Little did I know at the time but that nook under the stairs quickly became Draco and my new hiding spot. When pestered about how he came to find this place- for I knew that hiding me from Pansy was not the first-time Draco visited this nook- he admitted that Blaise may have happened to know this place from his own ventures.
"But doesn't that sound just a little bit sketch that both of you bring your girlfriends to the same spot to hide?"
"Well I wouldn't be hiding if it weren't for you and your pathetic excuse of friends-"
"Hey- I'm not the one making enemies of every friend I have!"
"Oh," Draco said, feigning disbelief, "So am I supposed to forget the whole hiding from Pansy ordeal that happened the other day?" I automatically flicked him on the cheek before the pair of us burst into laughter.
"What girls does Blaise go after? Asking out of curiosity of course," I added at the glance Draco shot me at the question.
"Purebloods of course. With tons of money. Usually a Slytherin-"
"Oh, so I'm his type," I said in surprise, making Draco feign a glare at my stupidity. "All this time I thought he found me annoying."
"He does find you annoying. So get off that high horse-"
"What about me does he find annoying? I'm curious," I said through a teasing smile, looking up at Draco who was not entirely happy over the way this conversation sidelined.
"Why do you care?"
"Because," I went on, battering my eyes, "I enjoy teasing your friends. Nott is easy though he's two-faced but Blaise always acts rude around me. And I'm sure you know the reason. Tell me," I added as Draco put a hand to my mouth to shut me up. He shook his head as he started to smile at my growing impatience. I flicked at his wrist, making his hand move and repeated the question. Sighing in defeat, though not losing that smug smile of his, he relented.
"He thinks you're too dramatic."
"I'm dramatic?" I repeated in outrage to Draco, unfazed. He seemed to be expecting this reaction. "If he's so against drama, why is he friends with you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Draco shot back with a frown that had me snicker.
"Draco, you remember how many times I've made fun of you for your imitations of people? It's called being dramatic-"
"Well everyone seems to find my imitations funny actually, not that you'd know," He said back, nose in the air, making me laugh again and Draco to falter with another one of his smug looks.
"Take a guess of who Blaise is with now?" Draco asked, peaking my interest.
"Hmm, Astoria Greengrass?" Draco blanked for a moment before looking dumbfounded at me.
"The third year? Are you mental? 'course not. He's with Poppy Selywen."
"Poppy Selywen?" I said with a meaning that showed my thoughts on the matter: disgust. Draco simply nodded, as if agreeing with my thoughts exactly.
"The one in the sixth year that walks like bambi?"
"Who?"
"She's dumber than a sack of bricks!" I explained, ignoring his question. "Even with that pretty face of hers you can tell there's nothing there," I added, pointing to the middle of my forehead.
I looked up in surprise to hear Draco laughing at me though I had no idea why.
"What?" I asked, feeling oddly self-conscious. He tugged on one of my curls before turning on me.
"Nothing. I just like how you're speaking your mind."
I felt my face soften a moment under his before responding simply with,
"Well you're going to have to get used to that because I'm not changing."
"I'll hold you to that," he said to my surprise before kissing me lightly on my cupids bow. I rose to my tippy toes and kissed him back but was the first to break away, remarking that I had to get back to the common room.
"Sam's going to give me hell if I'm not back soon to help with homework."
"She can do it herself, why do I have to suffer for you to help her?" He shot back, making me laugh in his face. I kissed him again like the tease I was before warning him not to follow me out.
I had only made it a step into the hall though before I was pulled back under again by Draco saying rather stubbornly, "She can wait."
Sam was waiting for me on the upstairs balcony in the common room, next to my brother, who looked the more cheerful out of the two.
"There you are!" Sam remarked at the sight of me ascending the stairs. "I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere."
"More like hoped you were dead in a ditch," Theo added with a nod toward Sam, who seemed to agree on my brother's statement.
"Hurtful," I said as I sat down to join them. Sam looked anything but apologetic.
"Can't say you should have a good reason for being thirty-four minutes late to a study date with me if my idea of where you are is correct," Sam explained further with a leveled stare my way. I feigned ignorance in front of my brother before responding with, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Perfect timing as ever, Draco took that moment to enter the common room. Sam took one look at Draco- who immediately started up a crowd of laughter amongst his friends- and then back to me with the biggest stink eye.
Theo on the other hand was blissfully unaware of this interaction as he went about flipping through Sam's notes from Transfiguration with a mix of cringes and groans. Finally, he lowered the notepad and looked to my friend with sympathetic eyes.
"I remember doing rather poorly on this assignment back in my year-"
"Oh just put a sock in it. I bet you did poorly on every assignment," Sam mouthed off, sending my brother to feign hurt before standing up, returning to his sly ways.
