human again / hp.

Chapter 129

Breakfast was already loud when Daphne and I walked into the Great Hall. The long rows of enchanted candles were flickering slightly, as if even they could feel the electric charge in the air. First match of the season. Slytherin against Gryffindor. Of course the hall was brimming with noise.

The Slytherin table was a mess of green and silver scarves, cheers, and smug predictions. Boys banged their goblets against the table. Girls were already wearing their team's colors in their hair or painted across their cheeks. Some first-years had spelled their toast into brooms. Others hissed and booed theatrically whenever someone from the Gryffindor team passed by.

I slid into a seat beside Daphne and wrapped my cold hands around a mug of tea. Daphne and I just sat in silence, letting the chaos swirl around us like wind against a closed window.

I could feel it before I saw it.

A swell of noise from the Gryffindor table rose like a wave. Cheers erupted. Applause. Someone actually whistled through their fingers. I didn't need to look to know why. He had arrived.

Harry and Ron had sat down.

I kept my eyes fixed on my tea, watching a sliver of steam curl upward and disappear. I didn't breathe for a moment. I could feel it though. That pull. Like the magnetic drag of the moon across the tide.

I felt his eyes on me.

It had been six days. Six days since that night in the library. Since I shattered like a glass dropped from too great a height. Since I kissed him. Since I ran.

And he hadn't stopped looking at me since.

Every class. Every corridor. Every time we passed by each other in near silence. His eyes would find mine and I would pretend I didn't feel it. I would pretend I was still stone. That nothing had happened. That I hadn't tasted something soft and warm and entirely forbidden and known, in the very same breath, that I could never have it.

I did not look up now. I couldn't.

Because I knew what I'd see. Not accusation. Not anger.

Hope.

And hope was a thing I could not afford.

"You're doing that thing again," Daphne said softly beside me.

I blinked. "What thing?"

"The 'I'm having an internal existential crisis and am also completely avoiding eye contact with a certain someone who I like' thing."

I shot her a look, biting the inside of my cheek. "That's oddly specific."

She took a dainty bite of toast and raised a brow at me. "I'm oddly observant."

I didn't reply. I turned back to my tea. I didn't trust myself to say anything without it turning into a confession. Not just about the kiss. But about everything.

If he knew the truth, he wouldn't be looking at me like that. He would hate me. I had Imperioed Madam Rosmerta. I had helped smuggle a cursed necklace into the school. Katie Bell had been the one to touch it. Not Dumbledore. Katie, who had smiled at me in the Corridors. Katie, who used to fly with the Gryffindor quiddich team. Katie, who was now in St. Mungo's.

Every time I tried to sleep, I saw her screaming again. Her body twisting in mid-air.

Harry didn't know that part. He couldn't.

But he would soon.

I forced myself to bite into a piece of toast I couldn't taste and tried not to think about the fact that we were sitting at opposite tables in more ways than one.