A New Dawn at Hogwarts

Chapter Fifty: Mea Culpa

A/N: Sorry for the slight delay in posting. And sorry/not sorry about the length of this one! I probably should have split it in two, but here you go. And thanks be to to2llyuntraceable on FF.net, who beta'd the heck out of this chapter and helped me make it so much better.

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Aurora's head lolled back on her pillows. She closed her eyes and savored the blissful nothingness that spread through her body after Madam Pomfrey gave her a Numbing Solution.

"Ten minutes, dear."

Aurora opened her eyes. Ten minutes for what?

Erin was back at the edge of the divider, nervously biting her lip. Madam Pomfrey was gone.

Aurora's heart skipped a beat, her breath catching. Erin was safe. Not dead.

Erin burst into tears as Aurora stared. "I'm so sorry, Aurora! I didn't know he was going to do anything like – like this."

Aurora swallowed. She wasn't sure how to feel, what to believe. "David said...you were the one sending me the dreams?"

Erin's face fell even further. "And the warnings. I know they weren't enough. I should have fought harder, should have stopped –" she choked back the words, shaking her head.

Aurora squashed back her own tears. "Has everything since we met been fake? Getting close to me because you had to?"

"No! It started out that way, because I was so angry at Snape. For killing my dad, for making revenge the only thing Nicole cared about. I was ready to hurt him, and you, if we had to," she said quietly. "But then I met you on the train, and you were so nice. So normal. I tried to talk David out of it that first night. I thought I'd talked him into just doing the dreams. And then, when we came back from Christmas, and you'd been poisoned –" her voice caught. She advanced towards the bed, her eyes pleading with Aurora to understand.

"I was furious. I tried to make him stop. I sent the warning, hoping you'd figure it out."

"Why didn't you tell anyone? My father, Dumbledore, Flitwick – anyone?"

Erin looked down at her slippers. "They're my family. They were all I had."

Aurora inhaled deeply. Erin was her best friend - she wanted to believe her, to trust her. But could she?

A tense silence settled over them. Finally, Aurora said, "I guess Father wouldn't have let you stay in the same ward if he thought you still wanted to hurt me." She cleared her throat as Erin's sobs receded, her eyes coming back up to meet Aurora's. In them, she saw regret, hope—she saw her best friend.

Aurora steeled herself against it. Why should she forgive her so quickly? Erin had stood beside her every day all term, knowing what was happening, seeing what it was doing to Aurora, and now she was just supposed to hug her and say it was all okay?

"I'm glad David's plan didn't work, and that you're okay," Aurora said. "I don't want you dead. But—I don't trust you. I'm not sure I can."

The hope in Erin's face vanished. She averted her eyes again and nodded. "I understand." Then, more softly, "They took him to Azkaban, you know."

Aurora set her jaw. "Good. And Nicole, too?"

Erin resumed her lip biting. "They don't know where she is."

Aurora swore, a tendril of fear creeping up her spine.

Madam Pomfrey rounded the corner, frowning at Aurora's expletive use. "Back to bed, Miss Cafferty. Miss Snape needs her rest."