Treacherous | Hermione Granger Book II

|07| Chapter Seven

S E V E N

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Rachel and Rowan's sense of lostness aboard the train caused a chain reaction for Saffron, and as she finally started to walk away from the twins, she realised she had no idea as to where she was walking.

There had been no sign of the people she had intended on sitting with for the journey to Hogwarts, them being Hermione, alongside Harry and Ron. She supposed they were probably in a compartment together and as she started to look inside of compartments, she saw no sign of any of them. She didn't recognise the vast majority of people that were inside the compartments she walked past. But she recognised a few; the handsome Gryffindor Keeper and Captain Oliver Wood, whom Saffron's friend Lavender always raved about whenever in sight, was sat with a large group of other burly sixth years. Ron's brothers Fred and George were easily in the noisest compartment of all, with a range of different students from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff alike, but Saffron didn't even need to look in to know that her friends wouldn't be in there. There was no chance Fred and George would allow Ron to mess up their fun.

Then, Saffron approached a compartment with a few familiar faces.

Her relationships with Olly Jowett and Padma Patil was one that was practically exclusive to being under the stars. For, shortly before the Christmas break last year, when their Astronomy teacher Professor Sinistra decided to assign seating due to fellow Gryffindor Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan's loud disruptions, Saffron was assigned a beanbag in between the two friends.

Their relationship started with a bang, literally. When a near-death experience for Locklan caused Padma to accidentally pummel a telescope into Saffron's face, sending her into the Grey, they didn't feud or quarrel, quite the contrary. They formed a bond.

But the bond wasn't strong enough for Saffron to intrude. She watched the back of Padma's head talking to Olly, Lisa Turpin, a pretty fellow Ravenclaw with short dark brown hair and brown eyes, and Terry Boot who too had brown hair but green eyes instead. The four of them were chatting away animatedly, seemingly deep in conversation and Saffron had no intention of disrupting it.

She walked past the compartment but instantly froze when the compartment door slid open and close a mere second later.

"I see you!"

It was Olly who spoke.

Saffron turned around on her heel and gave a small shrug. She replied in the merriest voice she could muster.

"I see you too,"

He let out a small laugh. "Were you just going to ignore us?"

Saffron bit her lip and took a moment to consider her answer. "Yes, oh, does that sound awful?"

He too took a moment to consider his answer. "I don't think so, I think it sounds honest, which I think is fair,"

"Wouldn't it just have been easier to ask about Summer or something?"

"Or something?"

"Yes, or something,"

He crinkled his eyebrow with curiosity. "So could something be your deepest darkest secret?"

Saffron grinned and rolled her eyes when she noticed he was looking nowhere but her eyes.

"I guess something could be that, but asking about Summer was what I was going for,"

"Well, join us and I'll ask,"

"What?" asked Saffron blankly. She blinked. She had heard him clearly but that had been the furthest thing she had expected to come out of his mouth. Then again, when could she ever predict what was going to come out of this boys mouth. He was strange, to the extent that she felt strange around him. She wasn't sure if the feeling was mutual, but maybe if it was then they were both perfectly normal in states of procrastination. Regardless, she didn't dislike it, not in the slightest.