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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
THE DREAM
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She found herself by the Black Lake. It was a sunny day, and looked as though it was the middle of the summer. She glances ahead and recognised a familiar face.
"Harry?" she says, walking towards him. He had been smiling. "What are you doing here?"
"Come on." he says, "Let's go."
No words could be said for the boy turns away and walks towards the castle. She follows him, but he walks faster.
"Harry, where are you going?" she asks, but she doesn't reply.
She follows him up a hill, (she didn't see this hill before,) she found it took her a long time to get up the hill, - there was a lot of things in the way, rocks, trees, bushes, - unlike him who had been there in seconds.
Eventually she does, he stops, and looks down at her.
"Why didn't you wait?" she asks.
"Why did it take you so long?"
Her brows furrow. "So long to what?" he gestures to the bottom of the hill. All the stuff was gone now, part of her forgot it was there. "Oh, well, I guess all that stuff was in the way."
"I think perhaps you're the one who was putting them all there."
She looks back down, and saw there was a clear path going up on the hill, yet she took the much longer one..
"Not on purpose-"
"Maybe because you're scared?" he interrupted, his eyebrows raising softly. She was getting more confused by the second. What was she scared of?
"Scared?" she repeated softly. "What would I be scared of?"
He steps forward, closing the space between them. Instantly her eyes widen - she was used to being rather close with him, but this time he was so close to her, they might as well have been hugging. He lifts his right hand, and places it on the side of her face. She told herself she wanted to pull away, she should have but she didn't want to.
"W-What are you doing, Har?"
"Can I show you?" he asks.
He didn't move, until she nods, and her eyes fall down to his lips.
He leans forward, and went to close the gap between them and the most surprising part was she also went too, she wanted to kiss him, and his brushed against hers-
The dream ended, for she woke up with a startle. Her hand went to her chest to try and stop the horrendous beating that occurred there.
What the bloody hell? She thought, what the actual fuck?
Right, so she knew it was just a dream but still. It was a dream like that...of Harry. Of course she had dreams before with him in them, but this one was quite a big difference. He was about to kiss her...or she was about to kiss him? That was something different.
She dreamt about them kissing.
The worst part was that when she woke up her first reaction was disappointment that the dream ended.
Her lips fall into a frown and she rubs her temples.
What was this?
Aurora glances at the clock on the wall, which read shortly past seven. Typically she wouldn't wake up this early, but considering she would have to be up soon she figured she might as well get dressed and go see Beckham before lessons started.
Once she was dressed, and had her hair done, she made her way down to Hagrid's Hut.
As she walked past the Great Hall, she was surprised to see so many students in there - including Luke who send her a smile. Did people get up this early? When she lived in Aleksander Mansion, she used to never sleep but since she left it was almost hard to wake up sometimes.
Maybe she was making up for all the sleepless nights she had there.
"Miss Black." a voice called, when she was just walking past the greenhouse. "Hem, hem Miss Black, did you not hear me?"
She turns around. "Hi, Professor Umbridge. It's a lovely day isn't it?"
"Indeed. I ask where are you off to this morning. I believe the Great Hall is that way? And you don't have permission to leave the grounds, do you?"
"I'm visiting Hagrid's gatekeeper, on the grounds. He has something of mine I need to get back." she tells her swiftly. "Now, I'll be on my way."
"Mr Hampton?"
"Beckham, yes. He was filling in whilst Hagrid was away in South France."
"Ah yes. I suppose since the typical gatekeeper," she paused , "Hagrid, has returned there is no need for Mr Hampton to stick around. One could say he is no longer needed."
The second the words left her lips all she wanted to do was take out her wand and jinx the life out of the woman. It was like she was trying to take away every last bit of happiness Aurora had left in her. The worst part was the fact she was High Inquisitor and had the power to do it.
She tried to stay calm. "Personally, I need him for several things."
"I believe it's in your best interest if you stop leaving the grounds to visit him. I have noticed you haven't attended many of your lessons over the last few weeks, and have been seen leaving the castle by Filch. Is this true?"
