CHAPTER 10
"Come on Bells drink some more!" Marcus goaded me on as he himself took another swig of firewhisky.
"Guys, I really think that we shouldn't get drunk we could get into trouble with the Prefects," I said.
"Don't be a spoilsport sweetie!" Rosetta said with a slurred voice as she forced some whisky down my throat.
There was a roar of laughter among the group as my eyes watered and I almost spewed the entire thing out.
Marcus laughed as he tilted my face and poured a whole glass in my mouth.
I coughed and spluttered as the firewhisky made its way down my mouth.
"Guys stop it, Bella gets drunk easily," Scorpius said with a scowl on his face.
"She can't hold her liquor like a man," Rosetta said in her fake manly voice extracting giggles from the whole crowd.
"It's very careless of you guys to drink in the school, we could easily get caught!" I protested again but my arguments were ignored by all of them.
I really wish Rob had been there to help me get these guys in order, but he had gone to get a few extra classes in DADA to cover up for the portion he had missed.
Rosetta, Scor, Marcus, Karl and I were all sitting in our special nook in the dungeons near the Slytherin dungeons celebrating Karl's success at establishing an 'invincible team' as he liked to call it.
Turns out Rob's letter had caused quite a stir due to which my father had agreed to allow me to play. I have not lost a single game for my house since I joined in my fifth year and Karl shed tears of pure joy on having me back.
Our little celebration had been intended to include only one round of firewhisky but since Marcus had managed to lay his hands on a whole crate, we decided to finish it up. I had no idea what sort of system that boy had set up in the school because everyone knew that if anyone wanted anything out of the ordinary, Marcus was the man for the job.
Our raucous laughter was instantly silenced when Scor suddenly put his finger to his lips, and pointed at the door.
"Do you guys hear those footsteps?" he asked.
The room in which we were sitting was about as big as a dorm room and had a single fireplace with thick stone walls.
But the problem was that it was adjacent to the corridor that led towards our common room and a lot of students frequented these corridors.
I instantly froze when I realized that it must be some Prefect doing nighttime patrol duty.
We all looked at each other cautiously slowly realizing that one of us would have to take the blame, since we all couldn't possibly fit under the relatively huge invisibility cloak and get away.
Besides it would be quite dangerous if a non-Slytherin prefect found an empty room with a burning fireplace and half a dozen firewhisky bottles all strewn around.
The school would probably expel all the Slytherin students with the exception of the first three years, as it is it had been contemplating that without the whole 'drinking' scenario cropping up.
I couldn't allow something like that to happen.
I volunteered and my friends gave me a weird sort of a look.
"You got into plenty of trouble last time you know because of the whole 'Rose' thing, are you sure?" Scorpius asked.
Karl volunteered to take the blame but then I swatted away his offer.
It was Quidditch season; we couldn't afford to lose our captain over to those Gryffindor loving blood-thirsty vultures.
"Dude, I am the Head Girl, you guys could get into a lot more trouble for this you know?"
One by one, they used the cloaking spell to turn themselves invisible, and slowly one by one go out of the room and I was left all alone with the sole blanket which had been brought by Rosetta.
The door was banged open I admit I kind of gave a backward jerk and covered my head to prevent myself from getting hurt.
"Arabella, shit is that you!?"
I uncovered my eyes to see Al looking down at me with disbelief written all over his face.
He helped me up and immediately wrinkled his nose when he came near my face.
"Have you been drinking?" he asked me with anger in his eyes.
"No! I have not," I lied but my slurring voice gave me away.
"Do you really want to get expelled that badly?" Al said and dragged me by my arms towards the door.
"Where are we going?" I asked him, with a dread settling in my heart.
I bet he would now get back at me by handing me over to the Headmistress with a smug smile lighting up his face and say, "Here you go ma'am your goat for slaughter, enjoy."
Instead he took me by my hands and cautiously took a look outside and pulled me out.
I wobbled on my unsteady feet and fell flat on my face when Al left me.
