like the whole school?' Seamus stated.

'If I need to, yes.' I turned back around and climbed through the portrait hole.

I had just left when I heard footsteps behind me. 'Dora. Do you even have an idea how big Hogwarts is?'

'I do have a thought.'

'If you want to search the whole school, you won't be ready in three days.'

'I know where I want to go, thanks.'

'And where is that?'

We had stopped and I finally turned around to face Seamus.  'That's none of you business.'

'Really? I only try to help you, but if you're going to act like that...'

'I'm not doing anything wrong. I just want to find my cousin.'

'Well, okay, but don't go hang around in places you don't have to be.'

'I know exactly where I need to be. Why is it actually, that you are always the one to come after me?'

Seamus seemed to be at a loss for words. After a few minutes of staring at eachother, he answered: 'Because I care about you.'

'Thank you for being so overprotective, but I can look after myself perfectly.'

'Well, great. Enjoy your time with Draco,' he said sarcastically.

'Yeah. I will. Bye, Seamus.'

As I walked away I had the terrible feeling I had hurt him. I liked Seamus, but I hated it when people hung around me too much.

In the Entrance Hall, I hit left and went down the stairs to the dungeons. I knew the Slytherin common room was there, and as Draco had told me the password ("pure-blood") almost never changed, I had decided to take a chance.

At the end of the corridor, there was a big fountain, with ten snakes engraved. It was dark and cold in the dungeons and I didn't expect the Slytherin common room to be different. I took a deep breath. 'Pure-blood.'

It had worked: the water supply stopped and the fountain shove aside, revealing a passage. I could already see the green lights as I climbed through. I couldn't believe I was actually standing in the Slytherin common room. There weren't much students: only two older boys. One of them stood up and came to me.

'What do you think you're doing here?' he snapped at me with a smirk. 'Oh, excuse me. I was just searching for my cousin, Draco Malfoy,' I answered with a smile.

He laughed. 'You we've heard of! What makes you think you can enter our common room?'

'It's important. Do you know if he's staying at school?'