As the weeks went by Rebecca became more comfortable with going places by
herself. Other than in class and if she looked over at the Slytherin table,
she didn't see Russel or Ryan around so she stopped feeling paranoia about
something happening to her if she didn't keep a constant vigilance.
Her new confidence turned into a blessing, because soon March came and the snow melted. This meant that quidditch practice started by order of Captain Wood, giving Charlie less time to study. Rebecca found herself spending a lot of her time doing prep work so that they could study more efficiently than they had been before.
It was a good system and worked until one Sunday at breakfast when Rebecca received a letter. She had gotten down to the Great Hall before the rest of the group, because she woke up really early and had been in the library researching, so she was able to read the letter without any interruptions.
The letter was from the lawyer who had her parent's will. It didn't say much other than she was going to be going to the office in April to talk to them. The vagueness of the message left Rebecca's mind racing to what she needed to talk to them about. After a moment, she thought of the letter she received before Christmas.
'Why do I have to go in April? Shouldn't the meeting be after school is done? They must have made a mistake in the Christmas letter and have to tell me in person. What if they say that they were never supposed to send it in the first place? What if I am actually changing schools again and it is either Durmstang or Beauxbaton? Maybe they are trying to give me more time to say good bye to everyone this time,' she thought to herself as Charlie and the rest of the gang came to sit down to eat.
As conversation flowed around her, Rebecca stared off into space not even aware that anyone was around her. It wasn't until Charlie asked her to pass the salt that she realized everyone was there.
"Hey were you sleeping?" Charlie joked.
"Hmm." Rebecca looked at him with a puzzled face.
"Could you pass the salt, please?"
"Oh yeah," Rebecca said as she passed the salt to him and started to eat.
Charlie could tell something was bugging her so he leaned over and whispered, "You okay?"
"Yeah," Rebecca whispered back as she got up from the table and walked out the room.
"What's going on? Did you do something to upset her?" Greg whispered over to Charlie with a protective tone in his voice.
"No, I haven't done anything. We studied together last night and nothing happened out of the ordinary. Today the worst thing I have done is asking her if she was sleeping, but she normally would get a good laugh out of a line like that." Charlie defensively whispered back.
"You guys did notice that she had a letter in her and when we got her and she took it when she left, didn't you?" Sara asked pointing out something that both guys obviously missed.
"I wonder what a letter could say to get her so upset." Greg pondered.
Charlie looked out the door and thought for a moment. He finally said, "I am sure she'll get herself calmed down in a bit."
Charlie was wrong in his assumption. Rebecca was spaced out all day; luckily there were no classes so none of the teachers could call on her. At lunch she didn't say one word and the same was true at dinner. Charlie finally decided it was time to find out what was going on to put Rebecca in this state of mind.
"Hey Rebecca where you going?" he asked as they walked out of the Great Hall.
"Huh, oh, um, I am going to the library," Rebecca hesitantly responded, because she wasn't consciously aware of where she was headed.
"What happened?" Charlie bluntly asked her.
"What do you mean?"
"You have been spaced out all day you have been. You barely said a single word at one time. Something has you really upset. Please, tell me what it is?" Rebecca looked at him and then at her shoes.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said shortly and started to walk away.
"Who sent you the letter you got this morning?" Charlie called after her. This stopped Rebecca dead in her tracks. She turned and stared at him as he asked, "That is what has got you upset, right?"
"How did you."
"Becca you were reading it when we all came down to breakfast and when you walked out it was still in your hand."
There was a pause and Rebecca finally admitted, "It was from the lawyer that my parents had."
"And?"
"It was vague. Barely told me anything at all, for all I know I could be getting shipped out to a new school at the end of the year."
"But, you were told that you have a say on whether you stayed or not in the other letter."
"I know, but that doesn't mean they didn't make a mistake. Why else would they make me come in to the office in April?"
"You don't know that for sure. It could be something completely different."
"You don't' know that for sure, either. I do know that I am tired of becoming attached to people and getting told that I have to give them up without having a say."
"Okay, time out. You're still jumping the gun, Rebecca. You need to calm down and not worry."
"Look at my track record, Charlie. Everything that has ever happened to me says that it is going to be something to bad. I need to get myself prepared."
"Pushing people away is your way of getting ready?"
"I am not pushing people away."
"Then why didn't you talk to someone about what was upsetting you."
'He's right I am shutting people out. What is wrong with me? I really don't want to do that,' Rebecca admitted to herself, but all she could say was, "Don't you have a special practice to go to?"
Charlie stared at her for a moment not believing she said that of all things. Finally he asked, "Are we still going to study together later?"
Rebecca hesitantly shook her head yes. Though Charlie could see that she had been reluctant in saying yes, he had to get that practice and didn't have time to continue talking to Rebecca right then.
He walked away muttering, "What a day for Aaron to call for a special practice."
Rebecca went to the library as she said she was when Charlie left. She didn't get anything done though her mind kept wandering to the letter she received and her conversation with Charlie.
About a half an hour had passed, when Russel walked up to her, but Rebecca was too distracted to even notice.
"Getting anything done?" he asked looking at the book she hadn't even opened.
"No, guess I should go back to the common room," she said in a monotone voice not even looking who was talking to her as she got up from the table. Russel just watched her walk out wondering what was going on with her. She was technically civil towards him which he thought would never happen again, but there was something else that got her upset which made him curious on what had happened.
Up in the common room Rebecca didn't have any better luck studying. Cathrine tried to tell her about a new spell she learned and how it would be great for a prank, but Rebecca only weakly smiled at her even when Cathrine said something really funny that Rebecca would have normally laughed at.
Sara finally walked over to Rebecca when Aisha left exasperated by Rebecca's lack of response when she asked for some help on the homework.
"Aisha, I think James might be able to help you," Sara told her as they passed. "Also ask James if he can take over the dance lessons for tonight, okay?"
Aisha smiled at her and headed towards James to ask about her homework and the ballroom dancing lesson, which had become a Sunday event in the Gryffindor house since the ball.
Sara took a seat next to Rebecca and asked, "Is everything okay?" Rebecca looked over her and thought for a moment.
"Yeah, I just can't get myself to study right now," she finally said.
"Do you want to talk about what is bothering you?"
"No not right now. Thank you though."
"Okay well you know where to find me if you do," Sara said as she got up.
Charlie walked in to the room from practice just in time to see Sara leaving Rebecca, so he walked over to Sara to find out whether Rebecca told her anything.
"Did she tell you anything?" he eagerly whispered to Sara.
"No she didn't want to talk about it. Don't worry she'll tell us eventually. Just give her time," Sara reassured him patting his arm as she walked away.
Charlie nodded and left to change. He came back to the common room to find Rebecca staring out the window she was sitting in front of. After setting his books down, he pulled up a chair and took a seat.
Charlie sat there for five minutes before Rebecca realized that he was there.
"Hey," she softly said knowing that she was busted. She started to nervously flip through her book so that she didn't have to look directly into Charlie's eyes.
"Rebecca, I think we really need to talk about what is upsetting you so much," Charlie said with a concern tone in his voice.
Rebecca stopped looking at the book and looked at him as her mind raced, 'He hasn't called me that since this past fall. He must be really worried about me. Why can't I stop defensive side of me? If I knew I was coming back I would be able to tell him so much more. Why am I building these walls around me?'
Finally she defensively answered, "There isn't much to say. I got the letter which tells me relatively nothing. I don't have a good feeling about it and that's what go me upset. Plain and simple."
"I think there is more to it than that."
"What makes you say that?"
"You aren't telling anyone anything about it other than it was vague. You're shutting people out of your life."
"I am not shutting people out; I am just trying to get things straight in my head."
"You didn't tell Sara anything when she talked to you and you usually tell her everything even when things are confusing to you."
Rebecca didn't say anything to this, because she knew Charlie was right, but didn't wasn't ready to admit it yet. Charlie fell silent wondering what was going through Rebecca's head.
They just sat there and stared at each other until Bill showed up and asked, "Do you guys need help with something for class?"
"Uh, no, we just need to look over the potion we are going to be making tomorrow. We got the rest of our homework done yesterday," Charlie responded still looking at Rebecca.
