Chapter 4: Love or Hate
It was eight days until Halloween and it had been a couple of weeks since the Quidditch tryouts. The team was actually looking pretty good. I was seeing less of Steve these days as he was training himself and his team throughly. People were starting to take notice of how Hufflepuffs were acting a little differently this year. First, with actually trying to create a good Quidditch team, and also with us being in the lead of the house competition. The Ancient Runes professor and our head of house, Hannah Abbott-Longbottom, was confused at first. She had been in Hufflepuff and she knew that Hufflepuffs always throw the house competitions. However, someone must have filled her in because now she just beamed at us a lot, especially me.
The other teachers and students were confused too. Hufflepuff had never been doing so well in the house competition as far as any of them could remember. No one was too bothered about it though. They probably thought things would just go back to normal soon. Not likely.
I hadn't actually seen Potter around much. I usually spotted him at the Gryffindor table around meal times. Sometimes I would hear him arguing with Fred Weasley about not wanting to prank anymore. I also haven't seen much of Millie. She never actually took me up on my offer to hang around with Jess, Steve and I. At least not yet.
As for the werewolf killers who called themselves the Hunters, there was nothing new in the papers apart from a few more murders and I hadn't heard anything more from my dad. They still didn't seem to know why the victims' ears bled. No one I'd known that well had been murdered yet. It seems as though the Hunters were starting with people not many others would miss. They've been going after werewolves who were old or who didn't have a lot of friends and family. But I knew soon they would be working their way up to the people I cared about.
It was a constant worry weighing down on my mind. And to make matters worse, there is a full moon tomorrow. Full moons are never easy for me but this month I was more concerned about the Hunters. They must have something planned for the full moon and it obviously won't be good.
Since I was only half werewolf I didn't change on the full moon. It still affected though. I've always had supernatural senses but around the full moon they heighten even more and, while that sounds like a good thing, everything suddenly being amplified just ends up giving me a terrible headache and making me super jumpy. My nails and teeth also start to hurt like they are trying to change into claws and fangs but can't. Eating becomes a little difficult because of how much it hurts to chew. All in all, it's quite unpleasant. However, the worst part of the whole ordeal is trying to act completely normal while I suffer through it.
Anyway, since the full moon was tomorrow, my senses were starting to heighten even more than usual. I didn't have a headache from it yet but that doesn't usually hit till around noon. Luckily, I don't have to worry about my teeth and nails hurting until the actual full moon, but I did know the headache would get worse and worse until the full moon has gone down.
Trying to go about my day like everything is normal was difficult, but I'd gotten used to it a while ago. Steve is pretty easy to fool. If he notices me acting weird I can just claim it's cramps and he'll leave me alone. Jess was harder to deal with at first but around second year she stopped asking me about it for some reason. It makes me suspect she actually figured out that I'm part werewolf. She is incredibly smart. However, if she does know she hasn't confronted me about it.
There were only two other half werewolves at Hogwarts this year. They were third year twins in Slytherin. In a way, they were kind of like my younger siblings, just as there older sister Candace was like my older sister too. There were few half werewolves and we were all pretty close. It was just us and Teddy who were under twenty five. There were others but they were all quite a lot older.
It was breakfast time and I was eating at the Hufflepuff table with Steve. Jess hadn't arrived yet but I expect she'd be down soon. That's when Millie came over. It was a bit of a surprise as I hadn't spoken to her since that one time after Quidditch tryouts. I had assumed she didn't want to hang around with me when she didn't approach me earlier. I wonder what changed her mind. "Hey, Dani," she said casually as she took Jess' usual spot by Steve and opposite me.
"Oh, hi Millie," I said welcomingly, "I was starting to think you weren't going to sit with me."
"Well I was in the neighbourhood and thought I'd stop by," she said with a grin.
"Err…Dani," Steve said looking between Millie and I with confusion, "Who's this?"
"Right, Steve this is Millie. Millie this is Steve," I introduced.
"Oh I know who he is," Millie said, "Captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, right?"
"Yeah," Steve confirmed, a little surprised, "You're a Quidditch fan?"
