Chapter 37: Extra, Extra
Chanse's eyes slowly fluttered open as the large sun peeked over the top of the Gryffindor Tower. She turned her head away from the window and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Good morning," Madam Pomfrey said cheerily as she walked into Chanse's room.
"Yeah," Chanse opened her eyes again. "Good morning...why are you so cheery?"
Madam Pomfrey laughed as she set a pile of clothes on a chair in the corner. "Because today's the day seventh years graduate."
Chanse took a quivering breath in, "Graduate? Today's graduation?"
"Yes it is," Madam Pomfrey beamed over at Chanse.
'I don't get to graduate,' Chanse thought as she stared at the tile floor.
"Are you alright Chanse?" Madam Pomfrey began to roll back Chanse's covers.
"I don't get to graduate," She whispered as she continued to stare at the floor.
"That's the beauty of it all. You do," Madam Pomfrey beamed, "I think. I hope." She said a little unsure.
Chanse raised an eyebrow at Madam Pomfrey, "What are you talking about?"
"Well I was talking with Professor Sinistra and we figured out that tonight the full moon won't be out until really late. So I was thinking that maybe you're to pass when the moon actually shows in the sky, instead of when it becomes night."
Chanse looked a little unsure, "What if you and Professor Sinistra are wrong?"
"What if we're right?" Madam Pomfrey's eyes twinkled with excitement, "I mean it's the day of the full moon and you're still alive." She smirked.
"But what happens if the stars meant I was supposed to die the night of the full moon?"
"Then there's also the chance that they meant when you saw the full moon."
Chanse slightly rolled her eyes and looked out the window. "I don't know."
"Come on Chanse," Madam Pomfrey sat down on Chanse's bed, "you can't give up now. You were always the person who kept hope alive in yourself and everyone else, and you're just going to give up? You're going to throw away all that hard work you and other people have put it because you're not sure that Professor Sinistra's and my hunch is right."
"Because what if your hunch is wrong? Huh? Then what?" Chanse shook her head, "Am I supposed to spend my last hours alive pondering if a hunch is real or not?"
"What do you have to loose?" Madam Pomfrey's voice pleaded for Chanse to hear her out. "To be honest, all you have is something to gain. Time. You gain more time to do and remember more things."
Chanse was about to say something but nothing came out of her mouth. She stared at her sheets in confusion. 'More time?' She thought, 'More time to live. More time to find something dear to me.' Chanse looked up at Madam Pomfrey, "Alright," she said calmly, "I understand." She nodded.
"Good," Madam Pomfrey stood up. "Now is there anything I can do for you, or get you?"
Without even thinking Chanse spoke, "I found some things under my bed when I left with Oliver. Can I have them?"
"Certainly," Madam Pomfrey whistled and in moments Dobby, the house-elf, came scurrying in the room and slightly tripped as he stopped.
"Y-Yes Madam Pomfrey?" He stuttered.
"I want you to go to the Gryffindor Commons Room and collect Miss Potter's things from under her bed."
"Um..." Chanse interrupted, "Dobby it might actually be on a table in front of the fire in the Commons Room."
"Right Miss Potter. Right away." Dobby bowed a couple of times before hurrying out of the room, leaving the door open. He ran back to the doorway and bowed a couple more times. "Right away Miss Potter." He shut the door and Madam Pomfrey and Chanse could hear him scurrying down the Hospital Wing hall and out of it for Chanse's things.
Madam Pomfrey chuckled a couple of times, "I better wait at my desk for Dobby so he doesn't have a panick attack about wondering if he's allowed to even knock on your door to bring you your things." She laughed as she walked to the door.
"Madam Pomfrey?" Chanse called after her.
"Yes?"
"I hope your hunch is right."
"So do I Chanse," Madam Pomfrey nodded and shut the door behind her.
Chanse nodded to Madam Pomfrey and then looked out the window. She stood up and walked towards the window but stopped when she saw a pile of clothes on a chair. Chanse bent down to the chair and picked up the clothes and looked them over...her graduation gown.
"M-Miss P-Potter?" Someone stuttered softly from behind Chanse.
