Gemma ran as fast as she could across the platform, not daring to stop for a single second, even when she knocked shoulders with some Ravenclaw boy, making him drop his book. She didn't stop until she caught sight of Ted. He saw her too, and waved, a massive grin on his face, at which point she practically attacked him with a massive hug.
'Hi,' He laughed.
'Hi,' she mumbled into his shoulder.
'Bad week?'
'Mhm.'
'Want to talk about it?'
'No. But it was lonely. And boring. And there was too much studying and too little fun.'
'Damn.' They pulled away, and she hugged Luke and Iz, who were smiling at her. Iz's bruise had yet to fade, but Gemma barely noticed that, because Iz had changed her entire look, yet again. Her recently bleached hair had been reverted back to its original mousy brown, and her dark and bold makeup had been drastically reduced to the point where it was barely there.
'I know,' Iz sighed once she caught Gemma staring. 'But after... Easter... I had an epiphany!'
'Epiphany?' Gemma questioned, as she began to haul her trunk onto the train.
'If you could even call it that,' Luke muttered, somehow managing to lift his own trunk onto the train effortlessly, despite his skinny arms.
'What was your epiphany?' Gemma questioned, finally succeeding in her strenuous task, and dragging the brown suitcase to find a compartment, her friends following.
'I don't know,' Iz groaned, 'and that's the problem. I really thought this would help, but now I'm just confused and ugly.'
'I don't think your ugly,' Ted said immediately.
'Well, I wasn't talking to you.'
Gemma finally found a compartment that was relatively empty, spare for one small Hufflepuff boy. They were quite content to share with him, but his eyes widened in fear the moment he saw Ted, and he bolted out.
'Wait!' Ted called out, 'I'm a nice guy, really!'
'You weren't very nice when you were hexing his housemate half to death,' Luke pointed out.
'I genuinely don't know what came over me,' Ted protested. 'I mean, I barely even remember half the spells I used... and I felt so bad afterwards, I swear-'
'He had it coming,' Iz said, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder, as she saw a brooding mood coming over him.
'Yeah,' Gemma agreed. 'We all get annoyed sometimes.'
'Best to take it out on Hufflepuffs who hurt your friends,' Luke agreed.
'Or Hufflepuffs in general,' Iz shrugged. Ted laughed, and so did Iz. Conveniently, the Death Eater squad chose that moment to swagger right in.
'Izzy-poo!' Avery said, as he, Mulciber and Snape intruded on their peace. Mulciber winked at Gemma and she made a face at him. Never again with this guy, she thought, shuddering at the idea of it.
'Hello,' Iz said, looking Avery squarely in the face as he stood frozen in shock.
'I- you- what happened to you?' He asked. He seemed aghast, but not quite that, Gemma reckoned he was only in shock.
'What do you mean?' Iz asked calmly. 'Do you not like it?'
'I-' Avery gulped, not quite knowing what to say. 'I do. You- I- you look.. nor-re-normal, I guess?'
There was a steely silence.
'Idiot,' Snape said sullenly. 'Even I know better than to say that.'
'I see,' Iz said icily. She stood up, and came very close to Avery, who did his very best not to step back in fear.
Then, she unclasped the bracelet he had given her for Valentine's Day, grabbed his hand, and placed the jewellery in the palm of it.
'I don't need your approval,' she said evenly. 'Lately I have been doing some thinking. I did not enjoy it, but I realised that I do not like you, Avery, because you are mean and dumb and ugly and I deserve much better than you.'
'You think you can throw judgement around?' Avery said, shaking his head. 'You are superficial, Isolde Greengrass. You only really used me for snogging and shagging.'
'And you couldn't even do that,' Iz said coldly. 'Couldn't even satisfy my one need. And don't pretend you didn't just like me because I was hot.' She stepped away from him, and eyed him up and down, before sitting back down again in her seat.
'Oh, and by the way,' she said, 'I hate the colour gold. If Ted could remember it, I don't see why you couldn't have.'
'So what are you saying?' Avery asked quietly.
'I'm dumping your ass,' she said, as though he were dumb. 'Again.' She looked away, dismissing him, and he left silently, without another word. His friends left too, Mulciber sighed loudly and followed, complaining about how Avery would be in a bad mood now and blah blah blah. Snape just looked bored, as usual.
'That was harsh,' Gemma said quietly once they'd left. Not that they boy didn't deserve it, But Iz's spite had surprised her.
'Please. You don't think I know the disgusting things he says about other girls? He isn't worth my time. I have a business to focus on.' She leaned back in her seat, and Luke went back to reading.
'Does that mean I have a chance?' Ted said hopefully.
'No.'
.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.
Dinner was an uneventful affair. They had been informed that Penhurst had been replaced by some yob called Yaxley. He seemed like a yob, anyway, and she'd liked Penhurst. He was chill, so she could get away with sleeping or messing in class.
