The Spark {Book 5 in the Star of Gryffindor Series}

Chapter 26 - A Sign of the Times

The Daily Prophet
Issue No. 102,120
9 March, 2022

RECENT POLLS SAY PUBLIC LOSING TRUST

A recent poll taken by the new Department of Societal Welfare and Support shows that a shocking number of people are losing trust in the Ministry of Magic. When asked for reasons why, many claimed that they were afraid that corruption and power imbalance were going to make the government crumble from the inside...

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"Has it been working for you?"

Albus seemed so anxious that I immediately knew what he was talking about. It had been about a week since we'd gotten everyone looking for a spy. Had the voice in my head died down? Had I decided it couldn't be her?

I slowly shook my head. "I'm watching her as closely as anyone else. I can't help it."

Albus sighed. "Me too. I hate it."

"You haven't noticed anything, have you?" I asked.

Albus shrugged. "I don't think she's ever really alone much. Always with you and me. Or James. Or Colette."

"Yeah. Which means, practically, it couldn't really be her, right?"

"Yeah, I guess it does." Albus didn't look very reassured, unfortunately. I wasn't, either.

"We can't do anything about it," I said finally. "It's like James said. We can't worry about things we can't control."

"I worry anyway."

"Well... Just try not to."

"That's not very easy," Albus said, frowning. "You're not a worrier, Astra. It's not in your personality. You wouldn't understand."

He wasn't wrong. "Okay, well, I'll help you. Any time you start worrying, give me a look and I'll distract you, and it'll distract me, too, and then neither of us will be worrying."

Albus looked like he thought that wouldn't work. I also thought that wouldn't work, but I wasn't about to admit that.

On the whole, life was going well. All of us were on the same page again, looking for a spy. We'd decided not to tell Mr. Potter of our suspicions, because he had a lot on his plate, and we didn't actually have anything concrete to tell him. Albus and I supported this idea because we knew he'd look a little deeper into why we hadn't brought this up for three weeks.

I was managing to stay afloat in all my classes. In Charms, I had been torn between throwing my all into every assignment to piss off Haverna with my good grades or fail everything to prove to her that she couldn't make me do anything. I'd finally decided on pissing her off (because, in a way, the second option was only me becoming everything she'd ever said I was, an idea I absolutely despised), and found that Charms essays were not so hard when I actually tried to do them. On a whim, I took that mindset to other classes, and while they weren't as easy, it did help quite a bit.

Marcus had been hitting on different girls in his year and mine for a while now, and had been soundly rejected by all of them (Lacy's work, I expected). James warned that he'd probably come crawling back to me at some point, if this kept up. I dreaded the day, but Albus and James both offered to hex him for me. I turned the both down. I much preferred hexing him myself.