"A fan and a player," she said with a nod, "I just replaced one of the beaters who graduated on the Gryffindor Quidditch team this year." After that they just got lost in Quidditch talk. I was glad they were hitting it off and hopefully Millie would distract Steve from noticing how weird I'll be acting because of the full moon.
"Hey guys, guess what!" Jess exclaimed as she rushed over to us. I winced as her loud tone jarred my sensitive hearing. "I just finished the…" She trailed off as she spotted Millie sitting in her spot next to Steve. "Who is she?"
"I'm Millie," the Gryffindor replied before I could, "Who are you?"
"It's Jess," she said back in an icy tone I didn't know she was capable of, "You're in my seat."
"Oh sorry," Millie apologised in a way that showed how little she actually meant it.
"Well are you going to move?" Jess demanded.
"I quite like this spot," she stated.
"But I always sit there," the Ravenclaw said. I could tell she was starting to get frustrated. This was bad. I didn't think Millie and Jess would clash like this. Although I suppose I should have predicted it when Millie sat in Jess' spot. But I knew that wasn't all it was. Jess has fancied Steve for a while and she probably didn't like the way Millie and Steve were sitting so close to each other. I was pretty sure Millie had noticed this too.
"Now now, girls," Steve butted in jokingly, "There's no need to fight over me." That only made things worse of course. I don't think Steve would have said it if he realised they really were partly fighting over him.
"This isn't about you, Steve," Jess lied vehemently, "I just want to sit in my spot."
"Is that all you want?" Millie asked, boldly referring to her crush on Steve. Jess reddened and scowled at Millie. My full moon headache was starting to appear early because of all the yelling and I moaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. This is so not the time for an argument.
"Actually never mind," Jess said suddenly and I looked up to see he looking worriedly at me, "Now is not the time to be having such a silly argument. I'll just sit over there next to Dani."
Millie and Steve adopted confused look at Jess' sudden change. Now I was almost certain Jess knew my secret. Why else would she stop the argument so suddenly and why else would she say that it was a bad time to be having it.
"You know?" I asked Jess quietly as she took a seat next to me.
"I've known for a while, Dani," Jess whispered back.
"I thought you might," I sighed, "You are a bloody genius. But you're going to have to tell me more about how you found out later."
"Sure," she agreed. Jess was always eager to tell us how she figures out things. "Library after Charms?"
"Yep," I confirmed, "And I suppose I should tell you that's not all we'll be talking about. I know what that argument was actually about." She blushed and looked away. That's when I realised Steve and Millie were staring at us, no doubt wondering what we had been whispering about.
"So Jess," I began at a normal volume in an attempt to make them forget about the whispered conversation I had just had with her, "What was it you were saying when you came in? You seemed excited."
"Oh right," Jess remembered and her earlier excitement immediately returned full force. "I finished the permanent timed heating charm to get you up in the morning! It uses a combination of runes and spell work."
"About time," Steve jumped in teasingly, "It took you weeks to work it out. I thought you were loosing your touch."
"Well maybe you should do it next time then," Jess snapped with a glare, knowing full well he probably wouldn't be able to. It didn't seem like she was in the mood for his usual teasing at the moment.
"Woah, I was just joking," he said in surprise.
"I guess I'm just not in the mood for your substandard humour today," she said as she stood up, "I'm just going to head to the library."
"But you haven't eaten anything," Steve pointed out. This is when Steve would usually pull her back into her seat but seeing as she wasn't seated next to him, he could do nothing.
"Skipping one meal won't kill me, Steve," she said a little harshly back before leaving the hall in a hurry.
"What did I do?" Steve asked me cluelessly. He looked like a puppy that had just been kicked.
"I better go after her," I sighed, she looked upset. I was also figuring that we could get the talk we planned to have after charms out of the way early. Plus all the noise in the great hall was starting to get to my sensitive hearing.
"But you haven't eaten anything either," Steve protested but I just ignored him and left. The guy took his meals way to seriously, but I knew missing one every now and then wasn't the end of the world. Not that I want to make a habit of skipping meals, of course. Oh, now I feel bad for ignoring him. He's only worried about us. And he was making such a downtrodden face.
