Headstrong

Chapter 30

"I don't understand. Why didn't you tell me you knew Sirius Black?" Harry repeated.

Amanda whimpered. "Harry, if I had told you, you wouldn't have believed me. Besides, I knew you would react like this. You would get upset or mad, and I couldn't deal with the fact that I would be the cause of those emotions."

"You could have told me." He said.

"I didn't know how I would tell you. I wish you didn't have to find out just before I leave for the holidays."

Harry sighed. Amanda asked nervously, "Are there any questions you wanted to ask me about it?"

"What do you feel about it?" He immediately answered.

She nodded slowly before answering, "Harry, I have so many bad memories in my head, and I don't ever want to bother anyone with them. I conceal the memories in my head, hiding them from myself. I try not to bring them up again. They're too painful."

She looked at her friends surrounding her. Harry nodded again.

"Is it true? What they said? What you said?" Harry asked.

"Harry, every word of that conversation was true, apart from the fact that I believe Sirius was innocent."

The five people looking back at her looked surprised. Fred and George brushed it past, trusting Amanda, but not wanting to comment that they thought the evidence was against Sirius Black.

Ron and Hermione looked a bit numb. But Harry looked at her and glared.

"How can you say that? Our parents are dead because of that man. What kind of sister are you?"

Amanda gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Tears immediately sprang to her eyes. Fred and George reached out to comfort her, but she raced out of the Three Broomsticks.

Ron and Hermione turned to Harry.

"That was bit too harsh, Harry."

...

Amanda curled up at the base of the tree she knew her parents used to sit at. She cried at the base of the tree.

When she felt like her tears were spent, she pulled the drawing pad and pencils from her bag.

She sat drawing some of the memories. She drew the worse memories at the back of the notepad, and when she couldn't draw them anymore, she turned to the front and started drawing a happy memory. The one where she chased Harry around after he got his first broomstick.

She fell asleep, clutching the pencil.

...

Fred and George found her the next morning.

"We didn't think you would want to talk to anybody. We thought you went to your dormitory straight away, but Angelina and Alicia said that you never came back last night. We were worried."

"I was fine." She told them, "I just need to grab my trunk."

They followed her to the common room and Amanda saw Ron and Hermione sitting near the fireplace. Students bustled around them, towards the stairs, ready for the holidays.

"Can you give Harry this, please." She passed them the note she wrote.

"I'll see you all after the holidays. Have a happy Christmas." She said, then she left.

She dragged her trunk and Ember's cage down to the carriages and left the school.

...

"Where is everyone?" Harry said when he had finally arrived down stairs.