Tonks gave me a helpless look as I entered and indicated discreetly towards Oliver, who had his face in his hands. He was no longer muttering to himself, shaking or coughing, but still appeared deeply distressed.

You turned sixteen in May, and from that day you were free to end the curse. You don’t have the excuse of legality any more; you’re allowed to marry. I can lift the curse, but you keep refusing me.

“Eyes off my sister, Wood,” Aiden warned coolly. I froze momentarily. Oliver had been staring at me? I glanced up quickly, but his attention was now determinedly back on the game.

“I hope you’ve been practising your Quidditch over the summer, Wood. Wouldn’t want to see you fall dead at our first match.” My skin prickled slightly at the tone of that threat. No one had taken it literally except for me, but tempers ran higher.

Sleep talking… I’d been told several times before that I did it, but apparently it was very sporadic. And it just had to happen last night, in the small space of time when I was actually with Oliver. Such a coincidence was a bad cliché.

“What is this?” Oliver asked, opening it to the front page. He then snapped the book shut, and looked at me with a wicked grin. “It’s your diary, right?” he said, leaning against the back of the sofa.

“Why can you not just leave me alone for just one day?” Oliver demanded, slowly drawing his own wand. “Why?” Adrian echoed in a hiss, and I realized with a jolt that he was going to answer. “Why? Wood, you ki—”

He had blocked my path before I had gone two steps. Although I glared at him defiantly, a certain level of fear rose inside me. “Ridiculous?” he echoed softly. “Is that what you think of me?”

So it really was over now. I’d thought it would go so well between us; Tonks had thought he was perfect for me... She had told me she was gifted to never be wrong. If only she could see this scene now, and see how wrong she had been.

That evening in the common room had at last broken the ice between us, and over the following week our old friendship began to build up again. It seemed as though the slate had been wiped clean and we were starting all over again.

Adrian laughed. “You killed my father.” Oliver’s eyes turned onto me. I held my head up high and said nothing. “Tabytha?” He was taking my silence as a bad sign. He desperately wanted to be told that Adrian was lying. I could see it and hear it in his voice.

He appeared back in the mirror in front of me. His expression was one of fear, and now he was on his feet. He stared straight past me, shaking his head, shouting something. There was a bang, the mirror flashed green, then shattered.

He observed me quietly for a few excruciating minutes in which I could not look at him. “You didn’t do what I asked,” he finally said. His voice was quiet, but heavy with accusation and threat. I gritted my teeth as he went on. “Was it so difficult? Are you so willing to die for him?”