When I got to the library I found Jess in her usual reclusive spot. She was crying. I immediately felt slightly guilty because this entire mess was kind of my fault. I liked Millie but she was upsetting Jess and maybe it would have been best if I hadn't invited her to sit with us. They seemed to hate each other. I walked over and sat beside Jess. "He's such an idiot," She said between sobs. I didn't need to ask to know she was talking about Steve. "Why does he have to be so oblivious?"
"He wouldn't be Steve if he wasn't such a numbskull," I said fondly. She let out a strangled laugh.
"Love is stupid," she sighed miserably.
"You can say that again," someone standing over us said. We both looked up quickly to see Millie.
"What are you doing here?" Jess sniffed angrily as she made a hopeless attempt to dry her eyes with her sleeves.
"I actually wanted to apologise," Millie confessed quietly as she sat down across from us, "We got off to a bit of a bad start and I shouldn't have acted the way I did."
"I could have been a little friendlier as well," Jess admitted sheepishly, "It was silly of me to be jealous like that."
"I wasn't exactly helping matters."
"When did I become like this?" Jess questioned dejectedly.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I always used to read silly books about girls falling madly in love with random guys and think the girls were so foolish," she said quietly, "I never used to understand how they could fall in love so quickly and for such fickle reasons. I always said I would never be one of those girls who fell in love and acted really irrational."
"Falling in love is nothing to be ashamed of," I insisted, "And there's not really anything wrong with falling in love quickly. Everyone does things at their own pace. Whether it be falling in love or drawing a picture. All people are different and they all take in the world in different ways. That includes what they think love is and how they deal with it."
"I still think love's stupid," Millie intoned.
"What happened?" Jess asked her.
"What happened with what?" She replied.
"There must be a reason you feel that way," Jess clarified, "You already know mine." Millie sighed.
"You can tell us, you know," I told her. At first I thought she wouldn't.
"My boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend," she finally stated.
"What a dick," Jess said angrily, which is good because I wasn't sure how to respond.
"And it sucks because I know that, but I can't help still loving him anyway," Millie said sadly, "It doesn't make sense. I want to hate him but…I just don't."
"Love doesn't make sense," Jess put in.
"At least you guys have been in love," I sighed.
"Don't worry," Millie said, "It'll get you eventually."
"Probably," Jess agreed. I smiled at them and they reluctantly smiled back.
"Okay," Mille said suddenly as she stood up, "Self pity time is over. We have to go to class." Jess and I stood up with her. I had completely forgotten about that. I hope I won't be late for potions.
~o0o~
Once classes were over, I met up with Jess in the library. My headache had officially begun but luckily it wasn't too bad yet. "Okay, spill," I demand half jokingly, "How did you figure it out?"
"A better question would be: How has no one else figured it out?" she said back.
"How about: Why is it so supposedly obvious?" I amended.
"Better," she approved. I gave her a playful shove.
"But seriously," I said, "Please explain."
"Well I quickly noticed that you seem to be in pain sometimes," she began, "At first I though you got regular migraines but then I noticed they only seemed to happen once a month. Everyone already knows that your mum was attacked by a werewolf when she was younger and that she was scratched. Because of that I decided to check when the full moons were and see if they corresponded with your headaches. Once I found they did I deduced that you were part werewolf. You couldn't be a full werewolf because I still see you around the full moon. But I know that if your mum was only scratched then the gene wouldn't have been passed on. So I realised that your mum was probably bitten when she was attacked but the ministry let her claim she was just scratched instead, probably because she was a war hero and she didn't deserve to be a social pariah."
"Do you think other people will figure out the same?" I asked her worriedly.
"No one else except Steve knows you well enough to notice," she reassured me, "Steve hasn't figured it out because he's assuming it's your other time of the month. As long as you don't do anything to draw too much attention to yourself, no one else will notice."
Oh no. Do anything to draw too much attention to myself like standing up and giving a speech in front of all of Hufflepuff to tell them they should stop letting people beat them. It's true that people in Hufflepuff were paying a little more attention to me. I was the instigator of our secret movement and some of them were looking to me as an example or for advice. I didn't mind but that certainly meant I had drawn unwanted attention to myself. It was making my head hurt more just thinking about it. "Well thanks for explaining that to me," I said a little awkwardly, "I'm going to go now, bye!" Then I rushed out of the library probably looking incredibly suspicious.
