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CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE

-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH THEY
WAIT IN VAIN

. . .


There wasn't quite anything that Jane could do to make Harry feel remotely better. And she didn't even know what was wrong. But she did know there was something; knew there was something in his mannerisms and his expression that ensured that she very easily understood that nothing was all quite right.

Call if intuition, or the fact that she and Harry had spent hours and hours that quickly turned into days and weeks together and they suddenly were way more than strangers and not even close to slowing down their advances to a closer relationship. Jane knew Harry, she knew him well - maybe to a fault, because now she was sitting beside him in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place in silence and she wasn't able to do anything about the worry and anxiety that was practically radiating off of him and into her side.

It was almost certainly something to do with what had happened with Mr Weasley as opposed to any other incident that had occurred during his school days - that was made glaringly obvious by the tightening of his hand around hers every so often as he retold the tale of his dream, which he had already done to Professor McGonagall and the Headmaster of the school after he had awoken from it.

But Jane couldn't tell what; she didn't know what Harry had kept to himself, didn't know what he didn't deem at all acceptable to talk about in front of the Weasleys - perhaps out of fear of their reactions or how they would feel should they here it.

And it didn't look like he was going to tell her there. Not when they were sitting in that horrible silence that was only really broken by the sound of them taking gulps of their Butterbeer just to have something to do. Jane took a sip of her own, watching as Harry mirror her actions, only his hand was shaking horribly.

"Are you ok?" She asked, leaning as close to the boy sandwiches against her side - despite him being in his own chair - as she could manage, and lowered her voice as far as it could go.

He reached for his Butterbeer again. Then he took a sip, before shaking his head, placing the glass bottle back down again. The hand beneath her's squeezed slightly. "We can go talk." Jane mentioned, still at the low tone. "Do you want to?"

"Please." Harry muttered in return, but just as he was about to push back from his chair and stand up, a burst of fire in midair illuminated the dirty plates in front of them and several jumped back in shock, Then, a scroll of parchment fell with a thud onto the table, accompanied bya single golden phoenix tail feather.

"Fawkes!" Sirius exclaimed upon noticing , snatching up the parchment."That's not Dumbledore's writing - it must be a message from your mother - here -"

He thrust the letter into George's hand, who ripped it open and read aloud, "Dad is still alive. I am setting out for St. Mungo's now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum."George looked around the table."Still alive..." He repeated slowly. It was evident that it didn't provide much relaxation to any of the teens of the Weasley family. "But that makes it sound..."

He didn't need to finish the sentence. It truly sounded as though Mr Weasley was hovering somewhere between life and death.

Still exceptionally pale, Ron stared at the back of his mother's letter as though it might speak words of comfort to him. Fred pulled the parchment out of George's hands and read it for himself, then looked up at Harry, who avoided his gaze and instead allowed it to remain on his girlfriend's knee where it folded below the table.

Sirius suggested they should go up to bed, but was met with stony looks of disdain and immense disapproval of anything of the sort. Instead, they would sit there until the morning broke or someone had the decency to call Kreacher to cook breakfast, or maybe - just maybe - there was the potential for there to be any more news, good or bad, about Mr Weasley.

Harry, however, thought he might just have to go somewhere - not to sleep, nust just to get out of there because he couldn't quite stand the idea of sitting amongst a grieving family that he was certainly not a part of even if he had been treated as such for so long. And Jane, who had been spending so much time in the house alongside Mr and Mrs Weasley, who had to wake up to find out the news that he had seen Mr Weasley been attacked - no, he had seen through the vision of the snake who attacked him. That was worst. That was way worse.

He had to tell her, he had to tell someone the truth about the attack, the truth about how he had felt in Dumbledore's office. But... he couldn't quite bring himself to leave, not wanting to disturb them, although Fred and George's head had sagged to the side as they fell asleep, Ron's head was in his hands and Ginny was curled up in a chair and staring into space, not interested in any talk that could happen.

And finally, he worked up the courage to push his chair back against the stone slabs of the kitchen floor. Only a couple looked up; Jane, Sirius and Ron, who was seemingly awake.

"Bathroom." He muttered, heading for the stairs up out of the lowered room.

Jane, moments later, followed him.


a/n
way too fricken hot 
in england im melting

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