Chanse quickly dropped the gown on the ground and spun around, "What...Oh. Dobby. Hello." Chanse softly smiled.
"I'm sorry Miss Potter..."
"Please call me Chanse."
"A-Alright C-Chanse," Dobby smiled shyly. "I brought your things you asked for." He carefully placed her things on the end of the bed when he noticed the gown on the ground. "I-I'm sorry. I made you drop your gown on the ground. It's dirty now!" Dobby ran over to the ground and picked up the gown. He began to fold the gown as fast and neat as possible.
"Dobby," she watched the elf continue to work, "Dobby!"
Dobby froze and looked over his shoulder, "Y-Yes?"
"Just drop it. It doesn't matter."
"But it's your graduation gown."
"Please Dobby. Just drop it." Chanse said calmly and sweetly.
"Alright," Dobby said with uncertainty in his voice. He let the gown slid out of his elf hands and drift down to the ground, where it lay in a pile on the floor by Dobby's feet.
"Thank you Dobby." Chanse smiled sweetly.
"Is there anything else I can do for you Miss, I mean, Chanse?" He eyed the pile by his feet as though he wanted to fold it up and place it back on the chair.
"That will be all. Thank you." Chanse nodded. Dobby nodded and quickly left.
Chanse walked over to her bed and picked up her things. She set them on the ground and sat down next to them, with her back to the bed. The cold tile of the floor sent shivers throughout her body as she sat down.
Chanse slowly grabbed something out of the pile of her things that Dobby had brought her. A book?
"A diary," Chanse whispered.
Chanse found the key that went with it and she placed the tiny key in the lock and slowly turned it. With a small click the diary was open. She opened it up and looked at the inscription on the first page.
"Dear Chanse,
I hope you enjoy this diary as much as I can see you would. I also hope you have a great time in Puddletown, and you learn a lot of great Quidditch moves from the Puddlemere team."
'The Puddlemere team?' Chanse thought and then she got a quick flash in her mind of the Puddlemere letter asking her to be a Reserve.
She turned her attention back to the letter.
"I know we'll all miss you a lot and as much as you don't want to see Oliver I hope you see him and at least can make amends with him."
'I was mad at Oliver?' Chanse thought with a confused look, but she kept reading the inscription.
"I don't mean like going back to the way you used to be, but at least become friends again...even if it isn't as good of friends as you used to be.
But enough about Oliver...I hope you have fun and we'll all miss you and see you when you get back from Puddletown.
Your friend,
Cho Chang."
Chanse read over the inscription a couple of times and still didn't truly understand what Cho was talking about. 'I was mad at Oliver? How we used to be?' A thousand different thoughts ran throughout Chanse's brain as to what Cho was talking about in the inscription.
Chanse finally decided to move past the inscription onto some entries. Most of the first couple of entries were drawings of some plays she was being taught and the more she read in the diary the more it strayed away from drawings and headed more towards writings about both Oliver and Brandon. None of the entries said too much important information that could help Chanse. They mostly talked about how perfect Brandon was and how big of a jerk Oliver was.
When she got to the last page of the diary there wasn't a diary entry but a song that Chanse had wrote. It read:
CHORUS:
Maybe I'm meant to be lonely, Right now in my life, Maybe I'm meant not to love, And be loved.
Right now in my life, But I know that right now, I'm meant to try my best, Do what I feel is right, But I'm not doing that right now. ~
I'm putting it off till the last minute, I'm to busy caring about everyone else, That I can't even see whom I'm to love.
Who knows if they've come and gone, If they're still to be found, But I know if I keep going this way, I'll miss them.
I bend back and forth, Trying to please people, Left and right, But one day I'll bend, And I'll break into a million pieces.
What will ya do then? Will you even care? But who can do anything? Who can even care? If there's nobody there, To do anything, To even care.
CHORUS:
It's strange to say, That I have people, But when the truth is that I feel, They're just getting in the way.
I'm putting on this play for the world, To show everyone that I can do it all, No matter what they hurl at me, I can take it head on.
But no one seems to notice that I can, So I try harder and harder, But all I ever really wanna do is give up, But they'll just say they told me so.
