Disclaimer: I only invented Angela and the Plot. Please don't kill me. Or sue.
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The next few weeks were some of the hardest that Angela had to face. She knew she should apologize for what she had said, but she was too stubborn to do it. She felt herself closing off again, walls quickly going up where Harry had torn them down. Hermione and Ron were beside themselves trying to get them to talk to each other, but Angela refused, and she was fairly sure that Harry was refusing too.
Lessons were going fine, except that the teachers were giving a ton of homework. She knew it was because of the upcoming N.E.W.T.s, but she couldn't see the point in her doing it. She did it though, mostly because she had nothing better to do. She still hadn't been able to tell Hermione or Ron about her test scores, and they hadn't talked to her about it, so Angela could tell that Harry hadn't either. She silently thanked him for that.
Angela had never felt this lonely before. She knew loneliness from growing up with three brothers in a family that paid little attention, but never had it hurt like this. It felt like part of her were missing. She berated herself for allowing Harry to get that close, allowing him to hurt her like that. Then she would look across the classroom at him and know that she had hurt him too.
She often ate lunch alone, either before or after Ron, Harry, and Hermione ate. She didn't want Ron and Hermione to feel like they had to eat with her when they should eat with Harry. She often was the blunt of Slytherin comments, mostly Pansy Parkinson, about being without friends. She ignored them and told herself that someday she would get to see Pansy eat her words.
After the first two weeks she was beginning to regret her decision to stay. She knew that she loved Hogwarts and that she would never be truly happy elsewhere, but who was she kidding? The only reason she had stayed in the first place was Harry and just her just saying that she had considered going back to the States had hurt him. After a month she got tired of avoiding him.
She decided to take a walk at lunchtime somewhere around the first of October. She was walking along, humming a song quietly, and thinking about home. At least there she was comfortable, she knew that there she could control her heart and that she couldn't let anyone hurt her. This led to thoughts of Harry and their last conversation. She almost cried every time she thought of that look in his eyes, like she had just told him that she didn't love him or that she was cheating on him, neither of which were true. As much as she wanted to hate him she couldn't. She couldn't even stop loving him.
She didn't even notice where she was going until she hit something quite solid. She let out a surprised gasp as she fell over backwards. Thinking she had run into a tree like the idiot she felt like she looked up and saw none other than Draco Malfoy.
Malfoy looked at her as if she were a fly that had just flown into his face. "What's the matter Harte, lost? I don't see the Wonder Trio anywhere around? Did they disown you?" He had a smirk on his face that Angela felt dearly like slapping off of him at this moment.
"And I notice that you've lost your bumbling goons. Did they get tired of following your stench Malfoy?" She retorted as she picked herself up off the ground. She stood only inches away from him and noticed now that he was a good five or six inches taller than her. "How did I miss that one on the train?" she asked herself.
Angela backed away and shot Malfoy a nasty look. "Thanks for helping me up."
Malfoy raised his eyebrow slightly before giving her a look of his own. "It was no problem at all. Just be glad you didn't mess up my robes." And with that he walked away. Angela felt dearly like throwing a hex at his back but she knew that someone would probably see her, and she didn't feel like doing detention.
She heard the bell and swore to herself. She had double Potions this afternoon. Potions classes weren't bad in themselves. She rather enjoyed the subject matter in the class. It reminded her somewhat of chemistry, which had been one of her favorite subjects in school in America. But Potions also meant that she would have to see Harry, Malfoy, and, of course, Snape.
Snape had not forgotten the comments she had made over the summer and seemed to hover over her desk trying to find something, anything to take points from Gryffindor. She made it hard for him, answering all his questions correctly and doing every potion perfectly. She had overheard him one day telling McGonagall that she was the best student he'd ever had. She couldn't help smiling to herself as she walked down the hall that day.
She had a feeling that Potions today would be worse than normal. She wasn't sure how, or why, but she knew it wouldn't be good. In fact, just walking down to the dungeons was worse than normal. Harry passed her silently in on the stairs, not even looking at her. Ron and Hermione gave her encouraging smiles and Angela smiled weakly back at them. She did notice that they were holding hands and had to smile to herself. They finally had gotten together a week before, when Ron had told Hermione how he felt. They really were perfect for each other, Hermione's coolness overriding Ron's temper.
When Angela reached the bottom of the stairs she found Malfoy and Harry fighting about something. This wasn't anything new, except they had out their wands and both looked very angry indeed. Angela got scared for a moment before she felt something that she had never felt before. It felt as if there were something driving her eyes shut. When her eyes were closed she saw the scene that had just been before her, but more played out. She heard Malfoy shout a curse at Harry and suddenly felt her eyes jerk open. She had to help Harry, she just knew it. Right before Harry and Malfoy both shouted their curses at each other she lifted her hand and whispered "Respiro!" Malfoy suddenly doubled over as if he had been punched. Harry looked around, confused as to who had done it. He saw her just as she let her arm down, looking at her with amazement.
