THE CHOSEN ONE'S CHOSEN GIRL - BOOK 1
chapter fourteen !
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WHEN we walked into Defence Against the Dark Arts on Monday afternoon, I, along with everyone else in our class, was ecstatic to see that Dad was back in action and looking moderately healthy. I hadn't managed to see him after I told him what had happened to Harry at the Quidditch match because he insisted that I spend some time with my friends for the rest of the weekend. I felt awful for leaving him, but he promised he'd be okay and that I needed to have time with people my own age. Who was I to argue? So I spent the whole weekend with Fred and George as well as Seamus and Dean with small increments of popping into the Hospital Wing to see Harry. Fred and George hadn't missed the kiss on the cheek I'd given Harry, and, like older brothers would, they had teased me endlessly for it, but I'd said that it was just on impulse and that it didn't mean anything. Except it did. It meant a lot. I'd accepted that I might've had a small crush on the Potter boy, but I couldn't tell anyone. Anyone and everyone would make fun of me. The new girl had a crush on the Boy-Who-Lived. I could hear the taunts now.
Harry couldn't know.
But, as soon as everyone saw Dad standing at the front of the room, they all exploded in complaints about the work Professor Snape had set, and I saw the fear in his eyes when he heard that Professor Snape had decided to teach them about werewolves. I furrowed my eyebrows at that. Why was he so scared? Of course, Professor Snape wouldn't try to out us, would he?
"Did you tell Professor Snape we haven't covered them yet?" he asked with a frown, and that made the class cry out again, making him smile as he saw the anger on everyone's faces. "Don't worry. I'll speak to Professor Snape. You don't have to do the essay."
I knew it. I grinned triumphantly as I looked back at Harry and Ron, and they both smiled back, the three of us exchanging a look at Hermione's crestfallen face when she revealed that she'd already done it. I told her not to bother with it!
If Harry had felt awkward about me kissing his cheek, he didn't show it. In fact, he greeted me with a shy smile when I visited him after dinner that night, and it was like nothing happened. We joked and laughed loudly with just the two of us, and I loved it. Harry was one of my best friends, and I would've hated myself if I destroyed that with that stupid kiss. I was never going to do that again. It was so risky.
As Dad started talking about Hinkypunks, which was a very odd smoky one-legged creature, I felt a tap on my shoulder and hesitantly turned to see Harry grinning at me with a folded-up note in his hand. Sneaking a glance at Dad, I rolled my eyes at my bespectacled best friend and took the note from him, quickly turning around to face Dad and unfolding the parchment under my desk.
Want me to punch Malfoy for what he did at lunch? He deserves it.
Oh, and we're meeting Hagrid later, he really wants to see you. Please come?
Hiding my chuckles, I turned the note over and scribbled down my response. Lunch was an... Interesting hour today. I was running late because Professor Snape had wanted to discuss the potential of setting me up with a tutor to go over the theory side of Potions because I was struggling. Pleased at his, apparently very odd, concern, I told him that I would just ask Hermione for her help because I didn't know anyone smarter than her, and she always seemed so willing to help me. The Potions Master gave a slight sneer about this but relented nonetheless, and I promised him that I'd try harder too before I walked out of the classroom to see Draco waiting for me. He walked me to the Great Hall, and I didn't know what happened. He just got so close when we were finishing our conversation, and his eyes were piercing into mine like he was searching me. I felt a tad uncomfortable, but he was my friend. I didn't want to be rude. Then I felt him press his lips against mine and his fingers traced the scars on my chest. Those two actions just made me even more uncomfortable, so I stepped back wordlessly and left him standing there, rushing to find my friends and eat some food. So Draco Malfoy stole my first kiss. Hermione, obviously, immediately knew something wasn't right, so she asked me what was wrong, and I knew she'd know I was lying if I said it was nothing. At this point, she knew me almost too well. So I told her and the boys what had happened, and I had to grab Harry to stop him from doing something stupid to the Malfoy boy. Both he and Ron looked like they were going to kill him if Hermione and I weren't careful. Not looking back, I held my hand out behind me and felt Harry pluck the note out of my hand.
Just leave it, Haz. I'm fine, honestly, and I don't want you getting detention because of me.
And of course I'll come with you to Hagrid's! Like I'd ever say no. Idiot.
So, after Dad's lesson (and Dad promising to give Harry anti-Dementor lessons), the four of us grabbed our cloaks and rushed down to Hagrid's hut, Hermione continuously babbling about our homework. I knew this was just so that I wasn't thinking about what Draco had done, but it had the opposite effect. I should've known that Draco liked me more than a friend. He always complimented me and went out of his way to help me as though he knew I was struggling. At first, I thought it was just because I saved him from the hippogriff but now, it all made sense. I hadn't completely hated the kiss either. It just wasn't how I wanted my first kiss to go. I imagined going on a date first or doing something equally romantic. I wanted the tension, the build-up before we both wanted to close the gap between us. I didn't want my first kiss to be with someone I didn't like romantically, let alone have it be taken from me without warning. I shook my head to dispel my thoughts. There was nothing I could do now. I had my first kiss and... That was that. This was when I felt a hand push my back. I stumbled and turned to see Pansy Parkinson, her face contorted with anger. I sighed.
"You need to stay away from Draco, Loopy Lupin." she sneered, crossing her arms.
"Pansy, if you saw it, you must know that he kissed me. It was never the other way round."
"I don't care." she spat, making a face at how polite I was. "You've been talking to him a lot, and you've got him under some stupid oath after you saved him from that bloody bird. That's why he kissed you, Gryffindor scum. So stay away from him."
"As I said, he keeps coming to talk to me. I'm not going to be rude and tell him to go away."
"Oi!" I heard be shouted behind us, and the five of us turned to see Hagrid walking towards his hut from the Forest, Pansy's sneer growing. "Aren' yeh s'posed ter be in detention with Professor Sprout, Parkinson?"
She scowled, muttering about Hagrid not having any rights to tell her what to do, and stormed off, making me sigh again. With a grateful smile, I walked towards Hagrid with the trio in tow, and he grinned down at us.
"Got summat fer yeh, Odessa," he said as he led us into the house, and I furrowed my eyebrows, sharing a look with the others as we sat down. "Ear'y Christmas present."
"Oh, Hagrid." I scolded lightly. "You didn't have to."
He chose to ignore this and immediately went over to a box he had in the corner, bending over it, as Harry, Ron, Hermione and I took our cloaks off. I watched as Hermione made a beeline to the kettle to boil it.
"Where... Ah! There yeh are!" he muttered and stood straight again, turning to face me with a brown parcel in his large hands. "One o' yer mum's friends sent it ter me when You-Know-Who disappeared ter give ter yeh when yeh got ter Hogwarts."
This was from my mum's friend? Noting the trio's curious looks as he passed the package to me, I bit my lip and gently ripped the paper off to reveal the back of a wooden photo frame. Intrigued, Ron leaned towards me to see what it was, and I flipped the frame over to see a photo of a group of six teenage girls laughing and throwing their arms around each other. They were all so stunning. The girl on the far left was laughing the hardest out of all of them as the blonde girl beside her was staring at her with huge eyes full of mirth as if she told the world's funniest joke. On the other side of the frame, the first thing I noticed was a pair of bright green eyes that I knew too well. They, too, were crinkled up in laughter as the girl whooped and threw her left arm in the air. Harry's mum. Of course it was. I'd seen so many photos of her over the years. Then, beside her were two girls who looked like they were completely and utterly in love. The girl right beside Lily seemed to be blushing as she smiled at the grass, and her girlfriend was staring at her with such soft eyes, I had to stop myself from swooning, and I didn't even know who they were. Then, right next to the couple was Mum.
Every time I saw a photograph of her, I thought she was more beautiful than before. But... Seeing her wearing a uniform that was so identical to mine made me want to burst into tears. I'd never seen any photos of her at Hogwarts. They'd always been when she and Dad spent the summer holidays together or at James and Lily's wedding or, more often than not, when I was a baby. I couldn't believe just how beautiful she really was. Like the rest of her friends, she was laughing hysterically before she obviously saw someone behind the camera and ran off, her hands forming some kind of gesture. She must have seen Dad.
This, along with my necklace, was my most prized possession now.
"Thank you, Hagrid." I croaked, laying the frame on the table.
He smiled shyly, turning red under his haywire-beard, and muttered something about his vegetables before he exited his hut and the trio looked at the frame too. I smiled and wiped my face. I really needed that.
"You look so much like her, Odessa," Hermione whispered.
Exchanging a look with Harry when he tore his gaze away from his mother, we rolled our eyes and grinned before I saw Ron frowning slightly as he watched my mum run out of the frame.
"Why is she signing?" he asked.
Furrowing my brows, I took the frame off of him and looked back at my mum. So that gesture was sign language? That seemed rather odd. Why would she be signing? Nonetheless, I shrugged and slipped my frame into my robes as I sipped from the huge teacup, watching Hagrid pull giant carrots from the ground.
Dad would know, I'd ask him.