AUTOPHOBIA - G. WEASLEY

First Year: Halloween

✯ CHAPTER SEVEN ✯

❝Excuse me?❞

31st October, 1991.

ESTELLA SAT AT the Gryffindor table, admiring everything that sat around and in front of her. It was currently the Halloween feast, and it was beautiful. Thousands of living bats were flying around the Great Hall, swooping up and down between the table and the stormy enchanted sky. There was also lit pumpkins hanging as lanterns in the air. The actual feast was laid out on the same golden plates that had been used for the start-of-term banquet.

Just as the young Gryffindor girl was getting tucked in, Parvati and Lavender suddenly came and sat with her. She was a little confused about this as she didn't really talk to them much -- she hoped they didn't think that she was a loner or anything. The only reason she was sitting on her own was because the hall was so busy she couldn't find anyone else.

"Lupin," Lavender said, sitting in the spare seat next to her. "You'll never guess what your dear friend Ronald said to Hermione earlier."

Oh no, Estella thought to herself. It was probably something mean. In fact, she knew it would've been something mean. It was bloody Ron Weasley that Lavender was talking about.

"What did he say?" she asked aloud.

"He told her she had no friends, and that no one can stand her. All because she managed to do that spell in Charms and he didn't."

"Well, that's not very nice," Estella sighed, making a mental note to speak to Ron about this. In all seriousness, she was spending alot less time with Ron and Harry purely because of how they sometimes treated Hermione. Yes, she was annoying, but she was only trying to fit in. She didn't deserve to be attacked all the time.

"Is she okay?"

Parvati scoffed. "No. Not at all. When I went to the bathroom right before the feast, she had locked herself in one of the cubicles and was crying her eyes out. I know it was her because I shouted asking if she was okay and the response sounded exactly like her. Didn't you notice that she didn't show up to any class after Charms?"

Estella shook her head, she hadn't noticed this -- but in her defence her last two classes had been double Potions, and she literally never paid attention to anything in that class. Professor Snape was just too much to deal with.

"I honestly thought you would've known this," Lavender sighed. "Aren't you like always with Harry and Ron?"

"Not always," Estella rolled her eyes. "I mean, I'm close with them, but that doesn't mean I spend every minute of every day with them. If I did I would be with them right now."

But it was as she said this that she realised that since she'd stopped spending as much time with the two boys, they hadn't made much of an effort with her. It made her wonder if they even liked her at all.

Maybe she was just a loner.

"Oh..." continued Lavender, "well, we just thought you should know. I think your a nice enough person to speak to Ron about the affect he's had on her. Maybe you can knock some sense into him."

"Yeah, maybe. I'll speak to him. Thanks."

Estella got up and started walking along the table, looking for both Ron and Harry as she walked. She found them near the end, sitting with the twins and their friend Lee Jordan.

"Hi," she said, as she took a seat. She wasn't even sure what she wanted to say to the two boys -- she just knew she had to bring up Hermione somehow. "Did either of you notice that Hermione wasn't in double Potions this afternoon?"