Annabeth was shaken from the day's events. When Emma explained what happened, Mr. and Mrs. Bell had panicked.
"Oh my god! I'm not letting you guys out of my sight for the rest of the trip!" Emma's mom exclaimed. The rest of the trip passed quickly. Annabeth didn't realize it when it was time to go back to Britain. She had an amazing and fun time with Emma and Edward. Tom seemed distant, though, after the incident. He seemed to enjoy the trip too, but not really with the rest of them. He was even quieter than usual, and while he used talk to Annabeth, or atleast respond when she'd ask him something before, now he just didn't say anything. Annabeth worried initially, but later, she decided not to worry about it. He'll come around eventually, and I don't want to ruin my limited time with Emma and Edward for something which I can't do anything about. I'll try to figure it out later. So Annabeth had a good time talking with Emma and Edward, and she even tried flirtiing with Edward a bit. She was sure that she looked like an idiot when she did that, but Emma assured her that she was fine, and Edward didn't react weirdly, so Annabeth was happy. Her future self was getting discouraged time after time because guys let her down, but she still had a good feeling about Edward. The three of them did their homework together, and they had a good time. Before they realized it, it was time for school. They had already bought school supplies, and were boarding the Hogwarts' Express. Tom sat with Annabeth, Edward, Emma and some of their other friends, but Tom was quiet except for the occasional reply when someone remarked on Tom standing up for the muggleborn student last year.
At the feast, the students now waited for what seemed like forever as the first years came, and felt sorry for the older kids last year who had to wait for her and the other first-years. The rest of the day passed quickly. Annabeth was deep in conversation with other Gryffindors, many who complemented her on her appearance. Emma's mom had given her a new "haircut" with magic, and Annabeth had to admit that she looked nice, and that her hair looked even better now that someone else had "cut" it. She blushed when Edward agreed with another person who had complimented Annabeth.
"Yeah, you do look pretty," he had agreed. "Not that you don't always look nice, but you look different, and it's a good different, so..." he trailed off, looking a bit embarrased. So Annabeth was happy when she woke up the next morning. She decided to do something different with her stick-straight hair, and she curled it. She wore a bit of mascara that Emma had given her and put on medium pink lip gloss. She believed that this much make-up wouldn't harm her skin, and it would look natural but good. At breakfast, she got her schedule. To her delight, Emma was in all of her classes. Edward was only in half of her classes, which upset her. She went up to Tom, and asked him to compare schedules with her. She thought she saw a flicker of surprise when Tom looked at her, but his eyes looked impassive a second later. To her surprise, Tom did. He seemed a bit awkward around the rest of the Slytherins, but he seemed normal towards her, which was good. Annabeth also shared all of her classes with Tom. Her classes were not that much different than last year. The holidays' homework was turned in, and Annabeth found the things that they were learning in most classes easy since she had looked through the books beforehand. History of Magic, Herbology, and now the new Care of Magical Creatures were boring subjects, so Annabeth didn't excel in those classes like Tom did - after all, Tom excelled in all of his classes - but she didn't really care. After all, she was pretty sure what she wanted to be when she grew up, and it didn't require excessive knowledge in those subjects. Later, Annabeth decided to talk to Tom. She wondered if she should ask him why he had been odd these past months, but decided not to, at least not right then.
"Do you want to do homework together again? Like last year? I think that that arrangement had worked out quite well," Annabeth asked.
"Sure," Tom replied. "It did work out nicely, and we got to talk," he said. After working in silence for a while, though, Annabeth asked Tom what she had wanted to ask him for a long time.
"Tom, I am your friend. I have known you for six years. Why were you avoiding me?" Annabeth asked. "I mean, I don't think I did anything wrong, but I want to know if I unknowningly offended you or anything. I didn't mean to." Tom gave her a thoughtful glance, and then replied.
"You didn't offend me. I was just thinking that I didn't mix well with Emma and Edward, while you did. I wanted you to talk to them more, because I know that they're your good friends, and I was worried that you wouldn't spend time with them if you worried about leaving me out. If I acted like I didn't want to talk to you either, then I figured that you would talk to your friends more." Tom replied.
"Wow, Tom, you're a great friend." Annabeth said, her voice thick with emotion.
Please tell me how I'm doing with the character development. I figured that Annabeth would've changed Tom atleast a little in the past six years, but I had to keep a bit of the traits of canon Tom. Do review!