The Consequence of Ambition

Why is it always you?

"Okay so I think we should all go to the Three Broomsticks tomorrow night, it's a Friday and we literally never do anything fun anymore." Ron announced matter of factly, from the armchair he was sprawled gracelessly across.

"We never do anything fun because we've been back at hogwarts for about a month and we've had like three people nearly die." replied Harry bitterly.

"All the more reason to do something fun."

"I can't, I have to write this essay to near perfection" Lana sighed, as she absent mindlessly tapped her quill against the mockingly empty piece of parchment that she had been trying to fill for the last two hours "otherwise I'll be out of his class and probably in detention until the day I die" Lana sighed, and this time she wasn't lying in the slightest, Snape had given her an ultimatum and she didn't care to test whether he meant it or not.

"Okay Hermione? You down?"

"You know I have an ancient ruins paper to write, Ron" Hermione sighed, her voice thick with the tiredness of having to repeat herself.

Lana peered over at him, he was staring defeated at the ground, and she knew he was trying his absolute best to make everything seem normal. Like old times.

"Next week Ron, I promise" Lana attempted a smile and an encouraging tone, as she silently berated herself for her use of words, she needed to stop making promises. Ron nodded and smiled back at her, still full of that naive optimism that he never seemed to loose, no matter how dire the world got. She turned her attention back to her parchment. Nothing. How ironic that she could fill a diary all about Draco Malfoy, and yet fail to produce a single word of her essay in about three hours of willing something to come. The noise of the common room certainly didn't help, she needed silence, but not familiarity, because in familiarity there is never silence. Just memories, and sometimes they can be just as noisy as the bustle of the Gryffindor common room. She stood up, shoving her book under her arm.

"I'm going to the library" she announced to the other three. "I've got more chance of writing it there, but don't wait up for me" it felt weird to leave the common room in the evening and not feel that pang of guilt she normally felt when announcing yet another late night trip. But her days of snooping about were over. Truth be told, she hadn't thought about Malfoy in nearly a week. He was pathetic, and she was embarrassed to have spent so much time allowing her thoughts to be consumed by him. She was getting back on track now, she was doing well in all her classes and her Ron Hermione and Harry felt close again. She hadn't felt distant and alone, and everyone had stopped asking her what was wrong. It was nice. It was familiar, and it was nice. It was somewhat easier than she had imagined, to pretend that Malfoy didn't even exist. Despite him lacing his fingers so intricately around her own life, and making a home within her thoughts, he was relatively easy to shake off. She hardly ever saw him around the castle nowadays, amongst the bustle of his group there was always a gap at the dinner table between Theo and Pansy, where his absence was notable. She didn't know if he was still in the hospital wing, or if he had gone home, he could be dead for all she cared. Her diary was still kept safe tucked in between the other books on the shelf, blending in so naturally that no ones curiosity would draw them to sneak a glimpse while Lana was out of the room. Not even she had dared to lift the pages in weeks, not willing to rehash memories that served her no purpose other than to make her miserable. And anyway, she had much more important things to make her miserable, starting with this essay.

She arrived at the Library in good time, but peering through the doorway she was greeted with a scene not too dissimilar to the one she had left at the Gryffindor common room. Students gathered around tables, open books used as a guise to to dress up their hushed conversations as studying. She couldn't blame them, Hogwarts was so strict nowadays that even a trip to the library felt like a night out. She sighed, wondering when she had become so boring that she was about to prioritise writing an essay over joining in the hushed gossip and adding fire to the no doubt untrue rumours, flittering around the tables. But nonetheless, she had become that boring, and so she left the library and decided to make her way to a secret spot she had discovered last year. It was only the Astronomy Tower, seemingly uninteresting in itself, however at night, it was the perfect spot to escape to, free of teachers and other students, unless of course you were last years Lana who would occasionally meet boys up there because she truly believed that made her cool and exciting. Those days were long gone, and now she revelled in the feeling of peace and quiet, which was worlds different from being alone. Quietness and peacefulness was a choice, loneliness was not.