FINITE | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [4]

𝘅𝘅𝗶 | 𝘀.𝗽.𝗲.𝘄.

Her hair remained tinted lavender when she joined Harry and Ron, who were still pouring over their horoscopes by the fire.

'You've been ages,' Harry said as she sat down with them, peering over to look at the many misfortunes they had thought up for themselves in her absence.

'I needed to clear my head,' she told them, 'it's been a long day.'

Harry nodded, understanding crossing his face. Ron sent her a kind smile, scribbling down a new way in which he would die.

'Trelawney will love these,' Gwen said, as Harry finished his chart by predicting his own death by decapitation. 'The more tragic the better.'

'That's what I said,' Ron said, dotting his parchment and passing it to her to read.

'You're drowning twice,' she told him, scanning the essay.

'Oh, am I?' said Ron. 'I better change one of those to being trampled by a rampaging Hippogriff.'

Gwen laughed, looking around the common room. Only Fred and George remained inside, heads bent over the same parchment as when she had left. In the quiet of the room, despite them speaking in low voices, Gwen could almost catch everything they were saying.

'We can't say that...' George murmured, shaking his head at Fred. 'Sounds like we're accusing him... Got to be careful...'

Gwen wondered if maybe they were making more joke shop orders, suddenly reminded of the night in the Burrow when they had been doing the exact same thing. It was strange for Fred and George to be so quiet; they were so often noisy and in the centre of attention. If they had another joke shop idea, they would almost certainly have Lee Jordan with them; it wasn't often you'd see the twins without Lee. But then, having overheard what George was saying, it didn't sound like they were scheming a new joke product. Perhaps it was to do with the Triwizard Tournament, but it didn't sound like it could be related to that either.

Gwen hadn't realised she had been staring. George looked up, catching her eye, and she grinned, then looked back to Harry and Ron, hoping he did not think she had been eavesdropping.

Crookshanks, who had been sprawled by the fire, leapt up onto the armchair that Gwen had settled into, and rubbed his head against her hand. He climbed down onto her lap, stretched out again, then curled into a ball, purring as she stroked his great fluffy head.

Moments later, the twins packed up their things, bade Gwen, Harry, and Ron goodnight, and just as they disappeared up the stairs to their dorms, the portrait swung open and Hermione climbed in. She was carrying a large rattling box in one hand, and a roll of parchment in the other. Crookshanks began to purr louder as she joined them by the fire.

'Hello,' she said brightly, 'I've just finished!'

'So have I!' said Ron triumphantly, brandishing his horoscope for her to read.