Revenge Of the Misfits

Chapter 11

Laughter filled the common room late the next night. Sarah laughed along with her friends loudly, sitting in a circle of armchairs and normal chairs, with several people on the floor in front of the large, warm, crackling fire.

"HAHAHA! Wait, what?" She blurted out, forgetting what had just been said. Hermione rolled her blue eyes at Sarah's obvious lack of intrest in their conversation, and annoyed by her inability to keep up.

"If you can't keep up, then just leave." Hermione snapped. Sarah rolled her eyes, and leaned back on to the couch where she was sitting between Neville and Ron.

"I can keep up, I just don't want to because your squeaky voice makes me want to tear my hair from my scalp." Sarah tonelessly replied, making bubbles squirt from the end of her wand to entertain herself. Neville clapped when she made a bubble shaped like a poodle. Hermione unhappily blew a piece of her brown bangs from her eyes, thinking Can't she use magic for something more useful? And why does she get all the attention anyways?

Sarah could nearly feel vibrations of jealousy just radiating from Hermione, and she shot the girl an undecipherable look. As the conversation rolled on, Sarah began nodding off, and turned her body sideways to the couch and rested her head on the back before falling into a deep dreamland. Nobody particularly noticed, even though Sarah was usually one of the loudest of their little group.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Finally, Sarah woke up, seeing nothing but blur around her. She panicked, and fumbled around for her glasses, right hand hitting the table. She jammed the black rimmed spectacles on her face, then glanced around the room, finding that she had streached out on the couch, covered with a thick blanket with her head resting on a pillow. The witch tiredly rubbed her eyes, and pushed the warm covers off, seeing that she was still in her uniform, but had her shoes off.

Footsteps quietly clunked down the girl's dormatory stairs, revealing Lavander Brown with her hair wrapped into a pretty braided bun on the nape of her neck.

"Good morning!" she cheerfully greeted her roommate, smiling cheekily.

"What's going on?" Sarah muttered, yawning off the morning confusion.

Lavander absently replied "Oh, you were pratically in a coma, so Ron made you streach out and covered you in a blanket."

"Oh," Sarah distantly answered. "That was nice of him."

Lavander shot the blonde a quizzical look at her puzzling reply, but Pavarti came down the stairs within seconds, and the girls headed off to breakfast. Sarah climbed up again, to change into her spare uniform. She quickly completed her morning routine, brushing her teeth, showering, and getting dressed. Today, Sarah, as usual, pulled off some unheard of make-up color combination, today's was: white eyeliner extended almost to her temples, dark purple lipstick, and pink eyeshadow gracefully tinting her eyelids. The uniform was so cursed plain, she had to do something! A black, hooked eyebrow ring completed the look.

Downstairs, a group of fourth years blantly gawked at the seventeen year old and her 'different' choice of style. On the other hand, some fifth year girls were wearing yellow t-shirts and fushcia mascara, one of Sarah's previous styles. She laughed, and shook her head before leaving for the Great Hall.

After slipping through the arched doorway, Dean flagged his friend down, and Sarah took a seat next to him, filling her plate with scrambled eggs. Most of the Gryffindor table gawked at her choice of make-up, but Sarah's inner circle of friends barely noticed anymore. Well, they noticed, but they liked it!

"So, you looking foward to Halloween? I sure am!" Seamus happily announced, Dean and Sarah exchanged tired looks.

"Halloween isn't for a month, Seamus." Sarah tiredly said. Seamus had the habit of never tiring of the same old questions. The Halloween deal had been going on for ten days running now.

"You really need to lay off the caffiene pills, man." Dean threw in, making his friend yell loud protests.

"I am SO not!" the young man yelled, his voice rising an octave on the 'so'.

"Aw...ickle Seamus has hit puberty finally!" Sarah mocked in a horriable baby voice, making the whole table turn around and stare at their group.

"I am NOT!" Seamus squeaked again, hitting himself on the head. Sarah sniggered, and Dean was doubled over in laughter at his friend's squeaky protests.

"Keep it DOWN!" Professor Vector roared at them, and the threesome ducked their heads down, locking eyes, and bursting into laughter again before being shooed out by a grumpy Professor McGonagall despite Sarah's attempts to convince her that their loud conversation was a learning experience. Once outside, the group only laughed harder, before having to separate, still in stiches for no real reason.

Classes were mostly distracted, since the seventh years were leaving in three days anyways. They only had two more days of classes, and were given a day off to pack and prepare for the trip. Sarah was barely able to contain her excitement, she just wanted to charge out the doors and Floo herself to the Outback right then. Professor Flitwick had to yell her name three times to draw the witch's attention back to the lecture.