Little do people see that, I laugh, I cry, I feel, I hate, I love, I feel.
Why can't you see this inside me? Are you to busy caring about yourself? Are you to busy caring for others?
Who am I kidding? You never saw this inside, You never cared for me, I can't see who you've been caring for, Because it's like you're shutting me out.
You want me out, Just say so, And I'm gone, (Gone), (Gone), (Gone).
CHORUS:
When I stop my worlds spinning, I see, That it's not you shutting me, It's me shutting you, But I can't afford to get hurt again, I can't afford that pain, It's far too rich for my blood.
After all that my heart felt like, It was running in one place, It was stuck in the mud, It's just too hard.
Will I ever see you on the inside? Will I continue to run and hide? I see that you feel, But I choose not to give a damn.
CHORUS:
Can you come save me? (From all this pain) Will you ever save me? (From my loneliness).
Please save me.
CHORUS:
I begging you, save me, Baby please, please save me.
I'm asking you, Please save me.
When Chanse finished reading she sighed and looked down at the bottom of the page to find a tiny scribble at the bottom of the page. "What the?" Chanse whispered.
"My love isn't there for the taking
My heart was never there for the breaking.
But I love you from a million miles away."
Chanse read that tiny scribble over and over again. She looked over every curve hoping that if she stared long enough at every curve something would tell her what it meant. Or what it was about.
After awhile of staring and reading over the last page and the scribble she set the diary down. She felt the cold tile against the back of her fingers as she slid them out from underneath the diary's back.
She reached for something else inside of the pile of her things. She gripped her hand around something crisp and slightly crinkled. She pulled it out from under a box, and saw that it was a newspaper. A Daily Prophet.
Chanse turned the Daily Prophet to open it but before she could unfold it a small folded piece of paper slid out of it. "A note," Chanse whispered as she picked up the note and set down the Daily Prophet.
She slowly unfolded the note and read it:
"Go to section of Breaking News on page four of that section."
That was all that was written. Nothing more, and nothing less. Chanse flipped over the note to see if anything was written on the back. Nothing. She flipped it back over and reread the note. 'What is this supposed to...Oh the newspaper.'
Chanse set the note carefully on the cold tile floor and picked up the newspaper. She opened the newspaper and looked down at the bottom of the newspaper for where she could find the Breaking News section. She flipped a page or two until she found the Breaking News page. She pulled the section out of the newspaper and set the rest of the paper on the floor.
She flipped through the Breaking News section to page four. She read the headline, "Abuse Of A Potion. A Love Potion." Chanse stared at the article and something seemed to catch her eye. She stood up and sat down on her bed, but something kept making her look over at the article. "Maybe that's it," she hoped off the bed and walked over to the article. "I'm going to be pissed if it isn't." She chuckled before walking back over to the bed and sitting down.
She reread the article. "Abuse of a potion. A love potion. This past week an unbelievable case was broken wide at Durmstrang Institute involving a rising Puddlemere United Reserve and a Durmstrang student. Friends of the student and rising Puddlemere United Reserve, Oliver Wood, started to file complaints about Oliver acting weird. When Igor Karkaroff tried to solve this mystery and failed he called on the power of the Ministry. The Ministry suspected foul play and did a full-blown investigation of what had happened to Mr. Oliver Wood.
After searching in Mr. Wood's room, the Ministry found glasses upon glasses of a pink liquid and after running extensive tests on the liquid they found it to be none other then one of the strongest love potions ever able to be made..." Chanse's voice trailed off and she dropped the paper.
"A love potion?" Chanse whispered as a quick flash of a girl walking out of the bathroom in a towel, and Oliver in his bed in only his boxers.
Chanse looked down at the ground at the box on the floor. She scooted off her bed and slid the box to off. Inside there was hundreds of letters. She picked some up and saw that they were all addressed to her and from Oliver Wood.
She ripped one opened and read it.
"Chanse,
I know you don't want to hear from me or even think about me but I miss you a lot. Please write me back.
Love,
Oliver."
Chanse set the letter down and sighed, "He loves me."
Her mind seemed to have a door opened up in it. She looked around the room. She remembered everything.
