Obliviate My Choices {Book 4}

9. Chasing attractions

So it turned out Harry had been following the instructions of some weirdo who'd written in his text book. ('How come you find the cool book to help you pass?' Arthur had sighed). Everybody except Ron thought Harry was an idiot for using it, but Harry being Harry pretended to be deaf.

A week after term began, Harry irritated me even more by sending Hedwig into the dorm super early to annoy me so I'd talk to him. Slumping down next to him in my pyjamas I scowled. "This better be good."

"Okay, so I was at my lesson with Dumbledore yesterday--"

"Ah yes, the one I wasn't invited to." I mumbled jealously. 

Harry shot me a look. "So Dumbledore showed me a memory of Voldemort's mother and grandparents."

"Voldemort had a mother? I thought he was a result of experimetation between a snake and an unfourtnate human." Harry whined, and I rolled my eyes. "Sorry, carry on."

"So his grandfather was awful to his daughter, calling her a squib and strangling her because she liked a muggle, who happened to be Voldemort's dad. And then when the grandfather got chucked in prison, she drugged Tom Riddle with love potion so he'd marry her. And then when she found out she was pregnant, she took the spell off and he left her."

"So much drama, it's like a Jeremy Kyle episode." I muttered. "So are you going through the life of Voldemort?"

Harry shrugged. "I suppose so. But I'll tell you whatever Dumbledore shows me. I don't know why he's being like this, it's not fair."

"Thanks. That's almost worth getting pecked to death by an owl." I got up, hoping I could catch another hour of sleep. I was halfway up the stairs when Harry called my name. Turning around, I frowned.

"You know that ring Dumbledore's been wearing on his dead hand?" I nodded. "It was on Voldemort's Grandfather's hand."

* * * * 

As Arthur had warned us, free lessons quickly didn't turn out to be fun. I ended up spending all my free lessons doing homework before collapsing in bed and not moving until the next morning. Lessons were so complex and hard I barely knew what anyone was on about.

 But it was Quidditch try-outs today, and I was so excited I even procrastinated some papers so my entire mind would be on Quidditch and not what the best leaf was for a stupid poison antidote.

Gennie, Ron, Ginny and Cole were trying out for the team again which I was excited about. If all of us could make it onto the team, I believed we'd all work well together considering we were all such good friends.

Cole wasn't excited like the rest of us though. Ever since Sam snapped at him about his disorder, he'd spend the last couple of weeks downcast and sad. He avoided Sam like the plague, and while he did still laugh at stupid jokes Arthur or Gennie made to cheer him up, you could see the smile didn't meet his eyes.

A small hatred was beginning to grow for Sam once again, as I didn't understand what the hell she was doing. She made a big point last year of how we were her new family, how she hadn't ever felt happier.

But now she was pushing everyone away by hitting us where it hurt the most: Cole with his disorder, Gennie by targetting Cole, and she hurt me by still hanging off Malfoy like a leech.

Obviously I knew nothing was going to happen between the two of them, but it just hurt me that she'd made a huge point to him of how badly he hurt me--but still hung around with him more than she did us.

"Ha!" Harry exclaimed as Hedwig dropped a package into his lap. He un-wrapped it, and I could see a new copy of the potions textbook.

"Great!" Hermione exclaimed. "You can take that tatty graffitted book back now!"