Mayhem - G.Weasley

60. The Stirring

Ivy couldn't get the searing gaze of Dumbledore out of her head. His eyes always said more than any of his words ever could. To her, they said: welcome back, I've been expecting you.

She felt a gentle nudge to her side. Ivy tore her blank gaze away from a particularly low-floating candle above the Slytherin table. Hermione seemed to notice how distracted she was, and leaned in closer.

"You should try the roast." Ivy watched Hermione elegantly cut her portion of meat in half and slid it over to Ivy's empty plate. Ivy swallowed a lump in her throat. She was much to nauseous and nervous to eat anything. Ivy didn't want to tell her friend that she'd certainly throw this up later, nor did she want to ignore her kind gesture.

While the rest of the dining hall was roaring with conversation, there was a silence between Ivy and her friends. They watched her, waiting for her to make any sort of movement. Even George from the corner of his eye. His attention seemingly elsewhere, but it didn't deceive his sister who watched his eyes dart back and forth.

They waited for her to eat. To speak. To do. . . anything other than look so lifeless. She hadn't spoken to anyone other than the Weasleys and that dreadful girl George was probably fucking. The thought of that made Ivy even more nauseous.

She felt eyes on her from every direction. . . She felt suffocated. Ivy wasn't popular by any means. She was just an animal in a cage for people to watch. Ivy bit her trembling lip to keep the tears at bay. She tried taking nice and easy breaths to prevent herself from hyperventilating.

But she had to do something, everyone was watching. No matter how much she wanted to run, as far away from here as she could, she couldn't. Ivy had already done that once. . . and look how well that turned out.

Ivy's hands gripped the knife and fork so tightly, all the blood had fled from her knuckles. She fought the shakiness in her hands until she was sure no one would see them quiver.

She took a deep breath and sighed through her nose. Ivy slowly raised her utensils to the meat and sliced off a sliver. It was tender and smelled delicious, but her appetite was in the gutter. Just the idea of chewing and swallowing something made her want to vomit.

The warm meat touched her lips and she fought back the dry heave that wanted to erupt. She forced her lips to open and took the meat off her fork.

Once they watched her swallow, they started conversations amongst themselves. More and more food starting piling on her plate. Potatoes from Neville, chicken from Harry and so on. She noticed Ron didn't give her anything, in fact he tried looking anywhere but at her. His brows were furrowed and his nostrils flared.

She supposed he had a right to be mad and hate her. Why couldn't the rest of her friends have been like him? It would've made it easier to leave and stay away.

Ivy inwardly shrugged her shoulders. What's done is done. There's no turning back from what happened.

She moved around the food on her plate, taking the tiniest nibbles to look as though she were eating. She'd pretend to listen to the conversations intently, never offering a word to contribute. It was already too much to battle the bile rising in her throat to do anything else.

Another ten minutes carried on this way.

Right when Ivy was about to excuse herself a loud screech sounded from the air. Hundreds of heads turned to the noise, even the Headmaster. A mean-looking northern hawk owl descended upon the great hall with purpose.

Murmurs enveloped all around her.

"We get mail in the morning."

"Perhaps an owl got loose."