Bella and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter Thirty-Four

Please read the authors note at the end to know why I haven't updated!

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It felt as though we had already won the Quidditch Cup; the party went on all day and well into the night. Fred and George disappeared for a couple of hours and returned with armfuls of bottles of Butterbeer, pumpkin fizz and several bags full of Honeydukes sweets.

"How did you do that?" Angelina Johnson squealed, as George started throwing Peppermint Toads into the crowd.

"With a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs" Fred muttered.

Everyone was having a blast. Everyone except one person. Hermione. She was sitting in a corner, attempting to read an enormous book entitled Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles. I broke away from the table where Fred and George had started juggling Butterbeer bottles, and went over to her.

"Did you even come to the match?" I asked, sitting beside her.

"Of course I did," Hermione answered, in a strangely high-pitched voice, not looking up. "And I'm very glad we won, and I think you and Harry did really well, but I need to read this by Monday"

"Aw, come on Hermione! Stop reading and join in! Maybe have some food," I said looking over at Ron and Harry, wondering if they were in a good enough mood to bury the hatchet.

"I can't, Bella, I've still got four hundred and twenty-two pages to read!" Hermione said, now sounding slightly hysterical. "Anyway..." she glanced over at the boys too, "they don't want to me to join in"

"I'm sure Harry does," I said. "And Ron-"

But at the moment Ron decided to speak up. Ruining any chance of getting Hermione to join in. Damn that boy. 

"If Scabbers hasn't just been eaten, he could have had some of these Fudge Flies, he used to really like them -"

Hermione burst into tears. Man, I want to murder Ronald right now. Before I could say or do anything, Hermione tucked the enormous book under her arm, and still sobbing, run towards the staircase to the girls' dormitories and out of sight. 

"Can't you give her a break?" I asked Ron harshly.

"No," Ron answered flatly. "If she just acted like she was sorry - but she'll never admit she's wrong. Hermione. She's still acting like Scabbers has gone on holiday or something"

The Gryffindor party only ended when McGonagall turned up in her tartan dressing-gown and hair-net at one in the morning, to insist that we all went to bed. I climbed the stairs to my dormitory still thinking about the match. When I went into the dormitory, I noticed the curtains around Hermione's bed closed so I decided to let her sleep and talk to her tomorrow. Once changed, I climbed into bed, twitched the curtains of my bed to block out a ray of moonlight, laid back and felt myself almost instantly drifting off to sleep...

I had a very strange dream. And I wasn't alone. I was with...with Harry. We were walking through a forest, our firebolts over our shoulders, following something silvery white. It was winding its way through the trees ahead, and I could only catch glimpses of it between the leaves. Anxious to catch up with it, we sped up, but as we moved faster, so did our quarry. We broke into a run and ahead, I heard hooves gathering speed. Now we were running flat out, and ahead I could hear galloping. Then we turned a corner into a clearing and -

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! NOOOOOOO!"

I woke as suddenly as though I'd been hit in the face. Disorientated in the total darkness, I fumbled with my hangings - I could hear movements around me and Hermione's voice from the other side of the room.