The four of us were standing on the bridge connecting Hogwarts to the grounds, simply to get out of the castle for a little bit. Even on days like today, when it was cold and misty and wet, it was a great, quiet place for us all to take a break.
"You did everything you could," Weasley was trying to make Potter feel better. Even a week after the little incident where Umbridge found out we were directly disobeying her right under her nose, Potter still felt guilty and always looked distant. "No one could win against that old hag."
"Even Dumbledore didn't see this coming," Hermione added.
"If it's anyone's fault, it's our's," I said quietly. Potter looked at me and my body went numb. We had barely acknowledged each other since Christmas, and now he was looking straight at me. I was immensely relieved when Hermione started talking again.
"Yeah, we talked you into it," she said.
"But I agreed," he tore his eyes away from me. "I tried so hard to help, and all it's done is make things worse." He swallowed and went back to looking out at the depressing landscape. "Anyways, that doesn't matter anymore. I don't want to pretend anymore. All it does is make you care too much, and the more you care, the more you have to loose."
We were all silent for a moment at his words. I had a feeling he wasn't just talking about Dumbledore's Army as a whole anymore, and I had a sinking suspicious he was thinking about me.
Then there was an extremely loud, not so secretive "Psst" from around the corner of the bridge. We whipped around to see Hagrid, attempting and failing to hide himself. Not only was his body double the size of most full-grown adults, but it was hard to miss his still-bruised face and bushy, unbrushed hair.
He gestured for us to follow him, and we threw confused glances at each other before we let him lead us into the Forbidden Forest. With the mixture of the fog and it nearly being night, it was almost impossible to see through the trees. Hermione lit her wand, but it barely made any difference.
At one point I tripped over a tree root and Potter caught my arm right before I face planted into the mud. I looked up to thank him, but when I did our faces were way too close and my skin was burning where he was touching me and I was very much aware of Weasley and Hermione behind us.
I ripped my arm out of his hand and continued after the oblivious Hagrid, ignoring my warm face and rapidly beating heart. If that happened every time he touched me, I might have to move to a different country.
"Any idea where he's taking us?" Weasley mumbled.
"Hagrid, why can't you just tell us?" I asked, hot and bothered. Before he could answer there was a the sound of a horse neighing, and then a rumbling sound like a stampede was coming through. Between the trees in front of us I saw flashes of centaurs hurtling by.
"I've never seen the centaurs so riled," Hagrid commented, ignoring my question. "And they're dangerous at the best of times. If the Ministry restricts their territory much more they're gonna have a full uprising on their hands."
"Hagrid, what's going on?" Hermione asked firmly, but I could hear the fear in her voice.
"I'm sorry to be so mysterious, you four," he apologized. "I- I wouldn't be bothering you at all with it, but... with Dumbledore gone..." he took a deep, shaky breath. "I'll likely be gettin' the sack any day now. And I just couldn't leave without telling someone about him."
As if on cue, there were lumbering footsteps from our left. At first I thought a huge, clumpy, twelve-foot-tall mound of dirt was stumbling towards us. Then I realized it was something even better—a giant. A real life giant, with a big lumpy body, a small crooked head, and wearing what seemed to be a tattered brown jacket and a dirty kilt. An interesting fashion statement.
"Grawpy?" Hagrid called. The giant didn't even look in his direction. Bird chirped in terror as Grawpy waved his hand through the branches of a monstrous tree about as tall as him. "Down here, you great buffoon!"
When Grawpy turned his eyes immediately locked on Weasley. He clapped his hands the size of trash can lids over Weasley's head, and probably would have crushed all of our skull if we hadn't ducked just in time. The bird Grawpy had just tried to catch squawked and flew away as fast as its tiny wings would allow.
Hagrid gasped like a disappointed parent after seeing their toddler drew on the walls. "Oh, Grawpy..." he scolded. "I brought you some company." Grawpy looked disappointedly at his empty hands, and then began stomping toward us extremely quickly with no warning. The four of us tripped backwards, and I was about to yell at Hagrid to do something when Grawpy stopped short.
He was tied to the thick trunks of one of the trees. It was a long rope, but he was still trapped. "I couldn't just leave him because..." Hagrid began. I steeled myself. Had Hagrid felt sorry for him? Maybe he'd looked at the giant and thought, Fang can finally have a playmate!
Instead he said, "...because he's my brother."
"Blimey," was Weasley's weak response.
"Well, half-brother, really," Hagrid corrected himself, like that cleared it up. Grawpy bent down and put his face right up close to us. "Completely harmless, just like I said!" Hagrid assured loudly as we started to back up again. "Little high-spirited is all."
