New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|30| Chapter Thirty

T H I R T Y

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Saffron split her time between watching the sorting ceremony and watching Olly from afar throughout the next few minutes. Her eyes were switching from one to the others constantly and she felt truly grateful that neither Lavender nor Parvati, though mostly Lavender was next to her or even nearby, as she knew Lavender would be perceptive enough to realise who Saffron was looking at and why Saffron was looking at him. Hermione, Harry and Ron, on the other hand, were oblivious as far as she knew. She didn't think she had given them any reason to think that she was thinking along the lines that she was with regard to Olly so they didn't have much cause for suspicion, in contrast to Harry who made it abundantly clear that he was figuratively drooling over Cho Chang by physically drooling over Cho Chang when dinner came.

Finding herself caught up in watching two different things going on, seeing nervous first years get sorted and seeing a nervous Olly wait for his brother to be sorted before he turned into an elated Olly when his brother joined Gryffindor, something Saffron knew he wasn't expecting, as he thought Locklan would join Hufflepuff house. Once the sorting came to an end, Saffron discovered the gaping hole in her stomach that needed filling and she wasted no time in tucking into the assortment of foods on offer at the Gryffindor table. She didn't bother to stare at Olly anymore as he wasn't looking towards the top of the hall and it would be far too obvious if she was distracted by something that wasn't dinner at dinner.

Everything was going swimmingly until Nearly Headless Nick decided to interrupt their dinner by inadvertently dropping a bomb as he made casual conversation with them.

"You're lucky there's a feast at all tonight, you know," Nearly Headless Nick told them knowingly. "There was trouble in the kitchens earlier."

"Why? Wha' 'appened?" Harry asked through a mouthful of steak

"Peeves, of course," Nearly Headless Nick shook his head (which was hanging on by a thread) disapprovingly. "The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast - well, it's quite out of the question, you know what he's like, utterly uncivilized, can't see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost's council - the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance - but most wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down."

"I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, Bloody Baron," said Saffron, looking over at the Slytherin ghost, which was hovering around their table, impressed and grateful. "What did Peeves do then? Try and flood the kitchens?"

"Almost," Nearly Headless Nick informed her with a sigh. "He wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits -"

Saffron jumped out of her seat when Hermione knocked her goblet over and pumpkin juice started to pour all over the table but Hermione did nothing to stop it. She was frozen by that trigger word. Saffron lifted her goblet to stop further spillage as Hermione stared up a Nearly Headless Nick in horror.

"There are house-elves here? Here at Hogwarts?"

"Certainly," said Nearly Headless Nick as though it was obvious. "The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred."

"I've never seen one!" gasped Hermione.

"Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they?" he replied "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning...see to the fires and so on...I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?"