Chapter 10
Book 2
Dear Harry,
I'm sorry to have to explain this in a letter rather than in person, but it cannot wait. I have been thinking about this for a while now and it's been playing on my conscience.
I cannot, in my right mind, go on pretending that we have anything in common. I am a Slytherin after all, and that comes with certain expectations of me and the choices I make, including who I am friends with.
I think it has become obvious that my time would be better spent with those of my own kind.
Goodbye
Amy.
She did her best not to let any tears drop onto the pages as she wrote the letters one by one, first to Harry, then Ron and then Hermione, hating herself for the words she put down on the page.
She had turned down her friend's offer of sitting with them on the train as they left Hogsmede station. She had been ignoring them since getting out of the hospital wing the night before Harry had been released. The night before the end of year feast.
They had all tried to make eye contact with her as Dumbledore gave his speech. She ignored them. Instead she groaned with the rest of their house as the headmaster gave out points to Gryffindor. He left her out of course, not mentioning her involvement, but one Slytherin knew where she had been that night.
Draco had been very curious as she had stumbled into the common room the night before and she had given him the rehearsed story she had gone over with the headmaster when she had finally agreed to distance herself from her friends, and he had in turn informed her that Draco had followed her to the corridor on the third floor and had witnessed them each leave.
She was vague with the details of what had happened and down played her involvement, making it sound as though she had just been hanging on for the ride, going along with the others as though they had mislead her in some way. It felt horrible to speak about them in such away.
She had also told the curious boy that she wanted nothing more to do with the nosy Gryffindors and couldn't stand to be around them anymore, what with their penchant for getting her into trouble and their lack of priorities and taste.
As heart broken as she was, she knew it had to be done. Voldemort knew who she was. She was officially a spy now. Her occlumency lessons were to begin the following semester with Dumbledore himself, and he had promised to give her more information.
So she had spent her train journey back to King's cross station in a compartment full of Slytherins. And when they had arrived at their destination she hurriedly heaved her trunk and owl cage onto one of the waiting trolleys, said goodbye to Draco, who had just spotted his parents in the distance and went straight through the barrier out into the muggle world.
And now, a week later she sat at her rickety little table in her shabby little room at Wool's orphanage and wrote the horrible letters that would sever the last ties she had with her three favourite Gryffindors. She waited for the ink on the three nearly identical pieces of parchment to dry and then rolled them up individually before tying them to Winnie's outstretched leg and instructed her not to wait for a reply from any of them.
As if sensing her sadness, the little owl hooted softly and pecked at her hair gently before soaring out the open window. There was no going back now. She curled up in a ball on her bed and cried her broken heart out.