Amelia Merlin

Part Forty Five: Dinner Party

"This just became the worst night of my life."

"Oh come on, Merlin! You know we can have fun together!" Malfoy chuckled, receiving an incredulous look from Amelia.

"Seriously?" She raised her eyebrows at him. "You torment my friends, and I nearly drowned you last year."

"Yeah that's what I call fun!" He offered her some bread, which she grudgingly took.

"You have a messed up sense of fun, Draco."

He took this as a compliment, and went on talking about how great the food was. But Amelia couldn't stand fake people.

"Why are you being so nice?"

"I can be nice, Amelia." he poured her a glass of pumpkin juice.

"No you can't" she denied. "Last year, when we had detention together, I thought you were nice, but then you were just an asshole whenever your friends were around."

"I told you," Draco lowered his voice slightly, causing Amelia to lean in. "I have to be mean to you! It's the rules!"

"And I told you, you don't have to do anything."

It seemed their whispers had not escaped the attention of the dinner guests, who were loudly discussing some boring regulation. Ludo Bagman gave a loud guffaw, "Take a look at the two young lovers!" he raised a glass to them.

Amelia was immediately offended, but played it off like the whole thing was amusing. "We are not lovers!" she laughed.

"I don't believe it one bit!" His voice boomed over the conversations.

"Well, I'm not asking you to!" Amelia replied simply, and Bagman roared in laughter.

"Cheeky, this one is! I like her!" he smacked a hand down on the table, which made Mafalda Hopkirk jump in her seat.

Amelia just gave Bagman a smile and went back to her food.

"So I guess we're lovers now!" Draco said matter-of-factly.

"Why is it that everything that comes out of your mouth, makes me want to light myself on fire?" She questioned, but he just shrugged.

"Probably because I'm so hot."

Amelia was flabbergasted. She had nothing to say to this. Draco was being completely ridiculous and annoying as hell.

"You are the worst kind of person." She stabbed her potatoes with her fork.

"Yeah," Draco leaned in uncomfortably close. "But sometimes it feels pretty good to be bad."

The dinner was a strange combination of an infuriating Malfoy, boredom at the rest of the conversation, delight in the food and decorations, and happiness at the general festivities. Amelia went to bed that night, utterly confused. If only Cedric had been there, then she wouldn't have had to sit beside Malfoy.

Amelia spent the remainder of her holiday either in the kitchen, with Glapp, or in her tree, carving stories. Christmas Day had consisted of Amelia sitting in her room opening some presents from Mrs Weasley, Fred and George, Cedric, Lavender and Parvati. And an especially wonderful one from Oliver that included an illuminated copy of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

When the time came for Amelia to go back to Hogwarts, she went down to the kitchen before leaving, to say goodbye to her friend.

"I'm going to miss you." she gave a small smile to the little house elf.

"Little mistress will be too busy with her friends and her classes to be sad about poor old Glapp!" she returned Amelia's smile and handed her a cookie.

"You're the best Glapp." Amelia knelt down and hugged the elf, whose skinny arms wrapped around her.

"Little mistress must remember how wonderful she is, and not to let anyone tell her differently." Glapp whispered in her ear.

"Thank you." Amelia said quietly then stood up, and wiped her eyes, for there were small tears that had gathered.

Glapp straightened out her rag. "Goodbye, little mistress. Glapp hopes you will have many wonderful adventures!"

Amelia gave a small wave before leaving the kitchen and walking to the front door. The car ride to Kings Cross was spent in silence, and Amelia just fiddled with the necklace Jeremy had gotten her. It felt like eternity had passed until they reached their destination, as it always did when she was with her mother.

Amelia refused to look at her. The woman hated her, and supported her father over her. And that was something Amelia could not forgive. So she hauled her luggage and Morris, onto the cart and headed to the barrier. She could hear her mother call her name out, but Amelia didn't care, she went straight for the wall and ran right through it.

Her mother did not follow.

Amelia found an empty compartment and opened her sketch book. She started to draw her tree, but was interrupted by Cedric walking in.

"Hey." He gave her his infamous crooked smile and sat down across from her.

"Hi." Amelia shut her sketchbook.

"Look, I'm sorry I couldn't come to the dinner, there was so much going on in my family at the time." he said complacently.

"No, it's alright! You don't need to apologize." She smiled at him and Cedric moved to sit beside her. "What was happening?"

"Well my mom was angry at my aunt, because she forgot to send a Christmas card to grandma and then my dad got involved, which made mum even more angry...."

Amelia stopped listening when she realized it was completely boring. But Cedric just kept talking, it was kind of a nice distraction.

"...that's when the wolves are at your door-"

"What?" Amelia interrupted him. "Wolves?"

"It's an expression, means bad things are coming your way," Cedric gave her a kind smile even though her brow was furrowed. "Dad says it all the time. It's like time to pay the piper, or something similar to that."

"Oh." Amelia slouched back in her seat and Cedric continued talking about his holiday. She held his hand and traced his knuckles with her fingers.

Amelia was deep in though. What was with these wolves? It couldn't be a coincidence they kept appearing. And she was still having dreams about being eaten by lizards, or the tunnel dreams. Amelia didn't understand anything that was going on, like she was playing a game that she didn't know the rules to.

She fiddled with her necklace and tried to make sense of it all but it was no use. So Amelia decided she had to go see someone who would understand. Although she didn't entirely trust the man for some reason, Dumbledore seemed like her best option.

"And how was your holiday?" Cedric brushed some hair out of her eyes. Amelia didn't want to tell the truth, so she didn't.

"It was nice."