Light in the Darkness

Chapter 10

Adelaide woke up very early, still laying on the Gryffindor Common Room couch. 

She remembered the nightmare she had last night of her face being  charred on the wallpaper of her mother's childhood house, a sign that the wizard or witch had married a muggle-born or sympathized for a muggle-born. She turned around to see her entire family standing there, glaring at her with looks of disappointment and she cried, begging for their forgiveness.

Shuttering at the recollection of the dream, she looked at herself in the mirror and recoiled at the dark circles under her eyes. Her skin was sickly pale and a thin layer of sweat glistened over her brow.

She had yet to run into a Gryffindor and at this time of the morning she didn't expect to. However, to her surprise, George appeared from the doorway of the boy's dormitories. Once she saw him standing by the doorway he immediately gave her a smile. She couldn't help but smile back at his handsome face. 

He realized that she had been crying again and made it his mission to lift her spirits. "Are you ready to have the best day of your life?" 

She was intrigued by his excitement and decided to do her best to mirror his enthusiasm. "What do you mean?" she laughed. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder whipping her around towards the exit door of the Common Room. Fred made an appearance as he swooped in on the other side of her and dramatically stated, "What do you mean, she says." George finished the dramatic entrance with an excited, "We're taking you to Hogsmeade, of course!"

Her heart lifted as the two took her into the Three Broomsticks and bought her a warm Butterbeer. They practically forced her to gulp down her drink so they could drag her over to their absolute favorite store of all time, Zonkos. 

You have never seen two happier people until you have seen Frederick and George Weasley go into Zonkos. The two visibly vibrated with sheer excitement, making Adelaide laugh brightly. "What's so funny Addie?" George teased, poking her side making her jerk backwards into Fred who put his hands in the air, "keep your hands to yourself, Ms. Grabby." 

Adelaide began to adore the two who made her forget all the awful things that had happened the night before, replacing it with joyous oblivion. 

 Fred decided to walk over to the other side of the store, giving his brother time to himself with the girl he knew he liked tremendously. George and Adelaide strolled down the isles, George grabbing a few fireworks here and a prank object he intended to use on his younger brother there. Once he finished his gleeful shopping spree, they left the store entering into the cold day.

George stopped and gave Adelaide a suspicious grin. He suddenly lept towards the ground picking up as much snow as possible and throwing it at her. She yelped in surprise as the icy slush melted down her coat. She giggled as she frantically knelt down to form snow balls, but she was too slow as George began to now pick up handfuls of snow and drop them on her. She was now on the ground, rendered useless as she was covered in a pile of snow. She could do nothing else but swipe his leg, making him slip on the icy snow and fall on the ground next to her. 

They laughed together until their faces turned bright red and their stomachs hurt. George rolled over, eventually getting up and pulling Adelaide up. As she stood she slipped on the pile of snow and fell into him, looking up to be extraordinarily close to his face. 

She looked into his warm brown eyes, adoring once again the red hair that covered his head. They were now so close that Adelaide could feel George's warm breath on her face. His cheeks were pink from the cold and his eyelashes were delicately dusted with snow. Her stomach was doing summersaults as he looked down at her lips and leaned even closer. She tilted her head, getting on her tiptoes when suddenly,

"Adelaide, you need to see this." Fred bursted through the doors of Zonkos with a troubled expression, newspaper in hand, making an abrupt stop as he realized he intruded on a private moment. 

George and Adelaide nearly jumped out of their skin, pulling apart from their close embrace. Fred's face turned bright red and he snapped his head down, trying to disappear from embarrassment.

She quickly stepped away from George, blushing at the ruined moment. Her embarrassment quickly disappeared as she caught a glimpse of a familiar face on the paper Fred was clutching.

She ran up to Fred, grabbing the Daily Prophets out of his hands and inhaled sharply as she saw Philip's face plastered all over it with the title "Hogwarts student sent to Azkaban for use of Dark Magic". Her eyes welled up with hot tears seeing the news on the front page of the Wizard Paper. Her body trembled with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The subsection "Out with the Black in with the Burke" went into detail of her family's connection to the Blacks and how the family was suspected of possessing dark artifacts. Her vision went blurry and she felt her knees buckle.

"Whoah whoah whoah!" George cried, catching Adelaide as she gasped and fell to the ground. 

George gulped nervously as he saw the paper, crumpled in her hand with her brother's picture on it. "Adelaide...I'm so sorry."

She eventually calmed down and told the twins she wanted to return to Hogwarts immediately to talk to her brother, Perseus. Fred and George gave each other a nervous glance, but obliged, helping her up from the ground and walking her back.

 As they walked into the castle, Adelaide felt a strong force throw her sideways and she found herself on the floor, in a classroom, with the wind knocked out of her. Before she could wrap her head around what was happening, she saw a heavy cabinet swipe across the door, blocking her in.

Once she had oriented herself and wiped the tears that were still stinging her eyes, she looked up and her heart sank as she locked eyes with Draco. His wand was pointed at her face and the expression on his face was extremely pained. 

She gave Draco a confused look of betrayal, "Draco, what are you doing?" her voice wavered, beginning to cry in fear.

"How could you choose him over me?" Draco pleaded, allowing himself to be more vulnerable than usual, knowing that this encounter would soon cease to exist in Adelaide's mind.

Not waiting for an answer he continued, "I'm doing this because..because..I love you. Please Addie, just please forgive me for this." his wand started to tremble violently.

Before Adelaide could comprehend what he had said, Draco let out a strained,

"Obliviate"

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Hello! I hope you are enjoying the story so far :) I plan on releasing ten chapters at a time and I am hopeful to finish the story by the end of January 2021. Let me know what you think, I really appreciate any and all feedback!  

xoxo,

-KS