He turned around and gave me an exasperated look.
Taking me by my hand he said, "You don't worry about that Rosier, you just keep your mouth shut and your eyes on the road,"
He then broke out into a full sprint with me right behind him and saw hundreds of portraits and banisters fly by me as we went up and down about half a dozen staircases.
A particularly disgruntled ghost started screaming profanities at us as Al roughly pushed him aside in his blind hurry.
My feet burned as I struggled to keep up with him in my four inch heels and my head started pounding angrily.
I grew even more frantic when Al started kicking the walls and muttering curses under his breath as we walked.
I knew if we were caught it would be extremely bad for both of us but seriously it wouldn't hurt to just give a girl a break.
"Al what exactly are you doing?" I asked him nervously.
He just shushed me with his hand and stopped right opposite this wall near the Astrology Tower and closed his eyes as if he was deep in meditation.
"Uhhmm, sorry to disturb you Al but this might just not be the right time to have your daily yoga class," I told him freaking out completely.
I don't know how my brain managed to process such dumb thoughts when I was knee deep in trouble.
"Who is there?" I heard a girl's voice ringing out on the floor below ours.
I instantly recognized Polly Clearwater's voice.
She was the Ravenclaw seventh year prefect and wasn't very fond of me.
Well part of that was because I had made out with her boyfriend during the Yule Ball last year.
Not a good time for some people, I had been very drunk that night and had made out with at least half the boys in my year.
Al's look grew more and more frantic as he continued looking expectantly at the wall.
"Al we have to run now," I half- whispered half-screamt in his ear as the world spun around me.
I leaned against the wall for support but I think the drinks and exertion were too much for me because my eyesight suddenly started failing me.
I was half aware of Al catching me by my waist before I fell and carrying me bridal style into a room this had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
I slowly came to my senses and was aware of lying on a small soft bed with a fire burning in a hearth somewhere nearby.
I propped myself up with my elbows and looked around to find myself in a small cozy room with scarlet banners hanging from the walls and a Qudditch poster of a team I quite didn't recognize.
"Woken up sleeping beauty?" Al asked me as he helped me up with his hand.
Even though it was meant to be humorous he was not smiling one bit.
Where are we exactly I asked him stifling a cry of pain as I sat up completely on the bed.
"Welcome to my room, well at least the Room of Requirement version of it," he said.
I admit I was kind of amazed at being in the fabled place.
"Why did you help me Al?" I asked him.
I had been horrible to him and yet he had prevented me from getting expelled by not reporting me to anyone.
"Because you didn't deserve to get expelled for something you did because your friends told you to," he said.
"You were in there with your 'friends weren't you?" he asked me with anger creeping up in his voice.
"No I wasn't," I lied but I think my voice cracked a bit so that gave it away.
I was having a splitting headache and the nauseous feeling and interrogation wasn't helping at all.
Al saw me cringe and his expression softened a bit.
"Sorry I can't help with that, we are in the Room of Requirement you know but there was no aspirin or Pepper- Up potion provided," Al told me with a shrug.
"How long was I out?" I asked him with a strong sense of foreboding in my voice.
"For about an hour," Al said and he gave me a long hard look.
"So Al how do you know about this place, must be an interesting story!" I asked him fake enthusiasm.
"Don't try to change the subject Bella!" he said with an annoyed look.
"It may have been my idea, how do you know it was not?" I asked him.
"I know you are not that way Bella, beneath that bitchy 'I am too good for you exterior', you are a good person," he said with an honest face.
His words almost brought tears to my eyes, I become quite moody and sensitive when I am drunk.
Al looked at me with a sad smile.
"Why do you take such crap Arabella," he asked.
"I volunteered okay, I volunteered to stay back!" I said effectively admitting all those accusations.
Al came and sat next to me and gave me a long hard look, and now there was a burning sensation in my throat as I tried extremely hard to stop myself from crying.