Chanse's eyes slowly fluttered open as the large sun peeked over the top of the Gryffindor Tower. She turned her head away from the window and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Good morning," Madam Pomfrey said cheerily as she walked into Chanse's room.
"Yeah," Chanse opened her eyes again. "Good morning...why are you so cheery?"
Madam Pomfrey laughed as she set a pile of clothes on a chair in the corner. "Because today's the day seventh years graduate."
Chanse took a quivering breath in, "Graduate? Today's graduation?"
"Yes it is," Madam Pomfrey beamed over at Chanse.
'I don't get to graduate,' Chanse thought as she stared at the tile floor.
"Are you alright Chanse?" Madam Pomfrey began to roll back Chanse's covers.
"I don't get to graduate," She whispered as she continued to stare at the floor.
"That's the beauty of it all. You do," Madam Pomfrey beamed, "I think. I hope." She said a little unsure.
Chanse raised an eyebrow at Madam Pomfrey, "What are you talking about?"
"Well I was talking with Professor Sinistra and we figured out that tonight the full moon won't be out until really late. So I was thinking that maybe you're to pass when the moon actually shows in the sky, instead of when it becomes night."
Chanse looked a little unsure, "What if you and Professor Sinistra are wrong?"
"What if we're right?" Madam Pomfrey's eyes twinkled with excitement, "I mean it's the day of the full moon and you're still alive." She smirked.
"But what happens if the stars meant I was supposed to die the night of the full moon?"
"Then there's also the chance that they meant when you saw the full moon."
Chanse slightly rolled her eyes and looked out the window. "I don't know."
"Come on Chanse," Madam Pomfrey sat down on Chanse's bed, "you can't give up now. You were always the person who kept hope alive in yourself and everyone else, and you're just going to give up? You're going to throw away all that hard work you and other people have put it because you're not sure that Professor Sinistra's and my hunch is right."
"Because what if your hunch is wrong? Huh? Then what?" Chanse shook her head, "Am I supposed to spend my last hours alive pondering if a hunch is real or not?"
"What do you have to loose?" Madam Pomfrey's voice pleaded for Chanse to hear her out. "To be honest, all you have is something to gain. Time. You gain more time to do and remember more things."
Chanse was about to say something but nothing came out of her mouth. She stared at her sheets in confusion. 'More time?' She thought, 'More time to live. More time to find something dear to me.' Chanse looked up at Madam Pomfrey, "Alright," she said calmly, "I understand." She nodded.
"Good," Madam Pomfrey stood up. "Now is there anything I can do for you, or get you?"
Without even thinking Chanse spoke, "I found some things under my bed when I left with Oliver. Can I have them?"
"Certainly," Madam Pomfrey whistled and in moments Dobby, the house-elf, came scurrying in the room and slightly tripped as he stopped.
"Y-Yes Madam Pomfrey?" He stuttered.
"I want you to go to the Gryffindor Commons Room and collect Miss Potter's things from under her bed."
"Um..." Chanse interrupted, "Dobby it might actually be on a table in front of the fire in the Commons Room."
"Right Miss Potter. Right away." Dobby bowed a couple of times before hurrying out of the room, leaving the door open. He ran back to the doorway and bowed a couple more times. "Right away Miss Potter." He shut the door and Madam Pomfrey and Chanse could hear him scurrying down the Hospital Wing hall and out of it for Chanse's things.
Madam Pomfrey chuckled a couple of times, "I better wait at my desk for Dobby so he doesn't have a panick attack about wondering if he's allowed to even knock on your door to bring you your things." She laughed as she walked to the door.
"Madam Pomfrey?" Chanse called after her.
"Yes?"
"I hope your hunch is right."
"So do I Chanse," Madam Pomfrey nodded and shut the door behind her.
Chanse nodded to Madam Pomfrey and then looked out the window. She stood up and walked towards the window but stopped when she saw a pile of clothes on a chair. Chanse bent down to the chair and picked up the clothes and looked them over...her graduation gown.
"M-Miss P-Potter?" Someone stuttered softly from behind Chanse.
