✔️ 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐎 → ℎ. 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦

27 | H A Z E L E Y E S

your eyes they shine so bright,
I wanna save their light.

   "OKAY, LADY!", SUSAN groaned, letting her fork fall into her still half filled plate. Her eyes fixed Ember, her arms crossed in front of her chest. "I know it's exams and stuff, but this mood of yours is disgusting! I feel down just by watching you! And would you finally eat this poor chicken?"

   For the last ten minutes, Ember had shoved her meal over her table, from left to right, and back, as if the answer she was looking for lay beneath those chickpeas and chicken slices.

   "I'm just not hungry", Ember sighed, finally placing her own fork next to the plate. "I'm tired." She looked up, eyes avoiding Susan and Hannah, wandering across the Great Hall, finding, what they didn't want to see.

   Ron was bowed over the table, chewing on his steak while fiercely talking to Harry and Hermione. To Ember he hadn't talked very much ever since that night. Instead he was avoiding her whenever he could, and after a while, Ember had stopped making attempts to speak to him.

   She hadn't told anyone about that kiss, neither Susan, nor Hannah. Blaming it on the OWLs, that were right around the corner, nobody did ask any questions for long. Nobody but Susan of course. While Hannah probably was suspicious, but sensitive enough to not say a word, Susan was as empathic as an errupting volcano.

   "You can sleep after finally telling us what's wrong", Sunsan replied, an eyebrow lifted. "Are your little shadows causing trouble?"

   "No", Ember plainly said. Yes, her mind was yelling, as she felt a shiver running down her spine. "It's just the owls, and detention, and I didn't sleep well lately, so I am tired!" Involuntarily her voice was growing louder. Heads turned, and her cheeks flushed pink.

   "Okay okay, no need to skin me alive", Susan snorted. "Go to sleep then, we don't want anyone in here to get hurt."

   Ember gave a brief nod, before she got up. Immediately, she could hear Hannah and Susan bickering, but she didn't turn around.

   Ron, sitting at the Gryffindor table, stopped listening to Hermione mid sentence, his eyes being drawn to the petite, raven haired girl leaving her table in a rush. Her face was a mask. Her hand shot up, fingers running through that wild mess if hair, and it was in this very moment, her eyes snapped up, as if she'd felt him staring at her across the whole hall. She didn't stop, but it seemed like the time did so, when saphire blue and hazel brown met. Ember frowned, right before her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes narrowed to slits, and Ron flinched at what he saw in their depths.

   It could have been just his mind playing tricks on him, his bad conscience betraying him, or maybe just the light falling in a strange angle from the thousand flying candles floating in the air - but he saw, what he saw, and a shiver ran down his spine, his limbs, tingling in the tips of his fingers, his toes, leaving him cold, and his head light ...

   Ember's eyes, those bright hazel eyes, used to have a million colours, always depending on the light that brightened or dimmed the orbs of her irises. Ron could easily use himself in them, and so often he did, always finding something new, something unexplored ...

   This time he wished, he didn't. From those million colours he knew, black wasn't one of them. And even though it was just a blink, just a flash, what he had seen in Ember's eyes, was darker than the night, filling them whole, swollowing their light -

   She turned away, hurdling out of the Great Hall, but a coldness remained on his goosebump covered skin, leaving him staring at the gate, even long after she was gone.

·

   There was a shattering noise, a bang shaking the walls around her. Ember snapped out of her thoughts, looking up startled. The book in front of her she'd never started reading, reappeared in her vision, where before she had pictured a conversation she would never hold; the one with Dumbledore, the one about Harry, the one she should have had long ago. But now Dumbledore was gone, and Snape had stopped teaching Harry Occlumency, and Ember had a feeling growing inside her, that left her heads trembling, and her eyes on the verge to flood with tears she now fought down for so long.

   Another bang had her jump to her feet, running out of the library, almost crushing into someone passing by right in this moment.

   "Harry!", she gasped, slithering coming to a hold. "That wasn't you, was it?"

   "No", he replied, head jerking to the stairs, as a new earpiercing noise shook the walls. "But I have an idea who it is. C'mon!"

   Taking her hand, he pulled her along with him, down the stairs, and another one, until they reached the entrance hall, which looked like most of the school had resembled there.

   Students were standing all around the walls in a great ring; teachers and ghosts were also in the crowd. Prominent among the onlookers were members of the Inquisitorial Squad, who were all looking exceptionally pleased with themselves, and Peeves, who was bobbing overhead, gazed down at Fred and George who stood in the middle of the floor with the unmistakeable look of two people who had just been cornered.

   "Oh no ...", Ember muttered, feeling Harry's hand squeezing hers, as he still held it in his.

   "So!", aid Umbridge triumphantly. Ember realised she was standing just a few stairs in front of her and Harry, once more looking down upon her prey. "So you think it amusing to turn a school corridor into a swamp, do you?"

   "Pretty amusing, yeah", said Fred, looking up at her without the slightest sign of fear.

   "You two", she went on, while Filch was elbowing his way through the crowd, "are about to learn what happens to wrongdoers in my school."

   "You know what?", said Fred. "I don't think we are."

   He turned to his twin.

   "George", said Fred, "I think we've outgrown full-time education."

   "Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself", said George lightly.

   "Time to test our talents in the real world, d'you reckon?", asked Fred.

   "Definitely", said George.

   And before Umbridge could say a word, they raised their wands and said together, "Accio brooms!"

-