Mine

[10]

I hugged my mother goodbye before following Grant to the Hogwarts Express. "Gemma!" I heard a voice call out from behind me before I could board. I turned around, smiling as I saw Hermione pushing her way through the crowd. "Let's grab a compartment so we can talk before the boys find us."

I let her pull me onto the train and into an empty compartment. As soon as we were seated, she looked at me expectantly. "So??" She asked.

"What do you mean so? I saw you like a week ago!" I laughed.

"Well, yes, but he hadn't written you back before I left the next morning, so I was just curious if you had any updates. Have you guys been writing each other?" She asked.

"Yes." I nodded. "Just a few times back and forth about how our day was or whatever." My eyes flicked outside of the compartment for what must have been the third time in the last minute.

"Would you stop checking to see if he's coming!" Hermione said, smirking at me. "Clearly you're a little excited."

"No, I'm bloody nervous, Mione!" I exclaimed quietly, "This is absolutely absurd. I've never been nervous to see him before. I feel like all of a sudden I don't even know how to act. It's sickening, really."

Hermione chuckled at this, "Gemma, you have nothing to be nervous about. Just be yourself. I must say though, it's pretty amusing. I don't think I've ever seen you nervous. You're always so confident."

I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. "I need to pull it together! He's going to think I'm some freak if I act all weird and awkward around him."

"Listen, I bet once you guys are actually around each other and talking, everything will be fine and normal. Its honestly probably just the anticipation that has you in knots because of how you left things off and because of all the questions you still have." Hermione said. I nodded slowly, taking a few deep breaths to slow my heart rate.

"You're right." I said, oddly feeling calmer. "I don't know why I'm freaking out so much about what it's going to be like to see him because nothing is going to be different than how we would have interacted around other people before when we were just secretly fucking. The only thing that's changed is we secretly like each other."

"Right and liking each other is nothing compared to just fucking." Hermione teased.

"Shut up." I laughed, "Oh! Here come Ron, Harry, and Ginny."

Hermione shot me a wink before the compartment door opened and the other three shuffled in.

"How was everyone's Christmas?" I asked, receiving a round of "goods" in response.

"Are you going to sit with us for the ride?" Ginny asked, plopping down beside me and giving me a side hug.

Before I could speak up for myself, Hermione said, "I think she was going to go look for Draco and Blaise. Did you see them board?"

I shot Hermione a small look, one that she shot back at me. I hadn't decided if I wanted to go find him or if I wanted to stay here with Hermione and Ginny. Hermione seemed to be just as eager, if not more so, for me to see him as I was. The thing was, though, obviously we wouldn't be in a compartment alone together so whether I saw him now on the train or waited till we got to Hogwarts, it wouldn't make a difference because we wouldn't get the chance to speak until we were alone anyway.

"Speaking of Draco," Harry said, leaning in closer across the way from me, "has he seemed off to you?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.