"Just trying to help." He then turned to me. "Did Mamen send you a letter yet?"
"Yeah, the other day. Sam read it."
"Was a load of rubbish," Sam confirmed over her pile of notes. Theo nodded, expecting this before adding, "Well she's on to me now. Which means she has Ed to deal with after I choose to ignore her. Poor idiot."
"Ed has a backbone, Theo. You don't have to pity him like a helpless creature," I pointed out with a raised brow. Theo scoffed, as if what I just said was the work of fiction, before walking off toward the stairs, leaving Sam and I alone to work.
But rather than start working, Sam turned on me in full seriousness. At once I thought I was going to get another ear full about Draco but instead she surprised me.
"We have a problem," she started in a close whisper, moving her chair closer to me. "Tati has told people about the Gryffindor's little get together this weekend."
"Oh?" I said with raising anxiety. I had yet to tell Hermione that on top of asking Sam about coming, I had also invited Tati. "Who has she told?"
"Well other than her two minions that trail after her everywhere she goes, Tati told Alice!"
She said this as if it were the end of the world. I on the other hand relaxed a fraction, as I had been planning to let Alice know of this ordeal from the get go. Granted, I was having trouble finding Alice to tell her the news myself. Hearing Tati do the task for me was uplifting.
"Is that a problem?" I asked, letting my thoughts known. Sam's hawk-like eyes spiked in alarm.
"Are you serious? Ava, she's twelve! She can't get into Hogsmead as it is but to have her join a group that purposefully goes against Umbridge is asking for trouble!"
"But Umbridge doesn't know about it," I reasoned. "Besides, it's not like this is illegal."
The Saturday of our adventure to Hogsmead had arrived and with it, the beginning chills of fall seen in October. I had decided to pull out my fall sweaters to celebrate, dawning on a burnt red sweater with my brown leather knee boots for the occasion. I met Sam in the common room who was in the midst of fighting with Tati in a hushed tone for the others around to barely hear other than the general sound of hissing.
Very relatable for Slytherin house.
Across the room, the silver gang was standing around their usual spot by the fireplace, looking like they were waiting for the last of their group to show before heading to the Hogsmead line. Draco, who had been in conversation with Nott and Goyle, noticed me enter the room and shot me a glance. Though it wasn't a very pleasant one.
He wasn't too happy when I told him off about seeing him in Hogsmead.
"What could you possibly have to do that's more important than seeing me?" He asked in total seriousness that made me more than just a little irritated.
"It's called having a social life, Draco. Maybe you've heard of it. Besides, I don't want my friends to suspect anything by avoiding them in Hogsmead."
Of course, the conversation ended with more kissing because that was just our relationship at this point. The word toxic came to mind but what else would you expect from the likes of Draco Malfoy? Even I knew that.
"There you are!" Sam said, taking me out of my thoughts and turn on the two sisters. While the two were of different looks with hair and styling, together they were remarkably alike, both staring me down with their own vendetta against the other.
Just a wee bit intimidating.
"Tati thinks we can sneak Alice into Hogsmead. Can you believe her? Absolute nutter!"
"You're the mental one, thinking you can contain Alice in the castle after she's heard the news of this-"
"Shhh!" I whispered, cutting her off as I raced forward. Laughter was heard from above the stairwell as incoming students came down from their dorms. Tati got the message and lowered her voice before continuing.
"Alice will find a way to sneak through Filch and his team no matter what. She has a better shot of getting in if we help her than if she does it on her own!"
"This is why I didn't want to tell her about this in the first place," Sam said with a huff, turning on me.
"Calm down, both of you," I said to the pair of them as Tati's two friends came down the stairs and towards us.
"Have you seen Alice since telling her the news?"
"No," Tati said.
"Then how do you know she's going to sneak into Hogsmead?"
"Because we know," Sam said, sounding dejected.
"Are you guys ready? I'm so excited!" One of Tati's friends in blonde braids, Lottie, said with a squeal. The other, a girl with a chestnut bob, had already read the room between the two sisters and remained quiet. Her name was Gemma.
"Sure," Sam said with a tone that was anything but hyper. I gave my friend a wary look before crossing arms with her and leading the others out of the portal.
Ella and Ginny were waiting for us in line past the great hall entrance, already in conversation with Ginny's boyfriend, Michael, lingering beside her.
"Do you know where we're heading?" Sam asked as we stopped in front of Ginny.
"A pub off to the side called Hog's head. Ever heard of it?"
"No" was the general answer, though Ella had supposedly walked by it before.
"Don't know how we'll all fit in it. Bit small."