"Okay, well if you need any help just let me know," Bill said looking curiously at the two and then walking away.
"We better get started," Rebecca finally said. Charlie shook his head yes and flipped open his book.
They got done in record time, partly because they didn't have the usual interplay of studying and jokes or personal stories that happened when they studied together. Charlie tried a couple of play-on-words comments but could only get a weak smile from Rebecca. After they were done, Rebecca headed straight to bed without a word to another person.
Charlie sat for a while by himself just thinking, 'I hope she is feeling better about this situation tomorrow. I wish that I could alleviate her . her . her what? I don't even know what to call it. She's just tired of being bounced around. That's what it is really. I can't believe she thinks that she will have to leave here. . I really hope she doesn't. I don't know whether I would like to go through a year without her here now that she's been here.'
"Hey, mate, you okay?" Charlie looked up to see Greg sitting down next to him.
"Yeah, I was just thinking to myself about stuff."
"Rebecca and the letter she got today?"
"Yeah, she is just paranoid about its vagueness. I wish I knew how to calm her down."
"She'll be fine. I am sure that everything will be better tomorrow."
Charlie shook his head in agreement but didn't know whether it would be the case.
The next day wasn't starting any better. Rebecca hadn't slept very well and needless to say wasn't in a very talkative mood at breakfast. Charlie was worried but didn't know how to get Rebecca to talk without getting her agitated or causing her to become more isolated. He had it figure that they would be partners in potions like they always were.
'We can talk then. I'll just make sure not to mention the letter until after she returns to her old self.' Charlie thought as they got up to got to class.
In potions, Snape decided that he wanted the class to have different partners and that he was going to assign them. Greg and Cassie were paired together. Cathrine and Hans were partners as were Jacquelyn and Sam. Snape had just put Ryan with Sara when he turned to Rebecca and said, "Miss Carter you will be partnered with Mr. Flint."
"For how long?" Rebecca blurted out in a panic. The whole class gasped wondering what Snape was going to do.
"For the class period," Snape responded eyeing her trying to decide whether she was trying to be cheeky or not.
In the end he decided that she wasn't since she stopped after the first question and she was normally his best pupil. He continued pairing the class making each partnership being made up of one guy and one girl from different houses. When he finished, he said, "Okay, girls move to the cauldron that is near you partner."
Rebecca softly groaned so that Snape wouldn't hear her and gathered up her stuff. Russel had a big smile on his face as she approached him. She tried not to make eye contact as she set her stuff down.
"So much for keeping the creep away," he said jokingly to her as they started the potion.
"Oh shut up," Rebecca harshly responded, which wiped the smile right off of Russel's face.
After a few minutes Russel tried again. "So, what is going on with you? We haven't talked since."
Rebecca cut him off as she coldly said, "Let's just get this done."
They continued to work. Rebecca spoke as little as possible. Everything seemed to be going tolerable until Rebecca looked over to see Russel dropped something shiny in to the cauldron.
"No, don't," screamed Rebecca, but it was too late.
Rebecca had pushed Russel out of the way as the potion exploded. Unfortunately she didn't have time to duck herself. The force of the blast sent Rebecca flying through the air and hit the wall on the opposite side of the room.
Charlie ran over to Rebecca to help her up. She was coughing from the fumes that she had inhaled by the explosion so Charlie just kept his arms around her.
Snape rushed over to check on her also. As he moved towards her, Snape looked at the rest of the class to survey the damage. The explosion had moved other students, but Rebecca had absorbed the brunt of it so most only moved an inch or two.
After checking out Rebecca, Snape turned towards Charlie and said, "Mr. Weasley, please take her to Madame Pomfrey."
As Charlie escorted Rebecca out the door, Snape turned and started to scold Russel for his clumsiness.
Outside of the door Rebecca, who was still coughing, stumbled trying to walk. Charlie scooped her up and carried her into the hospital wing. As he set her on a cot, Madame Pomfrey rushed over to have a look at Rebecca.
It was discovered that Rebecca was fighting a sinus infection while Madame Pomfrey did some test on her to see what the full effect of the blast and hitting the wall was. After getting completely checked out, Madame Pomfrey left to get something to help Rebecca if she got sore from the impact of the wall.
Charlie turned towards Rebecca after Madame Pompfrey was out to the room and asked, "Do you think he did it on purpose?"
Rebecca could see that he was being dead serious about Russel's actions. "Honestly, I don't think so, but I really don't know. I would have never guessed he would have put a spell on me, either. . Personally, I would like to know why I pushed him out of the way. It isn't like the big thug couldn't have taken it. He at least wouldn't have gone flying across room," said Rebecca and then she thought to herself, 'Does this mean something? I really hope it doesn't.'
Charlie could tell Rebecca was worried about what her actions meant so he tried to calm her down by saying, "Let's not talk about it right now. You need to rest."
"Fine by me," Rebecca shortly answered still having the events runs through her head.
They both sat there for a moment in silence. Rebecca's thoughts turned from what Russel did to cause the accident to Charlie's actions after the explosion causing Rebecca to finally say, "Uh, Charlie, about yesterday, I am really sorry about everything. You were right I was shutting people out of my life. I got scared after that letter. . Being sick and not knowing that I was, may have added to my fear making it hard for me to listen to reason."
"I know. . You do know that you don't have to be scared by yourself, if you just let some one know. We're all here for you."
"Yeah, I know, but it hard for me to remember that I have friends willing to help me when I am scared. I am so use to doing things for myself that I just forget, as bad as that may sounds. Even when Wadsworth was alive, I had to deal with lot of different things by myself. Some times it is better if I just get some space to sort things out. . Maybe that is why it is best if I don't get to close to anyone in particular."
Rebecca really muttered the last comment, but Charlie took the clue and said, "Well if it is space you need than we all can give you space. . I just want to say one thing. I think we should continue studying together so that you're not tempted completely isolate yourself."
Rebecca nodded in agreement glad that Charlie said it, because she truly wished she hadn't said the last thing out loud. She really wanted to stay friends with Charlie and had been afraid that what she said might drive him away. Unfortunately, she had felt that she had to let him know that she didn't want them to be anything more than friends until she was certain she was coming back to school.
Madame Pompfrey came back with medicine and sent the two back to classes. As they silently walked back to get their books from the potions classroom and then head to Herbology, Rebecca continued to think about what she had said. 'He still wants to study together. Everything will be fine. Just relax, what you said will be forgotten. It will get back to the way it use to be, just take your cues from Charlie. His actions will let him know whether he is hurt by what you said,' she told herself as she followed Charlie into the Herbology greenhouse.
Rebecca stiffened up during Herbology and was glad when it was lunch time and she could take the medicine. At lunch the whole Gryffindor table was talking about the events in the fifth year's potion class. A.J. and Bill asked if Rebecca was okay, while Lauren and Aisha commented that it would be cool to fly through the air without a broom.
"It isn't that cool hitting a wall because of it," Rebecca said to them.
Ryan came over to see how Rebecca was doing, but when Cassie came over and started being a drama queen and mentioned how upset Russel was, he quickly escorted her away seeing that Rebecca was getting annoyed by it. He was right Rebecca was perturbed about Cassie's drama, but it did not agitate her as much as she was about the mention of Russel.
'Stupid Slytherin never knows when to leave people alone. . I bet I am getting stared at so that he might get my attention.' Rebecca looked over at the Slytherin table just to check if Russel was indeed staring at her, but there was no Russel to be found.
Over the next couple of days, she noticed that other than class she hadn't seen Russel at all. Rebecca stopped looking when she stopped feeling sore since she didn't have a constant reminder of what happened.
Since she felt better, Rebecca started going back to the library to do prep work so she and Charlie could study easily when he was done with practice.
Studying with Charlie had changed since they talked in the hospital wing. The end results seemed to be the same but Charlie and Rebecca acted different towards each other. They would smile at each other, but laughing was at a minimal and they both acted like they were afraid to touch the other one for some reason unbeknownst anyone watching them.