I tried to move but a huge, fallen tree was blocking my path. Grawpy grinned and picked me up in his fist. I let out a yelp and tried to kick punch his fingers. Then I figured that wasn't the best idea if he decided to drop me.
"Grawpy, that is not polite!" Hagrid waggled his finger up in the air.
"Hagrid, do something!" Potter shouted.
"We talked about this. You do not grab, do you?" Hagrid was trying to calmly say, but even he looked worried. "That's your new friend, Alexandra." Obviously Grawpy was not meant to be cooped up in a forest, nor was he meant to be taught like a child.
Hermione tried to run forwards and hit his leg with a branch, but Grawpy only kicked her backwards.
I did the only thing I could think to do. "Grawp!" I yelled, pointing my finger in his face. His smile dropped. "Put me down." My voice shook with fear, but he must have taken it for anger because his grip on me loosened. "Now." I demanded. He grunted sadly and slowly lowered me to the ground.
Potter grabbed my arm immediately and pulled me back to them. I hugged my arms around myself tightly and watched as Grawpy turned away miserably and began to rummage through a pile of scrap metal behind him.
"Are you alright?" Potter asked.
"Fine," I said, not willing to take my eyes off the giant again. "He just needs a firm hand, is all."
"I think you've got yourself an admirer," Weasley observed as Grawpy came back holding the broken off handle bars of a bicycle. He crouched down, so now he was only a few feet taller than us, and rung the little bell on the side. He handed it to me and I took it from him hesitantly.
I looked at Hagrid, and when he nodded hopefully I rung the bell. Grawpy's face broke into another grin, and he went back to tormenting the birds in the trees happily.
"He gets his own food and all," Hagrid said. "It's company he'll need when I'm gone. You will look after him, won't you? I'm the only family he's got."
I watched Grawpy pick the bicycle handles back up and start ringing the bell again. And again. And again. I smiled. Grawpy was our least difficult problem, and he might be growing on me just a little bit.
I had been walking down the corridors when I noticed a little boy in Gryffindor robes crying on one of the stone benches. He can't have been any older than twelve, and his hand was raw and red. My heart broke watching his small body shake with sobs.
"Hey," I whispered, sitting down next to him. "What's your name?"
"Michael," he replied, voice watery.
"Your hand's gonna be fine Michael," George said from in front of us. I looked up in shock. I hadn't even heard the twins. They knelt down on either side of Michael, saying encouraging things to him. His crying only got worse.
"It's not as bad as it seems," Fred promised.
"See? It's fading already," I said, taking his hand and examining it. That wasn't exactly true, but when I wiped the blood away with the sleeve of my shirt it looked a little less terrible.
"You can hardly see ours anymore," George added, holding up his hand. "And the pain stops after a while."
There was a little girlish "Ahem," from my right. I looked over to see Umbridge standing in her new pink headmistress robes, hands clasped in front of her tightly. She was smiling, actually smiling, as she watch a child cry in pain because of her. This woman was a different kind of crazy.
Potter came from the opposite end of the corridor, and I knew he was grateful when the twins and I came forward to stand with him.
"As I told you once before, Mr. Potter, naughty children deserve to be punished," she said, and then turned around smugly. I could hear her pink heels clicking on the stone floor for a long time after she left. It made me so angry that Dumbledore would just abandon the school and leave us with her. He had to have know what he was doing, but I already didn't like whatever his reasoning was.
"You know, George, I've always felt our futures lay outside the world of academic achievement," Fred said thoughtfully as the sound of Umbridge's footsteps faded.
"Fred, I've been thinking exactly the same thing," George replied, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
"Goodnight, you two," they said in unison, maybe even a little teasingly, and left to bring Michael back to the common room. I had heard that someone figured out dilated Bubotuber pus soothed the cuts, and apparently it was spreading around the castle fast, thank Merlin.
Then I realized I was left alone in a corridor with Potter, and withdrew my gratitude to Merlin.
"Well, goodnight," I tried to leave, but Potter just sighed.
"Alexandra," he said simply. His voice was so quiet, I could have pretended like I hadn't heard him. But the tiredness in his voice made me want to run into his arms and hug him. I couldn't stop myself from turning to look at him, no matter how loudly my brain screamed for me to run away like my life depended on it.
Which it probably did, because I wasn't sure it was healthy for a person's body heat to be this high.
He looked nervous, like he was scared I was going to bolt if he didn't start talking soon. "I hate this," he finally rushed out. "I can't-"
"I can't either," I arched an eyebrow.
"But I also want-"
"Me too," I agreed reluctantly. "So now what?"
