If I May Be So Bold (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

9.

September 2034

ELLA

That first week of classes passed quickly and Ella already had a mountain of homework to do, but all Iris and Kyrie wanted to do was plot how Ella could make the most of her apparently convenient partnership with Henry Parker in charms.

"I don't even know if I like him like that," Ella whispered, her face hot. Every time she'd so much as spotted him across the Great Hall, she'd broken a sweat, wondering to herself how on earth people dealt with this on a regular basis. She knew there were girls in her year who had kissed multiple boys, but they didn't start perspiring all over the place every time they passed by one in the halls.

"So this is your chance to find out if you do," Kyrie said wisely. "You can talk to him. And it's not like he can do anything but that, because it's class. So you'll know if you really get along or not."

Ella didn't particularly want to respond to this comment. It would only encourage them. She almost wanted to regret telling them at all, but she knew she'd feel so much worse if she had kept it to herself. The secret would have eaten away at her.

She sunk down low against the couch cushions, folded her legs criss cross applesauce, and looked around the common room. It was always busy on the weekends. A group of the new first years were sitting on the floor in a corner, because all the good seats had already been taken. They had an awful lot of books around them and every one of them looked lost. Ella would have given anything for that to be her main concern again. Hogwarts had been a lot easier to navigate as a kid.

"I think he really likes you," Iris was saying. "And he's trying to play it off like he doesn't, because you're aloof."

"I'm not aloof. I'm just shy."

"Well you probably seem mysterious to him anyway. But everytime he looks at you, he's smiling."

"Probably because he knows how uncomfortable he's making me," said Ella. But her cheeks grew, if possible, even warmer, because she'd thought way too much about his smile recently. It was hard not to when she shut herself behind the hangings of her four poster bed and thought back to that day less than two weeks ago where he had stood in front of her on the beach and called her pretty and kissed her. It didn't even seem real anymore.

There was a cuckoo clock on the mantelpiece with a little wooden bird that shot out and chirped every hour and it came flying out just then.

"Stop distracting me," Ella said. "We've got choir in an hour and I have so much work I haven't even started."

"O.W.L. year is going to suck, isn't it?" said Iris sadly, looking down at her own textbook.

And they all got to work for a little while.

—-

Choir met every Tuesday evening and every Saturday afternoon with the exception of Hogsmeade weekends. This was enough to put a lot of kids off joining, because they didn't want to give up their weekends, but Ella loved it. The Saturday rehearsals were always her favorite.

Professor Whitby had cracked a few windows that day, so a nice fall breeze blew in every so often and the air had that crisp, clear smell she always loved. The new seating arrangement had placed her in the very middle of the group, at the edge of the sopranos, but next to the tenors. She was seated in between another fifth year, a Slytherin boy named Logan Pickering who she didn't know all that well but who seemed nice enough, and a first year girl she didn't know the name of yet.

Professor Whitby was plunking out the notes for the alto section, on the piano, and she could see Kyrie and Iris struggling to follow along with the awkward jumps. There part was nearly always the most complicated and least intuitive. If it wasn't, they stayed on the same note for a very long time.