"You mean there's going to be a lot of people coming?" I inquired. Ginny shrugged but Ella nodded in earnest.
"Supposedly both Ron and Hermione have been busy telling people. And Ginny," Ella added with a small smile aimed at the quiet figure that was Michael. Ginny shot her friend side eye before turning to her boyfriend for conversation.
We went through the line at a snail pace but not once passing sight of Alice or anyone to fit her description. Filch gave us all a long once over that would make anyone question their innocence before motioning us through one at a time.
"I guess I can breathe now," Sam said in earnest as we walked on down the path with her sister and friends stepping up ahead of us. "I thought Alice was going to do something stupid."
"Like what? Hide in your cloak?"
"Very funny."
It turned out, that Sam spoke too soon. We were just passing the Three Broomsticks where a group of teachers were walking towards when a student in the midst of a group of people tripped to such an extent that she fell to the ground, head first. Naturally the crowd parted for her, and who should notice the individual first but Professor McGonagall.
"Miss Spencer!"
Alice shot up from the snow, looking angry at being caught in such a stupid way. She marched on over to McGonagall, passing her two sisters with little less of a glance. Sam looked at her younger sister with mouth agape before turning on Tati with a clear question in her eyes.
How did Alice manage to avoid Fitch and make it all the way here?
Such a question wasn't going to be answered until after the meeting, so we had no other option but to leave Alice in the capable hands of McGonagall and head on to the pub in question.
The Hogs Head was a very small building as Ella had acknowledged earlier, but unlike the Three Broomsticks, very few patrons were there other than the multitude of students coming in for the meeting. The actual number surprised even the likes of me.
Of those I recognized, I saw Neville, Dean, Lavender, Luna, the Patil twins, Cho, the two chasers from Gryffindor and their keeper, the Creevey boys, a few Hufflepuffs like Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones, Fred and George, Lee Jordan and to my upmost surprise, my brother.
At the sight of me, he waved his fingers mockingly in hello before turning back to hear something George had been saying.
The three leading the group were at the far back of the room, with Harry looking stone cold. Hermione was the one who looked truly nervous and Ron seemed to be doing a good job blending into the wall.
The rest of us had just gotten settled when Hermione stood up, silencing the room almost immediately.
"Eh, well, um, Hi!" she said with a classic state of nerves but very relatable given the number of eyes staring back at her.
"Well, um," she continued. "You all know why we're here. Well, Harry had the idea," she began but faltered at the sharp look Harry sent her way, breaking from his otherwise stony expression.
"Right," she hesitated. "I had the idea that we make a group to study the dark arts, and I mean really study it. Not that rubbish Umbridge has been doing with us." At the sound of Umbridge, a ripple of nods and all attention shifted in the group. Hermione's own voice had become progressively clearer as she spoke, gaining confidence. "No one can call what she's doing Defense Against the Dark arts..."
"Here, here!" A Ravenclaw a year above us spoke up, only building onto Hermione's resolve.
"Well," she continued, "I thought it would be a good start if we took matters into our own hands." She paused and for a moment all of us hesitated a glance at Harry, as if wondering if it was his turn to speak. But he gave no intention of speaking so Hermione went on.
"And by that, I mean how to learn to defend ourselves properly, and not just by theory. But to know how to do the real spells."
"And you want to pass your O.W.Ls too I bet," Michael, Ginny's boyfriend, said out of the blue, causing Hermione to falter. Ginny sent Michael a warning look to not interrupt but he didn't seem to take with the idea.
"Of course I do," Hermione went on to say. "But more than that I want to be properly trained because, because..." I watched her take a deep breath and knew something was coming from this. "Because Lord Voldemort is back."
The reaction was immediate and expected. A curly red head next to Cho shrieked, Neville Longbottom spilled butterbeer down his front, one of the boys from Hufflepuff twisted, and one of the Gryffindors jumped as if having sat on hot coals. Sam whipped her hand onto my arm and squeezed hard; something very unlike her but not something I would question. I gripped her hand in my free one and held it there like a life line.
The rest of us all turned immediately to Harry who had moved a fraction at Voldemort's name being mentioned.
"Well that's the plan," Hermione continued, trying to draw the attention back to herself. "We need to start getting names and-"
"Where's the proof?" said a rather aggressive sounding Hufflepuff that Ella was looking at with a sneer.
"Well Dumbledore says-"
"You mean Dumbledore believes him," The Hufflepuff cut in, nodding at Harry. "But where's the real proof?"
"Who are you?" Ron demanded, turning on the Hufflepuff.
"Zachariah Smith," the boy responded proudly. Sam cursed something foul under her breath that made me smirk.
