Amortentia

Part 24

They walked down together to the entrance hall, which was deserted, everyone was still at classes. They made their way down to the quidditch pitch, but John stopped as soon as he got out into the open, mounting his broom and kicking off into the sky, not in the mood for walking. As soon as the wind hit his face, a lot of the stress seemed to be left on the ground. He shot around the castle, his friends struggling to keep up with him, weaving in and out of the towers, seeing glimpses of poor students still stuck in their classes. He swooped over Hagrid’s hut, where Care of Magical Creatures was being taught to second years, which awed over the four figures zipping past. He raced around until it was time for lunch, which was maybe two hours or so, and when the second class started to leave he landed the broom near the large oak doors, his headache practically gone. The class was still watching them even though he was done flying, wondering what gave him the right to skip class and fly around, but Dumbledore had said that the whole school had known what was going on with him. They brought their brooms to the Great Hall with them, and John hadn’t realized how starving he was until he sat down in front of all of that food. He started eating things at a rate he didn’t know was possible, it was if he had turned the other night. Had he? Was that how he lost his memory, he might have turned and someone wiped his memory or something, but he couldn’t ask his friends since they didn’t know about his secret. If there had been some type of werewolf attack and he killed someone they wouldn’t want him to know would they. Maybe the other curtain had not another stone student, but one that had gotten mauled by a beast. When he was finally done eating, long after his friends were, they headed back up to the common room and put their brooms back. John’s eyes flickered to the roses that still sat on the window sill. He wondered who actually gave them to him, and if he had a girlfriend no one would tell him about. Maybe it was Mary! Had he actually had the courage to ask her out, after all of these years? He really hoped so. The rest of the day he spent reading Quidditch Through the Ages again, just skimming the text really, he still remembered the entire book. When his mind would wander away from the book, he’d set it down and stare at the wall, trying to keep his mind open that maybe his memories would come back, but at this point he doubted they’d ever come back. At dinner time he and his friends wandered down to the Great Hall again, along with a pack of first years he didn’t recognize. They were very loud, and John walked as fast as he could to get away from them. When they got to the Hall, he saw all of the teachers sitting peacefully up at the staff table. He noticed Professor Holmes had the curse to sit next to Snape, but he seemed lost in his own world. John sat down where they usually sat, and his eyes wandered over to the Ravenclaw table, where he saw the back of a beautiful blond head, which had to be Mary. His heart did a flip flop; he wanted to do something to impress her even though she was two tables away. She was talking with her friends, and he hoped so badly the roses were from her. He didn’t eat nearly as much food as he had for lunch, but he still ate more than his friends. The Great Hall looked the same, except for the first years and Professor Holmes everyone was the same, but they all looked older. Dumbledore didn’t have any announcements, so everyone left for their common rooms to enjoy their free time, which John felt like he had too much of. After learning the new password (UMQRA) they sat in the armchairs and his friends tried to teach him what he had to learn for the classes he had tomorrow, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Defense against the Dark Arts, and Ancient Ruins. After a short lesson on dragons, boggarts, and Easter Island, John felt pretty prepared for tomorrow. He didn’t need to learn anything for potions because they did something new every time, just to remember how to mix stuff together in a cauldron. Dragons seemed interesting enough, but they wouldn’t have a live creature to look at which was disappointing. Boggarts, creatures that turned into your biggest fear, seemed amazing, and Professor Tonks had said they would get a live one on Wednesday, which gave him enough time to prepare. Easter Island seemed as boring as ever of course, that class was miserable. The next quidditch practice was on Wednesday too, to give John some preparation time, which he was thankful for, because when he was finally able to find his notes on the drills he had no idea what the lines and arrows and circles meant. The rest of the common room were all looking at him, he could feel their eyes on the back of his head, which made him very uncomfortable. He knew they were all wondering the same thing, how much does he remember? A group of girls were all looking rather hopefully at him, which made him very suspicious. After a while he couldn’t take more of sitting in a chair and staring at the fire, so he went up to his dorm early. He was also exhausted, something had really drained him, but he had no idea what. When he blew out the candle lighting the room, he fell into a deep sleep, not even disturbed by his friends. But he dreamed, which he doesn’t do very much. It was nothing major, flashes of things that didn’t make sense, the dungeon hallway, leading to the potions classroom, but it was brighter, as if he loved it there. He saw grass, the lake, trees, the grounds of Hogwarts, he felt an overwhelming feeling of happiness and love, as if he had met the one person he knew he wanted to marry, which was impossible. The weird dreams must have been the slightest sliver of memories within a memory, something that had happened to his before. Maybe he could piece together the dreams enough to figure out what was going on with him.