Power ▸ Ron Weasley [1]

XXIII. STRONGEST MEMORIES

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE:

STRONGEST MEMORIES

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      There was nothing that made Nova Nott more uncomfortable than when people started crying.

      She was perfectly fine with assessing her own emotions and letting tears fall... but only if she was all alone and no one could see her cry. She'd been raised with the idea that crying was something that showed weakness and therefore, she should never take part in the particular action. Maybe it was tat backwards set of beliefs that made Nova so uncomfortable when others cried. That, and the fact that she had no sense of how to comfort someone.

      Still, as Nova stood with groups of other students who had begun to crowd around the entrance hall steps, she wouldn't consider what Professor Trelawney was doing as crying. The sobs that were wracking her chest went beyond that diagnosis. So no, she wasn't crying. Sybill Trelawney was about to have an emotional breakdown. 

      "No! No! This cannot be happening... it cannot... I refuse to accept it!" Trelawney was shouting. From what Nova could see, the Divination professor had an empty bottle of alcohol in her hand and looked more unkempt than usual; there were bags at her feet that suggested she was leaving the castle. Forced, Nova corrected when she saw the pink bundle of terror standing at the bottom of the stairs, seemingly unaware of the crowd she had seemed to draw. 

      "You didn't realize this was coming?" Umbridge asked in her annoyingly high pitched tone. "Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow's weather, you must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable you would be sacked?"

      "What's going on?" Someone on Nova's side asked, and when she felt a hand stealthily slip into her own and squeeze before releasing, she knew it was Ron by her side. 

      "Umbridge is sacking Trelawney is what it looks like," Nova answered, not letting herself look over at him. If she did, she knew she wouldn't be able to tear her eyes away and she could already feel the burn of her fellow classmate's stares. No doubt they were wondering what she was doing standing so close to a Weasley. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of coming up with theories, staring straight ahead at the scene in front of her. 

      "Does she have the authority to do that?" he questioned.

      Nova lightly shrugged. "She seems to think so. I don't."

      "You c-can't!" Professor Trelawney screeched like a banshee. Her eye glasses were lopsided, hair sticking up in every which way, and tears falling from her eyes. She seemed to take no notice of them as she trembled, looking so incredibly small in that moment that even Nova felt bad for the woman. "You c-can't sack me! I've b-been here sixteen years! H-Hogwarts is m-my h-home!"