Chapter Four: A Friendly Warning
Not wanting to deal with Seamus' persistence and clinginess Jane quickly walked up to the Fat Lady, "Hey! Fat Lady! Please wake up! I need in quick!" she said in an urgent whisper.
"Alright a-alright," she replied stifling a yawn, "No need to be so rude; what's the password?"
"Wolfsbane," said a familiar voice as Jane turned round to see Seamus, who had just snuck up behind her and was now attempting to put his arm around her for the second time that day.
Think quickly of how to avoid rejecting Seamus' arm again – out of sympathy of course – Jane dropped her books, which caused Seamus to drop on one knee and start picking them up.
"Let me get those for you," he said gallantly, handing them back to her.
"Thanks Seamus," she smiled as she relieved them from his grasp and speedily stepped through the portrait into the common room, leaving Seamus to follow her like a love-sick puppy.
Immediately Jane spotted Ron and Hermione sitting on the couch and Harry sitting on a chair with a pretty redheaded girl, with freckles leaning against his legs; they were all laughing together. She caught their eyes and mouthed the words, "Help me," they looked confused until they spotted Seamus come barging in the room right behind Jane. This made Harry and Ron laugh very loudly while Hermione and the redheaded girl just gave her sympathetic smiles.
"Well, I'm off to bed," said Jane trying to make her escape authentic she added a forced yawn, "Goodnight everyone," she said giving a feeble wave.
"Night Jane," chorused the four by the fire between giggles.
A look of great despair crept across Seamus' face; however it was quickly replaced by a look of triumph. "Not so fast Jane, come visit for a while," with this Seamus' reached out and grabbed Jane's cloak by the pocket and pulled her closer to him.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" said Seamus teasingly.
Jane, who had headed back towards the stairs, spun around instantly, thinking of Draco's note as she realized what Seamus must have found. She quickly regained her composure and forced the worried, nervous look from her face as she turned to Seamus and shrugged, "Oh that? It's nothing just a spare bit of parchment I found in the library," she said casually.
By now Seamus had practically lured her closer to the fireplace as he backed up with the note in hand. He then abruptly sat on the couch between a disgruntled Ron and Hermione; Ron decided to make the best of it, "Let's have a look then," he said as he took the note from Seamus' hands and unfolding it.
Ron read the note out loud with daunting relish but paused suddenly when he finished the last sentence and came to the signature.
"Well," prompted the redhead girl, "spit it out Ron, who's it from?"
Jane could feel her face burning up with embarrassment as she tried to come up with a substantial excuse as to its ownership.
"Who gave you this?" Ron demaded; ignoring the girl's question.
Jane stood there with five pairs of curious eyes on her, "Oh you're so useless Ron!" Hermione exclaimed as she reached across Seamus and pulled the note from his hands. She studied it briefly, no doubt rereading the whole thing, then she too got an even more confused look on her face, "D.M." she repeated the initials several times under her breath while thinking. Then her eyes shot back up to Jane's face and then back to the parchment and then back again; suddenly her eyes shined with obvious realization.
"D.M. Jane? Did this D.M. fellow give this to you personally?" she asked accusingly.
"Um, yeah," Jane replied sheepishly looking at the floor.
"Care to enlighten us on whom these initials belong to Jane? Although I'm sure we all know by now."
Jane flopped down on the closest armchair, "Okay, okay, it's Draco Malfoy."
"That slick git," said Ron, to no one in particular.
"Jane you should probably stay away from him," warned Harry.
"I know, Hermione already told me this morning that he's dangerous," Jane defended, "But why is he so dangerous? Not that I'm the least bit interested," she asked, lying about the last part ever so slightly.
Everyone except Seamus – who was too busy looking distraught – was giving Jane an 'oh-you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me' look. Jane rolled her eyes, "Don't look at me like that, I just don't see what the big deal is. I mean all he did was give me a note saying he wants to be friends, which is an offer I doubt I'll be taking him up on," she paused briefly to see if anyone would say anything, no one did, "You guys are acting like he threatened to kill and I've got the hots for him regardless."