Sara didn't get a chance to talk to Rebecca about it because Rebecca was spending a lot of time in the library buried in books and seemed too busy to really talk about anything about homework. Eventually, Rebecca started to act like her old self and acting more friendly towards Charlie much to the relief of Charlie and everyone else in the group.
But then one morning she received another letter.
This letter wasn't from the lawyer though it was from Russel. Rebecca opened the letter under the table and began to read it.
My Dearest Rebecca,
Words can not say how sorry I am for all the pain I caused you this year. Your beauty inside and out has blinded me from reason. When I first met you, I thought you were Ryan's girlfriend, which would have broken my heart for I was in love with you at first sight. The revelation that you were in fact his cousin filled me with joy. I tried to go and find you after you left the compartment in the train when I found out, but Cassie insisted that I go talk to Kirsta (who is not my girlfriend contrary to popular belief). Cassie's demanding control made it so that I couldn't share the joy I felt with you. And this joy was short lived because my dreams of getting to know you better were dashed when you were sorted into Gryffindor. My chances were limited to classroom and hallway interaction.
I admired you from a far at first, amazed by your intellect and ability to talk to everyone while we were in class together. Your friendliness when I came up to talk to you while you were talking to Ryan blew me way. When you would walk away, I asked Ryan to tell me more about you. As Ryan told me of your history, I realized that you need a guy in your life that would be there for you, but you were too independent. There were only a few chances that I had to prove that I could be strong for you, but it didn't seem to get me anywhere. Finally my desperation to have this role in your life over came my reasoning. After finding out that you fainted from headaches, I found myself obsessively researching spells that would cause them. Unfortunately, I never got the timing right so you passed out too far away from me and I could not catch you. I just want you to know that I never meant to send you to the hospital wing. I only wanted you to notice me.
You did notice me during Christmas break and I thought that I had gotten the best Christmas gift with being able to spend time with you. I was glad that when I heard that you were staying over the holidays and that I was able to convince my little brother that it would be time well spent, because I was right. Our time together was wonderful and I was glad that I could be a sounding board when you needed it. It showed that I was there for you when you needed. On Christmas day, I went back to my room after breakfast and destroyed all the headache spells I had copied down, because I thought there was a chance for us. My hopes faded as I learned that you had been inducted into that Weasley family with a sweater. January was a bleak month for me watching you walk around with Weasley and his friends. My only consolation was that I could sit with you in the library and talk to you while you were there. February started to look better with the announcement of the Ball. I knew that you would be going with Weasley, but when I saw that you were willing to dance with other guys I knew that nothing was serious going on between the two of you and this would be my chance. Your looking around for Charlie while we were dancing was disturbing to me. I needed to get you out of his view so that I could actually talk to you and show you how I felt. I never meant to scare you or to tell you about the spell, I just wanted to kiss you so that you could feel what it was like to be kissed by someone that loves you.
At the end of the dance, when you told Ryan to keep me away from you, I was crushed. I knew that I had scared you into saying that but I need to be able to explain to you my feeling. I tried to approach you when you seemed to be in a better mood but not too much avail. Once again my hope in us being a couple faded when you said the same words and ran to the protection of Weasley and his little group. I tried to keep my distance from you hoping that in time you would forget what had happened and learn to love me, but when we were partnered up in potions it seemed that it would take an eternity for you to forgive me. You wouldn't talk to me and it was truly upsetting. My emotions got the best of me once again and I dropped the cap to my ink into the cauldron knowing that something would happen. I only intended to pretend to be dropping it in. You were suppose to notice it earlier than you did, stop me from dropping it, and explain to me what would have happened if it had fallen in. I just wanted to have you talk to me and see that I really wasn't that bad of a guy, but there was the explosion. I regret that you had to go to the infirmary, because of it, but I found out that you actually care about me when you shoved me out of the way of the explosion.
I know that this letter does not make up for what I have done, but I only hope that you look into your heart, see the love that you hold there for me and forgive me so we can be together.
Love forever,
Russel
Rebecca finished the letter and quickly shoved it into her pocket and started to eat before everyone else finished their mail and asked her what she had gotten. She did not want to share it with anyone right now. It was a very disturbing letter to Rebecca and it was causing her to fell sick to her stomach.
Aisha happened to look at her from down a ways from the table and asked, "Are you okay, Rebecca? You don't look that good."
Everyone looked at her to see that all the color had drained from her face.
"You feeling okay?" Sara asked.
"No, please excuse me." Rebecca got up and rushed out of the hall leaving everyone staring at each other wondering whether she was going to be okay or not.
Cathrine got up to go check on her. She found Rebecca in the bathroom throwing up, because, Russel's letter had made Rebecca that physical ill.
"Are you okay, Rebecca?" asked Cathrine when Rebecca finished.
"I don't know. Something must not have sat well with my stomach," Rebecca said splashing her face with water. She looked in the mirror and muttered,"I hate throwing up."
"Me, too," Cathrine said handing Rebecca a towel. "Do you feel like your going to do it again?"
"No I don't think so. In fact, I don't think I have anything else in me that could come up."
"Hopefully. . Um, Colin and I slipped something in to your eggs. It was suppose to make you laugh uncontrollably for a minute, not make you do this. We actually put it into everyone's food. I am sorry we didn't know that it would result in this."
"Did you guys invent it?"
"Yeah, we needed to test it out some more it seems."
"Yeah, well, I don't think it was whatever you put into my eggs. . I think I need to get something to eat. I'm feeling a bit light headed."
"You want to go back to the Great Hall and try something else to eat."
"Yeah, after I go brush my teeth again."
They walked back in and took their seats after a quick stop up in the tower. Sara eyed Cathrine and got an 'I'll tell you later look' from her. Rebecca sat quietly and nibbled on some toast hoping her stomach would settle down.
There was one blessing with being sick in the morning Rebecca was allowed to be introverted the rest of the day. After Cathrine told about what happened to Rebecca, everyone acted that if they talked to her for too long she would throw up again, which meant Rebecca could space out and no one really minded. Rebecca realized half way through classes that she was isolating herself as she had done with the last letter.
'I have to tell Charlie. He will help me get through this. I know he will. I just need to find a moment with him alone,' she thought to herself. Though she wished she could tell Charlie about it, there never seemed to be a quiet moment that she could.
After lunch, she came to the conclusion that she needed to keep her mind off the letter until she could talk to Charlie alone. She started plotting what she would do for the rest of the day and talking to her friends about Colin and Cathrine's invention to distract herself.
After a while, she forgot about the letter in pocket.
Rebecca was feeling a lot better at the end of the day so she went to the library to get some work done before Charlie was done with practice and they started to study. She sat on the floor in one of the aisles filled with books on transfiguration. Rebecca just sat there taking notes from a fairly large book not noticing the commotion of students walking past the aisle.
It wasn't until someone walked into the aisle that Rebecca was aware that there were other students in the library. Rebecca continued with her task not looking to see who was walking up to her.
Finally the boy decided to say, "That doesn't look too comfortable."
"It works for me," she said finally looking up at the person. Rebecca gasped when her eyes landed on his face spilling her ink all over her notes.
Rebecca turned quickly back at her notes when she realized that it was Russel.
"Did you get my letter?" Russel asked her.
"Yeah," answered Rebecca softly as she tried not to make eye contact with him by examining her ruined notes and the empty ink bottle.
Russel took a seat next to her and asked, "Well what did you think?"
Rebecca was getting more uncomfortable and really didn't want to talk to him, but felt that she needed to tell Russel exactly what she thought. "Do you realize what you did to me and it was all because you wanted to get my attention? From my point of view it was all disturbing. To even think that you thought that everything you did would make me want to be around you is nuts."
"Well, I sorry about it all as I told you in the letter, but being a 'hero' wasn't working that well so I needed something else," he responded.
Russel slide closer to her causing Rebecca to scoot away causing her to back into a corner as she questioned, "A hero?"
"Yeah, stepping in to get your map, telling Harvey to apology to that Mudblood."
Russel didn't get to finish his list, because Rebecca slapped him as she firmly said, "How dare you use that word."
After touching his face for a second, Russel said, "Oh that is going to cost you, girlie."
