New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|86| Chapter Eighty-Six

E I G H T Y  S I X 

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After her absolute disaster of a History of Magic exam, Saffron was unable to think straight when the realisation truly sunk in that Maya and Harry were going to be up against an awful lot of tough obstacles in the maze in only an hour or so. It almost felt as though everything had been building up to this moment. Ever since their names had come out of the Goblet of Fire, Saffron had anticipated the worst happening to them but if they could get through this one last night, everything would go back to their normality and they could enjoy their Summer as a new family.

Oftentimes, something bad happened to Saffron but something good happened afterwards. If that trend were to continue, she hoped that the whole school year being riddled by a crippling fear of the Triwizard Tournament qualified as her bad thing, as she didn't dare to think about what could be worse.

If anything happened to Maya or Harry, Saffron would be devastated and it made Saffron think about how much of a significant impact both of them had made on her life, for worse and for better.

But mostly for the better.

Maya had been her companion since the day they were born. Up until Maya's first day at Hogwarts, there hadn't been a single day that the girls hadn't spent together. For so long, they only had each other. Whether they liked it or not, they belonged together and their existence depended on the other person. Of course, this came with so much love but that love but pressure on their relationship to the extent that cracks had formed. Over the last four years, in particular, they had gone through a whirlwind of not speaking to each other, not trusting each other and from Saffron's point of view, simply not liking her elder sister.

However, Saffron's life outside of Hogwarts was built around Maya and even within Hogwarts, her sister was still an integral part of her life. As of late, they hadn't spoken much because they had their own individual lives outside of their family one. But that didn't negate how close they were.

Maya was her older sister, mother figure, carer, and former best friend all in one. Together, they had formed a family for Rachel, Rowan and for each other. Through all the hard times in and out of Squires, they had always ended coming back together simply because they belonged together. No matter how far apart they were in distance or in closeness, Saffron and Maya always ended up back together. And Saffron couldn't ever see that changing.

Then there was Harry, the person that Saffron truly was destined to be friends with. They had known each other when they were babies and found each other courtesy of a Mountain Troll. It took a while for them to develop the friendship but once they did, Saffron considered him to be very special to her. As they related to each other in ways that Saffron never could with any of her other friends, as they were both orphans of the war.

Like with Maya, this friendship didn't come without ups and downs. There had been times when Saffron didn't trust Harry. For quite a while, she believed him to be possessed by Lord Voldemort and actively made Hermione and Ron keep secrets from him because of that. But after that, they only became closer.

Their friendship had prevailed through the darkest times, to the point where the two of them stood in front of the man they believed to have killed their parents and debated whether or not they would end his life. For almost every traumatic event they had gone through, they were side by side, with Hermione or Ron and that was why they had made it as far as they did. That was why Sirius Black was free, Sage Gill was back in the wizarding world and Peter Pettigrew was behind bars. As Harry was the one who trusted Saffron to use her clairvoyance to capture the rat. Likewise, Saffron trusted Harry to be the one to get rid of the Dementors.