SECRETS

- CHAPTER 17 -

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It had been more than a month since Harry had found Justin Finch - Fletchley and Sir Nickolas petrified, a month since my argument with Fred and Cedric, and a month since I had started helping Hermione with the preparation of the Polyjuice potion, and finally, on the Christmas eve afternoon as I sat reading book 'The World of Potions: Discoveries Old and New' in the middle of our new meeting place, the downstairs girls' bathroom, Hermione dropped the iron ladle making the noise reverberate throughout the bathroom walls.

I looked up abruptly from the page about the fire-breathing potion that had fascinated me so much.

"Is it completed?" Hermione looked at me and I saw on her face one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen her make "It's completed" she said excitedly.

I quickly got up and took her hand making her get up, we jumped around excitedly for several minutes, in the bathroom the only thing you could hear were our laughter. At one point we even started dancing.

"Hermione you are the most amazing person I know, only you could do something like that," I said hugging her shoulders, she blushed.

"Stop it Lyla, I'm not that formidable" I laughed "And you stop being so modest."

We hid everything we needed behind one of the tiles in the wall as always and hurried to complete the next step of the mission, finding the hair we would need to complete the potion, only then would we be able to get close to Draco.

We knew that by this time the people we needed would be in herbology class, despite the snowstorm that had alarmed the greenhouses Professor Sprout had decided to make up the class missed because of it, and their uniforms were hanging in the locker room just outside. Hermione signalled for me to stay low as we continued to look for what we needed; I was the first to find the uniform of the person I was looking for... Pansy Parkinson. Everyone in the second year knew about Pansy and her big crush on Draco and she didn't even care to hide it, she was always by Draco's side along with Tiger and Goyle, if there was anyone who could get close to him it certainly was Pansy.

I was a little envious of her... in short she was showing her feelings without any problem, even if she was not reciprocated she was not afraid to show her affection for someone like Malfoy... I, on the other hand, still found myself trying to suppress my feelings for Fred because of his behaviour towards me, first he would give me all his attention, then he would run to another girl, then he would chase me to protect me from what he thought was my boyfriend... one disaster after another. I could never have experienced Pansy's situation, but I admired her dedication to her feelings for the blond despite the fact that he had no feelings for her, just like Fred.

'You are like a little sister to me.'

I gently took a couple of hairs from her uniform and put them in the vial. Finally, I slipped the treats that Hermione and I had filled with sleeping draught weeks ago, after giving Ron and Harry final instructions we would have to follow them before they pass out somewhere. I heard the lesson on the other side of the door end so I quickly ran to Hermione taking her hand and dragging her out before anyone could discover us.