meant to be (2)

42

I went to bed before anyone else did in my dormitory, because I couldn't stand hearing Fred, George and Mason sing: 'His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad'

I was sitting on my bed thinking about Harry. Why was I now acting so differently in his presence?

I opened my nightstand next to my bed and reached for the picture Colin took of me and Harry. I smiled as I saw him looking at me. He looked more mature than last year, but his smile and his eyes were still the same. Still beautiful.

I felt my stomach tingle when suddenly the door swung open.

"Julie, have you seen Jun-" Mason came into my room. "Woah, why are you smiling like that? You look creepy."

"Shut up, Mason" I said, quickly hiding the picture under my pillow. "What do you want?"

"I want to know why you're smiling" he answered, shutting the door behind him. "And what did you hide under your pillow?"

"I wasn't smiling." I argued.

"Yeah right." Mason said as he approached my bed. He quickly reached under my pillow and tried to get the picture.

"Mason - stop - it!" I snapped, while slapping Mason, but he was already holding the picture triumphantly.

"A picture of you and Harry?" he snorted, laughing at me. "Why were you even looking at it?"

"I don't know..." I shrugged. "I've been thinking about Harry. He's got nice eyes, you know?"

"Nice eyes?" Mason repeated with a raised eyebrow while he sat down on my bed. "Thinking about Harry? You're acting weird..."

"It feels weird being around him." I continued truthfully, avoiding his gaze.

"Julie, wake up!" he said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. "You like Harry!"

"What?" I exclaimed. "No way, he's just a friend."

"Come on, be honest to yourself." Mason urged. "Have you got butterflies when you're around him? Do you blush when he says something nice to you? Do you constantly think about him? Do you get jealous when he talks to other girls?"

I sat there in silence for a moment. I could relate to every single thing he said.

"I don't know, my stomach tingles when I think about him or see him." I said after a while.

"Those are butterflies, you troll!" Mason answered.

"Oh my godric." I whispered dramatically, standing up from my bed. "I have a crush on Harry Potter! Mason, I like Harry!"

Mason watched me running from one end of the dormitory to the other and back, biting my fingernails.

"Running around won't help" Mason said, amused, after I walked my fourth lap.

"Shut up!" I said, still confused about my feelings. "Why did you even come here?"

"I wanted to ask if you've seen Juniper." he said, now slightly nervous.

"Why?" I asked curiously. Mason took a deep breath.

"Do you know Maddison Stewart?" he asked finally.

"Yeah, she's Levi's sister." I said now being even more curious.

"I'm kind of completely in love with her." he said. "You see, she said she liked cats and..."

"...and you wanted to tell her you had a cat, so she liked you more." I finished, chuckling.

"Exactly." he confirmed. "Look at us talking about the people we like."

"Crazy" I said leaning back, thinking about Harry.

🤍

"It was Hagrid" Harry said the next day. "Hagrid opened the chamber of secrets fifty years ago"

Harry told Ron, Hermione and I everything that he found out about Riddle and his diary. We had always known that Hagrid had an unfortunate liking for large and monstrous creatures.

During our first year at Hogwarts he had tried to raise a dragon in his little wooden house, and it would be a long time before we forgot the giant, three-headed dog he'd christened Fluffy. And if, as a boy, Hagrid had heard that a monster was hidden somewhere in the castle, I was sure he'd have gone to any lengths for a glimpse of it. He'd probably thought it was a shame that the monster had been cooped up so long, and thought it deserved the chance to stretch it's many legs.

I could just imagine the thirteen-year-old Hagrid trying to fit a lead and collar on it. But I was equally certain that Hagrid would never have meant to kill anybody.

I kind of felt sorry for Harry. Again and again Ron, Hermione and I made him recount what he'd seen, until he was heartily sick of telling us and sick of the long, circular conversations that followed.

"Riddle might have got the wrong person." said Hermione. "Maybe it was some other monster that was attacking people..."

"How many monsters d'you think this place can hold?" Ron asked dully.

"We always knew Hagrid had been expelled" I said miserably.

"And the attacks must've stopped after Hagrid was kicked out. Otherwise, Riddle wouldn't have got his award!" Harry said.

Ron tried a different track.

"Riddle does sound like Percy - who asked him to grass on Hagrid, anyway?"

"But the monster had killed someone, Ron." said Hermione.

"And Riddle was going to go back to some Muggle orphanage if they closed Hogwarts" said Harry. "I don't blame him for wanting to stay here..."

Ron bit his lip, then said tentatively: "You met Hagrid down Knockturn Alley, didn't you, Harry?"

"He was buying a Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent." said Harry quickly.

The four of us fell silent. After a long pause, I voiced the knottiest question of all in a hesitant voice: "Do you think we should go and ask Hagrid about it all?"

"That'd be a cheerful visit" said Ron. "Hello, Hagrid, tell us, have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose in the castle lately?"

In the end, we decided that we wouldn't say anything to Hagrid unless there was another attack, and as more and more days went by with no whisper from the disembodied voice, we became hopeful that we would never need to talk to him about why he had been expelled.

It was now nearly four months since Justin and Nearly Headless Nick had been Petrified, and nearly everybody seemed to think that the attacker, whoever it was, had retired for good.

Peeves had finally got bored of his "Oh Potter, you rotter" song, Ernie Macmillan asked Harry quite politely to pass a bucket of leaping toadstools in Herbology one day, and in March several of the Mandrakes threw a loud and raucous party in Greenhouse Three. This made Professor Sprout very happy.

"The moment they start trying to move into each others pots, well know they're fully mature" she told Harry and me. "Then we'll be able to revive those poor people in the hospital wing!"