Chasing Time (Seamus Finnigan)

sixteen

The rest of the year went by rather quickly, and luckily Hermione didn't stay angry for too long. In the meanwhile I wanted to be closer with Seamus, but he seemed to be far-off whenever I was with him.  The Triwizard Tournament ofcourse gave me lots of distraction as Hermione and I tried to help Harry, all students were delighted the Hogwarts participants did well, so were we. Harry and Cedric shared the first place.

The last task ended very unexpected, and although everyone was in shock because of Cedric's death, some students just tried to move on. Meanwhile, the Daily Prophet was nothing more than rubbish about Harry and Dumbledore.

The summer holidays had arrived, and I was staying in the Burrow, with the Weasleys.

I liked the Burrow very much. Everybody was nice to me, although Percy wasn't. The twins joked around with him a lot, and Percy locked himself up in his bedroom all the time. Every time we had dinner together, he gazed at me with a dissaproving look in his eyes. I didn't pay attention to it though.
One night, miss Weasley had an announcement. Obviously only her and mister Weasley knew about it.
We were just having dinner when she cleared her throte.
'Arthur and I need to tell you something. It's very important, so you better pay attention,' she started. Fred and George smirked at eachother.
'All of you,' miss Weasley added as she looked at the twins. At that moment, she had everyone's attention.
'I don't like it either, but we will need to spend the rest of the summer holidays somewhere else.'
Immediately Ron started talking to the twins and Percy muttered something to himself.
'Silence, please. It has to do with the Order. The adress where we will be going, is Grimmauld Place. There's the new headquarters of the Order.
Now, you can't tell anyone, alright? I want to make that very clear! We will go to Diagon Alley the last week of the holidays to get your stuff for school.'

'When are we leaving?' George asked. 'Five o'clock.'

After dinner, everybody went upstairs to pack. I shared a room with Ginny, so we cleaned up the mess in our room and packed our trunks.

At ten to five, we all gathered in the garden with our stuff. Mister Weasley had arranged some cars from the Ministry to get us to the headquarters of the Order.

A few hours later we arrived: we were all a bit confused as we saw a number 11 and 13, but no 12.
Miss Weasley gave us a small paper, and we passed it to eachother. After we had all read it, Ron gave it back to his mother and a house appeared between number 11 and 13.

We entered the house: inside it looked very dark and old. Everywhere there were old pictures on the walls.
I stood still to watch a picture, as I recognized the Malfoys, my dad, and a small girl with pitch black hair: me. I smiled as I saw the picture and walked through.

Miss Weasley sent us upstairs, whilst she and mister Weasley proceeded to the kitchen. I saw some other people there: one of them was Harry's godfather: Sirius Black. My godparents were Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. I was pretty happy with that.

Upstairs, Ginny and I shared a room and Ron would share a chamber with Harry when he arrived. The twins had their own chamber too. The house was quite big, so there were enough bedrooms for all of us.

After we had settled down a bit, we could come downstairs to eat something.

As we entered the kitchen, I saw several members of the Order: Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, and a few other members I had never spoken to.

I sat down next to Ron and Fred, but during dinner I didn't realy listen to their conversations, as I wished I had someone to talk to. I knew I could talk to the Weasleys, but it wasn't like talking to Hermione, or Seamus.
I realized I missed Seamus more than I missed the rest. Maybe that was because I had the feeling Seamus understood me. He didn't even care about Draco kissing me. Okay, he did care, but he didn't make a problem out of it.
At once I had to think about a few moments we shared. In the hospital wing, in Hogsmeade.
I really started thinking why nothing happened yet. What held me back? I just didn't want to lose our friendship, I supposed.
'Dora?' I looked up. Ron was staring at me. 'What?' I said confused. 'I actually asked to pass the milk for three times. Sure you are okay?'
I nodded an quickly passed him the milk. 'What were you thinking about?' he asked as he poured some milk in his goblet. 'Nothing,' I replied.