VI
Harry had made sure to follow his side of their deal.
It took a while to Audrey notice it, but sometimes he would sit by her side in their shared classes, to Sophie displeasure, who would then have to move over and sit with Daphne. Audrey didn't mind it – Harry was nice and fun, and never complained when she asked him to help her with the time or the pages of a book. Sometimes he would drag Hermione and a rather reluctant Ron to sit with her and Sophie while they worked together in the Library or in the Grounds, and no one would comment on it.
He was rather smart and had an interesting temperament, willing to snap in sassy remarks that would make Audrey crack a tiny smile; she supposed that, under different circumstances, they would have been rather good friends.
But, mostly part, both would work in complete opposite sides of Hogwarts.
Was a nice agreement.
Until she discovered that Harry Potter – nice eyes and all – was a magnet for trouble.
Audrey had been in the Library working in all the content she had procrastinated after her grandmother had sent her a copy of Stranger With My Face by Lois Duncan, when she found Hagrid clumsy looking for something that he apparently couldn't find easily.
"Hello", she said carefully, because she hadn't talked with Hagrid since her outburst of finding that he was also a half-breed. "Do you need any help?"
He almost jumped, before seeing it was just her. "Oh, hi, Audrey. How are yer? I hope no one is givin' yer trouble, eh?"
Audrey smiled tightly. "Nope, everything is fine. So… What are you looking for?"
He looked rather uncomfortable – but again, Audrey liked the Library very much and had never seen him around there. It was like watching her father without his flashy clothes or Audrey without one of her hair ribbons.
Misplaced.
"Yer are good with secrets, aren't yer, Audrey? Well, I… Yer can't tell anyone, but where can I find dragon' books?"
He said it very quickly and incredibly low, like someone would jump behind one of the shelves and point a finger at him telling he had committed a terrible crime. Audrey frowned and rocked on her toes a bit. "You are on the wrong session. The magic animals are two shelves over there; But I don't think they still have much about dragons 'cause they are forbidden in Britain, aren't they? I know we have some breeders in America, but not here".
"Yeh, yeh, not here", he said quickly. "Thank yer, Audrey. The tea invite 'till standing, if yer want. See yer!"
And then he left her there like it was nothing.
Audrey had never been more confused in her life.
She discovered what was happening the next day, by anyone else's than Malfoy.
Audrey always had tried extremely hard to not dwell on grudges, don't hate people and things like that. She always did, because her dad had taught her that it was futile and would later come to bit her in the ass – her grandmother had almost had a stroke when she had said ass.
But Malfoy made all those things terrible difficult.
She and Sophie arrived in their common room after dinner. Sophie had been excited because she had made the best spell in their DADA class, almost skipping steps in their way back at the dungeons. Audrey was still confused by why Hagrid wanted to read about dragons of all things – he had never seemed as a reader-type of person, but who was she to judge?
When she found out Malfoy, he was laughing, laughing and hard with his two gorilla-like friends. Audrey felt a bad feeling at it, because when had ever Malfoy been happy because of anything good for the rest of the humankind?
"What's the joke, Draco?", she asked as sweetly as she could, her fingers playing with the rim of her skirt. Audrey was the spiting image of innocence itself.
The boy looked rather smuggle, like he had got the chance of winning an Oscar or something like that. Audrey's heart skipped a beat.
"Look at it, Blanchard!", he said, extending her a piece of parchment. "That buffoon is getting in real trouble now!"
She got the parchment with trembling hands. Has Malfoy been planning to end whose life this time?
Her best bet was always on his undying passion, Harry Potter, but she could never be so sure. Either way, while Malfoy never had been as smart as he liked to think, so she shouldn't be really worried, but Malfoy still was a cute-looking devil spawn, so was better to not underestimate him.
"Dear Ron,
How are you? Thanks for the letter — I'd be glad to take the
Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I
think the best thing will be to send him over with some friends of
mine who are coming to visit me next week. Trouble is, they
mustn't be seen carrying an illegal dragon.
Could you get the Ridgeback up the tallest tower at midnight on
Saturday? They can meet you there and take him away while it's
still dark.
Send me an answer as soon as possible.
Love,
Charlie"
Her heart stopped and suddenly her mind clicked, and everything made much more sense now. Of course, Hagrid had been reading about dragons – he had got himself a dragon, in the middle of Britain, where they are prohibited and they could get him into serious trouble.
And of course the magnanimous trio would want to help.
"How you know this isn't a joke, Draco?", she said, extending him the parchment. "An illegal dragon? Wouldn't someone had seen a dragon in Hogwarts already? There are at least a hundred students, plus the staff. How someone would hide a dragon here?"
Her heart was on her throat. By her side, Sophie looked rather confused of why she was putting herself in the middle of one of the Draco's problems – Audrey had never shown any love towards the boy. But Draco was beyond reason now.
"They aren't that smart, Blanchard! Why don't you go say goodbye to your little bloodtraitor friend? He isn't going to be at Hogwarts for breakfast, after all".
Oh, no. They were all going to be at Hogwarts for breakfast.