Chanse quickly dropped the gown on the ground and spun around, "What...Oh. Dobby. Hello." Chanse softly smiled.
"I'm sorry Miss Potter..."
"Please call me Chanse."
"A-Alright C-Chanse," Dobby smiled shyly. "I brought your things you asked for." He carefully placed her things on the end of the bed when he noticed the gown on the ground. "I-I'm sorry. I made you drop your gown on the ground. It's dirty now!" Dobby ran over to the ground and picked up the gown. He began to fold the gown as fast and neat as possible.
"Dobby," she watched the elf continue to work, "Dobby!"
Dobby froze and looked over his shoulder, "Y-Yes?"
"Just drop it. It doesn't matter."
"But it's your graduation gown."
"Please Dobby. Just drop it." Chanse said calmly and sweetly.
"Alright," Dobby said with uncertainty in his voice. He let the gown slid out of his elf hands and drift down to the ground, where it lay in a pile on the floor by Dobby's feet.
"Thank you Dobby." Chanse smiled sweetly.
"Is there anything else I can do for you Miss, I mean, Chanse?" He eyed the pile by his feet as though he wanted to fold it up and place it back on the chair.
"That will be all. Thank you." Chanse nodded. Dobby nodded and quickly left.
Chanse walked over to her bed and picked up her things. She set them on the ground and sat down next to them, with her back to the bed. The cold tile of the floor sent shivers throughout her body as she sat down.
Chanse slowly grabbed something out of the pile of her things that Dobby had brought her. A book?
"A diary," Chanse whispered.
Chanse found the key that went with it and she placed the tiny key in the lock and slowly turned it. With a small click the diary was open. She opened it up and looked at the inscription on the first page.
"Dear Chanse,
I hope you enjoy this diary as much as I can see you would. I also hope you have a great time in Puddletown, and you learn a lot of great Quidditch moves from the Puddlemere team."
'The Puddlemere team?' Chanse thought and then she got a quick flash in her mind of the Puddlemere letter asking her to be a Reserve.
She turned her attention back to the letter.
"I know we'll all miss you a lot and as much as you don't want to see Oliver I hope you see him and at least can make amends with him."
'I was mad at Oliver?' Chanse thought with a confused look, but she kept reading the inscription.
"I don't mean like going back to the way you used to be, but at least become friends again...even if it isn't as good of friends as you used to be.
But enough about Oliver...I hope you have fun and we'll all miss you and see you when you get back from Puddletown.
Your friend,
Cho Chang."
Chanse read over the inscription a couple of times and still didn't truly understand what Cho was talking about. 'I was mad at Oliver? How we used to be?' A thousand different thoughts ran throughout Chanse's brain as to what Cho was talking about in the inscription.
Chanse finally decided to move past the inscription onto some entries. Most of the first couple of entries were drawings of some plays she was being taught and the more she read in the diary the more it strayed away from drawings and headed more towards writings about both Oliver and Brandon. None of the entries said too much important information that could help Chanse. They mostly talked about how perfect Brandon was and how big of a jerk Oliver was.
When she got to the last page of the diary there wasn't a diary entry but a song that Chanse had wrote. It read:
CHORUS:
Maybe I'm meant to be lonely, Right now in my life, Maybe I'm meant not to love, And be loved.
Right now in my life, But I know that right now, I'm meant to try my best, Do what I feel is right, But I'm not doing that right now. ~
I'm putting it off till the last minute, I'm to busy caring about everyone else, That I can't even see whom I'm to love.
Who knows if they've come and gone, If they're still to be found, But I know if I keep going this way, I'll miss them.
I bend back and forth, Trying to please people, Left and right, But one day I'll bend, And I'll break into a million pieces.
What will ya do then? Will you even care? But who can do anything? Who can even care? If there's nobody there, To do anything, To even care.
CHORUS:
It's strange to say, That I have people, But when the truth is that I feel, They're just getting in the way.
I'm putting on this play for the world, To show everyone that I can do it all, No matter what they hurl at me, I can take it head on.
But no one seems to notice that I can, So I try harder and harder, But all I ever really wanna do is give up, But they'll just say they told me so.