"Well, I don't know," he said defensively. "You're the smart one here."
"Oh, I'm the smart one," I scoffed. "That's funny."
"Well you are!"
"I can't produce a corporeal Patronus. Even Weasley can produce a real one," I sighed.
"That doesn't mean you're not smart," he argued.
"It just means I'm having an academic challenge that has nothing to do with using my brain?" I asked.
"Exactly," he said. I laughed. "Well, no," he admitted. "You just aren't thinking of a powerful enough memory."
"Maybe I don't have a powerful enough memory," I said, trying to sound light, but I was voicing a real fear. What if, after fifteen years, I still didn't have a single memory from my life happy enough to protect me. The more I thought about it, the more awful it sounded.
"You can't not have a happy enough memory. Everyone has a happy enough memory," Potter insisted.
"Well then maybe I should make one," I offered, my heartbeat speeding up again.
"Make one h-" he began to ask, but I cut him off with a kiss. That effectively shut him up. This kiss was different from our first one. It was softer and lighter and more hesitant, like if either of us did one thing wrong it would all shatter.
When I pulled away from him his cheeks were bright red and his eyes were wide. "Oh." His voice sounded an octave higher than usual. I almost laughed.
"You think it worked?" I asked.
"No," he breathed. "I think we have to do it again."
"Well I don't want to be too happy," I smiled. "It'll ruin my reputation."
He put his hand in my hair and pushed my face to his again. I put my hands on either side of his face, wanting to make sure this wasn't a dream. It wasn't. I was really kissing Harry Potter, sincerely, not on a random surge of confidence and impulse and stupidity.
I decided that this was something I wanted to do more often.
When I felt his other hand begin to slowly slide down to my waist, that was when I was scared so badly I think my soul separated from my body for a second. The bell over the speakers rang so loudly, I flinched as it hit my ears.
"It is 6:00 curfew," Umbridge's voice rang throughout the castle. "Everyone please go back to your respected dormitories. Anyone who is found outside of their common room in the next five minutes will be sent directly to the headmistress's office."
I put a hand to my heart and couldn't help but let out a laugh. "The famous Harry Potter can't even kiss a girl without getting interrupted by curfew."
"Oh, be quiet," he scoffed.
"We should go, though," I said. "If Filtch finds us out here..."
"Mm," he hummed in agreement, and we walked in silence back to the common room. It wasn't awkward silence, but it wasn't exactly comfortable either. I was about to say anything I could think of when he nudged me.
"Hey!" I said, grinning. "I'm supposed to do it first."
"Well, you weren't going to, so I figured I should," he replied easily.
I looked right into his eyes, and my breath was momentarily taken away. He was so undeniably gorgeous, it hurt.
"Trying to get me to snog you again?" He asked teasingly.
"I think it's the other way around, Potter," I said, a smile slowly forming on my face.
"Oh, you do now, do you?" He asked, eyebrows raised hilariously, as we stepped through the portrait hole.
"I do, in fact, do," I responded.
"You do?"
"I do."
"You really really do-"
"Huh. They're back to normal again," Weasley said observantly from the couch next to us.
I crossed my arms over my chest and stared him down. "What's that supposed to mean, Weasley?"
"Definitely back to normal," Hermione agreed, but she had a knowing glint in her eye. I could interpret it fine: What happened? Please tell me what I hope happened.
I nodded. She laughed and sprang up, running over to Ginny. She said something inaudible to her, and the two girls grabbed each others hands and jumped up and down. Then Hermione stormed over, her face dropping just as fast as it had appeared.
"If you make even one little slip up, I swear Harry Potter..." she threatened, poking her finger at his chest. He backed up and bumped into a first year. Potter and Weasley's faces both looked petrified. Honestly, I didn't blame them.
"Woah," he held up his hands in surrender. "How did you... she just nodded!"
"I'm just excited I won the bet against Fred and George," Ginny commented, grabbing my arm and dragging me up to the girl's dormitory, Hermione following close behind.
I turned around and opened my mouth to say something to Potter, like maybe sorry for Hermione threatening his life or something, but everything was so much better now that we were good again—better than good, actually—I could only beam.
When we were halfway up the stairs Ginny called over to the twins, "You owe me ten galleons! Each!"
They glared at Potter. "Come on, Harry," George grumbled.
"You couldn't have waited one more month?" Fred asked exasperatedly, throwing his hands in the air.
"What, did you get the entire Gryffindor tower to bet on my love life?" I asked Ginny.
"Only half," she replied cheekily.
"Yeah, McGonagall was in on it too," Hermione added.
"I hate you guys."