Out of my League

Chapter Twenty Four

6/14/1995

Third task is in ten days, I overheard the professors saying that people die on the third task. But I refuse to believe that anyone would actually die, they can't allow that. They'll simply pull someone out who's been injured or can't go on any longer.

I take my seat next to Harry in Defense Against the Dark Arts. All morning I've had this horrible feeling in my chest, it's almost as if you could feel how tartness tastes. And it's progressively getting worse. I can feel it all the way from my chest into my throat and it's making my eyes water. Taking deep breath's sort of makes it feel a little better so I try to do that subtly.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see Harry staring at me but I don't have the energy to come up with something witty to get him off my case, so I just try to ignore it and hope he'll go back to his work.

Of course he's too curious to leave me alone. "Are you crying?" He leans over and whispers.

"Oh no, my eyes just keep watering." I explain.

"So you are crying." He replies.

I sigh and fold my arms onto the table to rest my chin on top of them. "Harry I don't want to debate with you right now." I look over at him to encourage him to say something back.

"Oh I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure you were ok." He explains.

My heart flutters and I suddenly feel more energetic and willing to keep a conversation with him.

"Oh it's fine, my stomach just kind of burns." I say while picking my head up.

"It's probably heartburn, it happens when you eat something too acidic or if you don't eat enough..." he almost continued but he sort of trailed off instead.

"Oh I must have eaten something really acidic." I reply.

"Really, what did you eat today?" He questions, I try to keep myself from glaring at him because I know he's just trying to make me tell him I haven't been eating that much.

"I had an orange at breakfast so that's probably it." I lie.

"I didn't see you at breakfast." He says, rather passive aggressively.

"That's because I wasn't there when you were, I went when Hermione went." I know Hermione always goes before everyone else so she can go to the library before her first class.

"Hermione went at the same time as me." He snaps back while crossing his arms.

"Ok who cares when I ate breakfast." I mutter as I look away.

"Are you going to eat lunch today?" He takes his tone back to sounding concerned.

"I eat lunch everyday that's a stupid question." I lie.

He just sighs and looks back up at the front of the class. "Sit with me at lunch today... and dinner if you don't mind." He offers.

I can't turn him down, I just can't I might not get an invitation from him like this again. "Ok, I'll see you there." I agree.

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Harry waves me over as I enter the Great Hall for lunch. I sit between him and Seamus.

I do what I usually do, grab some food just to push around my plate. I notice Harry's watching me the whole meal so I have a few bites even though it makes my stomach ache to even do a chewing motion.

"Who do you think will win the cup?" Seamus asks.

I guess he's either very unobservant or doesn't care that Harry is sitting right next to me.

"Oh I don't know." I respond. I would say Harry but I don't really know if I believe he would be able to beat Cedric or if I'm blinded by my obvious feelings for him.

"Come on just pick one." Seamus insists.

"Fleur I guess, she's a lot more powerful than you think." I explain.

"Possibly." He begins "I think Diggory will pull through... eh no offense Harry." He suggests.

"None taken." Harry sighs.

Everyone really underestimates Harry and Fleur. I guess I can understand why though, I mean Krum and Cedric are very athletic, strong, and technical. But people overlook that Harry is Hogwarts best quidditch player in a century or whatever and Fleur's a Veela. I don't really know much about Veelas but it must put her at some sort of advantage.

Harry keeps whispering stuff to Ron, it's making me self conscious about what I'm eating. I want to throw away my food now but I feel like everyone's judging me for not eating.

I imagine them whispering things to their friends like,

"Does she even eat?"

"That's gross, how does somebody live like that?"

"I'll bet she's starving herself."

I'm mostly afraid of the last comment, I don't want people to think I'm doing this on purpose. I'm just not hungry, and I don't want to eat anymore. I don't want to have to think about eating anymore. I'm so sick of it.

Maybe nobody will notice if I just get up quietly and don't draw any attention to myself. I grip my plate and look around at everyone who is too busy having other conversations to notice me standing up.

"Wait you barley finished." Harry blurts out.

Everyone's eyes fall on me, luckily I planned for something like this to happen and I have plenty of lies backed up to blurt out.

"My stomach hurts, I'm not very hungry right now." I mean, it's not a lie technically I guess. My stomach does hurt and I'm not hungry. I begin to keep walking but I'm stopped by Harry standing up in front of me.

"Maybe it's because you haven't had enough." He suggests.

I roll my eyes at him to make him look ridiculous even though I'm the one being stupid.

"I'll eat a big dinner, I'll live if I don't eat lunch for one day. Stop causing a scene." I can feel my cheeks begin to tinge pink as I sense more eyes on me.

He goes to argue back but Ron pulls him back down to his seat and pushes his shoulder so he can't face me anymore.

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