Harry Potter and the Trip Through Time

Chapter Sixteen: An Awkward Return

Harry Potter and the Trip Through Time
Chapter Sixteen: An Awkward Return
Book 1

The next morning, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Tom boarded the Hogwarts express. Tom left to go sit with the other Death Eaters, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione grabbed a compartment of their own. The train ride back seemed to go on forever. When they were just about half an hour away from the school, Frederick and Gregory joined them in their compartment, which helped lighten the tension, but there was also something off about them. When they arrived at Hogsmeade station Harry had never been more happy to be getting off the train. He didn't know why the trip seemed so suffocating to him. However, his joy was short-lived when he saw Rachel getting off the train just a few feet ahead of him. The girl smiled politely and waved, so Harry waved back, plastering a fake smile onto his face. What he didn't know was that from behind him, Tom saw all of this. Throughout the returning feast, Harry could feel the heavy aura admitting from the Slytherin table pushing against his back.

The next day through classes, Harry could feel Tom's eyes on him consistently. Even though they sat next to each other, neither one of them said a word to the other. There was obviously something on Tom's mind, something that was making him more prickly than usual. Harry kept quiet so as to not provoke anything. He wasn't sure what was causing Tom's mood, nor did he want to say something wrong and accidentally make the teen mad. So, he was civil in classes, and kept his distance outside of them. He spent most of his time with Ron and Hermione, per usual, but the three of them also hung out with Hagrid a few times during the week. Harry and Ron had accidentally discovered Aragog in a cupboard in their bathroom, which scared the daylights out of Ron, but Hagrid was very apologetic about it. While both Harry and Ron hated the spider, Harry realized that this Aragog was still just a baby, and that if he got close with the spider like Hagrid did then when he did eventually meet the spider in the future, if he did, the spider would know his name and voice. Ron made sure to stay away from it and yell profanities across the room about how spiders are evil. Hermione said she found it very cute when Aragog would get mad at the insults and scurry around angrily, clicking his pinchers asking Hagrid to let him at Ron.

They also spent a lot of time with the twins and August. Harry, Ron, and Hermione could all see the resemblance between Neville and August at times. The girl had a certain air of clumsiness to her. It wasn't anything near Neville's, but she was known to trip up from time to time around Dan. It seemed to work in her favor as the boy would always laugh lightly and offer to help her with whatever she'd been doing. Most of the time spent with Frederick and Gregory was at Quidditch Practice and in their dorm, but all five of them would get together from time to time just to relax and hang out. Either to just take a relaxing walk, distract from homework that needed to be done, explore the school, whatever they thought of doing. The only downside was that Frederick and Gregory kept asking Harry about Rachel, and Tom. The worst part was when Rachel would show up and Harry would have to make an excuse to leave.

Ever since Harry rejected her, things had been awkward between them. Even more so now that Harry was dating Tom, though it really only made things more awkward for Harry as Rachel had no clue about the relationship. With Quidditch Practice every day, and the heavy air in class, Harry found himself looking forward to the next Death Eater meeting. From talking with Reinhard, Anthonin, and Orion between classes, Harry gathered that the first meeting after Christmas was more laid back, a way to brush up on things without diving right into it. Harry was surprised that Tom would allow that, as it seemed out of character, but Orion cleared it up by telling Harry that the next weekend, everyone would work twice as hard and twice as long next weekend or else they would be hexed for slacking off. That sounded more like what Hary expected of Tom. However, he wasn't expecting to be grabbed and pinned to the wall the moment he stepped into the room within the dungeons.