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f o u r t h y e a r
Weeks pass and nothing of interest changes.
Adeline begins to retreat back into her rooms, decreasing the times she lashes out at others. The school is full of guests, she couldn't go around making a bad name for Hogwarts, now could she?
Ryland still walks her to the classes she bothers to show up to, but he no longer seeks her out at meals or during times outside school.
With her lack of interest in beating others to a pulp, Adeline doesn't see Dean as often as she had.
The only change is the excitement of the tournament and the big proposals for the ball dates. Adeline doesn't bother with it all, knowing she won't be there for very long. Attendance is mandatory, unfortunately, and the house professors have been instructed to drag students there by their own hand if they have to.
Adeline's picking her battles and all that.
She'd stopped going to dance practice, the first time was well and truly enough. When professors would come looking for her, she'd feign ill, magic her way out of her rooms or simply spend the days off the school grounds to avoid it all. She didn't need to practice, she was perfectly capable of doing it on her own.
Oddly enough, there have been a few people asking her to the ball. She'd suspected it to be a joke at first, but by the look of defeated hope that crossed their eyes when she said no, she began to suspect otherwise.
It's peculiar how many people approached her, blindly asking to be her date. Adeline didn't understand it, considering they all hated her.
She'd just declined another offer from a Hufflepuff boy who had boldly approached her after class and she'd managed to escape in the busy hallways, but there she was met with a sight that didn't make her day any better.
In the rush of the student body, Draco stood beside a pretty girl from the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. She had blonde hair and a lovely smile, and when she giggled at his words her cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink. Adeline had seen her around, boys and girls enamoured by her beauty. Gabrielle Lacework or something along those lines.
As she passed them, Draco placed a hand on her arm, swift and flirtatious. Adeline felt bile rise in her throat, an annoyed heat tracing her body. There seems to a grotesque infection of love around the schools and it incredibly unflattering on the young faces of those surrounding her.
She didn't have the time for it. She was exhausted, more and more everyday. Her night were filled with fire and screams, nightmare that never leave her. The boy in the field won't let her be, yet when she wakes she cannot remember his face. The only thing that her sleepless mind was able to retain was the yellow of his shirt.
The nights weren't the worst of it though, she wished they were. The worst parts were when she hadn't even realised she'd woken up. By the time Adeline focused in on her surroundings hours had passed without her knowledge, without her realising she'd even woken up to begin with.
