Run Away ✧ Hogwarts Legacy

chapter nine

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Desmond Esper walked next to her in an uncomfortable silence. It had been days since he had partially learned the reasoning for his girlfriend's sudden worries. Almost a week had passed since he heard about their friend's fall from grace and their decision to send him to Azkaban and now that same friend was after Antheia once again. 

Her friends had saved the trouble of the more personal details to be something for Antheia to tell him herself. But even days later it hadn't been easy to put into words. 

Both of them should have been in classes at that moment, but nerves and emotions had been getting to them when they decided to take a walk down to the Black Lake. Academics would have to wait. With everyone else in classes, it was nice to have the privilege of being alone. The fresh air had been a nice change now that October had fully set in and the air grew colder each day.

Antheia watched her boots as she walked, opting to trace over the continuous path of the single stone she had been kicking repeatedly for the last five minutes.

Des must hate me, she kept thinking to herself.

Even if he had agreed to skip classes to take the walk together he hadn't tried to hold her hand once. Instead hiding them away in his pockets as if she was suddenly a stranger to him. They had been together for months, met each other's family, talked about plans after Hogwarts together, and now there was a sudden tension. 

Or maybe there was always going to be this tension afterward. It was a reason she had been avoiding the topic since they'd been seeing each other.

Antheia was trying to think of how to start the conversation. It was better if she eased into the topic and figured out how he felt as they talked. Try and feel out his tone so she could work around it. That would have been the smart thing to do, but instead, she suddenly burst, "Are you mad at me?"

"Of course not, Thea!" Desmond scoffed off with a smile. 

"Well, you're acting like you are!" She scoffed back.

He took a deep breath before he spoke. Thankfully, she was the irrational one who couldn't figure out how to ease into the topic. Her partner on the other hand was more level-headed about sensitive topics.

"I'm sorry if it seems like I might be upset with you, but I promise I'm not mad." His tone was rougher than she was used to. He was frustrated with her even if it was not anger. "After everything Anne and Ominis told me about fifth-year, I guess I thought it would be best to let you have some space. I didn't want to press you for more information since you obviously didn't want to talk to me about it before."

Antheia embarrassingly went back to watching the rock bounce against the gravel. Her feet crushed the gravel in her silence.

There were a lot of reasons as to why she hadn't told her boyfriend everything. It wasn't like she was an innocent bystander to Sebastian Sallow's imprisonment. She was the one who used dark magic against her friend before they found the bloody notebook. Admitting to Desmond that she had known and used one of the unforgivable curses would be cause enough for him to break up with her. 

Even if it had just been the once, he was a better person, she wasn't sure if he would be able to look past that. It was a hard topic to just causally admit, although the truth was likely to arise soon. 

"I should have told you sooner about the Sallows," She found herself admitting to rocks under her feet. If he was going to look at her with disappointment then she wouldn't risk looking up. "Part of me hoped that I was never going to need to tell you. Like I could just pretend it was all a bad dream and I wanted to forget that it happened."