Courage

-72-

Book: Courage
Chapter 72
Word Count: 5794

At dinner on Monday night, Layla was planning on skipping dinner, and would have succeeded if Hermione hadn't cornered her in the hallway and asked if they could sit together.

"Just you and me?" asked Layla slowly.

"And Harry, of course," said Hermione, causing Layla to roll her eyes.

"I'd rather be doing anything else."

"I thought you guys were making progress," said Hermione with a small frown.

"We won't make any sort of progress until I can look at Harry without thinking about how he's the reason Cedric died," said Layla in an unintentionally snappy tone.

"He's not exactly the reason—"

"Hermione, stop," Layla sighed. "I'm not hungry, okay?"

"I'm not taking no for an answer," said Hermione quickly, grabbing Layla's hand. "Come on. If you're not hungry, you can just sit with us and talk."

"Fine," Layla groaned, letting Hermione pull her towards the Great Hall. "Just to sit. No eating, no talking."

"Fine," Hermione shrugged with a roll of her eyes. "Now that I think about it, Lay, you've not been hungry in a while. You've been skipping meals an awful lot. Has your appetite gone? Are you sick? Are you—"

"I'm fine, 'Mione, relax," Layla lied as the two of them entered the Great Hall. "I have an appetite, it just comes and goes a lot."

Hermione simply nodded and the two of them sat down opposite Harry, who smiled at Layla. Layla simply nodded at him in return, causing Harry's smile to falter slightly. Hermione, however, dove straight into conversation with Harry, digging in to her food.

"Hello, Harry. How was your date with Cho? How come you were back so early?"

Layla's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Harry was on a date with Cho? It shouldn't be that surprising since they had kissed, but the thought of them being on a date made her stomach do an unpleasant lurch. She shouldn't feel that way. She was on a date with Dean on the same day after all.

"Er... well, it was..." said Harry, "a complete fiasco, now you mention it. Everything was going just fine, and then we went to a stupid little tea shop called Madam Puddifoot's, and it was all decorated for Valentine's Day — pink and hearts everywhere."

Layla hid her smirk with her hand. At least she wasn't the only one who hated that tea shop.

"After we'd gotten some drinks, I told Cho that you wanted to meet up," Harry continued, looking at Hermione, "and she went all funny, talking about how Roger Davies had asked her out and she'd said no. And I did nothing, but suddenly she's crying again and saying how I didn't care about her and stuff. So then, she jumps up, right, and says, 'I'll see you around, Harry,' and runs out of the place! I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply but Layla beat her to it.

"Are you kidding me?"

Both Hermione's and Harry's heads shot towards Layla at the sound of her voice.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked quietly, confused.

"You're a complete arse, that's what I mean," said Layla bitterly. Harry opened his mouth to speak but again, Layla had spoken first. "You were completely tactless!"

"Me, tactless?" said Harry. "One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out — how was I supposed to feel about that?"