VII
"That's your fault, blood traitor", Malfoy whispered to her while they made their way to the entrance hall. Audrey used all her willpower to smile sweetly at him, just out of spite. Internally, she pictured herself punching him directly into the face.
Unfortunately, she had no idea about how to throw a punch.
When they arrived, Filch, the caretaker, was already waiting for them, holding a creepy lamp in his hand. Audrey had asked Sophie what usually they did in detentions - writing lines and things like that, prom queen, don't worry.
A while after that, the gryffindors arrived. Harry looked almost nonchalantly, but both Neville and Hermione looked like they would be sick at any moment. She smiled at them, but only Harry had the spirit to smile back – Hermione was probably getting ready to throw up. Audrey couldn't judge her; she wasn't feeling very well either.
What the hell Filch was going to make them do?
A shiver ran down her spine. Filch always had been creepy – Audrey never understood why Dumbledore thought he was fit to watch over kids, but she had learned very quickly that questioning Hogwarts choices wasn't a good decision.
They went down the grounds with Filch whispering a lot of his creepy things – how he would like to torture kids – but when she saw Hagrid, standing up by Fang's side, her heart felt a lot less heavy. Couldn't be that bad, right? Hagrid always had been nice to everyone, even when Audrey had thrown in his face the fact that he was half-non-human and all that.
She winced. What a stupid decision was that?
Filch went and said to Harry, "I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourself with that oaf? Well, think again, boy — it's into the forest you're going and I'm much mistaken if you'll all come out in one piece", and Audrey almost started crying. Almost.
She felt the urge to turn to the side and thrown up. If she could, she would happily send her family a letter right now asking they come and take her back, because what kind of crazy place would send children to the Forbidden Forest? Audrey hadn't even lasted a week at the Camp where her dad had sent her once, in the summer of 1989, and they wanted her to survive the Forbidden Forest?
Just to be sure, she grabbed her wand tighter. Audrey had learned a lot of things with her grandmother, but foremost, she had learned to keep her wand with her all times, even when she couldn't use magic outside the school; it felt natural and warm against her hand, the Rowan wood soft and powerful, bubbling with the temperamental core of it – a single, pale hair of a unnamed veela.
"The forest?" Malfoy repeated, and he didn't sound quite as cool as usual. "We can't go in there at night — there's all sorts of things in there — werewolves, I heard."
Audrey had never agreed with Malfoy before, but now she had to. Why are they sending her into the Forbidden Forest? They couldn't be serious. They hadn't even broken one of the most serious rules.
Hagrid came striding quickly to them, Fang loyally at his side – but Audrey's heart gave another pause when she saw the large crossbow in his hand. Why did he need a crossbow? Why people had crossbows?
She made a chocking sound in the back of her throat. Hermione grabbed her hand and squeezed it twice.
Draco started throwing a fit, but Audrey hadn't the mind to chastise him, because he wasn't wrong, was him? Of course, Evelyn would happily let her rotten into the Forest as a punishment, but her granddad would raise hell if he only knew she was there.
Audrey shuffled her feet, terrible scared.
"Right then," said Hagrid, "now, listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don' want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment."
He led them to the edge of the forest, and Audrey squinted her eyes to try and see what was between the trees. All she saw was darkness, so she did what she thought to be a very sensible idea – she took her wand out and murmured "Lumus".
Her eyes saw the small path marked down by unicorn's blood – silver and shining, the same of colour of her hair under the moonlight, soft and magical against the soil. Her legs were trembling – who would hurt a unicorn, off all things?
"All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward," said Hagrid, when Malfoy quickly asked for Fang. "So me, Harry, an' Hermione'll go one way an' Draco, Audrey, Neville, an' Fang'll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now — that's it — an' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh — so, be careful — let's go."
Audrey exhaled and followed Fang to the forest, her heart beating so hard that she could swear something would hear it and come to get her. But the silence was even worse; it was almost alive, oozing into her own bones and making her shiver. "If it wasn't for you, Blanchard, we weren't going to be there", Malfoy said, after a while. "Just wait until my father hear about it!"
"Shut up, Malfoy", Audrey replied angrily, losing all her composure. "Fine! Tell your dad, I'll tell mine you had been hitting me. Do you wanna see what happens?".
"I have never hit you!", he cried outraged. Audrey smiled over her shoulder.
"Didn't you?", she said sweetly, before taking' Neville hands and walking faster.
The gryffindor boy seemed close to lost it. He was trembling, even worse than Audrey – who had some tears in her eyes and was trying very hard stop thinking in all the gruesome things that could happen to her in that Forbbiden Forest. But Neville was a mess, all of his supposed Gryffindor courage nowhere to be seen. Audrey had never thought of him as particularly tough boy – Neville was all softness and kindness in the world, lacking spite and fire and confidence.
Things couldn't go smoothly with Malfoy around, of course not – he was a mix of chaos and evil, Audrey had sure, so when she thought she was getting the swing of things – watching carefully where she was stepping, holding her wand firmly, keeping Neville away from crying, Malfoy sent everything to hell.
He scared Neville, jumping into him like a cat – the poor boy, out of fear, sent out red sparks clearly asking for help. But Audrey was so on edge and so scared that she not even thought about it – before she could, she only knew she was screaming "Flipendo!", and Malfoy went flying away, only to fall into his back with a loud ouf.