"I think we have the right to know what makes him think You-Know-Who is back you see," he continued confidently. I watched as others seemed to agree with this nut job, including Ginny's boyfriend.
"Look," Hermione said, standing remarkably firm. "This isn't want this meeting is supposed to be about-"
"It's alright Hermione," Harry said, cutting in. He stood up and came to the front next to his friend and looked out to the rest of us pensively. "What makes me say You-Know-Who's back?" He repeated, turning to look Zachariah right in the eye. "I saw him and Dumbledore told the whole school what happened. If you didn't believe him, then you won't believe me. I won't waste my time here trying to convince anyone otherwise."
Collectively I felt all of us release our breath after he spoke, as if we all thought what he was going to say would solve the mystery of last year. I couldn't' say I was any different. No one likes being kept out of a secret. Especially one as sinister as the aftermath of the third task.
"All Dumbledore said was that You-know-who killed Cedric and you brought his body back. We didn't get any details, and I think that is what we all want to know," Zachariah went on stubbornly.
"Would that bastard just shut his trap already," I heard Ella say from her seat a few down from me. People next to her seemed to be in complete agreement at her outburst; especially Sam.
"If you're asking for details over how Voldemort kills someone, I can't help you," Harry said in a tense voice that sent us all back to face the front. He was looking at Zachariah with a heat behind his eyes that I haven't seen before. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory so if that is what you came here for, then you might as well clear out."
To my surprise and Harry's too, no one moved.
"Right," Hermione said. "Like I was saying, we need to set up meeting times and a schedule as well as where to meet and a list-"
"Is it true that you can produce a patronus?" Luna's whimsical voice cut through Hermione like ice and sent the whole room into a state of absolute curiosity. Harry was blown by the question but he nodded all the same and responded rather defensively with "Yeah."
"A corporeal patronus?" Another girl clarified curiously. Harry looked to the girl with recognition before nodding again.
"That's Susan Bones. Supposedly her Aunt was part of Potter's trial," one of the Gryffindor chasers said to the other a row ahead of me.
"He can," Hermione said. "I saw it."
"Blimey Harry," Dean said, impressed. "I didn't know that."
"Mum told us not spread it around," Fred said with a grin to the front. "Said he had enough attention already," George clarified. Theo and Lee Jordon nodded along, looking just as impressed as the others.
"And you killed that Basilisk in the chamber during your second year!" Another Hufflepuff sitting beside Zachariah said, more as a statement than a truth. At the looks he was given he clarified that one of the portraits told him. Harry nodded slowly at this, though a set of red was starting to show on his neck at the attention. Peoples reaction to this news was not helping on that fact.
"And in our first year, he saved us from the philosopher's stone," Neville added happily.
"Sorcerer's," I muttered under my breath to no one in particular.
"And that's not including all the tasks he went through last year," Cho said proudly, her eyes right on Harry who was having a very hard time hiding his incoming blush. Hermione regarded this sight with slow-moving eyes.
"I don't mean to be modest but," Harry said quickly, "But I most of the time had help-"
"Not with the dementors you didn't" someone said.
"Right but-" Harry went on.
"Nor during your first task," one of his chasers said with a smile. "That was some wicked flying-"
"I know but-"
"Don't tell us you're trying to weasel out of teaching us," Zachariah said in the most obnoxious tone of voice that had both Sam and I square up in our chairs. But it was Ron who spoke.
"Here's an idea, why don't you shut your mouth."
"I was only trying to clarify," Zachariah said quickly, in a flush. "He said he wasn't going to teach us-"
"That wasn't what he said," Fred cut in, turning on the guy with a look of interest that I recognized from past experiences with my own brother.
"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" George asked as my brother, who had suddenly come upon a bag filled with jokester merchandise, began pulling out a long wire like contraption from its depths.
"Or any part of your body, really," Fred went on casually. "We don't care where we stick this."
Zachariah bleached at the sight and quickly shook his head, making the terrible threesome pause.
"Yes well," Hermione went on hastily. "Are we in agreement that we all want to take lessons from Harry?" There was a mummer of agreement as all of us came to our own conclusions.
After a further conversation from Hermione on how a time and a place would be next on the agenda, Hermione drew up a quill and parchment and asked that we all sign our names.
"But what if Umbridge were to come across this paper?" One of the Ravenclaws asked suspiciously.
"I assure you, I will put measures into making sure this paper is away from wandering hands," Was all Hermione had to say to make the rest of us line up.
I didn't realize at the time just how much I was signing on to as I gracefully lined my signature. But after I handed the quill onto the next person in line, I felt like I had done the right thing. And that is all that matters.
-
Hi all,
I think I've gotten my groove back (damn well finally)
I'll post again on Sunday. Until then :)
-WG-