I'm sorry that I haven't updated this in absolutely forever, or at least more than seven months. It hasn't been that I have been planning on leaving this on permanent hiatus. I've been planning on updating this since I posted the last chapter, it's just taken me much longer to get back to planning and writing than I expected. It was mainly due to me not being able to come up with things to write and friends and school and a whole bunch of things, but now I've gotten things a whole lot more together with a better view on the backgrounds of all the minor characters and I'll be updating more, even if it might be sporatic and not nearly as quickly as I sent out the first three chapters. I hope I didn't loose my reviewers! Thanks to Seraphina Pyra and Gkey for reviewing. Gkey- Don't worry, there is more on Zach in this chapter, and it explains why he did what he did.
Disclaimer: I'm definately not JK Rowling, I don't even live on the same continent.
On to the story!
Laurel walked into the Great Hall on Monday with her head held high. It appeared just as it would any day. No one suspected anything abnormal in the least; just the way she wanted it. It would be no good for anyone to suspect anything before anything had actually happened. At this point in time the only two people who knew today could possibly mark an important event in history were entrancing beside to each other. Today would be the first time in recorded history a Slytherin had sat down at the Gryffindor table. Blaise wished Laurel success as she turned to the Slytherin table and Laurel kept going.
Laurel Moon was not one to be nervous under pressure but she certainly was now. She knew her cousin would be angry. Very angry. She continued on either way. "May I sit here?" Laurel said blandly to Seamus, but pushed herself between him and a black boy she recalled as Thomas before he could reply.
All the Gryffindors stopped to stare at her. Some looked confused, while others haughty. Neville Longbottom looked as though he was ready to wet his pants. She heard him hiss to a blonde girl in her own year that she was Malfoy's cousin. "What's with all this friendliness, Slytherin, or are you abandoning your own kind?" Finnigan demanded.
Laurel chose to ignore him. "Transfiguration, Finnigan. I can't seem to comprehend several of the aspects of our last class." It wasn't a complete lie, she had failed miserably, at least by her own standards, on the last transfiguration assignment, and had been one of the last in her advanced class to demonstrate it accurately. That wasn't the type of behavior her family expected from her.
Finnigan scoffed and scowled. "Since when have you come to me for enlightenment in the art of transfiguration? Why don't you just go ask a Slytherin or pay off a Ravenclaw?"
Laurel sneered, "Because I don't particuarly want to ask Draco and most of the others in my year Slytherin are complete dolts in such a Griffindor dominated class. Besides, you're in my class and Ravenclaws have it another period."
A red faced Ron Weasley interupted rudely from beside the-head-girl-to-be and the-boy-who-never-failed-to-live. "When did you start becoming so desperate that you felt you had to "lower" yourself down to a Gryffindor's level, Moon?"
"I'm an opportunist, Weasley, I take what I can get in order to further myself, this time in the name of the art of transfiguration."
Weasley shot a glare and muttered some choice words about opportunists and Slytherins going hand in hand, before forcefully being told to turn around and eat by Granger.
She turned back to the Irish boy. "So, you'll help me?" Without waiting for an answer she stood up abruptly and dusted herself off with great poise. "Good. See you at 9:30 Friday night. I can't possibly do it any earlier because of prior commitments to my prefect duties, so you'll just have to plan your little scedule around our little study session. Buh, bye."
With that she flounced away, leaving a bewildered Irish boy and his angry friends in her wake.
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This year had started out all wrong and gone downhill from there. She had thought going into her sixth year would be her best yet, with only one more year to the top without all the nasty tests, and she was only trying to be nice when she saw Zacharius Smith sitting alone and thoroughly depressed on the train. If only she knew the trouble her kindness would lead her into.
"Hey, do you mind if I sit here?" She asked nervously, not sure how she would be accepted by the blotchy eyed fifth year who had obviously been greatly upset by something.
"Uhm, yeah, sure, if you want." He didn't sound too excited about the idea, though.
They sat in silence as the ride continued on, it wasn't the sort of comfortable silence. Andie itched to make conversation, but it felt awkward to start it up. "So, uhm, how was your summer?"They had never really had a proper conversation before and it showed.
He shrugged. "Well enough. You?"
"Oh, it wasn't so great, my great aunt, Sidonia, came up to visit from Edinburgh and she's one piece of work. My brother mangaged to escape unharmed to a friend's house while I wasn't quite so lucky."
He laughed. "That bad, huh? I had Justin Finch-Fletchey over for part of the summer. Can you believe he had never been to a magical house before?"
She shook her head. "You're still going with that Ravenclaw right?"
"Technically, but, truthfully, it's been falling apart for a while. I have no idea what to do. We planned to visit over the summer, I think I thought it would fix all our problems if we were out of school," he laughed bitterly, he didn't seem to care that he probably had spoken less than five words to Andrea Sloper through his whole time at Hogwarts, he just needed to vent and she was there. "We barely sent five letters back and forth. The plans to meet fell through cause her family went to visit relatives in Scotland."
It just got worse when we met in Diagon Alley. I brought up the fact that we had barely talked all summer while she was in Scotland, and she accused me of trying to make her choose between me and her family before storming off, and now I- I've just got no idea what to do. It's all going to hell! We've just become so comfortable we this- this relationship that we keep holding on to, and it's just not there. There's no way we can fix it anymore, it's just so far gone by now. I mean, this whole thing is just as much my fault. I knew it had ended by the end of last year but I really couldn't believe it. I mean, I've been in this relationship since the beginning of my third year. My third year! Oh, what am I gonna do?" He buried his head in his arms as Andie crossed over to sit next to him as she slipped an arm over his shoulder to comfort him.
"Hey, eventually everything will calm down. If things aren't working out, they aren't working out and you have to eventually let go," she replied somewhat awkwardly as she patted his shoulder sympathetically. This was the same boy she had seem many times strutting down the halls confidently with groups of friends and a smiling Ravenclaw attached to his arm; to see him in such a state as he was now was something one would never expect.
He eventually looked up at her. "Thanks," he whispered.
She suddenly noticed that he was a lot closer than before, and he was oddly attractive with his hair disheveled and eyes red-rimmed and glassy, he had a sense of vulnerability that she suspected few had seen from this closed-as-a-book boy. Her breathing hitched as he leaned closer and she found herself kissing him. It wasn't especially spectacular, it was slightly messy, but if it was comforting him that was good enough for her, and it wasn't a terrible way of spending time for herself, either. His hands found her face and she linked her's through his hair. Suddenly, the door flew open. "Zach, I'm sorry I overreacted but-"
The two flew apart looking properly guilty. Zach seemed to suddenly find his shoe laces incredibly interesting and Andie looked at everything but the girl in front of her. She suddenly felt terrible about what she did. What if this girl honestly believed this rift in she and Zach's relationship was fixable? That was when she realized that to the whole school, who pictured them to be the perfect couple, she had suddenly become the other woman.
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Hope you guys liked! Review because I can't get better if I don't know what I did wrong, and, reviews are always nice either way.