Chasing Time (Seamus Finnigan)

thirty-one

During dinner we didn't get to see Ron. It seemed like he didn't care about food for once. The question was: what could possibly be so important Ron Weasley would skip dinner?

'So what did that boy ask during Ancient Runes?' Hermione asked. She had Harry's attention too.

'Oh, he was struggling with the text. Speaking of Charlie, I said I would meet him in the library in...' I glimpsed the massive clock, 'Crap. Five minutes,' I finished my sentence. In a rush, I took a sandwich and stood up.

'See you guys later!' Quickly I left the Great Hall for the library.

Charlie was sitting in a corner of the room, all by himself. I sat down across from him, slightly panting from the run upstairs. 'Hi Charlie.'

He looked up from a book he was reading. 'You came,' he said, surprised. 'Of course I came.' I smiled at him and took my book.

'Ugh, do we really need to do this?' I said with a sigh as I laid down my head on top of my book, making Charlie grin. 'It's not that hard, actually, I've searched for a book with loads of translations during break.'

I looked up at him. 'Charlie, that's cheating.' I smirked. 'I know. But I didn't copy anything, so practically I did nothing wrong,' he said, defending himself.

'It was just a joke,' I said laughing, opening my book and flipping it through, whilst he was fiddling with the corner of a page from his book.

'Are you always that... nervous?' I asked. 'No. No, I'm just... I feel a bit uneasy when other people are around. I'm not the most social type.'

'You certainly are not,' I stated. 'So how come you're in Slytherin?'

'Reasons, I expect.'

'Okay. Like...?'

'My personality, ofcourse, you know how the Sorting Hat works,' he said. I nodded. 'So, let's get started, shall we?' He nodded as he took his quill.

Translating the text seemed to take ages. After an hour, we still needed to do four sentences out of ten. 'Nearly getting there,' Charlie sighed, leaning backwards, letting his quill turn around in his hand, when I got an idea.

'Hey, Charlie. Do you want a break?'

'Yes, please.'

I stood up and put on my cloack. Charlie frowned. 'What are you doing?'

'We're going outside.'

'Wait what? We need to finish this. Truly,' he said, gesturing to his book.

'Hi, Dora. Didn't knew you were here too,' a familiar voice said in my right ear, all out of sudden. I turned around towards him. 'Seamus. We were just leaving, actually.'

'Oh.' Seamus' face fell as he saw Charlie, who was standing there awkwardly. 'Okay. See you in the common room, then. I suppose.'

'Yeah. Ofcourse.' He touched my hand as I walked past him and Charlie and I left the library.

'So where are we going?' Charlie asked as we left the castle and crossed the courtyard. 'I don't know...'

'How so, you don't know?'

'Expect the unexpected, Charlie,' I joked with a chuckle.

'Okay. You are strange.'

'Oh, I know.' Charlie laughed.

'Hey, was that your boyfriend, in the library?' I nodded. 'Yep.'

'He doesn't like me, does he?'

'What do you expect? You're a Slytherin.'

'I  hate it when people say that.'

I chuckled. 'That's just how it is. You're not going to tell me you like Gryffindors, right?'

I looked up at him. 'I don't judge people by their house,' he said.

'I'm sorry, but do you ever talk to someone? Aside from this, now?'

'I try to. There was this Hufflepuff girl, Esmé.'

'What's with her?'

'She is extremely kind, but it's rather awfull. Her mother treats her so bad. A Death Eater. And I try to talk with her, but all she seems to talk about is that red-headed Gryffindor boy.'

'You mean Ron Weasley?'

'Yea.'

I remember the girl with the long, ginger hair that was sitting next to Ron during breakfast.

'Does she have ginger hair?' He nodded, his eyes fixed on his feet. So that girl Ron was talking with was Esmé.

'Ron's a friend of mine,' I said.

'Did he ever mention Esmé?' Charlie said immediately.

'Well, no.' But we didn't saw him much today. Was that a sign he was meeting up with this girl whenever he wasn't with us? 

We had now reached the greenhouses and walked past  them. I remembered I had to pay Hagrid a visit one of these days.

'Want to visit Hagrid?' I asked Charlie. 'Hagrid? The Magical Creatures professor?' I nodded and he frowned. 'Why would you want to go there? Do you need help for his class?'

'He's a friend.'

'But-' I didn't listen to what he was saying, but hit right and followed the path to Hagrid's hut. I turned around to see if Charlie was following, and he was. I smirked and proceeded.

-

After our visit to Hagrid, Charlie and I went back to the castle immediately. Charlie said he was going back to the library to finish the text, and I decided to do my homework in the common room, so I set off to the tirth floor.

As I approached, I could see two people standing rather close to eachother.

A read-headed boy and a girl with ginger hair: Ron and Esmé, obviously. And then noticed she had her hand on his chest and they were kissing.  I tried to turn subtle. They broke apart and Ron looked startled when he saw me. 'Dora. Don't tell anyone, okay?'

I smirked. 'Find yourself a better place to make out then.'

Esmé's face turned red. 'You're Esmé, right?' I said quickly, trying to comfort her a bit.

'Yes. How do you know?'

'Charlie told me,' I stated. Ron frowned and looket at me. 'Who's Charlie?'

'Oh. I'll tell you later,' Esmé muttered as she looked up at Ron and then to the corridor behind her. 'I think I'll go, uhm... See you tomorrow, Ron?' Ron smiled. 'Yea. Goodnight.' She nodded, glared at me and then set off.

I smiled at Ron, raising an eyebrow, when she had left. He hit my arm playfully. 'Shut up, you,' he said, blushing. I said the password and we entered the common room.

When we entered the room, it fell quiet. Seamus strode towards me. 'Dora. There's something... going on. You might want to - read it yourself.' He was holding a newspaper, I supposed it was a copy of the Evening Prophet.

'What is it?' I said as I grabbed the newspaper and unfolded it. 'Dora, I think you'd better not-' Seamus started, but I didn't pay attention to it and began reading the front page.