Dark AIAOY 5

Chapter 16

Rebecca wouldn't know it in the morning, but she had slept quite poorly.  Fred did his best to calm her when her fitful sleep peaked and he was relieved to find that she did eventually settle into a deeper sleep with time and patience.  Her tossing and turning worked to her advantage in the end though: she was awake long before he was.

"He looks like his worries have melted right away."  Rebecca thought, studying his sleeping self.  She was nestled against his side, her hand resting on his chest.  

"Wake up!"  

Fred wasn't able to sleep as he long as he would have liked.  Nigel burst into their room shortly after eight with a huge box in his arms.

"Wake up!  Wake up!"

Fred pulled Rebecca against him, turning his head and shielding her with his body.  Such a violent, strange awakening left him expecting danger.

"Someone's donated the root!"  Nigel set the box on the floor with a solid thumb and opened it, revealing heaps and heaps of exactly what they needed.

Rebecca rubbed Fred's back, waiting for him to relax and release her.  When he finally did, he sat himself against the head of his bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"It didn't say who left it?"  Nigel said, very confused as to why Rebecca climbed out of Fred's bed.  

"What about Louis?  Yara?"  Rebecca asked, picking up a segment of the Sefrender Root as if to make sure it was real.

Nigel shook his head, getting over his shock at seeing her.  "I've gotten word back from both houses already, neither sent it."

"A miracle then!"  Rebecca smiled over her shoulder to Fred.

"Business has not begun yet, Nigel!"  George pulled his covers over his head.  "Come back in two hours and we'll talk!"

Rebecca grabbed Nigel's wrist and lifted it to the light coming in from the window.  "This looks horrid."   She looked over the boy's desks, looking for a tin she hoped would be lying around.  "Take some with you, we'll have enough to go around again soon."

"Thanks."  Nigel said flatly, taking his hand back.  "That's just what everyone wants to hear."

Rebecca laughed.  "What I mean, Ser Nigel, was that your battle wounds are too much to take!"  She covered her eyes as if she were in an old, old movie and about to faint.  "Your bravery brings about the end of your mortal body!"

Nigel stared at her a moment before glancing at Fred to make sure that he heard her too.  "She's really strange, mate."

Fred nodded, smiling as Rebecca rejoined him in his bed.  "The strangest."

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"Are you kidding?" Rebecca gasped.  "How can you not tell us?  We have to thank them?"

"No, absolutely not."  The Fat Lady shook her head.  "I had to swear myself to secrecy or he wouldn't leave it."

"He?"  Hermione repeated.  "That narrows the suspect pool slightly."

"Suspect?  We're not hunting a criminal!"  Harry argued, trying to herd them to breakfast again.  The hours of the day were ticking away already and this was their last weekend before their O.W.L.s--he needed every minute he could to study if he was going to get the marks to be an auror.  "Who cares?  You got the root, let's be thankful and move on already."

"Harry!"  Rebecca chided.  "'A thanks due and not given is as bad as a thanks given and not due.'"

Ginny's hand shot to her mouth and she began to back away from Rebecca.  "It's happening?"