The redheaded girl scooted across the floor and put her hand on Jane's arm and smiled in a friendly but worried way, "I'm Ginny Weasley, Ron's sister, and no we're not saying that, all were saying is that although he may seem charming and nice. Malfoy is," she paused, at a loss for words, "Well Ron said it quite well; Malfoy is a bit of a 'slick git' and we just want you to be careful around him. You don't know him like we do; he comes from a whole family of mean people and he can be pretty vile sometimes." Jane smiled as she realized they had no clue how truly safe she was, as long as she remained in Hogwarts. They took this smile to mean that she appreciated their concern, which she did but it was still not the cause for her smile, but she told them that anyways.
"It's really nice of you guys to worry about me around him."
Everyone smiled but Ron, who merely shrugged and said, "To be honest I'd worry about a steel elephant around that Malfoy." Hermione promptly shot him a dirty look behind Seamus' back, which caused a confused look of innocence to spread across his freckled face, Hermione simply rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in from of her chest.
Harry smiled at Ron and Hermione and the turned to Jane and said kindly, "Hey, that's what friends are for, right?" Everyone smiled.
Jane wanted desperately to escape up to the dormitory but decided she should stick around for a while longer so they don't think she's rude, "Yeah, thanks a bunch guys, it's good to know I've got some friends here."
"No problem," smiled Ginny, "Although from what I've seen, it seems as though Seamus has been your friend since day one." everyone laughed; even Seamus smiled a bit, through his reddening cheeks.
Jane sat around with her new friends in the common room for a while laughing and talking about teachers and their classes and even some other students. After an hour of friendly conversation Jane decided it was time to go to bed so she bade her newly made friends farewell. She walked up the stairs to the girl's dormitory; where for the first time in three days she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost instantly.
***
Jane awoke the next morning where she found Hermione sitting on her bed with her nose buried in a big leather-bound textbook. "Good morning."
Hermione who was deeply engulfed in her book looked startled that Jane was speaking to her. "Oh hello," she said looking at Jane and smiling.
"Do you know what time it is?" Jane asked.
"Oh, blimey! It's almost class time we should go get some breakfast," she said hastily closing her book and jumping of her bed.
Jane jumped up just as quickly and brushed her hair until it was free of all knots, she had no time to put it up and it was naturally straight so she left it alone and briskly threw on her robes. The two girls both grabbed their books and bags and were out the door and down the stairs in a flash.
As they entered the common room, Hermione raced over to Ron and Harry and Ginny, at first completely unaware she had just abandoned Jane. Before she even greeted her friends she sent an apologetic and worried look over her shoulder to Jane. Who returned it with a smile and a 'you-go-ahead' wave, because in all honesty she wanted to be left alone.
After grabbing a piece of toast with jam in the Great Hall, she hurried off to Charms class with the Ravenclaws. Charms class went by smoothly and Jane handed in her flawless homework and mastered the lesson that day faster than even Hermione.
Next she had Potions with the Slytherins, and also vicariously with Draco Malfoy; Jane arrived in the dungeon where she waited outside with her fellow Gryffindors and the Slytherins.
Snape came sweeping along the hallway and let them into the room and before anyone could even take their seats, Snape bellowed in his monotone voice, "Everyone pair up quickly, were doing partner work today!"
All the students moved quickly, sitting and saving seats for their friends, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patel, Ron and Hermione – of course – Neville and Harry. Seamus tried to reach Jane but was thwarted in his efforts by Dean Thomas who yanked him into the empty seat next to his own.
All the Gryffindors having paired up, Jane looked over to the Slytherin side and saw Malfoy sitting next to an empty desk, a pug-faced girl with short brown hair went to sit down but Draco quickly shooed her away and she was forced to sit next to an attractive black Slytherin boy.
Jane looked around the room and saw that she was the last one standing and was extremely thankful Snape had stepped out of the room briefly because he surely would have scolded her.
Jane finally realized Draco Malfoy was her only option and she assumed he had realized the very same thing because he sat there with an unmistakably satisfied grin on his face. Jane swallowed the tiny bit of fear welling in her throat and strode over to Malfoy's desk, with the eyes of the whole class upon her.
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