My Life Alone
Lucretia
I lay in bed staring through the gap of the curtain unable to sleep, rolling onto my stomach I pummelled my pillow to make it more comfortable, rolling onto my back again I sank back into the heavily bashed pillows, achieving no comfort what so ever. I turned sharply to my side and groaned in annoyance, a sleepy voice came from the bed next to me
"Harry, of you can't sleep go downstairs and do something, rather than making noises that wake the REST of us up."
"….ok…." I said swinging my legs over the side of the bed and standing up. Stretching I looked around for something to do, my eyes fell on my new Defence Against the Dark Arts book for Gough's class, shrugging I picked up the book, it was better than nothing. I walked slowly down the stairs, flicking the pages randomly as I looked for a topic that interested me, as I found one I began to read, which wasn't exactly the best idea, three steps from the bottom, I tripped and stumbled down, landing sprawled at the bottom.
"Ow, fuck." I muttered wincing as I got to my feet.
"Are you drunk again?" came an all too familiar voice, looking around I spotted Parvati in an armchair by the fire with her wand out. Ignoring her comment I asked
"What are you doing here this time of night?"
"I couldn't sleep,"
"Neither," I flopped down in the armchair beside her.
"Why do you have your wand out?" I asked confused, she pointed to a motionless scaly stick in front of her.
"I just can't get it right!" she exclaimed, "I've been trying for two freaking hours!" I smiled slightly.
"You're pushing yourself too hard." I said calmly, she sighed, dropped her wand next to the stick and leaned back in the seat.
"So anyway, what are you doing, besides trying to fly without a broomstick?" she asked turning to me with a smile. Laughing sarcastically I replied
"Couldn't sleep so I came down here to read," motioning to the book in my hand.
We sat for a while in silence, listening to the distant sounds of owls hooting in the Forbidden Forest. Next thing, Parvati stood and stretched, looking around the common room.
"There's nothing to do in this place." she muttered
"Well you could always go back to your 'stizard'" I suggested. She shot me a scornful look and turned her back to me, starting to walk around the room, stopping here and there to look at something.
Sighing, I flipped the book in my hands over and opened it to the page I had previously been inspecting.
"Wandless Magic," Parvati said leaning over my shoulder to see what I was reading.
"Yeah, sounds useful." I replied, she shrugged in agreement
"You have to be pretty powerful to do it though," she said, pointing to a significant line in the text.
"Who said I'm not?" I asked slyly, looking at her. It just dawned on me exactly how close we actually were, her hair was slipping slowly past her shoulders as she read. It was as though she felt me staring at her because she turned to face me.
"What's up?" she asked, snapping me out of my reverie.
"Um, nothing." I muttered embarrassed, next thing we heard
a strangled yell and after that thudding footsteps running down the steps from the boys dormitory, next thing, Neville appeared frantically looking around he spotted me and Parvati he said
"Harry, quick we need your help!" glancing at a confused Parvati I hurried after Neville. Racing through the door I found Ron standing on the window sill as a large spider scuttled innocently around the floor. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the situation before me, there was Ron whimpering as he looked at the spider on the floor, there was Dean and Seamus ripping the dorm apart in search of their wands, and then there was Neville flittering around near me, unsure of what to do. I got my wand from the beside table and pointed it directly at the spider, which disappeared in a faint puff of smoke. I turned to the others
"And why couldn't any of you have done that?" I asked rather annoyed.
"Because we couldn't find our wand," they all mumbled in unusion. I rolled my eyes again, "Ron, yours is under your pillow where you've put it for seven years, Dean yours is in your outside robe pocket, I can see it poking out, Neville and Seamus yours are probably still in your school bags from classes today." I looked around the room, "Now is there anything else?" I asked, they shook their heads. With that, I spun around and exited the room, slamming the door behind me as I went.
Arriving back in the common room I was hit with sudden DE JA VU, Parvati was standing on an armchair while a small snake about thirty centimetres in length circled around it on the floor.
"I tried to transfigure my stick again," she explained hurriedly.
Edging forward slowly I put my hand flat on the ground, the snake wound itself loosely around my wrist, straightening up I smiled at Parvati.
"You've created a monster," I mocked to her moving my wrist to Parvati who immediately backed away, "She won't hurt you." as though this reassured her she reached forward and stroked the snake lightly.
I awoke the next morning to the sounds of Neville, Dean, Seamus and Ron getting ready for morning classes, I rolled on my side and was contemplating whether to get up or sleep for five more minutes when a sudden voice broke my train of thought.
"HARRY!"
"GAH," I yelled accidentally slipping off the edge of the bed and onto the floor. "What!" It was Ron
"There's a snake!" he exclaimed, pointing at the bed post where the snake, who Parvati named Lucretia, was winding herself up it.
"Yeah I know," I said, rubbing my elbows as I got up.
"What you mean 'you know'?" Ron said his eyes not leaving the snake.
"I know," I said frustrated, "because she's mine,"
"She's…….yours?" Ron shot back confused, "But she wasn't there when you came OR last night."
I rolled my eyes, and explained to Ron briefly boy Lucretia came about as we headed down to breakfast.
Arriving in the Great Hall, I flung myself onto the bench and piled my plate full of food. After a while Hermione and Parvati came down, sitting either side of me they smiled. I shot a confused look between them, Parvati was first to speak.
"Your in trouble," she beamed at me, her dark eyes sparkling.
"By who?" I replied confused, "I only just got up!"
"By Lavender." Hermione said shortly, equally as amused as Parvati.
Before I could answer I heard a shrill voice behind me
"Harry Potter!" I spun slowly around and replied sarcastically
"Lavender Brown." She glared at me with her hands on her hips
"I heard what you did to my Seamus,"
"Did you, that's nice." I turned back around to my breakfast but that didn't stop her.
