Hogwarts: A Snake in the Grass - BOOK 6 (A Harry Potter Fanfic)

6: Erised

I sat in the common room, next to the fire, yet I felt cold inside. Harry came storming in, but his face turned even madder when he saw me. I braced myself for the inevitable outburst, but I was tempted to just leave before he could get to me. I was too slow and he made a beeline straight for me.

'What were you playing at?! You could have been kicked off the team!' he yelled at me, Ron looking a bit shocked behind him.

'Well, how would you feel if it happened to you?!' I yelled back, close to tears, 'Josh has always been there for me, and now he's not! Do you have any idea how I feel right now?'

'I should kick you off the team...' Harry muttered, so quiet I shouldn't have been able to hear it, if I was human.

'Go on, then! Take away one of the only things that is keeping me going right now!' I yelled at him, standing up.

He glowered at me then Ron put a hand on his shoulder.

'Harry...' he said and Harry's gaze softened.

'I'm sorry... I don't know what came over me... I know you're having a tough time at the moment...' he said to me.

'It's OK. I'm probably not going to last much longer anyway,' I sighed, 'Everything is just so different now... harder since Sirius died. And now Josh is gone I don't know if I can take it. When I took a turn for the worst, he comforted me. When he saw me flinch, he reassured me it was safe, nothing would happen...'

My legs collapsed under me and the boys rushed to my side but I recoiled at their quick movements. They stepped back again, giving me space, and I buried my head in my hands. Why was I getting so worked up over a boy? I was being so stupid.

Hermione suddenly appeared beside me, her hand on my shoulder. She helped me stand up again and gave me a small smile.

'Let's go upstairs,' she said quietly, 'Boys can't bug us there.'

We spent the rest of the day upstairs, and the next day as well. It was a Sunday, so we didn't have to worry about classes and teachers trying to force us down. We didn't speak about anything to do with boys, we just spoke about our workload and ate sweets. Ginny joined us along with two other girls from her year, Catriona and Belle. We didn't step foot downstairs the whole day and made a silent promise not to mention anything to do with boys.

It was around six o'clock in the evening when our peace was interrupted.

'I was asked to check on you,' it was Parvati, 'Nico, Harry and Ron were worried that they hadn't seen you lot all day.'

'We're fine,' Hermione smiled at her, 'We just wanted a girls day.'

'Well, they've gone to get McGonagall as well,' she sighed, 'So your peace is about to be shattered.'

I groaned and everyone glanced at me. I was grateful that the boys were worried about us, probably me in particular, but I didn't want to deal with it. I wanted to put it out of my head and only think about it when I was forced to.

'I'll go down and sort it out,' Ginny gave me a small smile, 'And I'll tell them off for meddling.'

'Thanks,' I smiled at her as she left with Parvati. We continued our chats as if nothing happened until Ginny came back. She was scowling and it filled me with a sense of dread.

'Apparently my word isn't good enough and they won't let it go until they've seen Molly,' she grumbled, 'Neville is on his way back with McGonagall, they've dragged him into it as well. They have no common sense, can they not tell we don't want to talk about it?'

'It's fine,' I sighed, standing up, 'You tried, they're stubborn.'

I dragged myself down the stairs to the common room. Harry, Ron and Nico all had the same concerned look on their faces, walking quickly towards me as soon as I appeared. They all spoke at the same time, I couldn't understand what they were saying exactly.