Saudade

Chapter 12 The Unexpected Confession Ophelia

"What is that room I keep seeing," Snape said, on a snowy Sunday morning.

"My bedroom," Ophelia panted, resting on one of Snape's arm chair.

"It is not," he said flatly. "The break is near and you have yet to fully master Occlumency. It seems we'll need to continue your lesson past the weekends."

Ophelia's eyes widen.

"You mean during the week?"

"Obviously," he said ever so calmly.

Ophelia sighed as Snape turned around his robe swept past her feet. "We'll start every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday."

"Right," Ophelia said nodding, relieved the DA meeting was on Wednesdays.

"Now, let's continue."

Monday passed too quickly for Ophelia's liking. She dreaded what was coming on Tuesday. She tried her best to quickly get her work done before the end of the day.

"We're workin' in here today!" Hagrid called happily to the approaching students, jerking his head back at the dark trees behind him. "Bit more sheltered! Anyway, they prefer the dark."

Seeing Hagrid was quite a shock to Ophelia, his usual clean face was now covered in bruises and fresh cuts.

"What prefers the dark?" Draco sharply to Crabbe and Goyle, a trace of panic in his voice. "What did he say prefers the dark--did you hear?"

"What happened to his face?" Ophelia asked Harry when she reached him.

"Oh erm--I'm not sure," Harry said obviously lying.

"Ready?" Hagrid said cheerfully, looking around at the class. "Right, well, I've bin savin' a trip inter the Forest fer yer fifth year. Thought we'd go an' see these creatures in their natural habitat. Now, what we're studyin' today is pretty rare, I reckon I'm probably the on'y person in Britain who's managed ter train 'em."

"And you're sure they're trained, are you?" Draco said, the panic in his voice even more pronounced. "Only it wouldn't be the first time you'd brought wild stuff to class, would it?"

The Slytherins murmured agreement and a few Gryffindors looked as though they thought Draco had a fair point, too.

"Course they're trained," Hagrid said, scowling and hoisting the dead cow a little higher on his shoulder.

"So what happened to your face, then?" Draco demanded.

"Mind yer own business!" Hagrid said, angrily. "Now, if yeh've finished askin' stupid questions, follow me!"

Ophelia scoffed purposely bumping into Draco harshly as she followed Hagrid, who strode straight into the Forest. Nobody seemed much disposed to follow except for Ophelia. She glanced back surprised to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione hesitant to follow but after a second they set off hurrying to catch up to her, and Hagrid and the rest of the class followed as well.

They walked for about ten minutes until they reached a place where the trees stood so closely together that it was as dark as twilight and there was no snow at all on the ground. With a grunt, Hagrid deposited his half a cow on the ground, stepped back, and turned to face his class, most of whom were creeping from tree to tree towards him, peering around nervously as though expecting to be set upon at any moment.

"Gather roun', gather roun'," Hagrid encouraged. "Now, they'll be attracted by the smell 'o the meat but I'm going ter give em a call anyway, 'cause they'll like ter know it's me."