"Well I can tell you that Seamus and I aren't happy!"
I turned back to her, "I didn't do anything to you!" I said incredulously
"He's my boyfriend and I-,"
"If your boyfriend," I interrupted her calmly, "Has a problem, he can come and take it up with me himself, instead of sending his girlfriend to do all his dirty work." Lavender glared at me before stalking away to the end of the table.
After breakfast was finished we headed to the third floor for our first lesson of Charms. As we walked into the classroom, we were greeted cheerfully by Professor Flitwick.
"Good morning Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, Miss Granger, Miss Patil,"
"Morning," we all replied.
"Wouldn't it have been easier just to say 'Morning all'?" Ron mumbled as we took our seats in the third row. We were soon joined by the rest of the Gryffindors and the Ravenclaws. Parvati groaned as Padma came towards us, and sat down next to Ron. I leaned forward and asked Parvati softly
"Are you and Padma still not speaking?"
She shook her head. I haven't had time to speak to her since the train," she looked sadly at the desk surface, I was about to reply when Professor Flitwick got up and greeted the class, instead I opted to place a hand on her shoulder, she gave me a small smile when I did so. I turned to face Professor Flitwick who was explaining our lessons work, the charm 'Scriptus Exemplo' which was handy if your writing a particularly long essay, you cast a charm on your quill so that it's writes everything you say." I couldn't help but smile when Ron said
"Who needs that when you have Hermione," In which he received two sharp blows to the back of the head from Hermione and Padma.
We made our way slowly down to the dungeons, silently preparing ourselves for what lay ahead. We entered the familiar musty smell of the potions room with grim expressions. We had all taken our seats when Professor Snape swept into the classroom, slamming the door behind him. Everyone's eyes followed him as he stalked to the front of the room.
"Today class," he said in a dangerously quiet voice, "We will be learning how to make Veritaserum a highly useful when dealing with people inclined to lying," his cold gaze fell on me as he said this, "However I highly doubt any of you will get it right. One false move with this potion and it will take on the alchemical properties of a powerful poison which gets stronger the bigger the mistake. Your instructions are on the board, separate into partners and get to work.
I partnered with Ron. When we finished collecting up our ingredients we moved to the cauldron which was situated right behind Crabbe and Malfoy's worktable, Ron groaned.
"The fates are against me," he muttered, I grinned.
Everyone worked relatively quietly, the only whispers in the room were coming from Pansy Parkinson and her partner, but being Slytherin, Snape pretended he couldn't hear them and let them continue. It was 15 minutes until the end of the lesson that Ron and I looked up from our potion for the first time, it was to our surprise to Crabbe and Malfoy muttering furiously between each other. Malfoy started to stir the potion with a simple spell, when a smug looking Crabbe murmured one last thing to Malfoy, who turned to him with rage plastered across his face.
"SON OF A -," Malfoy dropped his wand and lunged at Crabbe. They both fell onto the ground, he howled in pain as Malfoy slammed his fist into Crabbe's face shattering his nose. I leapt forward and grabbed Malfoy by the neck of his robes, I heard a faint ripping sound and immediately let go, instead I took hold of his shoulders wrenching him away from Crabbe.
"Get off Potter," he yelled shoving me away. He turned and pointed to Crabbe
"Never again," he threateningly, Crabbe responded by lunging back at Malfoy, his fist connected with the side of Malfoy's face, who didn't even flinch. Instead he fought back at Crabbe.
"ENOUGH!" Snape barked. With a single flick of his wand he had Malfoy and Crabbe separated, both giving each other murderous glares, Snape pointed at Malfoy, "Explain!"
"He was about to put the wrong ingredient in the potion," he replied spitefully. It was obvious Snape didn't believe him, because he went over to the cauldron and stirred the potion inside, "It's perfectly fine Mr Malfoy," Snape eyes him beadily.
"Yeah, I know it's fine!" Malfoy said heatedly, "Because I stopped him from putting it in didn't I!" Snape stared at him for a minute before turning to Crabbe.
"Hospital Wing Mr Crabbe,"
The bel signalled the end of the day. As we headed up to the Common Room before dinner, Ron was first to speak
"What the bloody hell was that all about?"
"What Malfoy?" Hermione asked. Ron rolled his eyes
"No, the other fight, didn't you see it?" he replied sarcastically
"Well he lied about the potion ingredient," she continued, ignoring Ron, "Crabbe said that Malfoy would end up just like his father no matter what he did,"
"Yeah, he said 'It's fate, you can't turn your back on fate," Parvati added.
"And that's all we picked up," Hermione said shrugging, I gazed at them in awe
"How on earth do you know that!" I said outraged, "We were right behind them and we didn't hear a thing,"
"Just indistinct muttering, but that could have been Crabbe's normal voice, I can never understand him," Ron said thoughtfully.
Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of Fred and George's extendable ears.
"You carry those around with you?" Ron said
"Well they are helpful," Parvati said honestly, Ron turned to me
"We gotta watch what we say around them from now on,"
"Oh, like anything you say would interest us Ron," Hermione said. Parvati laughed
"Quidditch, Padma, more Quidditch, Padma...no I'm really not interested."
Ron frowned at them and walked the rest of the way to the Common Room in silence.
A/N Well there you have it, Chapter 9, I wrote it a couple of months ago to tell you the truth, just haven't been able to get time to type it up. Okay, so the next chapter is written, so i'll try and type it up whenever I can, it's neary christmas and works a bugger but i will try. The next chapter introduces the second defense against the dark arts teacher, Harry and Parvati get closer yet again which is a good thing because Parvati will need all the support she can get.
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