She couldn't feel bad for him. Something was growing in her, a sense of pride and confidence that burned brighter than even her fear.
"You little freak!", Malfoy shouted at her.
Hagrid came running, looking alert, only to find a wide-gazed Draco Malfoy and a furious Audrey still pointing her wand at him, with another jinx in the point of her tongue and hair cracking with uncontrolled magic. Hagrid looked at her, as she only answered, "He scared Neville!".
Hagrid seemed to understand everything. He grabbed Draco by neck like a kitten, and indicated to the other two to follow him, to which Audrey did gracefully, putting her wand away. Neville was shivering. "I'm sorry", he said to Audrey, but she dismissed it because wasn't his fault.
"We'll be lucky ter catch anythin' now, with the racket you two were makin'. Right, we're changin' groups —Neville and Audrey, you stay with me an' Hermione, Harry, you go with Fang an' this idiot. I'm sorry," Hagrid added in a whisper to Harry, "but he'll have a harder time getting' under ya skin, an' we've gotta get this done."
Audrey was still furiously by the time they went back to look for anything. "Yer can' hear what Malfoy says", Hagrid said to her after a while. "Yer aren' a freak, Audrey".
She wished she could believe in him.
Audrey went back to their dorm when the sky was slowly turning pink and her cheeks were stained by poorly controlled tears; changed into her pyjamas and sleep out of pure exhaustion. Malfoy hadn't looked at her their whole way back to the dungeons, and Audrey thought it served him right.
She noticed a particularly important thing – Hogwarts had made her grow a thicker skin. Months before, she would never dare to jinx another person, neither would she survived to the Forbidden Forest. She had never been proud of herself before, but as the realization hit her, she had smiled out of pure pride.
Her exams arrived in a breeze. Sophie took them like she couldn't care less, but Audrey made the best she could. She made sure to ace Charms and Transfiguration, to compensate her poor job in Potions and Herbology – she was terrible with plants. In the end, she thought she had been gone rather well, despite her learning disability and all.
The weather was nicer, too – warm enough to them stay outside, what made Sophie happy. Audrey never thought she would actually enjoy Hogwarts, but she had to admit that she had been pretty happy in her first year, despite everything. She had the most amazing best friend in the whole world, the Gryffindors had left them in peace most of the time, she had gone particularly well in her exams – what else was there to ask?
Her exams ended in a lazy afternoon, to which Sophie had almost cried in happiness. They spent the rest of the day near the lake, trying to befriend the Giant Squid. Sophie talked hours about the last match of the year and all the things she was going to do in the summer, when her parents were going to take her and her brother to a trip to Portugal.
Audrey hadn't thought about what she was going to do in her summer.
She was reading in the day prior of the match when Daphne Greengrass arrived in their dorm flustered, talking fast about how something mysterious had happened with Harry Potter. No one knew exactly what, except that it had something to do with You-Know-Who and Professor Quirrell, but Harry was in the Hospital Wing, without expected discharge.
Audrey frowned and looked upon Sophie, who shrugged like she had no idea about what was happening.
She went to visit him later, bringing with her the last box of home-made sweets that her grandfather had sent and a get well card that she made herself, despite having no idea at all what Harry Potter had got himself into in the last night and no desire to really know.
Madam Pomfrey hadn't wanted to let her see him at first, but Audrey was good flattering adults. She smiled and talked about how she totally wanted to be a nurse when she got older. Madam Pomfrey had been lost in the first two minutes.
Three days later, Harry Potter would wake up to find a pink-and-purple get-well-card by his bed side, with a whimsical calligraphy in glitter-gel pen.
"I have no idea what mess you got yourself into,
But I hope you don't die.
Holly Golightly".
At first, Audrey had been annoyed that Slytherin hadn't won the House Cup.
That meant she needed to get the hell out of Hogwarts – she was transforming into one of them. Audrey happily boarded the Hogwarts Express, from where her grandmother had taken her and kindly sent her back to home with a portal key.
She had never been happier for seeing California's sun. It burned her skin like she was used to, as she had missed dearly after almost a whole year in the gloomy Britain. Her dad had grown a beard – she supposed it looked nice – and was dating a new super-model, like he was doing since Audrey could remember.
In her first week, she had the surprise of finding out that none of her clothes still fit – she had grown in her school year, and her dad had gladly taken her to buy new dresses. She bought little trinkets for her friends, took some cool pictures. Her dad been thrilled discovering that Audrey had made new friends and made her told him everything about all of them while he made her some pancakes.
She wrapped her friend's gifts and letters and shipped them the muggle way to her grandmother, because she hadn't sure if owls could fly that much. Audrey had no expectation at all to receive any answer before going back but writing those letters had made her fell all giddy inside.
But despite her happiness in being back, she discovered that she missed a lot of things – the endlessly chatting of the girls in a shared dormitory, or the morning fights for the bathroom. She missed Sophie calling her "prom queen, and she missed even people making fun of her accent; she missed studying in a century-old library, with books that went for generations, and she missed the food, and feasts, and even the ghosts.
Audrey Blanchard discovered that she missed Hogwarts.
a/n: with that, we finished the first book! I'm currently working fast on second and third ones. The next update comes this weekend, but I don't know when, exactly. ps. I think the bug that wouldn't let some people read new chapters is finally fixed. If you find any errors or something like that, feel free to PM me and I'll try to help you the best I can.
What do you think?
with love,
star.