He moved to pin Rebecca against the wall for a kiss, but she scrambled to her feet just in time. Russel tried to grab her to stop her from leaving. Rebecca took the book that was still in her hands, hit him with it, and dropped it as she ran out of the section. She ran out of the library and straight towards the Gryffindor tower fearful that Russel might be following her.
When she hit the top of steps, she looked back to see if anyone was coming up. As Rebecca turned to walk into the portrait, she gasped again when she saw someone was standing there. At first she thought Russel had some how gotten a head of her, but was relieved when she realized it was actually Charlie. He stood there sopping wet staring at her.
"Why aren't you at practice?" Rebecca asked startled to see him, because they weren't supposed to study together for another hour when he got off of practice.
"It was too hard raining so we had to cut it short. Everyone else headed in about a half hour ago, but I had to get the snitch. . What's the matter with you?" Charlie asked her looking at her with a puzzled face.
Rebecca gave the password to the Fat Lady and quickly ushered a confused Charlie into the room constantly looking over her shoulder for a sign of Russel. She stopped Charlie just inside of the door where no one in the common room could see them.
When the door was completely shut, Rebecca started telling Charlie about the letter and the events that happened in the library just moments ago. Charlie listened carefully to what Rebecca said and watched tears start to roll down her face as she talked. He touched her face to wipe away some of some of her tears and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
Rebecca pulled out the letter from pocket and handed to Charlie. He took it from her trembling hands and started to read it. When he finished, he looked up to see she was still crying.
"Why did you keep this in your pocket?" Charlie asked curious on why she would keep something so disturbing with her.
"I didn't know where else to put it. I didn't want anyone to see it so I shoved it into my pocket this morning and somehow managed to forget about it."
"This is really disturbing," stated Charlie after he reread the letter.
"I know," Rebecca whispered through her tears putting her hands up to her mouth.
Charlie put his arms around Rebecca and just held her as she cried on his shoulder. As he held her, Charlie thought, 'I should hunt down Flint and cause him as much pain as he is causing Rebecca to have. He has no clue how much he has inflicted. I wish I could drag him in here and just let him see let him see this and then punch him right in the face, so that he know exactly what he has done.'
Another voice then popped into Charlie's thoughts, saying, 'Get a hold of yourself, man, she needs you right now. Don't go off and leave her crying by herself. You can take care of Flint later. Becca is too scared for you to leave. Why else would she have told you?'
Charlie couldn't fight with that logic and so he wrapped his arms around Rebecca slightly tighter. He felt her step in closer and relax a little, but she was still crying so Charlie continued to hold her.
They stood there for a while longer. Rebecca didn't care that her clothes were becoming wet from Charlie holding her, she was just glad that he was there for her, even after her little tantrum about needing space.
When it appeared that Rebecca had stopped crying, Charlie whispered to her, "Becca, let's get out of these wet clothes and talk some more by the fire."
Rebecca reluctantly pulled away, shook her head in agreement, and started towards her room. She came back to the common room in some red pajama pants and a grey long sleeve shirt. Charlie was already sitting by the fire in a similar outfit waiting for Rebecca to come back down.
He smiled as Rebecca took a seat next to him and put her head on his shoulder. Charlie wrapped his arms around her and they just sat there. They didn't say a word to each other, but just sat there staring into the fire. Rebecca felt so safe that she eventually drifted off to sleep.
As Rebecca slept, Greg came over and sat in the chair closest to Charlie so that he could talk to Charlie to see what was going.
Before Greg could say something, Jacquelyn walked over with James and said, "Isn't that a pretty picture? It looks like you two go over your rough patch."
She and James settled down on the other end of the couch as Sara walked over towards Greg.
"What are you talking about?" Charlie asked giving Jacquelyn a strange look as Colin and Cathrine came over to see what was up.
"Oh, come on mate, it's about time you and Rebecca actually show that you're a couple," James stated.
"But we're not a couple," Charlie clarified.
"What?!" Cathrine and Colin said in unison.
"We thought you were already together with the way that you act towards her. We figure you asked her out after Valentine's Day and that you just wanted to keep it quiet until the Russel situation died down," Colin said.
Charlie shook his head no to let Colin know that they all assumed wrong.
"Why don't you ask her out?" asked Cathrine really wanting him to wake her friend up and ask her right then and there.
Sara waited a moment while Charlie made a face at Cathrine and stated, "You are already acting like you're a couple you might as well make it official. I know that she really likes you, so you shouldn't worry about her rejecting you."
'She doesn't know about what happened in the hospital wing,' Charlie thought as he sighed and looked at Greg to get some help.
Greg leaned forward and looked at everyone. After staring them down, he said, "Charlie and I need to talk. Alone."
Everyone walked away disappointed that they wouldn't get to hear what Greg would say to Charlie, but they knew better than to go against Greg when it came to Charlie.
After everyone was out of earshot, Greg turned towards Charlie and asked, "Do you remember in the fall before the first quidditch match when we were talking about your need of new arm pads?"
Charlie nodded vaguely remembering that night.
"Do you remember when Rebecca walked past us that night?"
Charlie shook his head again not sure where Greg was going with it.
"Well, you stopped our conversation to talk to her. I asked when she went up stairs what you thought of her, because I thought there was something there and that you might become aware of it when you had to think of your answer. You have paid more attention to her than any girl you have ever known. The whole group knows there is something there. In fact, Bill even realizes it. He says that you have stopped conversations with him to talk to Rebecca or help her. Colin and Cathrine wanted to pull some prank to cause you to ask Rebecca out. Sara and I slowed them down so that you could ask her on your own time, but it obviously hasn't happened yet even though we all thought it had."
Charlie sat silently and looked down at Rebecca as Greg looked at him. When Charlie didn't say anything, Greg asked, "Were you going to ask her out before Christmas?"
Charlie looked at Greg and quietly said, "Yes, I just couldn't get the nerve up to do it the morning we left. . I thought about asking her in January but it never seemed like the right time, she was always studying or helping someone. ... Then there was the announcement of the ball. I was surprised I had the nerve to ask her to be my date for it. I actually planned on asking her to be my girlfriend after the dance when we all were going to give the girls the candy we bought that day, but then everything happened and I couldn't ask her then. I didn't even give her the candy. I think it is still up in my trunk."
Greg nodded his head signaling that he knew there was more and stalling wasn't going to work on him so Charlie continued, "When we started studying together, I wasn't sure whether Rebecca would want to do it again, so I asked her if she wanted to be my study partner. . I admitted it I was ecstatic that she said yes so fast, but I didn't think we were in the right place for anything more just then. I thought we were getting to a point where I might ask her, but she said that she doesn't want to get attached to anyone here and that she needs some space."
"Maybe she is just scared."
"Yeah, but don't you think she has a right to be with everything that has happened in her life..."
"Yes and no. I understand that she would be defensive, but I don't think Becca even has a defense that you couldn't get around. She lights up around you, plain and simple. There is something between you two. Neither of you can deny it or even hide it. Mate, you might have asked her just to study with you, but the way you two interacted lead all of us to believe you were actually going out. I have to admit that I wondered why you didn't walk with her with your arm around her, sit with her like this, or call her your girl. . Sara has talked to Rebecca about you. She does the exact same thing she talks highly of you and seems to want something more but doesn't seem to know how to communicate it to you. You need to figure out how to communicate with her about this."
There was a pause as Charlie looked at Rebecca and pondered what Greg said, finally he stated, "You're right. . I know what I have to do."
'I will do it this time. Nothing is going to stop me. And I know when I am going to ask her too,' Charlie promised himself.
Greg nodded his head, but then paused to ask, "You're not going to ask her when she wakes up, are you? You know everyone is going to want you to do it right then."
"No, I got more class than that, mate."
Greg sat back relieved that Charlie wasn't going to be pressured any to anything involving Rebecca. The boys continued to talk as Rebecca slept. Charlie told Greg of the letter Russel sent Rebecca. Greg was appalled and said pretty much what Charlie said and thought when he had read the letter. The guys discussed the issue for a while trying to figure out what to do to protect Rebecca from suffering at Russel hands.
