✔️ 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓&𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 → 𝑓. 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

57 | S I G N

•••
when you're falling in the forest
and no one is around,
do you ever really crash,
or even make a sound?

"Hope you're aware of them trying to get at you? Pansy and Blaise."

Lynnea looked up, the quill still in her hand, stopping mid sentence of her essay. She looked up, finding Tracey and Daphne looking down at her out of sorrowful eyes.

"Oh, what a pleasure! The queens of snogging take their time to talk to the rabble", Lynnea snickered, watching the two girls faces flushing in two different shades of pink.

"Yeah see, about that ... -"

"No, please don't apologize", Lynnea laughed. "It's fine, really, I was drowning in self-pity and couldn't stand myself either. I'm not mad with the two of you. If I had had the chance to, I would have escaped myself either."

"But we want to apologize", Tracey said. "You're our friend, we should have been there for you." While she looked straight in Lynnea's face, Daphne looked embarrassed at her feet and nodded.

"It's okay. Really, it is", Lynnea said, smiling at the guilty faces of her two friends. "So what are pug-face and the moron up to?"

"We don't know exactly, but we overheared them talking about you", Daphne said. "Saying you need one in the eye."

"As if Blaise hadn't already given you enough in the eye", Tracey growled, her eyes darkened. "I swear, if I'd known it was him doing this to you ..."

"We should have listened to Astoria, she told us all along", Daphne muttered.

"Your sister?" Lynnea cocked an eyebrow.

"Exactly." Daphne nodded grimmly. "She was with Blaise, until the harrassment started. She dumped him. But to be honest, Blaise is such a polite guy, always nice."

"We never thought he could do such things to a girl", Tracey replied, shaking her head bewildered. "We know him since first year, he seemed okay."

"Well, he's good in pretending", Lynnea said and shrugged. "So no blame on you."

"Just be careful, you know Pansy, she would sell her own grandmother to make your life a living hell", Tracey added.

Lynnea was just glad to have her two friends back. It was much funnier being in Slytherin when you had someone by your side. They talked for the whole afternoon, until Lynnea had to leave the common room as she was up to meeting Harry down by the lake.

Lynnea had tried to have an eye on Draco, but it wasn't as easy as she predicted it to be. He vanished every now and then, at times she couldn't find him for hours, he skipped classes every now and then. He didn't want to talk to her, and he was always the last one to return to the common room late in the evenings. Harry wouldn't get rid of the idea, that Draco was up to something awful; and the longer Lynnea thought about it, the more she came to the conclusion Harry could be right.

"Okay, I am a bit ... suspicious", she told Harry, when we met down by the lake. Spring was finally there and it was getting warmer. "I saw him with girls. But I don't know these girls. I don't think, they're Slytherins. I'm sure they aren't Slytherins. And Draco wouldn't accompany people from other houses, therefore he's too arrogant."

"So you believe me now?", Harry said and raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think, that he's a Death Eater, if it's what you mean by believing you. I just think you're right with him being up to something."

"He's losing it whenever someone touches his lower arm", Harry said, a grim expression on his face. "There's a Dark Mark. I know it."

Lynnea shook my head. "He might be a bit too lost into the thought of the dark arts, but he's definitely no Death Eater. He's just ... I don't know, that sounds stupid, but I think his father has something to do with it."

"We'll see", he replied, grabbing a rock from the ground and threw it into the lake, where the black surface gulped it, sending tiny waves to the shore. Lynnea watched him for a while, until something crossed her mind.

"Harry, have a look at my neck, please", she said and Harry raised an eyebrow at his sister.

"W-what?", he stammered.

"My neck. There's something on my skin since I awoke in the hospital wing. I can't see it in the mirror, and I forgot to ask you all the time, so just have a look at it and tell me, what it is."

She lifted her long curly auburn hair and turned her back on Harry. His fingers stroked over her neck. "It's a scar", he said. "Exactly down your spine. A straight line, with an X or something like that through it." Lynnea twirled around, he looked at me confused. "Where do you got this from?"

"I don't have the fuzziest, maybe I hit something, when I fell that day", she replied in a low voice, touching her neck to once more feel the fine lines on her skin.

"What would you've hit, that's looking like that?", Harry asked, snirting. "Maybe you could show it Dumbledore."

"No", Lynnea plainly replied in a sharp voice. "I know, you and Dumbledore are close, but I guess he doesn't really care about me. I'm not the Chosen One, I'm just the sister, that coincidentally survived, too." Still she was angry with the headmaster for being so eager to keep her out of everything going on.

"Don't underestimate it, he cares about you a lot", Harry said. "But he's the opinion - and I deeply agree with it - that it's best to keep you out of all this dangerous stuff going on. But this -", he pointed at my neck, "- this is definitely something he wants to know."

"Well, you can tell him in your next meeting." Lynnea shrugged. "Maybe I should ask Hermione if she - don't know - had read about some sudden appearing scars or stuff. I'm almost sure she did."

"Of course she did", Harry replied with a small laugh. "Since when is there something our Hermione hadn't already read about?"