"If I said no, would you believe me?"
Umbridge did not reply to her question, only continued. "I will have to do an assessment of Mr Hamptons position here, at Hogwarts. For the time being you will stay in the castle and are no longer permitted to leave-"
"You can't be serious?" she interrupted. "Now you're banning me from leaving the castle?"
"I only want what is best. The Ministry of Magic believes that the best approach for-"
"Well you can tell the Ministry of Magic to die." she replied, and without a second thought she turned on her heel and started to walk away.
"Miss Black, I'll see you in detention this afternoon after dinner. Now, I'm going to advise you not to leave this castle." her tone changed. "Or this time there will be much bigger consequences."
Aurora continued to walk out of the grounds not listening to the woman's words. She walked straight down to Hagrid's Hut, passing the giant on the way, until she spotted Beckham who was in the garden.
Beckham picked her hand up, and pressed a kiss to her knuckle. "Bonjour, ma belle. I'm happy to see you. You don't have lessons?"
She smiles. "No - well yes but not for another hour, what are you doing for the day?"
"Nothing much, Hagrid has done a lot of work since he got back. So I'm not really doing anything, he doesn't really need me around much anymore." he sighed. "What's wrong?"
"You're not leaving, are you?"
He frowned. "I hope not. I want to stay but Umbridge was down here the other day inquiring about me. Think she might find a way to get me fired. Plus if Hagrid does not pass his inspection then I reckon I'll be going too."
She replicated his frown. "I don't want you to leave."
"Neither do I. We'll work away around this though."
She spent the next half an hour with him, before heading back up to the castle. She headed towards the Herbology greenhouse.
She opened the door, and closed it softly.
"Miss Black." Sprout did not look up from the book. "With everything that's going on, are you really arriving to my lesson late?"
She sat down beside Hermione. "No, I'm not."
"We'll have a word after the lesson is over. Open page five and start reading through to page ten. Take down the notes on the board also."
She sits down at the table of four with Hermione, Ron and Harry.
Ron looked up. "Where've you been?"
"Visited Beckham." she answered, avoiding Harry who also looked up.
"Umbridge was in here earlier," Harry says to her, and this time she has to look at him. However all she could do was think about her dream. "She noticed you weren't here. You'd want to be careful."
Aurora nods. "Er- yes of course, thanks Harry."
What?
"You're face is red." Ron pointed out.
Oh god-
"Are you sick?" Hermione asks, examining her face.
"What?" she asks. "Really?"
Harry suddenly reached across and put his hand on her forehead. "She's actually kinda cold."
"That's weird." Ron snorted out.
"Probably just change in weather."
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The first day for the training for Dumbledore's army was beneficial. Harry didn't exactly know what he was doing at the start, but Hermione did, meaning he was offered a lot of help. towards the end Harry requested that they all write their names on a piece of parchment. Aurora watches as Hermione writes her name neatly down.
Her eyes scan the room seeming many students such as Fred and George who were teasing Ginny, she spotted Luna and Neville laughing with one another in the corner, she spotted Luke with Edward and Sammy.
Her wand suddenly flew out of her hand, when Neville who she was practicing with disarmed her. Her eyes widened.
"I did it!" Neville shouted in glee. He had been struggling with it for a while now. "I finally did it."
"Well done Neville. I think we're finishing up now."
"So the rest of the meetings will be later in the day. Today was a once off." Harry says loudly, at the top of the room. "I'll see you all next week, until then keep practicing but be careful. Okay so er- everyone line up and go out in pairs to your classes."
"You did good." Aurora tells him, minutes later once everyone had left the room. Ron and Hermione walked in front of them towards the classroom. "Really good. You'd be a good Professor."
"Really? I thought I was rubbish."
"Well," she says opened the door to the classroom, "I'd be very happy if you were my Professor."
Harry laughed at this, and they all sat down, listening to the lesson.
