Forgotten

Book 1 Ch 13

"I cannot believe this Emily. How am I supposed to enforce the very explicit rules, when my top student won't even listen?" McGonagall scolded me.

I shifted in my seat, folding my leg on top of the other. McGonagall had been looking for a reaction in her anger. She had already sent Harry and Hermione away before she brought me to her office. Poor Neville had been drug into all of this too. He didn't deserve the punishment that McGonagall gave, but she wasn't about to listen.

"You wouldn't understand."

"A dragon? Of all the stories to feed children, you chose a dragon?"

"Where is my brother?"

"Do you understand how you have been acting? You are being worse than a child."

"Did it ever occur to you that I am still a child? You may have raised me to not act like one, but you cannot rip someone's nature away from them. No matter how much training you put them through."

"You want to know of things beyond your position and yet you act like this? I have trained you, taught you, beyond your years, and this is how you repay me?"

"I don't recall asking for your training!"

"Would you have preferred to live a life with your aunt and uncle where –"

"Where I would have stayed with my brother as Leira Potter? Where I wouldn't have been forced to live a lie about who I was? Yes – I would have much rather preferred that."

"You will have detention every day for the next two weeks. Off to bed. Now!"

I pushed out of my chair and out of the room. I couldn't stomach seeing McGonagall like that. Talking to her in such a way had hurt both of us, but it needed to be done. This whole time she thought that she was helping me by hiding me from my brother, but she could never understand the pain that came with the guise.

Harry, Hermione, and Neville were waiting for me in the common room when I returned to Gryffindor tower. My eyes kept to the ground out of guilt. If I had taken the Invisibility Cloak for myself, I could have done the job on my own. That would have saved us all from this trouble.

"I should have gone alone. This is my fault for dragging you all along with me."

"You know that isn't true." Hermione said.

"We were all trying to help Hagrid." Harry agreed.

"Go get some rest. We will have the whole house to face tomorrow." I said and started towards the stairs.

*****

"Of all the people, I never thought it would be you, Em." George said.

"We never lost that many points combined all at once." Fred nodded.

We stood in front of the house points. I avoided everyone who passed's eye. None of the Gryffindors aside from Emily, Lee, Fred, and George would speak to me. Even Oliver barely said more than a few words to me when I passed him earlier. Harry, Hermione, and Neville had it easier than I did. Everyone just blamed them for being stupid first years testing the limits. I was a third year who already knew all of the rules.

"Don't worry too much about it." Fred said when he noticed the look on my face. "After all the points George and I have lost over the years, you don't stand a chance."

I leaned against Fred. He was a comfort when I needed it the most. A few Slytherins clapped for me as they passed causing me to press closer to Fred. He wrapped an arm protectively over me to block me from sight of the Slytherins.