Courage

-66-

Book: Courage
Chapter 66
Word Count: 4108

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY LOVES! ❤️
-Lunamalfoy06 xx

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Two whole weeks had passed. Layla's detentions with Umbridge were finally over (she doubted whether the words etched into the back of her hand would ever fade entirely), and Ron had had four more Quidditch practices and not been shouted at during the last two.

On a wild, blustery evening at the end of September, when the three of them were sitting in the library, looking up potion ingredients for Snape.

The morning of the Hogsmeade visit dawned bright but windy. Alter breakfast, everyone queued up in front of Filch, who matched their names to the long list of students who had permission from their parents or guardian to visit the village.

Layla's name was found on the list and Filch gave a curt nod, so Layla walked on, out on to the stone steps and the cold, sunlit day. Once she had reached Hogsmeade, she began to head towards the Three Broomsticks when she heard somebody jogging up behind her.

"Lay! Hog's Head isn't this way."

It was Hermione. Of course.

"I'd rather not turn up straight away," Layla admitted. "Seems a bit desperate. I'm only going anyway because you asked me to."

"No, actually, I said that it was Harry who wanted you to go. So, you're really going for him," Hermione smirked, causing Layla to immediately fall silent and shoot Hermione a small glare. Hermione sighed. "Come on, please! You're sitting with me. Let's go."

Before Layla could protest, Hermione had grabbed her hand and immediately started pulling her along towards the Hog's Head.

They walked down the main street past Zonko's Wizarding Joke Shop, where the two girls were not surprised to see Fred, George, and Lee Jordan, past the post office, from which owls issued at regular intervals, and turned up a side-street at the top of which stood a small inn. A battered wooden sign hung from a rusty bracket over the door, with a picture on it of a wild boar's severed head, leaking blood on to the white cloth around it. The sign creaked in the wind as they approached.

Hermione led the way inside. Layla groaned before reluctantly following, and the temptation to walk right out again was strong when she saw that the only two people who had also arrived early were Ron and, of course, Harry.

Harry was always around.

Layla didn't bother glancing in Harry's direction. She waved at Ron, who returned it, before Layla took the opportunity to have a quick glance around the Inn.

It was not at all like the Three Broomsticks, whose large bar gave an impression of gleaming warmth and cleanliness. The Hog's Head bar comprised one small, dingy and very dirty room that smelled strongly of something that might have been goats. The bay windows were so encrusted with grime that very little daylight could permeate the room, which was lit instead with the stubs of candles sitting on rough wooden tables. The floor seemed at first glance to be compressed earth, though as Layla stepped onto it, she realised that there was stone beneath what seemed to be the accumulated filth of centuries.

There was a man at the bar whose whole head was wrapped in dirty grey bandages, though he was still managing to gulp endless glasses of some smoking, fiery substance through a slit over his mouth; two figures shrouded in hoods sat at a table in one of the windows; Layla might have thought them Dementors if they had not been talking in strong Yorkshire accents, and in a shadowy corner beside the fireplace sat a witch with a thick, black veil that fell to her toes. They could just see the tip of her nose because it caused the veil to protrude slightly.