mahogany ; d.m

17 - rid

Hermione knew Athena had been with Cedric that night. She could sense a positive spin on Athena since the two of them got together. So what news had she received that would have replaced her positivity with reserve and solitary?

What could she be hiding?

She ran through the symptoms again in her head, 'vomiting, mood changes, exhaustion...oh think! Think!'

A light bulb blew up in her head as an overwhelming realisation entered her mind.

"Oh ofcourse!"she yelped out loud.

Ron and Harry snapped their heads up
immediately to look at her, completely puzzled by her sudden outburst.

Athena was pregnant. How could Hermione be so blind? All of the evidence was there. It was certainly likely.

She had been with Cedric a lot over the past month, and it seemed that they had been doing a lot more than just kissing, the hickey's justifying that.

This must have been what she was hiding, too afraid to confide in her friends for fear of judgement. True, there was the possibility that Hermione was wrong, and that this was just a far fetched guess, but when had she ever really been wrong.

"Sorry, just...nevermind,"she said, gathering the books which she had been studying with together.

They blinked at her without saying a word. As Hermione stood and went to leave, she heard Ron utter "honestly, girls mate, they baffle me" to Harry, and stifled a soft chuckle at their cluelessness.

Hermione did not want confront Athena of the news so abruptly if she was not ready to share it. But she thought of how she must be struggling, with no one to speak to of it.

She wouldn't ask her tonight as she had to be especially sure that her guess was correct. Besides she felt Athena would eventually tell her when she was ready.

As she reached the dormitory and set about to open the door, a few sorrowful sobs sounded on the other side. Hermione entered nonchalantly, to then see Athena sat in a ball on the floor next to the giant window in their dormitory, weeping.

.

Athena Greene

Athena straightened, raising her back from the wall, swatting the tears away from her face while completely shaken up by her emotions.

Hermione didn't seem shocked or uncomfortable, only sympathy radiating off of her. She edged over to Athena and crouched opposite her, beside the window.

Athena waited for her to say something but she didn't speak.

The isolation of her secret was consuming every inch of her, it was detrimentally soul crushing. She wanted to tell Hermione, to let it out of the confines of her mind and to scream it out of the window so the whole of Hogwarts could know. But something was oppressing her to do so.

Moreover, earlier tonight she had reached the conclusion to not go ahead with it, giving birth to the foetus. So what would be the point of Hermione knowing?

The two girls sat in complete silence, staring out of the window. Although nothing was said in that moment, somehow a thousand words were spoken, though Athena could not work out what they were.

Later that evening while Athena was laying on her bed reading and simultaneously Hermione was in the bathroom, a strange tapping sounded on the glass of the window pane.