Professor McGonagall noticed how a certain girl was paying extra attention in her lesson on Monday morning
" Becoming an animagus is a...." McGonagall tried to ignore the look Aurora was giving her as she passed her desk, " extremely hard task only very skilled wizards are able to do so like myself."
Aurora raises her hand. "How do you become one? If you are a skilled wizard would the process be easy for someone who might not be a very skilled wizard? Roughly how long would it take?"
The Professor eyed her. "Depends on the person and steps involved. Why do you ask?"
Aurora played off an innocent look her father knew all too well. "Curiosity."
At the very end of the lesson Professor McGonagall had called Aurora up to her front desk, the women looked up from her book with a small sigh at the grinning girl in front of her.
" No matter what happens, there was nothing I could do to stop you or prevent it from happening."
She nods. "Indeed."
"Miss Black," she called once more just as she was about to open the door. "Curiosity killed the cat."
She winked. "But it's persistence brought it back."
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In the Herbology greenhouse at precisely one o'clock in the morning, Aurora attempted to climb into the window. She had broke it with her elbow and twisted it open from the inside.
"Aurora!" Luke hisses from behind her as he looked around anxiously. "Can you at least try be quiet?"
She purposely then banged her left foot against the window making him roll his eyes, as she fell through.
" See?" she grinned proudly, " like a ninja."
Luke ignored he fact she looked like her father whilst saying that. He got through the window without making one single noise, he didn't have time to react as suddenly a bright light was in his face.
"Step one!" Aurora brought her flashlight up to her face, and read the instructions off her hand. "Get a mandrake leaf."
" Please take off that bandanna! You look really cute but it's reflecting off everything!"
She pouts. "I look too cute to take it off."
"I know, but-" Luke steps forward and untied the bandanna from her hair, he softly pats her shoulder. "It must go."
"Poor me." She sighs, "Anyway, where would a mandrake leaf be?"
" I'm gonna go eat the sugar quills in the corner." once he was across the classroom he called out loudly to her, " I do not permit this."
"To fucking bad."
She looks around seeing multiple different plants stacked around the classroom, she slowly walked along each row. She examined all the labels before sighing loudly with a huff.
"I can't find it!" she turns around just in time to see Luke hiding the green colored plant. She crossed her arms. "Well, well so you were going to hide the plant without even telling me?"
"I think it's a mistake. I don't want to see you hurt."
"Hand me the plant, Lucas."
Luke didn't.
"It's not a good idea becoming an underage animagus. Illegal and underage! And don't call me Lucas."
Aurora tells him. "It's me, and my choice."
"But you're doing it for me!"
"If my da-I mean Sirius," her eyes widen, and she plays it off, but he heard it. "If Sirius was able to get away with it then I will be able to get away with it! He even said I'm a better wizard than him!"
"That's because he adores you-"
"Beyond the point!"
"Sirius had friends with him, two to be exact and you heard Professor McGonagall, its a hard process. All your bones will crack into the animal you become. It's going to hurt you. And I'm not having Sirius giving me the evil eyes if he finds out. He already thinks we're like secretly dating and not telling him!"
Aurora shrugs stepping closer. "No one will find out."
"But. . ."
"Luke it's almost Christmas now, we are both sick after swimming around in the Black lake. We can't keep doing it. Last year you almost got hypothermia. We need to find somewhere better. This won't cause any danger, It can't. If it does it's my fault. Let's just try it once. Just once-"
"Give me one other place we could go?" he challenged.
"The shrieking shack, Chamber of secrets, we could use one of the old tunnels and dig it out further-"
"Really wished I hadn't asked that question."
"You might as well hand it over now or I'll just come back tomorrow. I'm doing this for you and because of what you mean to me."
Luke handed her the plant as she grins yanking a piece of the leaf off, she left it in her mouth before scrunching her nose up in disgust.
"Step one to becoming an illegal animagus on the way."
"I hate, and love you."
"I love you too, Luke."
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this chapter was so all over the place ughhhh but leave a comment if you liked it!!
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