Stellar | ENG

chapter 14

"Don't worry. Trust me, no one will know! " she said imploringly.
"Why do you care so much?" I asked intrigued by the girl's attitude.
"We made a deal" she said looking down, probably ashamed.

"Which is?" I was trying to get the words out of her mouth.
"If you kissed him he wouldn't play dirty Quidditch anymore" she said not looking up.

"Hermione is Marcus Flint, playing dirty for him is normal" I said annoyed.
"I know I was wrong. But trust me when I say that backing out now is worse."
"Alright, alright" I said to cut the conversation short.

For the rest of the meal we didn't broach the subject, in fact we spoke very little at all.
As soon as we finished I got up quickly and said, "Excuse me, I have to go help Seamus. See you later!"
And before she could reply, I got up and walked towards the Gryffindor Common Room.

As soon as I arrived there was no one there.
So I just sat on the couch and continued my reading of Romeo and Juliet that I had started this morning.
It wasn't long before I was interrupted by the myriad of Gryffindors who had just entered the Common Room, probably on their way back from lunch.
Not looking up, I tried to continue reading, but was again disturbed by someone sitting down next to me.
I looked up from the book, by instinct not by will, and saw Seamus.

"I'm ready whenever you are," he said with a smile.
"Alright, then let's get started right away" he nodded and headed towards his room to retrieve his textbook.

After a while he returned, not even enough time to reach a table and take out the material. He was out of breath, which meant he had been running.

We immediately started studying. We read the book, I explained, supplemented with my notes and we repeated.

About two hours passed.
Fortunately there was no tense or embarrassed situation. Everything was fine, as if nothing had happened.
Until I dropped my pencil inside my bag, and in looking for it I found a piece of parchment, which I ignored both because I didn't want to be distracted by my friend, and because not knowing what was written on it I didn't want him to know anything. He could have been talking about literally anything.

I tried to play it cool, but it was very difficult, I was extremely curious.
"I'll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom for a second," I felt lucky when Seamus said this.
He nodded and as soon as he was out of the room I took the mysterious note and opened it.
Inside it was simply written: "I need to talk to you. Meet me at 4pm at the black lake. A.P."
I immediately looked at the time. It was 4.37 p.m.
I ran to the window, opened it and looked in the direction of the black lake. And I saw him. Adrian.
Sitting up against a tree looking sad, checking his watch.

Immediately my heart started pounding.
I hadn't realised that in order not to break the hearts of two of my friends I was breaking his.
I had no right to ignore him without giving him an explanation.
I closed the window and decided to go to him.

"Seamus excuse me I have an emergency. Nothing to worry about. See you later!" I said to Seamus, who had returned in the meantime. Without giving him time to answer or ask questions, I started to run, as fast as I could, towards the black lake.

I didn't even realise how excited I was.
But unfortunately, when I arrived, there was no one there.
I looked around for a while and then at my watch.
It read 4.51 p.m.
It was late.
He had waited almost an hour, and now, rightly, he was gone.

I began to despair. If only I had seen the note sooner. If only I hadn't ignored him all day.
I sat against the tree where I had seen him sitting earlier. Lost in thought.
~He's probably furious, and he has every reason to be. All day he's been trying to talk to me, or at least make contact, and all I've done is push him away. I thought ignoring him would be the best option. That at best it would be difficult for me. But I only made him suffer.~

Without realising it a tear started to run down my cheek, and I did nothing to wipe it away. I left it there and continued to think to myself. Until I had a flash of genius.

Without further thought I got up and started running as fast as I could towards the astronomy tower.
OUR place.

My heart was racing. I hoped to find him there. It would mean that it meant something to him too, and consequently that I meant something to him too.

As soon as I finished climbing those seemingly endless stairs, I was out of breath, not because of fatigue, but because I found him there, sitting by a window, staring at the sky.