the order - f.weasley

- c h a p t e r - t w e n t y-t h r e e -

 "I'll bet you wish you hadn't given up Divination now, don't you, Hermione, Gemma?" Parvati smirked into the reflection of her spoon as she curled her eyelashes with her wand.

It was a few days after Trelawney had been sacked, and everyone was going absolutely bonkers about the new centaur professor.

Gemma shook her head as she lifted her head from her novel, "Nah...I'm good. Nothing against Firenze; I just don't really like Divination."

Lavender shrugged, "I guess that's fine...What about you, Hermione?"

"Not really," Hermione said dryly as she read The Daily Prophet. "I've never really liked horses."

"He's not a horse, he's a centaur!"

"A gorgeous centaur . . ." Parvati sighed dreamily.

Gemma rolled her eyes with a slight chuckle as Hermione said coolly, "Either way, he's still got four legs. Anyway, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?"

"We are!" Lavender reassured her, her face shifting to one of sympathy. "We went up to her office to see her, we took her some daffodils — not the honking ones that Sprout's got, nice ones. . . ."

"How is she?" Harry questioned from Gemma's, right making her flinch slightly.

After the weird moment in Occlumency lessons, the two had had a hard time looking at one another, an unspoken knowledge that Voldemort himself had tried to take over Gemma that night hung heavy between them.

Professor Snape had even given them severe warnings after Trelawney's sacking to be extremely aware of their thoughts and defences from that point on. They had done as he said, neither wanting to put the other in danger, which just fed into the heaviness between them. Then add Ron and Hermione into the mix–Gemma and Harry still weren't sure how to explain it, so they hadn't.

"Not very good, poor thing," Lavender explained with a sigh. "She was crying and saying she'd rather leave the castle forever than stay here if Umbridge is still here, and I don't blame her. Umbridge was horrible to her, wasn't she?"

"I've got a feeling Umbridge has only just started being horrible," Hermione said in a dark tone as she and Gemma shared a look.

"Impossible," Ron retorted as he dug into another plate of eggs and bacon. "She can't get any worse than she's been already."

Gemma scoffed, "Oh, just you wait...she is one for revenge, and Dumbledore finding teachers without talking to her first is just gonna feed the fire..." Then she rubbed her forehead, speaking a thought she had been mulling over since Firenze stepped into his new position. "It doesn't help that Firenze is half-human...She's gonna be out for blood..."

While Pavarti and Lavender didn't know what she was talking about, Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked at her worriedly.

And Gemma's guilt grew.

She still hadn't told them about her hearing.

She opened her mouth to tell them she needed to talk to them about it later when Ron started complaining about Quidditch practice.

Gemma knew it wasn't going well.

Also, Ginny was built to be a Chaser, not a Seeker–her current position. Gemma had tried to talk to Angelina about it, and the girl agreed with her but said, "Once I get your ban off, and you take my place next year as captain, move her. I can't do anything right now..."

And with Ron's less-than-great practices and performances, nothing on the team was going well.

The team was a joke now.