Chapter 14
No matter what I was doing, he always seemed to trickle into my thoughts. So much for getting over my feelings for Fred, I could tell that wasn't going to happen. I had to find another way as the distance wasn't working, especially considering after what happened yesterday with Umbridge, Fred didn't leave my side and I never wanted him too.
It was just a day of him trying to make me smile as much as possible with jokes and stories, and hugs. One way or another he was touching me, I think he was trying to make up for lost time, or making sure I was really ok with it after the two weeks of uncalled for cold shoulder.
His brown eyes stole my attention as I stared out the window onto a quiet street in London, the street lights glowing a dim yellow flickering light onto the pavement as the night slowly stole away the last of the light.
"Charlotte" I heard Reginald call my name, snapping my attention back to reality, away from the red head that filled my desires.
"Hmm?" I asked, looking over to his tall frame. He was sitting on the frilly white couch with his legs crossed as he flicked through the magazine of the muggle that owned this house.
"We're about to interrogate a suspected death eater, you may want to pay attention to something like that. You bored?" he warned, although he said it with a smile so I knew he wasn't angry, only joking around. When it came to me accompanying Reginald on jobs like this, he was surprisingly relaxed, but I'd gotten used to it after the first few times.
He'd brought me to this little house on some unknown street of London as the ministry had received reports of a suspected death eater occupying a muggle home. Reginald volunteered for the job, and told me it was a good experience if he was really a death eater to know what one would be like. Little did he know I'd already met a few unfortunately.
"Of course not, got a little distracted is all" I replied, shrugging it off.
Reginald went to reply, but the clicking of the door being unlocked forced his words to be left unsaid. He rose from the couch just as the main entry door swung open, a rather tall man in a long black leather jacket strode in, his heavy boots making his appearance known.
As soon as he looked around the room, his eyes locked on us and his body started to disfigure as he began to aparate away.
"Ensigno!" I yelled, pointing my wand at the man and flicking my wrist in the correct way. The black smoke began to fade and the man's body came back into full form.
Reginald turned to me with a quick smile, "Well done Charlotte, I see you did your homework". I nodded back, keeping my focus on the spell I was casting. When I chose the spell to keep a person is suspended animation from the book of spells, I didn't realise I'd use it quite as soon.
"Sir, I only have a few questions" Reginald started. His wand was directed straight at the man, and a felt a little lighter as he took some of the weight of the spell.
"I don't have to answer them" the man replied with a glare.
"I think you do" Reginald replied, twisting his wand. The man let out a gasp of pain, and started huffing until Reginald untwisted his wrist.
"What do you want to know?" the man asked, his face red and sweat dripped down his forehead.
Reginald began questioning, and I knew as a part of my training, I should have been listening, but this man's face was so unique, it triggered a part of my memory, but it just wouldn't quite surface.
There was a scar that ran from his left eat to the corn of his mouth, garish and red. His eyes were completely black, no iris distinguishable among all the darkness, and his nose was askew quite obviously, like it had been broken too many times.
I stared at him, my eyes travelling his body. He was bulky and extremely muscly, he looked like he could break someone just by looking at them. His jacket was rolled to just above his wrist and a small amount of black ink showed as his muscles strained against the spell Reginald and I held over him.
That ink, I'd seen the start of it before, I swear. I stared and stared until just enough of his jacket shifted to reveal just a centremetre more. It was the head of a snake. The death eater mark.
"You may not be a very nice person, but you're not who I'm looking for. Let him go Charlotte" Reginald said, lowering his wand.
"No, Reg-"the spell was too weak for me to hold and the link was broken. "He's a death eater!" I yelled.
A wand slipped into the death eater hand from inside his jacket sleeve, and was aimed at me within seconds.
"Avada Ka-" he started but Reginald was faster. A bright white bolt of light shot from the end of Reginalds wand as he flew through the air in front of me, blocking the and deflecting the green stream of right light from the wand of the death eater.
A roar of pain escaped the death eaters lips, and he fell to his knees with a thud. His body contorted and disappeared in an instant, obviously not harmed enough to not aparate.
"Charlotte, are you hurt?" Reginald ask, looking up at me from his position on the ground. My eyes were wide and my mouth agape. He just tried to kill me. I could have died if it wasn't for Reginald saving my life.
Words wouldn't form, I couldn't string together a sentence in my head as the shock and the adrenaline pumped through my body. My brain wasn't ready to function.
Reginald was on his feet and once he deemed me unharmed, apparated us back to the ministry.