Soon, I was just walking down the stone corridors of Hogwarts with no destination in mind. Between the werewolf hunters and me stupidly drawing attention to myself it was looking more and more like everyone was going to find out my mum's secret everyday. Oh, what have I done? Because I just had to give that stupid speech in front of the Hufflepuff Common Room I may have just blown my mums secret. Why couldn't I have just left well enough alone. The Hufflepuffs were happy the way things were. No, that's a lie. Things weren't that great for Hufflepuffs. But since I told everyone to try winning I have noticed an improvement. And everyone in Hufflepuff was really excited for our first Quidditch match against Ravenclaw in November.
I was jerked from my thoughts when I was grabbed suddenly and pulled into a secret passage. Call it instincts, which always run high around the full moon, or paranoia due to the werewolf hunters, but I had my wand out in a matter of seconds and pointed directly at the persons throat. "Someone's a little jumpy today," Potter said as he grinned at me, not at all concerned with the wand aimed directly at him.
"Well what do you expect when you go around suddenly dragging people into secret passages?" I asked rhetorically although I still blushed as I put my wand away, "Especially with all those murders happening." I added the last part on a whim, in an attempt to find out how much Potter's dad had told him.
"Oh come on," Potter laughed doubtfully, "Hogwarts is completely safe."
"People always say that, but when you actually look at what's happened, it stops seeming so safe," I said, feeling like I needed to defend my jumpiness, "You of all people should know that considering most of the dangerous stuff centred around your dad."
"But that's in the past," Potter told me, "Things are different now." I still wasn't entirely convinced but I decided to drop the subject.
"Was there a reason you pulled me in here, Potter?" I asked him curiously.
"Oh right," he smiled sheepishly before going and sitting down against the wall. I automatically went to join him.
"So, how is being yourself working out for you?" I said to get him talking.
"It's actually going pretty good," he said as he shot me a grin before his face fell into a frown, "It's just my friends. I don't think they like me that much anymore."
"Why do you say that?" I asked in confusion. Potter and his friends always seemed really close and I kinda figured he wasn't acting that differently. It would be hard to act like someone else without parts of yourself seeping through. Not to mention the fact that not much is known about Potter's grandfather so he couldn't have been acting a lot like someone else if he didn't know enough about said person. Did that make sense?
"They all keep saying they're worried about me," he told me dejectedly, "It's like if I'm not acting like my grandfather, I'm doing something wrong. Fred's always nagging me to prank with him and Albus keeps looking at me like I'm going to spontaneously combust because I'm not teasing him as much. The entire Quidditch team keeps going on about me switching positions and everyone else is asking me why I stopped trying to get Hayley Simons to date me. They all hate the real me." Hayley Simons is the red-headed muggle born that Potter used to ask out all the time.
"I don't think that's it at all, Potter," I said to him, slightly surprised at his dramatics, "They don't hate you because you're acting like yourself. By the sound of things, they're just worried because for no apparent reason you've suddenly stopped doing a whole bunch of things you always used to do. If one of my friends just started acting completely differently without telling me why, I'd be really worried too. They need to understand why you've changed so much."
"Then how do I get them to understand?" He questioned.
"There's really no way around it," I started, "You have to tell them the truth."
Potter didn't say anything for a while. Honestly I wasn't too happy with the idea of Potter telling his friends the truth. Not because it wasn't definitely the right thing to do, but because if his friends knew everything, Potter would have no reason to talk to me anymore. I've kind of grown to like talking to Potter. I didn't really want it to stop.
"I suppose you're right," Potter said finally. Unfortunately, I probably was. "Thanks for the advice. Again."
"Anytime, Potter," I replied.
"You can call me James," he said with a shy smile, "You know, if you want to."
"Okay," I said with a smile of my own in return.
"And umm…" he trailed off, "You never actually told me your name."
"You never asked," I explained.
"Now I am," he affirmed.
"Danielle Finnegan," I stated, "But my friends call me Dani."
"Well then," he began as he got up and helped me up after him, "Thank you for everything, Dani."
"You're welcome, James," I responded. Then we went our separate ways.
~o0o~
