HEATHENS - Harry Potter ✔

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was a cloudy Saturday as Kiera made her way down to the Quidditch pitch in Harry's miserable wake. She and Hermione exchanged silent glances before Harry's dragging footsteps and slouched shoulders regained their attention. At one point, Kiera feared Harry might walk right into a tree because he refused to look up from his shoes, but he managed to avoid it.

Though she had never been one for playing the sport – nor any of the sport from her P.E. classes – she did enjoy spectating. For that reason, she usually showed up to watch the school games, but this was the first time she actually cared about who might win. She was accessorised with one of Ginny's spare Gryffindor scarves to show her support for the team.

Regrettably, the game was quite a fiasco.

At first, she thought that one of the Beaters missing the Bludger and instead smacking Angelina Johnson in the face, and the other Beater shrieking and sliding off his broom when Zacharias Smith came flying towards him were the worst moments of the twenty-two-minute lasting match, but by the end of it, she decided to give that title to Ron's fourteenth failed save. Ginny, however, had managed to catch the Snitch from right under Hufflepuff Seeker, Nicholas Summerby's, nose; making it so that Gryffindor only lost by ten points (the same move that Viktor Krum had apparently used in the world cup).

It goes without saying; there were no celebrations in the Gryffindor common room that evening.

Kiera sat on a windowsill in one of the sixth-floor corridors watching the rain droplets race down the glass. It could be hypothesised that Kiera knew the castle better than the other students. Over the years, when she was not welcome in the common room, she had spent much time wandering about the castle, and had learned what corridors were empty on certain times of the day so that one might hide in them.

Without looking from the window, she broke the silence. "I'm sorry."

Harry, who was leaning on the wall beside her, tore his blank stare from the tiles in front of him and looked at her. "For what?" he asked. "If it's about the match, then it's not like you had anything to do with it."

Kiera watched a particularly large droplet pass a smaller one before it fell off the window before she met his gaze. "Everything," she shrugged. "For all the things you've been through that I've witnessed in dreams, not telling you about them earlier. For all the people who think you're an attention seeking liar. For Umbridge and all the detention, and not being able to play Quidditch anymore."

He seemed uncertain about how to react, like the situation was unfamiliar to him. "It's not your fault," he said, his voice somewhat hollow.

"Still." Kiera let her focus move from him and to her muddy and shabby boots. "I'm still sorry ... You don't deserve it, it's rotten."

Harry let out a breath that turned into a small laugh halfway and said "Yeah. Yeah, it is ... Thanks."

Kiera gave him a gentle sympathetic smile.

"I guess that's something we have in common."

This was true, but Harry didn't know the half of it. She had not yet ventured to tell him (or any of the others) of her foster home or just how badly she was treated in Slytherin. She feared that if they knew about her problems, they would abandon her, not wanting to deal with them, and that was something she didn't think she could stand. It had only been a few months since they became friends, Kiera didn't want to lose them.

She settled for shrugging her shoulders and turning back to watch the now softening rain and changed the subject. "We should go eat dinner. Before it gets cleared away."