"I'm fine" I told him once the nausea disappeared from my stomach. "I was a bit shocked back there, but I'm fine".
"Are you sure?" Reginald asked, concern in his wrinkle framed eyes.
I sent him a small smile. "Sure, my heart's still beating a million miles a minute and the fact I could have died back there is still clear to me, but I am here and I am alive. I'm fine".
He smiled back. "Good. I believe you" Reginald replied.
We began to walk towards the elevators to take us back to his office, but I stopped before we could move really and asked, "Why did you let him go? He was a death eater?"
Reginald sighed and turned to me. "He wasn't a death eater Charlotte, just a very dangerous wizard who we will find and capture, but he wasn't with You-Know-Who." He began walked at a hurried pace, and I almost had to jog to keep up with him.
I shook my head, my eyebrows furrowing. "He was, I know he was. He had the mark and I remember him from the Daily Prophet. He was one of the ten that escaped from Azkaban!" I exclaimed.
"You were in the heat of the moment Charlotte, no one can blame you for seeing things that weren't there. There was no mark, and he certainly wasn't one of the ten. Every Auror has them memorised, I made sure of that" Reginald told me, stepping into the elevator. He didn't look concerned at all.
I didn't argue anymore as Reginald had a set look on his face. He strongly believed the man at the house wasn't a death eater, but I knew. I saw the mark. I knew his face.
I stayed silent all the way to his office, and while I filled out some paperwork to record the incident. Then Reginald congratulated me on my abilities and control of a scary situation and told me to head home. It was already past the normal time I returned to Hogwarts.
I thought to ask him again on the subject but from his reply earlier, I knew he would just disagree with me. Maybe he didn't see what I saw? He was on the man's other side, he mightn't of seen his mark, or even seen the scar? It was angled away from him.
The fireplaces came into view and an attendant handed me a glittery, silver powder.
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" I said loudly and clearly, throwing the powder on the burning fire. Bright green flames met me as I stepped into the fireplace, bringing a flash back of what happened only an hour earlier.
Reginald saved my life. The forbidden curse would have hit me if he hadn't have deflected the spell with one of his own. I hadn't even heard of the spell he had used.
I stumbled out of the fire place and into Dumbledore's office, well old office. His things were in packages and boxes, sheets thrown over his furniture. Umbridge had decided not to take over his office, leaving it as her office was already so nice and pink and cat like. Creepy was more of a description I would use. I descended the stair out of Dumbledore's office, and was met with the pink puffy witch herself.
"Where have you been?" she asked in her eerily pleasant tone that made my skin itch.
"Auror Reginald and I ran into a bit of trouble is all, you can clarify with him. I'm missing dinner though and I'm starving. May I go?" I asked her, already slowly side stepping her. She glared at me but walked off, her heels clicking loudly as she went.
I rolled my eyes. She didn't question me if I mentioned Reginald now. At first she threatened to end my internship with him, but he somehow managed to overrule her and Fudge allowed them to continue as it hadn't anything to do with Dumbledore's Army. She was furious, but now she just left me alone on that subject. If only she was a lenient with every other aspect of my life.
I walked into the great hall and looked around. Harry, Hermione and Ron were nowhere to be found, but Fred, George, Roze, Arianne, Grace, Ryan, Damien and Nick were laughing and eating, Cameron throwing a piece of chicken at Fred. It felt like it'd been forever since I'd seen any of them, so I hurried over, sitting in a spot between Ari and Ryan.
"Look who it is, what was your name again?" Ryan asked, eyeing me up and down.
I laughed and hit him softly on the shoulder. "I saw you in Charms yesterday", Ryan just gave me a look, and as I glanced around the table, so was everyone bar the twins and Roze. "I know I know, I'm sorry. Just with everything..." I sighed. Ryan put his arm around me.
"We know, its ok. But all of us are going to go and play some games tonight, sit by the fire, grab a pitcher of butter bear, and we're forgetting any homework. Just us tonight, ok? Ok" Ari told me, her French accent playing through. I missed this girl.
"Sounds like a perfect plan" I agreed. And that was it. I haven't laughed as hard as I had that night in months. Thoughts of exams, Umbridge, and all problems faded back to just a small little nagging voice in the back of my brain.
We laughed, we played muggle games, magical games and all in between. We told stories and I caught up with the antics of my closest friends. Sure I heard snippets of stories here and there in class or the few moments I got to see them out of class in the past moths, but hearing everything now made me realise just how busy I'd been.
