These characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Captivation

The library was perfectly quiet, quiet enough that, had a tadpole laughed, it would be a roar. Students were bent over their work, scribbling line after line of information they had shoved into their head in class.

Amelia always liked being in the library these Sunday nights, when students who procrastinated all weekend decided now was the time to focus. Amelia was usually one of those poor souls, and although she had never spoken to the other frequent "Sunday nighters", she felt an odd bond with them.

On this particular Sunday, Neville had joined her. Professor Sprout had given him a particularly difficult task on Friday afternoon that had taken up most of his time, leaving his other assignments sitting unfinished in his school bag.

"How can you stand this?" He asked, searching through his bad in a panic.

Amelia shrugged, "I don't know. I suppose the stress of all the impending work makes me get super-human intelligence so I can finish it all without a problem. But that is a skill I've acquired only from years of practice. First year I was a wreck on Sundays."

Neville laughed, "With all the poise you grew up with you'd think you'd have figured out how to manage your time."

"Please." She scoffed, "That's my mother you're thinking of. If she heard you say I have poise, she would laugh hysterically for weeks."

It was around dinner time that Amelia finished her work. Neville still had a whole pile of things to do and she was not about to eat dinner alone, so she pulled out her writing notebook and began working on her story.

She hadn't played with Alexandra and Nicholas in quite some time that it took few moments before she recalled where she'd left them, frozen in time. For a while, she believed that maybe her time with her beloved characters was over. But now, she felt a calling in her fingertips, begging her to write again.

And write she did. The words poured out of her and the next thing she knew, Alexandra and Nicholas decided to run away from their lives and move to a place where they could both be happy, safe in their friendship with each other.

Amelia glanced up at Neville. The lantern that hung above them illuminated his face in a way that made him seem angelic and dark all at once. His messy dark hair hung in front of his eyes and Amelia fought the overwhelming urge to fix it for him.

He eventually looked up at her and smiled, the gold in his eyes shining.

"I'm tired of this. What have you been doing?" He asked, dropping his quill and stretching broadly.

"Just writing more of my story."

Neville's face brightened. "Really? Will you read it to me? Last thing I remember was that Alexandra and Nicholas were having tea in his house."

Amelia flipped through the endless filled pages. "When his mother was sick?"

"No...I don't think you read that to me."

"When the captain came in claiming he was his father?"

"That's it!" Neville cried, settling back in his chair. He kicked up his feet so that they were resting on Amelia's lap.

She winced when they landed on her heavily. "At least take off your shoes." He complied and she laughed.

Neville blushed, thinking to himself that he liked her laugh quite a bit. And, when she began to read, he blushed harder at the idea of liking her gentle voice.

Amelia could feel his eyes on her and began to warm up herself. She kept eyeing him, looking into his eyes and then quickly returning her gaze to her page. Every time she saw him, his eyes, his messy hair, his glowing bravery, and everything else, she felt her heart grow.

Is this what it feels like? She wondered, Am I actually feeling these things about Neville?

She never got a chance to answer herself because Neville began coughing so aggressively that his feet dropped from her lap and his face turned red.

"Neville, are you okay?" Amelia bent down to help him up.

He stiffened under her touch and shyed away. "Y-yeah. I'm fine." He cleared his throat once more before straightening his tie and sending apologetic looks towards the disturbed students.

"What was that?" She asked, watching him in concern.

"Oh, n-nothing I just r-realized something." He replied, scratching his head.

"Well what is it?"

"Nothing! Don't worry about it. You can keep reading if you want." Neville had sat back in his chair, his face was back to it's normal color. But Amelia could see there was something he wasn't telling her.

She hesitantly returned to her seat too and looked at him one more time before continuing her story. Eventually, she got lost in it, forgetting about the freakish turn of events that had just happened in her real life and was now focused on the relationship between Nicholas and Alexandra.

Neville sat enraptured through the entire soliloquy of Nicholas as he battled with his hidden affections of his dearest friend but was terrified of the consequences of telling her. After all, her rank was far above him.

And Amelia teared up for apparently no reason whatsoever when Alexandra realized the aching feeling in her stomach wasn't food poisoning from her awful cooking but rather feelings of love for Nicholas.

After Amelia detailed the pain they both felt of their mutual love and shared terror of confession, her voice drifted off and they sat in dulled silence.

"That was amazing." Neville said quietly. "You really have something special here."

"Thank you." Amelia replied, closing the notebook gently.

He stood up and started gathering his things, "I think we've missed dinner."

She glanced at her watch, "Oh, yes we have."

"Are you hungry?"

"Not really."

"Me neither."

The two friends stood there, holding everything in, not looking at each other. Amelia wondered if they would be able to stand there forever when she heard herself say, "I'm going to go on to bed. I'm not feeling well."

Neville looked at her hopefully, "Are you sure you don't want me to walk you to your common room?"

"I'm sure." She answered, "I don't want to get you sick."

He looked at her like this was ridiculous, "I don't care about getting sick."

"Well I care if you get sick." She laughed to herself, "When you caught that cold over the summer, you acted like a big baby. I'd like to avoid that as much as I can."

"Hey!" Neville cried, "You and Gran weren't very helpful. You would laugh at me every time I came downstairs to get something myself."

"Because you looked insane with your bright red nose and blanket wrapped twice around your body." Amelia shot back, grinning.

Neville rolled his eyes and sighed, "And here I was thinking you were my friend."

"Best friend." She added as she linked arms with him. They started out of the library toward the Hufflepuff common room. Their hooked arms drifted until their hands were clasped.

When they neared the common room, Amelia halted very suddenly, catching sight of some of her peers lounging around outside of the door. She became very aware of Neville's hand in hers.

"This is far enough." She said, twisting her arm so her hand would come out of his.

He peered around the corner, "Are we hiding from someone in particular?"

"N-no."

He gave her a look.

"Fine. My house."

He laughed, "We're hiding from your whole house?"

"And some of the others."

"Why?"

Amelia bit the inside of her cheek and mumbled her answer. Neville leaned in closer to her, close enough that if she was a little taller, they would be nose to nose.

"What was that?"

Amelia groaned, "We're hiding from them because they think we're dating."

Neville stared at her. It took him several seconds to breathe again. "Who gave you that idea?"

"Daniella and the rest of my roommates. They asked me our first night back. Now I'm paranoid that everyone's talking about me, about us behind our backs."

"Well the rumors aren't true so why should they bother you?"

Amelia wanted to tell him that she didn't want people talking about her, about her precious friendship with Neville. And she didn't want people speculating about how she felt about him. And how she didn't want them wondering if she really ached everytime she saw him. She wanted to say all this but the words stopped at the tip of her tongue.

Neville gave her a look of disappointment and sighed, "Alright. Goodnight, Amelia. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Neville, wait-"

"It's okay. I have to go." He said, turning on his heel, leaving her behind to think about how she could have been so selfish as to take a perfecly good moment and ruin it in the span of a few seconds.