"What is the meaning of this? What is going on?" Snape demanded, suddenly coming down the corridor. Several Slytherins tried to speak at once before Snape held up a hand to silence them. He looked down at Malfoy and stood and asked "Who did this to this boy?" Everyone looked around, not knowing who had thrown the curse at Malfoy.
Angela, feeling it was foolish to let everyone in Gryffindor be punished for something she had done, stepped forward and said, "I did it, sir. Don't worry, he's just had the wind knocked out of him."
Snape's black eyes looked at her with pure contempt. "Very brave of you to confess, Miss Harte, but I don't believe you." With that he looked at Harry. Angela was feeling angry now, upset both that Snape didn't believe her and that he had just wanted an excuse to hurt Harry.
"Excuse me, sir, but it was me. Harry didn't do anything." Angela could feel the anger rising inside her.
"If you did it why is his wand out and not yours. Surely you didn't have time to put it away."
Angela gave him a smile that said she knew something that he didn't "Of course I didn't have time to put my wand away. Of course, I never said anything about a wand, did I?"
Snape looked at her oddly. "What do you mean, no wand? How did you do it with no wand? I believe I can prove you didn't do it right now. Hold out your wand."
With that Angela held her hand out. Snape gave her a nasty look accompanied by an even nastier sound. "Your wand, Miss Harte. Do not waste my time with your silly games."
"Unless I'm mistaken you want to do Priori Incantatem, am I right?" Snape gave her a cold look that Angela took for agreement. "Then you want to perform it on my fingers, the two middle ones. Of course if you still don't believe me I could do it to myself. I do have two hands."
Snape gave her a look that said he would kill her if he ever got the chance. This slowly turned to an evil grin, as if he saw an opportunity to humiliate her right then and there. The entire hallway went silent, not sure of what to expect. Even Malfoy had quit wheezing and gotten back on his feet. Angela couldn't help but notice that he was staring at her. A murderous stare, yes, but a stare nonetheless. She also noticed that a certain green-eyed boy was staring at her from the other side.
Snape stood back and pointed his wand tip at her fingers. "Priori Incantatem!" A wheezing sound came out of the tips of her fingers along with a slight puff of smoke.
There were audible gasps throughout the hallway. Snape himself looked very surprised before his eyes narrowed.
"Twenty points from Gryffindor for fighting in the hall! And twenty points for your cheek. Another ten for being late! Get in the classroom!" he practically growled at her.
Angela went in and set down her bag. Across the room she could see Malfoy and his Slytherin 'friends' sneering at her. She sneered right back before flicking them off while Snape's back was turned. To her surprise Malfoy returned it but didn't tell Snape what she had done. Surely he would love to get even more points taken off of Gryffindor.
Angela turned her attention to the board where Snape was writing the potion they would be working on that day. As soon as she saw the name of the potion she began to get her ingredients out. By the time Snape was finished writing on the board Angela already had the first three ingredients in her cauldron. She knew that people were staring at her, either for starting so quickly or for the incident in the hallway, but she didn't care. She wasn't going to let Snape ruin her favorite lesson.
Angela quickly began thinking of the lesson that her parents had. A kind man was explaining how to brew the potion and Angela felt herself smiling. Suddenly she was jerked out of her memories by Snape, who had come to hover, as he always did.
"Can I help you, Professor?" Angela asked innocently.
"If I were you, I wouldn't go showing off my ability to do wandless magic, Harte. It's usually associated with Dark Magic, and now everyone in the class thinks you're in league with You-Know-Who." He said in a voice that only she could hear.
"You mean Voldemort?" She could see him flinch at the sound of the name. "I'm not evil, and I don't care what these people think."
"You will care. You will care when everyone in the school is scared of you."
"Like you think they're scared of you?"
Snape's nostrils flared in anger. "Miss Harte, I do not appreciate your attitude. If you don't fix it and soon you will find your self in detention with another fifty points from Gryffindor."
Angela didn't want to lose a hundred points in one class, though she knew she could easily make up for it in classes the next day. Points seemed to come easy to her, perhaps because she knew all the answers. She and Hermione seemed to be competing for who could get the most points. And so, instead of retorting to Snape's comment she threw him a dirty look and went back to her potion.
Snape, thankfully, moved off to harass someone else. Angela felt sorry for the boy, whose name she wasn't sure of, but right now she was just glad to get Snape's greasy face out of hers.