When Rebecca woke up, Charlie sent her up to bed without saying anything to her about dating, much to the chagrin of his friends.
Her new confidence turned into a blessing, because soon March came and the snow melted. This meant that quidditch practice started by order of Captain Wood, giving Charlie less time to study. Rebecca found herself spending a lot of her time doing prep work so that they could study more efficiently than they had been before.
It was a good system and worked until one Sunday at breakfast when Rebecca received a letter. She had gotten down to the Great Hall before the rest of the group, because she woke up really early and had been in the library researching, so she was able to read the letter without any interruptions.
The letter was from the lawyer who had her parent's will. It didn't say much other than she was going to be going to the office in April to talk to them. The vagueness of the message left Rebecca's mind racing to what she needed to talk to them about. After a moment, she thought of the letter she received before Christmas.
'Why do I have to go in April? Shouldn't the meeting be after school is done? They must have made a mistake in the Christmas letter and have to tell me in person. What if they say that they were never supposed to send it in the first place? What if I am actually changing schools again and it is either Durmstang or Beauxbaton? Maybe they are trying to give me more time to say good bye to everyone this time,' she thought to herself as Charlie and the rest of the gang came to sit down to eat.
As conversation flowed around her, Rebecca stared off into space not even aware that anyone was around her. It wasn't until Charlie asked her to pass the salt that she realized everyone was there.
"Hey were you sleeping?" Charlie joked.
"Hmm." Rebecca looked at him with a puzzled face.
"Could you pass the salt, please?"
"Oh yeah," Rebecca said as she passed the salt to him and started to eat.
Charlie could tell something was bugging her so he leaned over and whispered, "You okay?"
"Yeah," Rebecca whispered back as she got up from the table and walked out the room.
"What's going on? Did you do something to upset her?" Greg whispered over to Charlie with a protective tone in his voice.
"No, I haven't done anything. We studied together last night and nothing happened out of the ordinary. Today the worst thing I have done is asking her if she was sleeping, but she normally would get a good laugh out of a line like that." Charlie defensively whispered back.
"You guys did notice that she had a letter in her and when we got her and she took it when she left, didn't you?" Sara asked pointing out something that both guys obviously missed.
"I wonder what a letter could say to get her so upset." Greg pondered.
Charlie looked out the door and thought for a moment. He finally said, "I am sure she'll get herself calmed down in a bit."
Charlie was wrong in his assumption. Rebecca was spaced out all day; luckily there were no classes so none of the teachers could call on her. At lunch she didn't say one word and the same was true at dinner. Charlie finally decided it was time to find out what was going on to put Rebecca in this state of mind.
"Hey Rebecca where you going?" he asked as they walked out of the Great Hall.
"Huh, oh, um, I am going to the library," Rebecca hesitantly responded, because she wasn't consciously aware of where she was headed.
"What happened?" Charlie bluntly asked her.
"What do you mean?"
"You have been spaced out all day you have been. You barely said a single word at one time. Something has you really upset. Please, tell me what it is?" Rebecca looked at him and then at her shoes.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said shortly and started to walk away.
"Who sent you the letter you got this morning?" Charlie called after her. This stopped Rebecca dead in her tracks. She turned and stared at him as he asked, "That is what has got you upset, right?"
"How did you."
"Becca you were reading it when we all came down to breakfast and when you walked out it was still in your hand."
There was a pause and Rebecca finally admitted, "It was from the lawyer that my parents had."
"And?"
"It was vague. Barely told me anything at all, for all I know I could be getting shipped out to a new school at the end of the year."
"But, you were told that you have a say on whether you stayed or not in the other letter."
"I know, but that doesn't mean they didn't make a mistake. Why else would they make me come in to the office in April?"
"You don't know that for sure. It could be something completely different."
"You don't' know that for sure, either. I do know that I am tired of becoming attached to people and getting told that I have to give them up without having a say."
"Okay, time out. You're still jumping the gun, Rebecca. You need to calm down and not worry."
"Look at my track record, Charlie. Everything that has ever happened to me says that it is going to be something to bad. I need to get myself prepared."
"Pushing people away is your way of getting ready?"
"I am not pushing people away."
"Then why didn't you talk to someone about what was upsetting you."
'He's right I am shutting people out. What is wrong with me? I really don't want to do that,' Rebecca admitted to herself, but all she could say was, "Don't you have a special practice to go to?"
Charlie stared at her for a moment not believing she said that of all things. Finally he asked, "Are we still going to study together later?"
Rebecca hesitantly shook her head yes. Though Charlie could see that she had been reluctant in saying yes, he had to get that practice and didn't have time to continue talking to Rebecca right then.
He walked away muttering, "What a day for Aaron to call for a special practice."
Rebecca went to the library as she said she was when Charlie left. She didn't get anything done though her mind kept wandering to the letter she received and her conversation with Charlie.
About a half an hour had passed, when Russel walked up to her, but Rebecca was too distracted to even notice.
"Getting anything done?" he asked looking at the book she hadn't even opened.
"No, guess I should go back to the common room," she said in a monotone voice not even looking who was talking to her as she got up from the table. Russel just watched her walk out wondering what was going on with her. She was technically civil towards him which he thought would never happen again, but there was something else that got her upset which made him curious on what had happened.
Up in the common room Rebecca didn't have any better luck studying. Cathrine tried to tell her about a new spell she learned and how it would be great for a prank, but Rebecca only weakly smiled at her even when Cathrine said something really funny that Rebecca would have normally laughed at.
Sara finally walked over to Rebecca when Aisha left exasperated by Rebecca's lack of response when she asked for some help on the homework.
"Aisha, I think James might be able to help you," Sara told her as they passed. "Also ask James if he can take over the dance lessons for tonight, okay?"
Aisha smiled at her and headed towards James to ask about her homework and the ballroom dancing lesson, which had become a Sunday event in the Gryffindor house since the ball.
Sara took a seat next to Rebecca and asked, "Is everything okay?" Rebecca looked over her and thought for a moment.
"Yeah, I just can't get myself to study right now," she finally said.
"Do you want to talk about what is bothering you?"
"No not right now. Thank you though."
"Okay well you know where to find me if you do," Sara said as she got up.
Charlie walked in to the room from practice just in time to see Sara leaving Rebecca, so he walked over to Sara to find out whether Rebecca told her anything.
"Did she tell you anything?" he eagerly whispered to Sara.
"No she didn't want to talk about it. Don't worry she'll tell us eventually. Just give her time," Sara reassured him patting his arm as she walked away.
Charlie nodded and left to change. He came back to the common room to find Rebecca staring out the window she was sitting in front of. After setting his books down, he pulled up a chair and took a seat.
Charlie sat there for five minutes before Rebecca realized that he was there.
"Hey," she softly said knowing that she was busted. She started to nervously flip through her book so that she didn't have to look directly into Charlie's eyes.
"Rebecca, I think we really need to talk about what is upsetting you so much," Charlie said with a concern tone in his voice.
Rebecca stopped looking at the book and looked at him as her mind raced, 'He hasn't called me that since this past fall. He must be really worried about me. Why can't I stop defensive side of me? If I knew I was coming back I would be able to tell him so much more. Why am I building these walls around me?'
Finally she defensively answered, "There isn't much to say. I got the letter which tells me relatively nothing. I don't have a good feeling about it and that's what go me upset. Plain and simple."
"I think there is more to it than that."
"What makes you say that?"
"You aren't telling anyone anything about it other than it was vague. You're shutting people out of your life."
"I am not shutting people out; I am just trying to get things straight in my head."
"You didn't tell Sara anything when she talked to you and you usually tell her everything even when things are confusing to you."
Rebecca didn't say anything to this, because she knew Charlie was right, but didn't wasn't ready to admit it yet. Charlie fell silent wondering what was going through Rebecca's head.
They just sat there and stared at each other until Bill showed up and asked, "Do you guys need help with something for class?"
"Uh, no, we just need to look over the potion we are going to be making tomorrow. We got the rest of our homework done yesterday," Charlie responded still looking at Rebecca.
"Okay, well if you need any help just let me know," Bill said looking curiously at the two and then walking away.
