Forbidden Love: (a Harry Potter love story.)

Chapter 7) Such a strange tradition.

I don't own Harry Potter, blah blah blah, yeah. You get the idea.

Silvia's POV:

Dear Diary.
Should I even be opening with that? It's not really mine, but I'm using it, which you don't seem to have much of a problem with. Anyway, a lot of strange stuff has been happening lately. I've been blacking out, for hours at time, and then waking up in places I don't remember going to. It's strange. I know you have said that this is normal, but I can't help but feel like I'm crazy. Am I crazy?

I waited for Tom's response patiently, but as soon as the words appeared scrawled across the parchment I heard a small voice from behind me. "What is that?!" I span around quickly to see a small, ginger red head staring at the diary with wide eyes and mouth hanging open. I quickly slammed the book shut without looking at the reply and stuffed it under my pillow and out of sight. "N-nothing, Ginny. Go to sleep." I turned on my side, breathing out nervously. Would she tell someone? And more importantly, was I actually going crazy?

That is the question that had been floating around my head for at least a month now. Was I crazy? October had arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the students and staff. Her Pepperup Potion worked instantly though, despite it leaving the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours after. Oh what a funny sight it was to see McGonagall march into transfiguration looking like a steam engine.

Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end. The lake rose, the flowerbeds turned into muddy streams, and the ridiculously large pumpkins Hagrid was growing had swelled to the size of garden sheds.

Oliver wood's enthusiasm for regular training was not dampened, however, which was why Harry and I were to be found, late one stormy night a few days before Halloween, returning to the Gryffindor common room, rain drenching my now rather see through Quidditch robes and splattering wood along the ground.

Even aside the rain and wind it hadn't been a happy practice session. I didn't want to lift my arms up because of my robes, which was problematic when you had to throw a ball, and Fred and George, who were spying on the Slytherin team, had stated that the players were no more than seven green blurs hurdling through the air at an incredible speed.

As Harry and I squelched along the deserted corridor we came across someone who looked just as miserable as we did. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring out of the window, muttering under his breath. "Don't fulfil their requirements... half an inch, if that..."

"H-h-hey N-Nick." I shivered, Harry wrapping an arm around my shoulders to keep me warm. "Hello, hello. You look troubled, young Potter, Black." Nick said, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet. "So do you." Harry noted politely.

"Ah. A matter of no importance... it's not as though I really wanted to join... thought I'd apply, but apparently I don't really 'fulfil the requirements.'" Despite his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness of Nick's face.

"But you would think, wouldn't you, that getting hit 45 times in the neck by a blunt axe would qualify you to join the headless hunt?" Nick said suddenly, pulling the letter out of his pocket. Harry and I both agreed, as we were obviously supposed to. "I mean, no one wishes more than I That it had been all quick and clean, and my head had come off properly, I mean, it would have saved me a great deal of pain and ridicule. However..." nick tore the letter open and read furiously. "We can only accept huntsmen who's heads have parted completely with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head Juggling and Head Polo. It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfil our requirements. With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore."