Melody Riddle and the Goblet of Fire

Chapter 30: Surrendering to Feelings

After a while I ended up avoiding our 'Professor Moody' for the betterment of my record and my time. There was no escaping his glares when in his class, but it was easy enough to duck out as soon as class ended. Heck, he thought I was avoiding him before, but I'm doing it now. So much for making him see reason during the second task....

"What's been going on with you and Made-Eye?" Fred asked once when the five of us were studying the library.

"Oh, I thought you knew," I said teasingly.

His nose wrinkled in thought.

I laughed, lightly punching his arm. I regained my composure, but instead of a smile I frowned. "You really should know, though. It's not a big secret."

"Just tell me," he said in exasperation.

"I'm trying to keep him from putting me in detention again! He almost did that back at the second task when Professor Snape barged in!"

"Shh!" Madam Pince hissed sharply.

"Sorry," I whispered.

Becky and the twins giggled softly.

"Don't get worked up, Melody, or we might just get her to kick you out," George said. Becky buried her face in his shoulder, shaking with uncontrollable laughter.

"Shut up," I mumbled, burying my face into my hands. "In any case, I don't want to get into trouble again. If you two understood, I'd probably see you hiding from Professor McGonagall or Professor Snape. But you don't, you stand in plain sight."

"Au contraire, we hide when what we do might get us expelled," Fred said.

I looked at him, giving a face. "You two actually like detentions?"

"Gives us something to do in our free time besides Quidditch — which we don't have this year, so the more detentions the better," George reasoned.

To Becky I said, "Do you hear these two? Pillage with them for much longer and you'll also end up getting hundreds of detentions."

She giggled, "I know."

"If she starts getting detentions, it's on your heads," I told the twins.

They gaped at each other. Then Fred told Becky, "Could you possibly stay out of our little schemes? I like being on Melody's good side."

She pouted, and turned to George. "You want me to come with you on your schemes, don't you?"

"'Course I do! It's just... Melody can be scary...."

I was having a hard time not laughing at the twins, pretending to be scared. When have they ever been afraid of me? Oh, that's right, never!

"Oh, calm down, you know I won't do anything drastic to you," I said.

"One never knows with all the spells you can use. You're stronger now than you were the day we met you."

I snorted, "Ain't that a fact?"

⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛ ⚯͛

March came around, and it was bitterly cold with the sharp winds blasting at us every time we went outside. The poor owls had hard times making their way through with the weather blowing them off course. I should know. Ebony took her frustration out on me once she reached me with the regular letters from my family, her feathers sticking out at about a hundred different angles.