"We better get started," Rebecca finally said. Charlie shook his head yes and flipped open his book.
They got done in record time, partly because they didn't have the usual interplay of studying and jokes or personal stories that happened when they studied together. Charlie tried a couple of play-on-words comments but could only get a weak smile from Rebecca. After they were done, Rebecca headed straight to bed without a word to another person.
Charlie sat for a while by himself just thinking, 'I hope she is feeling better about this situation tomorrow. I wish that I could alleviate her . her . her what? I don't even know what to call it. She's just tired of being bounced around. That's what it is really. I can't believe she thinks that she will have to leave here. . I really hope she doesn't. I don't know whether I would like to go through a year without her here now that she's been here.'
"Hey, mate, you okay?" Charlie looked up to see Greg sitting down next to him.
"Yeah, I was just thinking to myself about stuff."
"Rebecca and the letter she got today?"
"Yeah, she is just paranoid about its vagueness. I wish I knew how to calm her down."
"She'll be fine. I am sure that everything will be better tomorrow."
Charlie shook his head in agreement but didn't know whether it would be the case.
The next day wasn't starting any better. Rebecca hadn't slept very well and needless to say wasn't in a very talkative mood at breakfast. Charlie was worried but didn't know how to get Rebecca to talk without getting her agitated or causing her to become more isolated. He had it figure that they would be partners in potions like they always were.
'We can talk then. I'll just make sure not to mention the letter until after she returns to her old self.' Charlie thought as they got up to got to class.
In potions, Snape decided that he wanted the class to have different partners and that he was going to assign them. Greg and Cassie were paired together. Cathrine and Hans were partners as were Jacquelyn and Sam. Snape had just put Ryan with Sara when he turned to Rebecca and said, "Miss Carter you will be partnered with Mr. Flint."
"For how long?" Rebecca blurted out in a panic. The whole class gasped wondering what Snape was going to do.
"For the class period," Snape responded eyeing her trying to decide whether she was trying to be cheeky or not.
In the end he decided that she wasn't since she stopped after the first question and she was normally his best pupil. He continued pairing the class making each partnership being made up of one guy and one girl from different houses. When he finished, he said, "Okay, girls move to the cauldron that is near you partner."
Rebecca softly groaned so that Snape wouldn't hear her and gathered up her stuff. Russel had a big smile on his face as she approached him. She tried not to make eye contact as she set her stuff down.
"So much for keeping the creep away," he said jokingly to her as they started the potion.
"Oh shut up," Rebecca harshly responded, which wiped the smile right off of Russel's face.
After a few minutes Russel tried again. "So, what is going on with you? We haven't talked since."
Rebecca cut him off as she coldly said, "Let's just get this done."
They continued to work. Rebecca spoke as little as possible. Everything seemed to be going tolerable until Rebecca looked over to see Russel dropped something shiny in to the cauldron.
"No, don't," screamed Rebecca, but it was too late.
Rebecca had pushed Russel out of the way as the potion exploded. Unfortunately she didn't have time to duck herself. The force of the blast sent Rebecca flying through the air and hit the wall on the opposite side of the room.
Charlie ran over to Rebecca to help her up. She was coughing from the fumes that she had inhaled by the explosion so Charlie just kept his arms around her.
Snape rushed over to check on her also. As he moved towards her, Snape looked at the rest of the class to survey the damage. The explosion had moved other students, but Rebecca had absorbed the brunt of it so most only moved an inch or two.
After checking out Rebecca, Snape turned towards Charlie and said, "Mr. Weasley, please take her to Madame Pomfrey."
As Charlie escorted Rebecca out the door, Snape turned and started to scold Russel for his clumsiness.
Outside of the door Rebecca, who was still coughing, stumbled trying to walk. Charlie scooped her up and carried her into the hospital wing. As he set her on a cot, Madame Pomfrey rushed over to have a look at Rebecca.
It was discovered that Rebecca was fighting a sinus infection while Madame Pomfrey did some test on her to see what the full effect of the blast and hitting the wall was. After getting completely checked out, Madame Pomfrey left to get something to help Rebecca if she got sore from the impact of the wall.
Charlie turned towards Rebecca after Madame Pompfrey was out to the room and asked, "Do you think he did it on purpose?"
Rebecca could see that he was being dead serious about Russel's actions. "Honestly, I don't think so, but I really don't know. I would have never guessed he would have put a spell on me, either. . Personally, I would like to know why I pushed him out of the way. It isn't like the big thug couldn't have taken it. He at least wouldn't have gone flying across room," said Rebecca and then she thought to herself, 'Does this mean something? I really hope it doesn't.'
Charlie could tell Rebecca was worried about what her actions meant so he tried to calm her down by saying, "Let's not talk about it right now. You need to rest."
"Fine by me," Rebecca shortly answered still having the events runs through her head.
They both sat there for a moment in silence. Rebecca's thoughts turned from what Russel did to cause the accident to Charlie's actions after the explosion causing Rebecca to finally say, "Uh, Charlie, about yesterday, I am really sorry about everything. You were right I was shutting people out of my life. I got scared after that letter. . Being sick and not knowing that I was, may have added to my fear making it hard for me to listen to reason."
"I know. . You do know that you don't have to be scared by yourself, if you just let some one know. We're all here for you."
"Yeah, I know, but it hard for me to remember that I have friends willing to help me when I am scared. I am so use to doing things for myself that I just forget, as bad as that may sounds. Even when Wadsworth was alive, I had to deal with lot of different things by myself. Some times it is better if I just get some space to sort things out. . Maybe that is why it is best if I don't get to close to anyone in particular."
Rebecca really muttered the last comment, but Charlie took the clue and said, "Well if it is space you need than we all can give you space. . I just want to say one thing. I think we should continue studying together so that you're not tempted completely isolate yourself."
Rebecca nodded in agreement glad that Charlie said it, because she truly wished she hadn't said the last thing out loud. She really wanted to stay friends with Charlie and had been afraid that what she said might drive him away. Unfortunately, she had felt that she had to let him know that she didn't want them to be anything more than friends until she was certain she was coming back to school.
Madame Pompfrey came back with medicine and sent the two back to classes. As they silently walked back to get their books from the potions classroom and then head to Herbology, Rebecca continued to think about what she had said. 'He still wants to study together. Everything will be fine. Just relax, what you said will be forgotten. It will get back to the way it use to be, just take your cues from Charlie. His actions will let him know whether he is hurt by what you said,' she told herself as she followed Charlie into the Herbology greenhouse.
Rebecca stiffened up during Herbology and was glad when it was lunch time and she could take the medicine. At lunch the whole Gryffindor table was talking about the events in the fifth year's potion class. A.J. and Bill asked if Rebecca was okay, while Lauren and Aisha commented that it would be cool to fly through the air without a broom.
"It isn't that cool hitting a wall because of it," Rebecca said to them.
Ryan came over to see how Rebecca was doing, but when Cassie came over and started being a drama queen and mentioned how upset Russel was, he quickly escorted her away seeing that Rebecca was getting annoyed by it. He was right Rebecca was perturbed about Cassie's drama, but it did not agitate her as much as she was about the mention of Russel.
'Stupid Slytherin never knows when to leave people alone. . I bet I am getting stared at so that he might get my attention.' Rebecca looked over at the Slytherin table just to check if Russel was indeed staring at her, but there was no Russel to be found.
Over the next couple of days, she noticed that other than class she hadn't seen Russel at all. Rebecca stopped looking when she stopped feeling sore since she didn't have a constant reminder of what happened.
Since she felt better, Rebecca started going back to the library to do prep work so she and Charlie could study easily when he was done with practice.
Studying with Charlie had changed since they talked in the hospital wing. The end results seemed to be the same but Charlie and Rebecca acted different towards each other. They would smile at each other, but laughing was at a minimal and they both acted like they were afraid to touch the other one for some reason unbeknownst anyone watching them.
Sara didn't get a chance to talk to Rebecca about it because Rebecca was spending a lot of time in the library buried in books and seemed too busy to really talk about anything about homework. Eventually, Rebecca started to act like her old self and acting more friendly towards Charlie much to the relief of Charlie and everyone else in the group.