Hours flew by as we sat by the fire, slowly the rest of the students of Gryffindor went to their dorms to sleep as tomorrow was Friday and still a school day, but we stayed up much past curfew. Grace and Ari braded my hair into two sides, and the boys made fun of them doing so. It was like old times.
"This night should never end" Damien sighed, a smile on his face. I nudged him with my foot.
"We'll do it again" I told him.
Cameron laughed, "Let's do it every night. Forget about school, it sucks anyway. Who needs homework" he joked. We all laughed, at him or with him, I don't know. Maybe both.
"Were you alright when you got back this evening Char? You seemed a bit out of it" Ari asked me, patting the braid she finished. Grace finished hers a few minutes ago.
"I'm alright now. It was a hectic day. This is exactly what I needed" I told her. All eyes were on me, knowing there was more to the story. They all knew me well enough by now that there was always more to the story. "A death eater tried to kill me with the killing curse actually..." I said. I was still convinced he was a death eater, whether Reginald believed me or not.
The girls gasped in my ear, while each of the boys had quite different reactions to each other. Cameron immediately asked "Are you ok?" Ryan eyes widen and he reached out to touch my leg, while Damien's eyes grew alarmed and angry. Fred and George looked at me in only the way they could, knowing I'd know exactly how they felt. Anger at me being in danger, concern for me and curiosity over what happened.
"I'm ok" I answered Cameron's question. "It was meant to be a simple interrogation, but it got out of hand. Reginald saved my life" I informed them.
"This is so dangerous what you're doing Charlotte" Roze told me. Ari and Grace's arms were around my waist, both of their heads resting on either of my shoulders.
"And it'll be dangerous when I'm doing it as a real job. This is the best training I could get" I said, shrugging. Grace and Ari's heads rose as well.
"You're so stubborn" She told me, a pout on her pretty face. I laughed.
"You've all known this for a very long time" I replied with a raised eyebrow.
She shrugged. "True".
Ryan yawned, setting off a string of yawns around the group. We all laughed. "I think it's time for bed" Cameron said sadly. I nodded. My eyes were heavy with exhaustion.
I stood up once Ari and Grace let go of me, standing up as well. I held my arms out and everyone squeezed in for a group hug.
"I love you guys" I murmured.
"Me too"
"I love you all"
"You too guys"
"Love, love, love" sung Ari.
"Me too"
"Love you guys"
"You too"
"We're family" Grace said in the end. I smiled at her and nodded.
"Family by choice" I agreed.
"And some by blood" Roze added, poking her tongue at her brothers. We all laughed.
"I need a shower!" Ari yelled, kissing my cheek hard and running up the stairs, away from the rest of us.
"She's going to steal my stuff, isn't she?" Grace asked, sighing and following her roommate up the stairs, yelling a goodnight behind her.
Roze gave everyone another hug, and told me she'd see me up there before disappearing as well.
"Night guys" Ryan said, giving me a hug and doing whatever weird handshake they'd come up with this month to Fred and George. The other two did the same as they all shared a room.
George than gave me a hug, then followed Cameron up the stairs, untying his shoelaces skilfully as they walked. I rolled my eyes at the little prankster. Well not so little. They were Fred and George after all.
"You've got an awfully big smile on your face" Fred told me. I turned back to him. He was smirking at me.
"I have very good reason" I replied with a shrug.
"I know you do" he said, and stepped forward. I snuggled my cheek into his chest, yelling internally at the stupid butterflies growing in my stomach. Bugger off!
"You're the best friend I ever could have asked for" Fred told me, and I smiled.
"Are you sure about that? After how I acted, I wouldn't have blamed you for never talking to me again" I told him, closing my eyes tightly. We'd both avoided this subject for almost 2 days.
"No matter what you do Char, you're one of my closest friends in the world, I couldn't survive without talking to you".
"Dramatic" I teased, but it filled my heart with happiness. My emotions just needed to calm down.
"Shoosh you" he laughed. His hand moved to the back of my head, hugging me tightly. "Whatever happened or happens, I'm here for you. You needed space, it was something else? I'm not going anywhere. I'm here to give you what you need. I love you."
"I love you too" I whispered. My heart tugged. Shut up. He hugged me for a few more moments, then pulled away.
"Goodnight Char" he whispered, kissing my forehead.
"Night Freddiekins" I replied. He just rolled his eyes at me, sent me a wink and walked up stairs.
I turned and walked up the opposite ones, going to my dorm to fall into a hopefully heavy sleep, and to not think about Fred at all in anyway...