The Lost Witch | Fred Weasley

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Wednesday night I went down to the Common Rooms, expecting it to be empty, only to find Harry sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace.

"Oh, uh - hi," I said surprised that anyone else was up.

He turned his head to the stairs, looking completely exhausted. "What are you doing up?" he questioned, turning back to his paper.

"I was on my way to the kitchen for a snack, actually," I said sheepishly. I went over to the couch and stood by the armrest looking down at him.

"You look absolutely drained, what are you still doing up?" I sat down on the seat next to him looking at his work.

"I have to finish this for tomorrow, but I've been in detention with Umbridge since 5 o'clock so I haven't had a chance to do it."

I gave him a pitying look. "What's the assignment?" I questioned.

"There's a couple different ones actually," he mumbled.

I leaned over, and saw he was writing something for Potions. "I think Snape would make it worse for you if he saw a different handwriting on your assignment and be suspicious, but hand me your Transfiguration paper," I nudged his arm.

He looked up at me, surprised. "What? I'm here to protect you all aren't I? Well, I think you need protecting from Professor McGonagall."

He let a small smile slip then and handed me the sheet of questions that needed answering for his Transfiguration Class. As he handed me the paper I saw a red mark over the top of his left hand.

"What happened, you burn yourself or something?" I asked examining the mark on top of his hand.

He retracted his hand quickly and hid the mark, before clearing his throat. He sat there silent and barely moving for a beat, before looking at me again, his tired eyes studying me through his glasses.

"Can I trust you? As in, if I choose to tell you something, you'll keep it to yourself? Not Ron, not to anyone." His tone was so serious I wondered what on earth had happened.

I gave him an earnest look before nodding.

"Well... in detention Umbridge wanted me to do lines. But, then she handed me a quill and no ink. She told me I wouldn't need any ink, so I started writing what she told me to, I must not tell lies. As I wrote it on the parchment, it appeared in red coloured ink on the paper. Only, it wasn't ink, it was blood. And then the words cut into my hand, before disappearing." He let out a breath and turned to look at me.

"Have you ever heard of a quill like that?" he asked me. But I just shook my head.

"So, she's been cutting you, torturing you, since 5 o'clock this afternoon? And now your homeworks not finished because the sadistic bitch wanted the message to literally sink in?"

I was boiling with rage at the toad-woman now. "Barbaric," I muttered, shaking my head, and then continued writing on his paper.

He looked at me, "You're... You're not going to tell anyone?" he asked, shocked at the idea.

"Of course not, I gave you my word."

We both sat in silence for a while, only sound the quill on the parchment. I kept looking over at his paper to try and keep the hand-writing as similar as possible and kept telling him more thing to put in his Potions essay.

As I finished with Transfiguration I pulled up his assignment for Care of Magical Creatures and started working on that.

He rolled up his Potions paper, finally finished. "Well, it's not great but it's a lot better than it would've been without your help. Thank you," he sighed, letting his head fall back against the backrest.