But then one morning she received another letter.
This letter wasn't from the lawyer though it was from Russel. Rebecca opened the letter under the table and began to read it.
My Dearest Rebecca,
Words can not say how sorry I am for all the pain I caused you this year. Your beauty inside and out has blinded me from reason. When I first met you, I thought you were Ryan's girlfriend, which would have broken my heart for I was in love with you at first sight. The revelation that you were in fact his cousin filled me with joy. I tried to go and find you after you left the compartment in the train when I found out, but Cassie insisted that I go talk to Kirsta (who is not my girlfriend contrary to popular belief). Cassie's demanding control made it so that I couldn't share the joy I felt with you. And this joy was short lived because my dreams of getting to know you better were dashed when you were sorted into Gryffindor. My chances were limited to classroom and hallway interaction.
I admired you from a far at first, amazed by your intellect and ability to talk to everyone while we were in class together. Your friendliness when I came up to talk to you while you were talking to Ryan blew me way. When you would walk away, I asked Ryan to tell me more about you. As Ryan told me of your history, I realized that you need a guy in your life that would be there for you, but you were too independent. There were only a few chances that I had to prove that I could be strong for you, but it didn't seem to get me anywhere. Finally my desperation to have this role in your life over came my reasoning. After finding out that you fainted from headaches, I found myself obsessively researching spells that would cause them. Unfortunately, I never got the timing right so you passed out too far away from me and I could not catch you. I just want you to know that I never meant to send you to the hospital wing. I only wanted you to notice me.
You did notice me during Christmas break and I thought that I had gotten the best Christmas gift with being able to spend time with you. I was glad that when I heard that you were staying over the holidays and that I was able to convince my little brother that it would be time well spent, because I was right. Our time together was wonderful and I was glad that I could be a sounding board when you needed it. It showed that I was there for you when you needed. On Christmas day, I went back to my room after breakfast and destroyed all the headache spells I had copied down, because I thought there was a chance for us. My hopes faded as I learned that you had been inducted into that Weasley family with a sweater. January was a bleak month for me watching you walk around with Weasley and his friends. My only consolation was that I could sit with you in the library and talk to you while you were there. February started to look better with the announcement of the Ball. I knew that you would be going with Weasley, but when I saw that you were willing to dance with other guys I knew that nothing was serious going on between the two of you and this would be my chance. Your looking around for Charlie while we were dancing was disturbing to me. I needed to get you out of his view so that I could actually talk to you and show you how I felt. I never meant to scare you or to tell you about the spell, I just wanted to kiss you so that you could feel what it was like to be kissed by someone that loves you.
At the end of the dance, when you told Ryan to keep me away from you, I was crushed. I knew that I had scared you into saying that but I need to be able to explain to you my feeling. I tried to approach you when you seemed to be in a better mood but not too much avail. Once again my hope in us being a couple faded when you said the same words and ran to the protection of Weasley and his little group. I tried to keep my distance from you hoping that in time you would forget what had happened and learn to love me, but when we were partnered up in potions it seemed that it would take an eternity for you to forgive me. You wouldn't talk to me and it was truly upsetting. My emotions got the best of me once again and I dropped the cap to my ink into the cauldron knowing that something would happen. I only intended to pretend to be dropping it in. You were suppose to notice it earlier than you did, stop me from dropping it, and explain to me what would have happened if it had fallen in. I just wanted to have you talk to me and see that I really wasn't that bad of a guy, but there was the explosion. I regret that you had to go to the infirmary, because of it, but I found out that you actually care about me when you shoved me out of the way of the explosion.
I know that this letter does not make up for what I have done, but I only hope that you look into your heart, see the love that you hold there for me and forgive me so we can be together.
Love forever,
Russel
Rebecca finished the letter and quickly shoved it into her pocket and started to eat before everyone else finished their mail and asked her what she had gotten. She did not want to share it with anyone right now. It was a very disturbing letter to Rebecca and it was causing her to fell sick to her stomach.
Aisha happened to look at her from down a ways from the table and asked, "Are you okay, Rebecca? You don't look that good."
Everyone looked at her to see that all the color had drained from her face.
"You feeling okay?" Sara asked.
"No, please excuse me." Rebecca got up and rushed out of the hall leaving everyone staring at each other wondering whether she was going to be okay or not.
Cathrine got up to go check on her. She found Rebecca in the bathroom throwing up, because, Russel's letter had made Rebecca that physical ill.
"Are you okay, Rebecca?" asked Cathrine when Rebecca finished.
"I don't know. Something must not have sat well with my stomach," Rebecca said splashing her face with water. She looked in the mirror and muttered,"I hate throwing up."
"Me, too," Cathrine said handing Rebecca a towel. "Do you feel like your going to do it again?"
"No I don't think so. In fact, I don't think I have anything else in me that could come up."
"Hopefully. . Um, Colin and I slipped something in to your eggs. It was suppose to make you laugh uncontrollably for a minute, not make you do this. We actually put it into everyone's food. I am sorry we didn't know that it would result in this."
"Did you guys invent it?"
"Yeah, we needed to test it out some more it seems."
"Yeah, well, I don't think it was whatever you put into my eggs. . I think I need to get something to eat. I'm feeling a bit light headed."
"You want to go back to the Great Hall and try something else to eat."
"Yeah, after I go brush my teeth again."
They walked back in and took their seats after a quick stop up in the tower. Sara eyed Cathrine and got an 'I'll tell you later look' from her. Rebecca sat quietly and nibbled on some toast hoping her stomach would settle down.
There was one blessing with being sick in the morning Rebecca was allowed to be introverted the rest of the day. After Cathrine told about what happened to Rebecca, everyone acted that if they talked to her for too long she would throw up again, which meant Rebecca could space out and no one really minded. Rebecca realized half way through classes that she was isolating herself as she had done with the last letter.
'I have to tell Charlie. He will help me get through this. I know he will. I just need to find a moment with him alone,' she thought to herself. Though she wished she could tell Charlie about it, there never seemed to be a quiet moment that she could.
After lunch, she came to the conclusion that she needed to keep her mind off the letter until she could talk to Charlie alone. She started plotting what she would do for the rest of the day and talking to her friends about Colin and Cathrine's invention to distract herself.
After a while, she forgot about the letter in pocket.
Rebecca was feeling a lot better at the end of the day so she went to the library to get some work done before Charlie was done with practice and they started to study. She sat on the floor in one of the aisles filled with books on transfiguration. Rebecca just sat there taking notes from a fairly large book not noticing the commotion of students walking past the aisle.
It wasn't until someone walked into the aisle that Rebecca was aware that there were other students in the library. Rebecca continued with her task not looking to see who was walking up to her.
Finally the boy decided to say, "That doesn't look too comfortable."
"It works for me," she said finally looking up at the person. Rebecca gasped when her eyes landed on his face spilling her ink all over her notes.
Rebecca turned quickly back at her notes when she realized that it was Russel.
"Did you get my letter?" Russel asked her.
"Yeah," answered Rebecca softly as she tried not to make eye contact with him by examining her ruined notes and the empty ink bottle.
Russel took a seat next to her and asked, "Well what did you think?"
Rebecca was getting more uncomfortable and really didn't want to talk to him, but felt that she needed to tell Russel exactly what she thought. "Do you realize what you did to me and it was all because you wanted to get my attention? From my point of view it was all disturbing. To even think that you thought that everything you did would make me want to be around you is nuts."
"Well, I sorry about it all as I told you in the letter, but being a 'hero' wasn't working that well so I needed something else," he responded.
Russel slide closer to her causing Rebecca to scoot away causing her to back into a corner as she questioned, "A hero?"
"Yeah, stepping in to get your map, telling Harvey to apology to that Mudblood."
Russel didn't get to finish his list, because Rebecca slapped him as she firmly said, "How dare you use that word."
After touching his face for a second, Russel said, "Oh that is going to cost you, girlie."
