Connected

Chapter 9 'Horace Slughorn'

Chapter 9     ‘Horace Slughorn’

Walking with the others with a fake smile plastered on your face is not an easy job to do when all you want to do is cry.

This was the kind of situation Evanna was stuck in.

“Are you all right?” Harry asked as the four of them walked together to the Great Hall for breakfast.

“Of course I am! What will happen to me?” Evanna replied quickly but still not too quickly to make him suspicious.

“Your eyes are all puffy..”

“I slept late.”

“And you seem kind of tensed...”

“I’m just nervous about the new teacher,” that’s all what Evanna could come up with. But the excuse even appeared lame to herself.

“Oh really!” Ron said sarcastically, “You sound like Hermione.”

“Excuse me, Ron,” Hermione said irately as they got nearer the Gryffindor table.

They started to get seated; Evanna did her best to reach the only spot left on the benches which had their back to the Slytherin table but failed as at the nick of time when she was a few steps away from the spot, Dean came and sat on it before she could reach.

 She gave a frustrated sign and followed the others as they went towards the benches which were facing the other tables belonging to Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and worst of all; Slytherin.

The food was already served and many students were half way through their breakfast. Ron was the first to help himself to food, followed by Harry and Hermione. Even though, Evanna wasn’t feeling hungry at the slightest but still she went for it because she didn’t want any more suspicion being expressed by Harry nor Ron and nor Hermione.

Just as Evanna ripped apart the innocent cheese omelette by the help of her fork and knife and shoved it into her mouth; a page came floating down from the top of her head and onto the table in front of her.

She picked it up with curiosity to find something exciting which would make her forget about last night but she was soon disappointed to see the schedule of their classes.

“Where did these come from?” Evanna asked as she saw everyone at the table reading their schedules.

“You didn’t listen?! McGonagall explained it,” Hermione answered from her right.

“Had you cut out all voices? She was half shouting!” said Ron from Hermione’s right.

“Apparently yes..... I had” Evanna replied, more to herself, realizing that she had really cut off all the surrounding voices.

“Well let me see your schedule,” Hermione said as she grabbed Evanna’s schedule from her hand, “We mostly have all the classes together...”

“Except those which you took as extra,” Evanna completed her sentence and Hermione nodded.

Evanna was starting to feel hungry as her thoughts were starting to move on and she looked avariciously at the food placed at the long Gryffindor table. Her eyes stopped on the steaming hot baked potatoes which were far from her reach.

“Hey Hermione can you give me those?” she said, her eyes still locked on those potatoes. Her hunger had just struck her like lightening and she felt her stomach grumbling silently.

But Hermione didn’t reply her; Evanna looked up to see Hermione looking at the farthest end of the hall, her eyes going through different expressions like surprise, realization, suspicion and some others which weren’t that readable.