Throughout the rest of the week, Hermione and Ron had patched things up, grudgingly as usual, yet continued to engage in smaller arguments and disagreements that they bickered back and forth to each other. The other event that had occurred throughout the course of the week had perplexed all three of them, and become more noticeable as the days went by.
Ever since Halloween morning in the Great Hall, Mandy had been strangely distant from the trio as opposed to the first day when she seemed to be clinging to them. Whenever asked, she would mutter something about needing to talk to a professor, or how much work she had to catch up on, and then she would hurry off in another direction.
"Harry! Harry!" Ron whispered loudly, as to not catch Professor McGonagall's attention, but to catch Harry's instead. He then slowly traced Harry's gaze as to see what was occupying his sight and apparently, his thoughts as he continued to ignore Ron. Ron had finally found the subject of Harry's thoughts over the last couple of moments: Mandy.
"Still thinking about her then, eh?" Ron asked with a smirk.
"What?" Harry asked, being drawn out of his day-dreaming, "Well, is it just me or is she acting completely different than the way she did the first day she got here?"
"Well, if you ask me," Ron replied in a low whisper, "she always did seem like a nutter."
"Oh yes," Harry replied sarcastically, "and I suppose your relationship with Hermione is completely sane."
Ron blushed deeply, and muttered something under his breath that drifted off to form incomplete sentences, and sounded similar to "Well... there really is... no relationship... How you could compare..."
Harry shook off Ron's remark about Mandy, and continued to copy down the rest of McGonagall's notes, trying to pry his thoughts away from all the things that had been boggling his mind from this year alone. Between the prophecies, Voldemort, the veil, Mandy, and other assorted things, his mind was tired of thinking about things that had a mystery behind them. He began to carry the same attitude he bore in the 5th year, and was determined to be informed with some solid information for once. He decided that the only way to solve this nonsense would be to find out directly from one of the sources, who although was averting him lately, could not avert him if he approached her. It was then that he decided he would need to talk to Mandy after class.
Luckily for Harry, he did not have to wait much longer to talk to Mandy because the bell was due to ring in five minutes. With his last five minutes, instead of copying the rest of the notes McGonagall had placed on the board, (he figured he could get them from Hermione later anyway,) he thought about how he could get Mandy to talk to him. Obviously, he couldn't walk right up to her and ask her how things were going, because he knew that she would only give him the same reply she had given him all week and brush him off. He needed some way to get her attention, and at least keep her there for a bit so he could get whatever information it was she was hiding out of her.
Finally, the bell rung, and Harry started to walk up to Mandy, feigning confidence. When Mandy turned around and began to collect her schoolbooks to go, Harry could see that she had rings beneath her eyes that looked as if they had been deepening every night and a paler face than normal. Due to the fact that she was in the process of gathering her Transfiguration books and quills, she had not noticed Harry's presence, but once she had swung her school bag over her shoulder and looked up, she froze. She then turned around on her heel, and attempted to walk in a different direction than the one Harry was blocking, and quickened her pace out of the classroom.
Harry was utterly confused; why was she doing this?
"What's her problem?" Ron muttered behind him to Hermione, both of whom had apparently come up behind him.
"I don't know," Harry replied to the question, which wasn't intentionally aimed at him, "but I'm going to find out."
Harry quickened his pace, and ran out of the classroom in a determined attempt to catch up with Mandy.
Eventually, he managed to catch up with Mandy from behind in the hallways, and grabbed her arm whilst still being out of breath, so she couldn't leave.
"Wait," Harry said with a commanding tone, still trying to catch his breath.
Mandy waited patiently, although remained oddly stiff as if she had been caught sneaking around Hogwarts late at night, and still carried a look of urgency and reproachful fear which seemed to remain constant ever since Halloween.
"Please, let me go," she replied after waiting in the expanse of silence, "I don't want you to get in trouble..."
Her eyes skimmed the hallways nervously, as if she was afraid to be around his presence.
Still confused, Harry dropped her arm slowly, and stared into her eyes with bewilderment. "Trouble?" he asked, unsure as if he had heard her correctly.
Her eyes began to tear up again as they had on Halloween, only bringing more attention to her currently gaunt facial features. "Yes, I'm sorry," she said with a look of dismay, "but I have to go."
Leaving Harry more confused than before he had talked to her, she continued to run down the hallway and presumably back to the Gryffindor Common Room.
Harry, having nowhere to go now that his day's lessons were over, decided to head back to the Gryffindor Common Room as well and wait for Ron and Hermione to come to tell them his findings - whatever those were.