He moved to pin Rebecca against the wall for a kiss, but she scrambled to her feet just in time. Russel tried to grab her to stop her from leaving. Rebecca took the book that was still in her hands, hit him with it, and dropped it as she ran out of the section. She ran out of the library and straight towards the Gryffindor tower fearful that Russel might be following her.
When she hit the top of steps, she looked back to see if anyone was coming up. As Rebecca turned to walk into the portrait, she gasped again when she saw someone was standing there. At first she thought Russel had some how gotten a head of her, but was relieved when she realized it was actually Charlie. He stood there sopping wet staring at her.
"Why aren't you at practice?" Rebecca asked startled to see him, because they weren't supposed to study together for another hour when he got off of practice.
"It was too hard raining so we had to cut it short. Everyone else headed in about a half hour ago, but I had to get the snitch. . What's the matter with you?" Charlie asked her looking at her with a puzzled face.
Rebecca gave the password to the Fat Lady and quickly ushered a confused Charlie into the room constantly looking over her shoulder for a sign of Russel. She stopped Charlie just inside of the door where no one in the common room could see them.
When the door was completely shut, Rebecca started telling Charlie about the letter and the events that happened in the library just moments ago. Charlie listened carefully to what Rebecca said and watched tears start to roll down her face as she talked. He touched her face to wipe away some of some of her tears and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
Rebecca pulled out the letter from pocket and handed to Charlie. He took it from her trembling hands and started to read it. When he finished, he looked up to see she was still crying.
"Why did you keep this in your pocket?" Charlie asked curious on why she would keep something so disturbing with her.
"I didn't know where else to put it. I didn't want anyone to see it so I shoved it into my pocket this morning and somehow managed to forget about it."
"This is really disturbing," stated Charlie after he reread the letter.
"I know," Rebecca whispered through her tears putting her hands up to her mouth.
Charlie put his arms around Rebecca and just held her as she cried on his shoulder. As he held her, Charlie thought, 'I should hunt down Flint and cause him as much pain as he is causing Rebecca to have. He has no clue how much he has inflicted. I wish I could drag him in here and just let him see let him see this and then punch him right in the face, so that he know exactly what he has done.'
Another voice then popped into Charlie's thoughts, saying, 'Get a hold of yourself, man, she needs you right now. Don't go off and leave her crying by herself. You can take care of Flint later. Becca is too scared for you to leave. Why else would she have told you?'
Charlie couldn't fight with that logic and so he wrapped his arms around Rebecca slightly tighter. He felt her step in closer and relax a little, but she was still crying so Charlie continued to hold her.
They stood there for a while longer. Rebecca didn't care that her clothes were becoming wet from Charlie holding her, she was just glad that he was there for her, even after her little tantrum about needing space.
When it appeared that Rebecca had stopped crying, Charlie whispered to her, "Becca, let's get out of these wet clothes and talk some more by the fire."
Rebecca reluctantly pulled away, shook her head in agreement, and started towards her room. She came back to the common room in some red pajama pants and a grey long sleeve shirt. Charlie was already sitting by the fire in a similar outfit waiting for Rebecca to come back down.
He smiled as Rebecca took a seat next to him and put her head on his shoulder. Charlie wrapped his arms around her and they just sat there. They didn't say a word to each other, but just sat there staring into the fire. Rebecca felt so safe that she eventually drifted off to sleep.
As Rebecca slept, Greg came over and sat in the chair closest to Charlie so that he could talk to Charlie to see what was going.
Before Greg could say something, Jacquelyn walked over with James and said, "Isn't that a pretty picture? It looks like you two go over your rough patch."
She and James settled down on the other end of the couch as Sara walked over towards Greg.
"What are you talking about?" Charlie asked giving Jacquelyn a strange look as Colin and Cathrine came over to see what was up.
"Oh, come on mate, it's about time you and Rebecca actually show that you're a couple," James stated.
"But we're not a couple," Charlie clarified.
"What?!" Cathrine and Colin said in unison.
"We thought you were already together with the way that you act towards her. We figure you asked her out after Valentine's Day and that you just wanted to keep it quiet until the Russel situation died down," Colin said.
Charlie shook his head no to let Colin know that they all assumed wrong.
"Why don't you ask her out?" asked Cathrine really wanting him to wake her friend up and ask her right then and there.
Sara waited a moment while Charlie made a face at Cathrine and stated, "You are already acting like you're a couple you might as well make it official. I know that she really likes you, so you shouldn't worry about her rejecting you."
'She doesn't know about what happened in the hospital wing,' Charlie thought as he sighed and looked at Greg to get some help.
Greg leaned forward and looked at everyone. After staring them down, he said, "Charlie and I need to talk. Alone."
Everyone walked away disappointed that they wouldn't get to hear what Greg would say to Charlie, but they knew better than to go against Greg when it came to Charlie.
After everyone was out of earshot, Greg turned towards Charlie and asked, "Do you remember in the fall before the first quidditch match when we were talking about your need of new arm pads?"
Charlie nodded vaguely remembering that night.
"Do you remember when Rebecca walked past us that night?"
Charlie shook his head again not sure where Greg was going with it.
"Well, you stopped our conversation to talk to her. I asked when she went up stairs what you thought of her, because I thought there was something there and that you might become aware of it when you had to think of your answer. You have paid more attention to her than any girl you have ever known. The whole group knows there is something there. In fact, Bill even realizes it. He says that you have stopped conversations with him to talk to Rebecca or help her. Colin and Cathrine wanted to pull some prank to cause you to ask Rebecca out. Sara and I slowed them down so that you could ask her on your own time, but it obviously hasn't happened yet even though we all thought it had."
Charlie sat silently and looked down at Rebecca as Greg looked at him. When Charlie didn't say anything, Greg asked, "Were you going to ask her out before Christmas?"
Charlie looked at Greg and quietly said, "Yes, I just couldn't get the nerve up to do it the morning we left. . I thought about asking her in January but it never seemed like the right time, she was always studying or helping someone. ... Then there was the announcement of the ball. I was surprised I had the nerve to ask her to be my date for it. I actually planned on asking her to be my girlfriend after the dance when we all were going to give the girls the candy we bought that day, but then everything happened and I couldn't ask her then. I didn't even give her the candy. I think it is still up in my trunk."
Greg nodded his head signaling that he knew there was more and stalling wasn't going to work on him so Charlie continued, "When we started studying together, I wasn't sure whether Rebecca would want to do it again, so I asked her if she wanted to be my study partner. . I admitted it I was ecstatic that she said yes so fast, but I didn't think we were in the right place for anything more just then. I thought we were getting to a point where I might ask her, but she said that she doesn't want to get attached to anyone here and that she needs some space."
"Maybe she is just scared."
"Yeah, but don't you think she has a right to be with everything that has happened in her life..."
"Yes and no. I understand that she would be defensive, but I don't think Becca even has a defense that you couldn't get around. She lights up around you, plain and simple. There is something between you two. Neither of you can deny it or even hide it. Mate, you might have asked her just to study with you, but the way you two interacted lead all of us to believe you were actually going out. I have to admit that I wondered why you didn't walk with her with your arm around her, sit with her like this, or call her your girl. . Sara has talked to Rebecca about you. She does the exact same thing she talks highly of you and seems to want something more but doesn't seem to know how to communicate it to you. You need to figure out how to communicate with her about this."
There was a pause as Charlie looked at Rebecca and pondered what Greg said, finally he stated, "You're right. . I know what I have to do."
'I will do it this time. Nothing is going to stop me. And I know when I am going to ask her too,' Charlie promised himself.
Greg nodded his head, but then paused to ask, "You're not going to ask her when she wakes up, are you? You know everyone is going to want you to do it right then."
"No, I got more class than that, mate."
Greg sat back relieved that Charlie wasn't going to be pressured any to anything involving Rebecca. The boys continued to talk as Rebecca slept. Charlie told Greg of the letter Russel sent Rebecca. Greg was appalled and said pretty much what Charlie said and thought when he had read the letter. The guys discussed the issue for a while trying to figure out what to do to protect Rebecca from suffering at Russel hands.
When Rebecca woke up, Charlie sent her up to bed without saying anything to her about dating, much to the chagrin of his friends.