Finally, the short day was over and Sarah decided to take a walk along the forest with Ron, to try and find some cool shade. The day was one of the last triumphs of summer, humid, sticky, and hot with absolutely no cloud cover or shade. By the time the friends had crossed the grounds any conversation had died away to huffs and pants while they hiked up the gentle slope of what seemed like a tiny little knoll.

At last, they reached the trees, and Sarah leaned on one of the trunks while Ron sat down with a heavy flop.

"And I thought I was actually in shape!" he complained, pulling off his gold and red tie. The forest wasn't any cooler, the density of the trees made it more suffocating and the shade didn't help at all. After a few minutes of silence and rest, they decided to walk up to the lake, where there might be more wind. Ron dragged himself to his feet yet again, and they made the short walk up to the south end of the lake easily.

Sarah immediately tugged off her socks and shoes, tucking her skirt up and wading up to her knees in the ice cold water of the lake. The sand was rocky and she had to fight to stay balanced, but the coolness was a blessing to her. Ron streached out on a rock, with one hand drifting in the water, gazing up at the clouds.

Sarah looked back to the castle, seeing almost every window thrust open in hope of catching a small breeze. She could almost smell the stuffy air finally being let out of the castle, reeking of old tapestries and mold. She looked back to Ron, who was oddly silent, and waded over. She carefully sat down at his head, letting her legs dangle in the water.

Sarah poked her red haired friend, to a reply of "Huh?"

"Thanks for tucking me in." Sarah gratefully told him, and Ron looked upside down at her through blue eyes that matched the crystal of the sparkling lake.

"No problem." he replied, looking back up at the sky. Sarah continued to gaze around the lake, reflecting on her short time at Hogwarts. No pranks, no real trouble other than the incident with Filch. She had made good friends with Ron, Seamus, Dean, Neville, Lavander, and Pavarti. Hermione now hated her, while Ginny and Harry generally avoided her unless they were with the group. Sarah had not visited the fabled Hogsmeade, Ron swore he'd have to take her when they got back, even though they would be graduated by then. Not a lot had happened, really, but the rest of the year was sure to be exciting.

How could a life threatning tournament in another country not make your day perk up? Sarah smiled, wondering who would be made champion. There was a Huffelpuff girl, who was really smart and nice, Susan Bones. She wanted to enter, and Sarah wanted her to win. Of course, Sarah would enter her name, but only to say she did for a good story for Aunt Marty.

Her brown eyed stare drifted back down to her's and Ron's rippled reflections on the lake, closing her eyes and opening them after hearing a loud plop! Ron was throwing stones into the lake, trying to skip them.

"Here, you have to use flat ones," Sarah told him, picking up an appropriate stone. "And don't just chuck it, try to throw it parallel." the witch demonstrated, and the rock skipped twice on the surface before sinking below. Ron tried again, and the stone skipped once. Sarah laughed, and they kept trying. By sunset, she had made her stone skip four times, while Ron's skipped five (Sarah magically levitated it the last time to make him happy)

Watching the orange, trembling sun fade away, Sarah realized how much she'd miss England. Even though she and James constantly whined to the whole town about the horrid weather, ignoring all the questions about why they didn't attend high school, and just wasted time down at the river or at the liquor store. With a smile, James' old favorite complaint about England rung through her mind: "If it's not raining, it's snowing, and if it's not snowing it's foggy!" And then Sarah would always add on "And that's summer!"

Heck, she'd never been out of the country before! She remembered all the damn poets, telling her to "Seize the day!" and the lyrics of a Muggle song drifted back to her.

So, what if I never hold you, yeah, or kiss your lips again? Woooaaah, so I never want to leave you and the memories of us to see, I beg don't leave me.

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost. It's empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over.

Sarah rested her chin on her knees, and looked down at her friend, who was quietly dozing now. Lonliness, just what exactly was it that people thought that if you were alone, with nobody left, that you were lonely? Sarah had been alone almost her entire childhood, which had been ended at age eight. But was I lonely? Sarah thought, frowning in confusion at the days that stuck out so vividly, even though they were so long ago. Scars remind us of our past, right?

As Sarah and Ron walked back to the castle across grounds bathed in brilliant red and deep orange, Sarah looked up at the sky at the setting sun...it seemed so lonely that it was trembling. And it was so bizarre, when she looked down, there wasn't just one shadow anymore. From that day on, she could tell, that neither her nor Ron would ever walk alone again.


Trials in life, questions of us existing here, don't wanna die alone without you here, Please tell me what we have is real.