New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|39| Chapter Thirty-Nine

T H I R T Y  N I N E 

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"Absolutely not,"

"I'm sorry, Hermione, but I'm not signing that,"

"Are you mad?"

Were the answers from Ron, Lavender and Seamus respectively when Hermione cornered them all in the Great Hall as the Gryffindor fourth years all ate breakfast together the next morning, asking them to become members of S.P.E.W.

Whilst Saffron did nothing in the library the night before, Hermione got their manifesto, short-term and long-term aims ready to show people. Saffron and Harry had begrudgingly agreed to their positions within S.P.E.W last night when Ron was up in his dorm playing a game of exploding snap with Dean and Seamus, in an attempt to cheer up Neville. They did it for the sole purpose of appeasing Hermione, by giving her the two sickles as a membership fee and agreeing to tell others about the society. Though, neither had any intention of doing so.

Hermione employed pressure tactics into getting people to sign up, whether she realised it or not. As she guilt-tripped Parvati and Dean into signing up first thing that morning and bothered Neville about it enough that he signed up probably just to shut her up about it. But that was all the headway that Hermione could make. As Ron, Lavender and Seamus were all adamant about not having their names signed on such a sheet.

But signing up and paying two sickles wasn't enough for Hermione, no, as she tried to coax them all into wearing their badges proudly as she did. That was where most of them drew the line, by telling Hermione they would put them on later, which translated to they would never put them on. Saffron, however, compromised by agreeing to put it on her bag, which she did right in front of Hermione to try and get the girl off her back about it.

It was evident that Hermione had shown no sign of stopping as she told Saffron of plans to go to all sorts of clubs that were on to try and recruit people from different houses, especially senior students. 

That thought sparked a thought in Saffron's mind. She wanted to have a conversation with Amanda and wouldn't be able to until Monday unless she went to the Charms Club that night as Amanda didn't work every second weekend, starting with the first one of the year as Madam Pomfrey would have the next week off. She wanted to ask about Professor Moody and whether or not he knew about the Grey. As if he didn't, he certainly knew that something was up. But before Saffron was going to do that, she wanted to speak to Maya first.

Saffron left the Gryffindor table and made her way over to the Ravenclaw one where her sister was eating her breakfast and talking to her friends, the Gryffindor Melanie and Hufflepuff Bethany.

"Can we have a word?" Saffron asked her politely with a small smile. "I promise it'll be quick,"

"Of course," Maya nodded and she slipped her legs out from under the table and walked down to golden doors of the Great Hall, and the two girls stood just off from the school noticeboard to have the talk that Saffron desired. "What is it?"

Saffron explained what Professor Moody had done during the class, how she felt the Grey through the headache that transpired and what the man had said to her after class. To Saffron's surprise, Maya appeared to be far more taken aback by the fact that Moody had shown younger students such deadly spells. When Saffron told her she was more worried about what Moody said, Maya merely shrugged it off.

"I don't think we have anything to worry about, as far as that's concerned," Maya told Saffron firmly. "He probably genuinely thought it was interesting. He was an Auror, it was his job to read into everything. But I doubt he's drawn any conclusions that we have Clairvoyant abilities, he'd have to have some mind to work that out, unless..." Maya paused as a thought sprung to mind. "Did you make eye contact with him, for a long period of time?"

Saffron shook her head confusedly. "No...why?"

"I thought he might have read your mind," said Maya before hurriedly adding, "Don't worry, he couldn't have. You would have had to have made eye contact with him for a long time, besides, he only has one eye so I'm not even sure he'd be able to, seeing as he only has one real eye left. Maybe that doesn't make a difference, I don't know,"

"I think I'm going to talk to Amanda about it tonight," said Saffron with a frustrated sigh. She hated how much Moody's words were affecting her. She just felt like she was missing something. "It's not that I don't believe you, I just want to know if our parents knew Moody, maybe there's a chance someone let it slip to him,"

"That's always possible," replied Maya fairly. "But even if they did, he wouldn't use it against us, there's no way,"

"Yeah," said Saffron, feeling as though she agreed with Maya but the seed of doubt had certainly been sown in her. She changed the subject and arched an eyebrow at Maya. "Anyway, what's this I hear about you entering the Triwizard tournament?"

Maya laughed and rolled her eyes amusedly. That made the answer clear then and there. A resounding no.

"I said I was thinking about it, but people have already been talking about who's thinking about entering. Roger Davis, that Warrington from Slytherin, Angelina in your house, Cedric Diggory... there's no way I'd beat any of them out, let alone beat two other schools. It's not worth the aggravation,"

"That's a shame," joked Saffron, doing her utmost to sound disappointed. "Would have been great to watch some French or wherever the people from Durmstrang are from beat you up. Eleven year old me would be having the time of her life,"

 "Sorry not to give you the satisfaction, but I'm afraid---" Maya snorted but was cut off by the unmistakable clatter of the collection tin for S.P.E.W containing twelve sickles in it.

"Maya, would you be interested in joining our society for promoting elvish right?" exclaimed Hermione excitably, knowing that Saffron's sister would find it hard to say no. The girl made her way over and Maya then turned back to Saffron and said:

"For promoting what?" 

Saffron sighed and patted her older sister on her arm consolingly. 

"Just entertain her,"

With that, Saffron set off back towards the Great Hall. Although she agreed with Maya that Moody wouldn't do anything with the information should he have it, Saffron wanted to know if there was any chance that she did. Thus, she was going to attend the Charms Club tonight to speak to the woman. In addition to that, there may or may not have been ulterior motives behind her decision, as Saffron was well aware that she may or may not see a certain someone there and that prospect alone was enough to make her go.