star shopping ✰ d.m.

CHAPTER TEN

Arabella sat on a sofa in the common room next to Seamus. She had her homework in her lap, and she had been intending to do it, but she found that her mind was just too full of other things to be able to allow her to concentrate on Transfiguration.

"You've been strangely quiet lately," Seamus said.

"I'm just doing my homework, Seamus," Arabella told him in an unnaturally quiet voice that was quite unlike her.

"You're not, though, which is also very weird. Ari... ever since you left to spend time with Malfoy, you haven't been the same. What's going on? Are you two okay?"

"That depends. Do you mean that to ask if our relationship is okay or if we as individuals are okay? Because those are completely different questions with completely different answers."

"Well, um..." Seamus really didn't know what to say. Of course he wanted to be there for one of his best friends when she was down, but because she was hardly ever sad and had truly never acted like this, he didn't know where to start.

Thankfully, their attention was drawn away from their conversation to a corner of the common room in which Dean and Ginny were arguing.

"They've been fighting a lot lately," Seamus said.

"Yeah, I've noticed that, too," Arabella said.

As they continued to watch the argument, it seemed Ginny had enough. She walked away from Dean and over to Arabella, fuming, and grabbed her hand, pulling her up out of her seat.

"Come on, we've got to get ready for Slughorn's dinner," she said. "We're already late as it is."

Ten minutes later, the sisters were entering the room in which Professor Slughorn was hosting his dinner; of course, everyone had already been there for a while now, and they all stared at the girls until they took their seats.

"Ah. Miss Weasley and Miss Weasley. Come in, come in," Slughorn greeted them.

"Sorry. We're not usually late," Ginny apologized, sitting down next to Arabella who had taken her seat next to Harry, who for some reason had just stood up.

"No matter. You're just in time for dessert, that is, if Belby's left you any."

"He's definitely up to something," Arabella whispered inconspicuously to Harry, pretending to dig into her dessert. "Won't tell me what though. Says he doesn't want me getting hurt. Also, don't think I don't know why you just did that."

"Did what?" Harry questioned, playing dumb.

Arabella grinned. "Right."

After being dismissed from the dinner an hour later, Arabella got an idea.

"You guys go on. I'll catch up with you later," she said to Hermione and Ginny. Then, she sped up her pace to catch up with the Slytherin boy walking ahead of her. "Zabini! Hey, Zabini!"

Blaise looked over his shoulder at her as she came to walk beside him. "What do you want, Weasley?" he asked in a bored tone.

"Okay, is it a Slytherin thing to just automatically take up a rude tone with someone who expresses interest in talking to you?"