As useful as it can be to know how another person is feeling – like how knowing if Scorpius is making Al angry enough to beat his face in will be important later – it’s really quite obnoxious to have the feelings of other people affect how you are feeling sometimes.

Rose snorted, “I think Al is used to crazy people. For one thing, he’s James’ younger brother. For another, have you met my family? We’re all crazy in one way or another.”

 Before I could firmly say no, Al looked at him like he was mad, “Luke will kill you.”

Josh just laughed, “I’m not scared of Luke.”

But Al insisted, “Seriously, dude – Luke. Will. Kill. You.”
 

I snorted, “’Totally?’ What are you – a cheerleader?”

“What’s a cheerleader?”

If anyone has ever asked you not to think of pink elephants and you tried very hard not to, you will know how I felt. Because no matter how hard you try not to, pink elephants will flood your mind if someone simply asks you not to think about them.

“I guess we know now that it wasn’t human.”

“You mean what attacked her, right?”

“Of course,” she said quietly. “Who do you know that can knock a tree over?”

 “Well this will be interesting.”

“What will?”

“Have you ever transfigured yourself into a floor lamp?” He asked, smirking at me.

I dropped my fork and it clanged loudly against my plate, “What?”

“You won’t leave me alone if I don’t tell you, will you?”

“I’ll be far more annoying than I was last year,” Al promised with a clever smile.

“Delta,” Al laughed, “You’re blushing, which isn’t helping you right now.”

“Well of course I am!” I said suddenly, “Probably because you’re embarrassing me!”

Great, I thought, annoyed, first Luke’s afraid of me… and now it’s Rose.

My mouth dropped in surprise, and the lights in the kitchen flickered as the edges of the window began to freeze. Within moments, the entire window was covered in a sheet of ice.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say –“

“Yes I do!” I shouted, “You were saying that I should just hand it off to somebody else and let it be their problem instead of mine! Well, let me just ask you this, Mr. Genius, who would I give it to? You?”

It would hit me like it had hit Luke the other day when we were practicing our spell. And it was always worse than waking up from a nightmare.

“Delta,” he started, “I don’t think –“

“It’s okay,” I cut across him. “She’s the one we’re looking for.”

She looked pointedly at the book tucked under my arm. “I can’t find him.” She met my gaze again, her eyes surprisingly lighter than before. Like her cloak, her eyes looked almost black, but were in fact dark blue. “But you can.”

“But she didn’t bite me,” I argued. “She saved my life.”

A voice in my head chastised me: this is your fault… this girl is dead because of you. You should’ve done something.

But what could I have done?

My heart immediately began to hammer in my chest. Al, I thought, exasperated, what did you do?