Hunted AIAOY 3

Chapter 10

"What?"  Rebecca asked, prompting Harry to repeat himself again.

"I said,"  He let a modicum of tone enter his voice, she wasn't paying attention and it was growing incredibly frustrating.  "Everyone's mixing."

Rebecca had noticed that already, but she didn't tell him so.  The other third year students who had come from her Charms lesson were chatting with one another and sitting with each other in ways that didn't usually happen.

"That's good, I guess."  Rebecca looked over to the door again.  Lunch was passing quickly and there had been no sign more of Fred.  

"We should go."  Ron looked at the time.  "Divination's far and I don't like to run after lunch."

Rebecca feigned hurrying, though she dragged her last few bites out a while longer.  

Harry tried to be patient.  "Ron's right, there's only five minutes left.  We really should go."  

"Divination?"  Hermione scoffed, narrowing her eyes.  "I see...a massive waste of time!"

Harry abandoned his attempt at patience with Rebecca's uncharacteristic, inexplicable-to-him slowness to try and keep Hermione from plummeting.  "I forgot, Hermione.  What was the cause for the twelfth law of transfiguring non organic matter?"

George caught Rebecca's arm and pulled her to her feet, saving her from the confusion Fred's absence had left her in.  "There, there.  Don't worry.  You're teaching probably just traumatised him.  He's bound to have slipped into a trauma-induced coma somewhere."

Rebecca looked up at him smiling.  "Really?  You think so?"  She wasn't surprised that he seemed to sense something was bothering her, he and Fred both had the annoying habit.

George nodded, teasing her ever so casually.  "I know so.  Madam Pomfrey caught me and cured me--How do you think I'm still here, perfect as ever?"

"I have no idea."  Rebecca waved goodbye to him as she fell into the hurrying group of Hermione, Harry, and Ron with her worries about having upset Fred slightly diminished but George's were not.

If anything, his feelings towards Fred were mounting and they were not positive.  Not in the slightest.

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Divination passed without issue and Rebecca was thankful that this was the last Creatures class before break because Hagrid hadn't started any 'dangerous' lessons after Buckbeak.  The class had done nothing but feed lettuce to flobberworms and it was a miserably boring way to spend the afternoon.

Apparently, the flobberworms agreed too because when the four made it to class, Hagrid had a dismal announcement to make.  "Must'a fed them too much--All gone.  We'll be starting something new when we return.  For today, talk amongst yerselves."

There were a few fires lit around the clearing class was held in and Hagrid sat back down on the stump he had been on before they arrived.  He picked back up the wood he had been whittling before and continued working on his hippogriff.

"Professor?"  Rebecca tried, the only one to approach him.  "Hagrid?  Do you want to talk?"

Hagrid shook his head, continuing to whittle.  

Rebecca brushed the snow off the stump closest to him.  "That's alright.  I can talk for the both of us.  I had a big morning, if you didn't know..."  

Hagrid was soon neglecting his carving to listen to her recount of the Charms class.

"But I must have said something wrong.  Fred disappeared before class ended and no one's seen him since."  Rebecca realised in an instant that the part of this that was bothering her the most was the thought that Fred had thought she'd done poorly.