Little do people see that, I laugh, I cry, I feel, I hate, I love, I feel.
Why can't you see this inside me? Are you to busy caring about yourself? Are you to busy caring for others?
Who am I kidding? You never saw this inside, You never cared for me, I can't see who you've been caring for, Because it's like you're shutting me out.
You want me out, Just say so, And I'm gone, (Gone), (Gone), (Gone).
CHORUS:
When I stop my worlds spinning, I see, That it's not you shutting me, It's me shutting you, But I can't afford to get hurt again, I can't afford that pain, It's far too rich for my blood.
After all that my heart felt like, It was running in one place, It was stuck in the mud, It's just too hard.
Will I ever see you on the inside? Will I continue to run and hide? I see that you feel, But I choose not to give a damn.
CHORUS:
Can you come save me? (From all this pain) Will you ever save me? (From my loneliness).
Please save me.
CHORUS:
I begging you, save me, Baby please, please save me.
I'm asking you, Please save me.
When Chanse finished reading she sighed and looked down at the bottom of the page to find a tiny scribble at the bottom of the page. "What the?" Chanse whispered.
"My love isn't there for the taking
My heart was never there for the breaking.
But I love you from a million miles away."
Chanse read that tiny scribble over and over again. She looked over every curve hoping that if she stared long enough at every curve something would tell her what it meant. Or what it was about.
After awhile of staring and reading over the last page and the scribble she set the diary down. She felt the cold tile against the back of her fingers as she slid them out from underneath the diary's back.
She reached for something else inside of the pile of her things. She gripped her hand around something crisp and slightly crinkled. She pulled it out from under a box, and saw that it was a newspaper. A Daily Prophet.
Chanse turned the Daily Prophet to open it but before she could unfold it a small folded piece of paper slid out of it. "A note," Chanse whispered as she picked up the note and set down the Daily Prophet.
She slowly unfolded the note and read it:
"Go to section of Breaking News on page four of that section."
That was all that was written. Nothing more, and nothing less. Chanse flipped over the note to see if anything was written on the back. Nothing. She flipped it back over and reread the note. 'What is this supposed to...Oh the newspaper.'
Chanse set the note carefully on the cold tile floor and picked up the newspaper. She opened the newspaper and looked down at the bottom of the newspaper for where she could find the Breaking News section. She flipped a page or two until she found the Breaking News page. She pulled the section out of the newspaper and set the rest of the paper on the floor.
She flipped through the Breaking News section to page four. She read the headline, "Abuse Of A Potion. A Love Potion." Chanse stared at the article and something seemed to catch her eye. She stood up and sat down on her bed, but something kept making her look over at the article. "Maybe that's it," she hoped off the bed and walked over to the article. "I'm going to be pissed if it isn't." She chuckled before walking back over to the bed and sitting down.
She reread the article. "Abuse of a potion. A love potion. This past week an unbelievable case was broken wide at Durmstrang Institute involving a rising Puddlemere United Reserve and a Durmstrang student. Friends of the student and rising Puddlemere United Reserve, Oliver Wood, started to file complaints about Oliver acting weird. When Igor Karkaroff tried to solve this mystery and failed he called on the power of the Ministry. The Ministry suspected foul play and did a full-blown investigation of what had happened to Mr. Oliver Wood.
After searching in Mr. Wood's room, the Ministry found glasses upon glasses of a pink liquid and after running extensive tests on the liquid they found it to be none other then one of the strongest love potions ever able to be made..." Chanse's voice trailed off and she dropped the paper.
"A love potion?" Chanse whispered as a quick flash of a girl walking out of the bathroom in a towel, and Oliver in his bed in only his boxers.
Chanse looked down at the ground at the box on the floor. She scooted off her bed and slid the box to off. Inside there was hundreds of letters. She picked some up and saw that they were all addressed to her and from Oliver Wood.
She ripped one opened and read it.
"Chanse,
I know you don't want to hear from me or even think about me but I miss you a lot. Please write me back.
Love,
Oliver."
Chanse set the letter down and sighed, "He loves me."
Her mind seemed to have a door opened up in it. She looked around the room. She remembered everything.