Angela finished her potion a half hour before class was over and Snape made a point to demonstrate hers in front of the class. "I'm sure you've forgotten an ingredient to have made it that quickly, Miss Harte. Why don't you test it for us?"
It was a Strengthening Potion, which meant that if Angela had made it properly she should be able to lift at least three times what she normally could. Angela poured herself a cup and downed it. Snape looked slightly disappointed that she hadn't fallen over dead as she would have if it had been brewed too improperly.
"What would you like me to lift?" She asked Snape, looking him right in the eye. Snape pointed at his desk, which was cluttered with parchments and various bottles. Angela knew that it would be very heavy and she also knew that if she messed anything up on the desk she would get more points taken off. She just nodded her head and walked towards it. Without a moments hesitation she lifted it, held it for about a minute, and set it back down without a single thing on the desk moving.
Applause rang out from the Gryffindor side of the room, accompanied by hisses from the Slytherins. Angela didn't care. She walked back to her cauldron and took her seat before looking at a fuming Snape. "Is there anything else I can assist you with Professor?"
"You can leave." Snape said, sounding as if he wanted to scream the words. Angela shrugged and packed her things up before leaving the classroom. She hadn't gotten far down the hall before she could hear Snape yelling at the remaining students. She felt a twinge of guilt for pissing him off, but she had, after all, only done what he asked her to do.
She didn't feel like hanging around in the dark corridor, so she decided to go up and get a sandwich from the kitchens, since she had missed lunch. She and Harry had visited it frequently over the summer, generally when they had nothing better to do. Only the door had changed since her parents had been students from what Angela could see. It used to be a painting of a Banana Tree that you had to compliment before it would let you through.
Angela walked quickly through the corridors and reached the door. She reached up and tickled the pear, which turned into a handle fairly quickly. Angela stepped in and asked the house-elves for a ham sandwich. Almost before the words were out of her mouth a sandwich was zooming towards her. They all knew her from the summer and liked her.
"Thanks guys!" She said, flashing them a wide smile.
As she stepped out of the kitchen, munching on her sandwich she ran right into Professor Dumbledore.
"Professor! I didn't see you there." She looked down at the sandwich in her hand and quickly put it behind her back.
Dumbledore smiled at her and then looked concerned. "What are you doing out of class?"
"Oh, Professor Snape kicked me out after I showed him that my Strengthening Potion worked."
Dumbledore had a questioning look on his face, but Angela didn't feel like explaining the story. She gave Dumbledore a tired look, not wanting to answer any questions. She really had to go start her homework if she was going to get anything else done that night, and getting a head start on it would be great.
"Um, could I go Professor? I have a lot of homework, and I kinda wanted to get it done early, so I could go for a walk before dark."
"Of course, Angela." Angela walked off, but she could still feel his eyes on her back. She realized as she walked back to Gryffindor Tower that she hadn't even thought about asking him if she could leave now, but it occurred to her that she didn't really want to. As lonely as she was she knew that she would be lonely plus some if she went back to America. Lonely she could deal with. And besides, she really did love Hogwarts, with it's secret passages, and beautiful grounds. At least, that's what she told herself was the reason she didn't want to leave.
Angela hurried up to the common room so she could grab a good chair before the bell rang and the other classes let out. She sat in the most comfortable chair in the room, fairly close to the fire and started her homework.
When she finished three hours later the Common Room was almost empty yet again. It was dinnertime, but she didn't feel hungry. Looking around to see who else was there she spotted Harry sitting in a corner, concentrating on a piece of parchment.
Angela debated with herself for a moment before getting up and walking over to him. She sat on a couch across from him and although he didn't look up she could tell that he knew that she was there.
"Harry?" she asked tentatively. He didn't look up but he did stop writing for a second, which Angela took as a good sign.
"Ok, I'm just going to say this. You can do whatever you want with it. I'm sorry. I'm not sorry for thinking about leaving, but I am sorry that I yelled at you and for the things I said. I shouldn't have done that. Please accept my apology, Harry."
With that she stood and walked out the door. She couldn't watch him as he thought over what she said. She decided that, instead of going to dinner, she would go for that walk she had talked to Dumbledore about before it got dark.
She had gone around the lake almost twice, thinking about Harry and what else she could do, when she looked up and saw someone watching her in the distance. Even though they were quite far apart she could tell who it was from the blond, almost white hair that shone in the fading sunlight. "Draco Malfoy," she muttered to herself. She kept walking but didn't take her eyes off of him, as he kept watching her. He was standing so still that Angela thought for a minute that maybe someone had frozen him there until she saw him shift his weight. "Why is he watching me?"
She was thinking about Malfoy and why he would be watching her so intently that she didn't even hear Harry running up behind her.
