Hogwarts Mystery: Laws of Attraction

Chapter 4: The Endgame

Chapter 4: The Endgame

"A little bird tells me you've got a girlfriend now?" Charlie felt a sudden slap on his back, that made him spit out the mouthful of pumpkin juice. Jae Kim was annoyingly cheerful this morning, even though they've never really talked since that fake dragon egg incident. "And a Danvers girl no less? Way to go, man, way to go."

Young Weasley didn't know how to answer that. It was bad enough to know that it was only few minutes into the new term and everyone was already talking about him.

"I'd still go for Penny, though." Jae continued, filling his plate. "I'd never understand why you'd like Danvers, their family is cursed just like those Vaults, I tell you!"

"You'll understand once you've talked to her." It was nice to hear Jae not to call Tiashe 'crazy' for a change.

"Nah, I'll pass. I have enough detentions already." He smirked. "Maybe next year..."

Charlie chuckled and glanced at the Ravenclaw table. There were hardly any people left rushing through their breakfast. Compared to them, other Houses seemed way too relaxed and chatty.

"I bet they're in the classrooms by now." Jae was also looking at the neighboring table. "Such nerds..."

"Weasley!" The boys heard a booming voice just behind their backs. The smile of the Gryffindor quidditch team captain was glowing brighter than the morning sun. "How you've been? Heard a lot about you these days."

"Who hasn't?" Somehow, that bright smile had completely reverse effect on Charlie.

"But never mind that," the tall and bulky Gryffindor's seventh year didn't pay any attention to his seekers' words. "The qudditch practices start this evening, I expect to see you there. We'll be training extra hard this term."

Charlie didn't share his enthusiasm at all.

"But you've said that the Hufflepuffs are no competition to us..." He hoped to have at least some free time for the homework, but at this rate...

"And you're right!" People started to turn their way hearing the captain laugh. "But the Ravenclaws got a pretty strong team this year. And we're aiming for the Cup no less." He winked at Charlie. "I just hope your girlfriend won't miss you."

He joined the rest of seventh years with a loud laugh, attracting even more attention to the Gryffindor table.

Charlie did not expect to feel this miserable before the classes had actually started. Even the breakfast didn't seem as tasty anymore.

"Hey, man, we've got to run." Jae on the other hand was enjoying himself. "Snape will kill us if we're late."

He was probably the only one beside Penny Haywood, who genuinely had a good time during the Potions class - probably because he got to bother Penny in there, and his skillful act of liking her was flawless until now. Maybe, that was the reason why Snape especially hated Jae, and thus all of his detentions. Although, he didn't really care about them either. Charlie tried to remember, what he actually knew about his classmate, but it all sounded pretty much like a well calculated plan.

'Rather than Hufflepuff, he'd do great in Slytherin...' the thought came to the young Weasley as they've entered the Dungeons.

​

Charlie hardly felt the days going by - it was as if some sneaky Muggle had hit a repeat button turning the weeks of Charlie's life into an infinite loop of classes and practices, that left little to none time for anything else. The quidditch match with Hufflepuffs came and went, marking a spectacular victory for Gryffindors and tying them up with Ravenclaws. However, the fact that they've won did not bring any relief at all - the captain forced them to train twice as much, the classes were four times as harder and the amount of homework was escalating at the unnatural speed - the mere thought about it could put anyone in despair. The hours spend sleeping were shortening day by day so that he could keep up with the studies - just enough not to fail anything - which made focusing during the class almost impossible.