Sophie had kept nagging at her for why was she so worried, and Audrey had promised to tell her – tomorrow, when Audrey would come with a good lie that didn't involve saving Hagrid, the only other half-breed she knew, from whatever Britain did with people who broke the law.
She had picked one of her pink notepads, take a sheet and wrote the best and shorter she could – "Devil spawn knows. I'll try to hold him. Holly Golightly", folded it and glued it around Cat's neck using a sticky spell and a hair-ribbon. Satisfied with her work, she looked directly into Cat's eyes.
"Do you remember Hermione?", she said, at which Cat meowed. "You have to find her, okay? Only her. No one else. Stay around the Gryffindor Tower, until she gets out, if you can't get inside. Can you do it?"
Of course, it was a huge shot, but Cat was a magic familiar as much as owls were. They were supposed to be smarter than common animals, and Cat always had been especially curious. And, in the worst case, if someone found her note it was not like they would understand what she was saying.
Cat looked at her curious.
"Please, Cat. Just do it. I'll buy you all the new toys I can if you do it, ok?"
Looking satisfied with her payment, Cat jumped out of her bed and went quickly in her way out. Audrey cursed and thought what she was going to do to stop Malfoy.
Her head started hurting badly, sending waves of pain into her skull – Audrey had sure it was sorely caused by stress.
She waited until all the girls were clearly sleeping to finally get up, put a robe over her pyjamas and her boots – the most silent shoes she had – and tiptoe out of her dorm, and finally out of the common room. The corridors of the dungeons were darker than she had ever seen, and colder too – she hated it – but that wasn't what was worrying her.
Was getting into the tower quickly enough, preferably before Malfoy.
She found him in the middle of the way.
He was slipping over the corridors beneath the Astronomy Tower like a cat, the moonlight escaping by the windows making his hair look even paler than hers; Audrey took a moment before taking her wand and whispering "Tarantallegra", as quietly as she could.
Malfoy started dancing – and doing a hell of a noise, enough to make her cringe. What had she done?
And that was how McGonagall found them, getting Audrey into her first detention.
Audrey cried herself to sleep that night.
She had never, ever got into real trouble before. She had made accidental magic, broken things and got into minor accidents, but not even near enough trouble to something like detention. She had never been so scared in her life than by the moment where McGonagall woke Snape to tell him about Audrey and Draco – and Snape had been livid.
She went back to the dungeons with her chest hurting, a brooding Draco Malfoy, and tears burning in her throat. Audrey had hold them down enough to get back to her bed, where she started crying like she rarely did. At some point she must have wakened the other girls, because Sophie opened the curtains of her bed and laid down beside Audrey before closing it again.
"What happened?"
Audrey cried even more.
"I got in really, really bad trouble", she whispered, trying to stop the tears. "I tried to h-help, but I-I was so stupid!".
She wasn't making much sense, so Sophie let her be and stayed in her bed trying to comfort her until Audrey finally, finally fell asleep – only to dream with the disappointed eyes of her grandmother. She hated it.
In the morning after the whole mess, she woke up to find Cat lazily laying at her top, and with the Sophie looking rather started. "What happened, Audrey? Gryffindor lost a hundred and fifty points, and everyone is trying to find why".
Audrey was exhausted and too guilty to think in any life-saving lie, so she went to the close she could to the straight-up true: Harry, Ron and Hermione were in trouble because of Malfoy, and she tried to help them, get caught and had detention.
"You were crying that hard because you got detention?", Sophie asked. "Audrey. It's just detention, I got it all the time. Besides, we are going to win the House Cup now that Gryffindor went down".
"I have never got into trouble before", Audrey sniffed. "You know how I would usually smile, and everyone agrees with me? Yeah, I never get into trouble, but now I'm in big trouble. Evelyn is going to be so mad".
Sophie had the audacity to laugh.
"C'mon, prom queen. I promise you will survive, it's just one detention – you will probably have to write some lines or whatever. Can we have breakfast now?"
Audrey almost crawled to the Great Hall. There, everyone was talking, and the word got away fast – but, to her surprise, people were talking only about the fact that Gryffindor had lost 150 points thanks to Harry Potter – who seemed more miserable than Audrey herself, who had lost forty-five points for Slytherin.
Just because she hexed Draco. Snape would dismiss almost everything, except a snake attacking another.
At least the exams weren't far away, which meant Audrey had the perfect excuse to hid as much as she wanted in the library – a mission where Sophie refused to accompany her, because she was in ecstasy with the fact that Slytherin was going to win.
The library was where Audrey found Hermione, Harry and Ron, safely hidden behind a tower of books. Audrey put her things down, sat down and asked – "Are you ok?".
Hermione took a time before replying, occupied with writing furiously into the parchment. "Yeah", she said, then stopped. But was Harry who looked her in the eye and said, "Thanks, by the way, Holly Golightly".
Audrey smiled.
Things couldn't be that bad, could they?
a/n: I think the bug with the chapters are finally fixed by the staff. I'm working a bit in editing the first chapters, but I think everything is working properly now. I'm so sorry if you couldn't read this and the last chapter!
anyway, I hope you are liking what I'm doing with this story. feel free to let any reviews, anything is welcome and makes me really happy!
love,
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