Gemma had caught sight of Regulus, and she noticed he looked more serious than last year. He didn't converse with Mulciber or Avery or even Snape, and he didn't quite have that swaggering air around him; instead he was sitting quietly with Elladora, nodding occasionally at something she said. Gemma hadn't gone to greet him, even though they'd left on good terms before Easter. Every time she looked at him, all she could think of was the fact that he was literally betrothed to someone else. She shook her head at herself. He didn't have a choice. No need to be bitter about it.
Meeting him in Common Room however, proved to be inevitable, as they needed to discuss Quidditch Practise schedules that he was yet to set, and he always wanted a second opinion with it, distrusting Avery and Mulciber to help him genuinely.
'Hello,' Regulus said, as he approached her. He nodded at her in greeting.
'Hi,' she said, nodding back, careful to come across cold and composed. She absolutely could not be friends with him now, and she definitely could not allow herself to act on her small crush.
'I- I missed you,' he softly.
Ah, fuck that.
'I missed you too!' She blurted, wrapping her arms around him. He was extremely taken aback by this, but soon responded by doing the same, resting his forehead against hers.
'How were your holidays?' She asked out of reflex. She cursed herself silently. Oh yeah, his holidays were great, he got inaugurated to join the cult of psycho blood supremacists.
'Shit,' he said, a small laugh escaping him. 'It was absolute shit.' She laughed too, catching on to his reference. They were so close together, closer than they'd been in a long time, and she found herself staring at his eyes. They were quite interesting; basically colourless, but icy blue around the edges.
She finally caught a grip on herself, and fighting the urge to sigh, pushed him away gently.
'Ehm... have you? Er? Y-you know?' She found herself fumbling to form a coherent sentence.
'No,' he sighed, running a hand through his curly black hair, which had grown quite a lot, and had it been straighter, would have quite closely resembled Sirius'. 'I am yet to come up with the quidditch schedule.'
'I can help,' she said immediately. 'We have a match against Gryffindor in two weeks, so we could plan tactics too, and practise everyday, morning an eveni-'
'Hold on there,' he interrupted, smiling thinly. 'We need to give people time to study. And by people, I mean us, we have our O.W.Ls way too soon.'
'I know that,' she said irritably. 'And they- we- you can study after the match.'
Suddenly, they were approached by Mulciber and Avery.
'We're dropping,' he announced. Regulus and Gemma stared at them.
'What?' Gema demanded.
'From the team. Ain't got time for dumb quidditch,' Avery sneered. 'And you should do the same, Black.'
'You'll fail no matter what,' Mulciber told Gemma. She made a face at him.
'But we'll lose without you for sure,' Regulus said. 'Your subs are absolutely awful... we can never match Potter and Sirius with them!'
'We can,' she interrupted. She did not want the two older boys to think they were indispensable, and didn't like the air of confidence they had about them. 'I have some plans.'
'What are they?'
'Practising twice a day.'
Regulus sighed and shook his head.
'Have you gotten better at magic?' Regulus asked her.
'Is that a rhetorical question?' She asked, rolling her eyes. 'Of course I bloody haven't.'
'You need to be able to do spells though. Charms, Transfiguration and DADA are all practical subjects; you'll fail them if you can't perform any spell.'
'I know,' she snapped. 'Which why I'm focusing all my attention on other stuff that doesn't, like Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Divi-'
'But Charms and Transfiguration are essentials,' he pushed. 'You need them for basically everything.'
'I know, okay?' She snapped. 'But there isn't anything I can bloody do about it.'
'I think you could learn a spell, if you tried hard enough,' he said. 'Like, the Patronus charm. You can do that.'
'It took me a year to produce a wisp of light.'
'But you only need one for each Charms and Transfiguration, that'll be enough to scrape an Acceptable,' he pointed out. 'I'll teach you one tonight. I'm not tired anyway.'
'Why?' She asked suspiciously, 'Why are you helping me?' He paused before answering.
'Because I want to be friends again,' he said finally. 'Because I don't think we'll be able to in the future. In fact, we might die tomorrow because some piano falls out of the sky and crushes us.'
'Delightful.'
'So, let's just... do everything we want to do. Let's start living like we're going to die.'
'I like this new version of Regulus Black. Carefree, not moody-'
'- amazing, hot, ladies- magnet,' he concluded, giving her a light smirk, to which she rolled her eyes.
They practised for around an hour and a half- with relatively no success, though he remained optimistic, at which point Regulus said he needed to go and find Elladora, and Gemma followed his gaze to see Macnair- who had also been at the ball, and was likely a Death Eater- seemed to be getting annoyed at her absence. So did the cult have to all stick together now or what?
She thanked Regulus, getting butterflies when he gave her his signature 'winning' smile, and then becoming suspicious when he gave her a knowing look before parting. He knew exactly what he was doing.
She went upstairs to find everyone asleep, and almost immediately dozed off herself after kicking off her shoes and throwing on a loose t-shirt and shorts, fatigue from the long journey setting in, temporarily escaping her troubles when entering the land of dreams, that she was finally safe from the problems that followed her when she was awake.