"I don't know what you are trying to play at Ara, being the strong person who doesn't show any emotions, it's okay to open up once in a while,," Al said.
"It's okay you can even shut up and not tell me anything but don't keep stuff bottled up okay, it's unhealthy," he continued, with a neutral expression on his face.
I looked long and hard at him, seeing for the very first time the open, honest and good person beneath all the prejudices that I held against him.
For the first time in my life I thought that I had found a person whom I could tell stuff and pour my heart out to and he wouldn't judge me too harshly for what I did or didn't do.
I realized with a heavy heart that I had made my first real friend.
"We have a long time don't we, till sunrise anyways?" I asked him.
"Because this is going to take a long time," I told him.
And then we huddled together near the fire as I told him the very things that I shall be telling you now.
…
My mother died when I was five years old. The 'mother' I mentioned earlier is my stepmother, in fact she is my fifth stepmother.
I don't remember anything about my actual mother except for the fact that she always smelled of vanilla oil and lavender and used to sing this really nice lullaby to me, which now when I hear it, it always gives me a sense of comfort and belonging that I don't feel these days, not even at home or at school.
Even now when I sometimes visit the Greengrass mansion, and enter my mother's childhood room, it always carries that very same scent, and it almost reduces me to tears but no, I refuse to cry.
On her death bed I remember my mother holding my hand and wiping my tears away with the other hand. At that time she told me, "I know that it is a tough and scary world out there my dear, but you must always remember that if you stay strong and keep your head held high, nothing will ever happen to you."
She made me vow to her that I would never cry unless it was for something really important, and I have stayed true to my word.
In fact I have only cried twice in my entire lifetime, once when my mother died and the second time when Scorpius cheated on me with Rosetta.
Yeah, you heard me right, I had been dating Scor for a year in my when I caught him kissing Rosetta in the Quidditch locker rooms.
Apparently that had been going on for two months before I found out about it.
Many questioned my decision of choosing to stay friends with them after finding out and thought that I was a loser who was not capable of fighting back, but the truth is that it somehow didn't matter to me.
It was then that I realized that I was extremely dependant on my friends and not the other way around.
Throughout my life I had made it a point not to get attached to people but then I had gone ahead and done that.
I had gotten attached to people who didn't think twice about stabbing me in the back.
But the saddest part was, I would have gone back begging them to take me in even if they carried on their relationship with each other.
Yes, that was the first and only time in my life when I considered myself to be a pathetic loser.
After that I completely changed myself.
In my fourth year I got a new haircut, changed my clothes, learned how to apply make- up and basically turned from the sweet nerdy girl into a Prada wearing devil on heels.
All of a sudden I realized that the school loved me, the coolest boys wanted to date me and every girl on campus wanted to be me.
I left poor Rosetta far behind on the popularity chart and let me tell you this I made her and Scor regret the day they broke me for the rest of their days.
….
"And I never once looked back Al," I told him drying the steady outpour of tears on the tissue he had handed me.
"Shhhh, now Ara," he told me as I cried on his shoulder and patted my back, and to tell you the truth I liked it.
Yes, I liked it when Al patted my back and smoothed my hair and I liked it when he whispered soothing words in my ear.
Yes, in short I liked Al.
As my crying slowed down he slowly let go of me but I held his arms before he could go and gave him a firm shake of my head.
He then slowly picked me up and placed me on the bed and then proceeded to lie beside me with his hand still holding mine, and to tell you the truth I had never felt safer in my life.
That night I had broken, I had broken like a glass tumbler which has been heated too long.
Only for me it was a long process,the cracks had started appearing when I was five, finer at first but then becoming deeper as time went by.
But Al had been the one who had come along and actually cracked me open causing my secrets to flush out one by one and I had never, ever been gladder to reveal them.
But there was one secret I would never ever be able to tell him, but I knew that I had to nip THAT problem in the bud BEFORE it caused any humongous problems.
Or else that one dirty little secret could wreck havoc in the little peaceful haven I had created for myself.