"Angela!"
Angela jumped at the sound of his voice, quickly looking to see who it was. When she saw that it was Harry she felt a deep relief, but also a small fear. "Good lord, Harry. You scared me." She was trying to catch her breath and force her heart to return to a normal pace as she glanced over her shoulder and noticed that Malfoy had disappeared.
"Angela, I'm sorry." Harry was panting and Angela realized that he had run down here. Seeing as she was a fair distance from the castle his breathlessness was understandable.
"For scaring me?"
"No, for being mad at you. I shouldn't have asked you if you considered staying. You were right, that night, when you said that the only thing that mattered was that you stayed."
"I shouldn't have said what I did, but you did make me mad. I had to think about it though. You may not understand it Harry but I left a lot when I came here. I was almost finished with High School, I would be going into University next year. There were a lot of things that I left in America that I wouldn't mind having back, like my brothers and my friends. I couldn't make the decision without weighing all the options. I could have left and returned to a normal life…well, a semi-normal life. But I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave Hogwarts; I couldn't leave all the friends I've made here. And I couldn't leave you Harry." With those last words she looked up at Harry, not knowing what he would say or think.
To her surprise Harry gave her an understanding smile. "I'm not used to people having lives outside of Hogwarts. We all come here so young that it's easy to forget that there is a world out there. And I guess I would have done the same thing if it had been me. I guess it hurt that you even considered leaving, after all that we shared, but I didn't think of it from your perspective. I'm sorry I was stupid."
"I'm sorry I was stubborn. I should have just told you all this that night, but I don't think I could find the words. I'm glad I did though."
They stood there looking into each other's eyes before Angela realized that it was rapidly becoming dark. "Come on!" she said, grabbing his hand and starting toward the castle. "I don't want to get strung up by my toes for a week by Filch, just for being out late!"
They ran the whole way to the castle and made it inside just before the doors were locked.
"Did you eat?" Harry asked.
"No. I'm famished. Is dinner over?" Angela asked, looking into the empty Great Hall.
"Yeah, but we have about an hour before we have to be back in Gryffindor Tower. Would you like to go get something from the kitchens?"
"I would love to." And for the first time in a month Angela felt truly happy.
* * *
Angela and Harry sat in the Gryffindor common room forty-five minutes later after a delicious leftover meal that the house elves were only too happy to give them. They were talking to each other when Ron and Hermione came over and sat on a couch across from them. Angela flashed them a cheerful smile and they smiled back, looking confused. Angela couldn't help but laugh at the look on Ron's face.
Hermione looked at them uncertainly. "So, have you two…made up?"
"Yeah. We kissed and made up, don't worry." Harry said, looking at Angela mischievously. At that Hermione laughed and Ron looked at them like they were both mental. Harry saw his look and said, "Don't look at us like that. You know exactly what I'm talking about." At that both Ron and Hermione turned bright shades of red while Angela and Harry laughed.
Hermione quickly changed the subject to what had happened that afternoon outside the potions classroom.
"Oh, yeah! I meant to thank you for that! Why'd you do it?" Harry asked her.
"Well, I saw Malfoy doing the curse on you and I just couldn't let him I guess. I don't know."
"You mean, you had a dream about it?" Harry asked her, with a confused look on his face.
"No, actually. I saw it right there in the corridor." She told them about how her eyelids suddenly wanted to close and what she had seen. "I guess I should have asked Dumbledore about it earlier when I ran into him."
"I didn't know you could do wandless magic." Ron said, in an awed voice.
"Yeah, well, I try to use my wand most of the time…I don't really want to stand out but I didn't have time to get my wand out. Snape told me that it's connected with Dark Magic. Is that true?"
Hermione was the first to answer, of course. "Well, it's not that it's connected with the Dark Arts, it's just that people who can do wandless have very powerful magic abilities and most want to use them for the Dark Arts, to try to gain power. It depends on the user, just like a wand or a potion."
"Right. So people won't think that I'm evil because I can do Wandless Magic, right?" Angela didn't want people to think that she was in with a "man" that she hated as much as she hated Voldemort.
"I wouldn't guarantee that." Harry said, suddenly. "When they all found out I could speak Parsel Tongue, people avoided me like the plague. If people think that you're evil, they're going to think that."
"Oh, great. Now people are going to think that I'm working for Voldemort." She could see Ron flinch at the sound of his name, much the same as Snape had. "At least I know Dumbledore doesn't think I'm evil," she said with a sigh.
They spent the rest of the night playing Exploding Snap or Wizard Chess. Neither Angela nor Hermione were good at either one, but it was fun nonetheless. Angela couldn't help but feel at home again.