Together (A Harry Potter love story) 3

46

MILLIES POV

The Easter holidays were not exactly relaxing. The third-years had never had so much homework. Neville seemed so close to a nervous collapse, and he wasn't the only one.

"Call this a holiday!" Lyra roared at the library one afternoon. "The exams are ages away, what're they playing at-?"

"OUT!" Madam Pince yelled, finally losing her patience for the girl. "THIS IS THE FOURTH TIME TODAY! GET OUT!"

Mione was deeply struggling, having still denied my advice of not doing the homework, saying I had had 'probably the most detentions in the year out of everyone' - not my fault, I was also taking the most subjects out of everyone, as Mione had dropped Divination. She was usually last to leave the common room at night, first to arrive at the library next morning; she had shadows like Lupin's under her eyes, and seemed constantly close to tears.

Elwood and Austin had taken over responsibility for Buckbeak's appeal together. When they weren't doing their own work, they were poring over enormously thick volumes with names like The Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology and Fowl or Foul? A study of Hippogriff Brutality. But I wasn't stupid - it was obvious that they were both using this as an excuse to spend more time together.

I still hadn't forgiven Harry or Ron. Every time Ron even tried to speak to me, Fred and George would make a big deal out of it and shout for everyone to watch, purposefully trying to embarrass Ron, and it did indeed work; his ears would turn bright red, before hurrying away.

The only time Harry and I talked was when we were making snarky comments about each other, to each other. But however hard I tried to ignore him, however much I insulted him, my feelings of love for the boy would just not fade. Everytime he would even look at me, my heart - annoyingly - fluttered. I had never hated and loved a person so much in my life.

And then there was Theodore Nott, the handsome Slytherin. Every time I saw him in the corridor, he would send me a smile or a wave, despite the fact that Malfoy was standing there gaping between us. I had only had a couple of small conversations with him since he introduced himself, and he was completely different to Malfoy in every way shape or form - well, to me anyway - he still laughed whenever Malfoy would bully someone. The small smiles exchanged between Theo and I made me happy, though I was pretty sure that was because every time Harry would be near us, he'd glare at the Slytherin so coldly that it was hard to believe he 'didn't care' anymore.

On top of this, I had to fit in the work that had to be done around Quidditch practice every day, not to mention endless discussions of tactics with Oliver. The Gryffindor-Slytherin match would take place on the first Saturday after the Easter holidays. Slytherin were leading the tournament by exactly two hundred points. This meant (as Oliver constantly reminded his team) that we needed to win the match by more than that amount to win the Cup. It also meant that the burden of winning fell largely on the Chasers, because we had to score a lot of goals during the match in order to win the Cup.

"So make sure you score more than fifty points, so Harry can catch the Snitch," Oliver told me constantly. "At least fifty points, Millie. I've told Angelina and Katie the same, so remember, fifty points-"

"I KNOW, OLIVER!"

The whole school was obsessed with the coming match. Gryffindor hadn't won the Quidditch Cup since the legendary Charlie Weasley had been Seeker. But I doubted whether any of them, even Oliver, wanted to win as much as I did. The enmity between Parkinson and I was at its highest point ever. Parkinson was still smarting about me hexing her at the New Years party, and even more furious that Theodore Nott was being friendly with me. I hadn't forgotten her and Malfoy calling Mione the 'M' word, and it was for that matter that made me most determined to beat Slytherin.