Chaos had ensued by the time Bella made it back to the common room. Ron sat fuming by the fire, Freya and Harry trying to calm him down. Hermione and Emily were nowhere to be seen and Ron held his crumpled bedsheets tight enough in his fists that his knuckles had gone white.

"Bella, thank god you're here." Freya cried, coming to meet her in the archway.

"What happened?" she asked, following Freya over to the couch.

"It's Scabbers." Ron said, staring into the fire. "He's dead."

"Dead? What do you mean, dead? Will someone please explain?" Bella asked, bewildered as she sat on the couch beside Ron.

"There was blood on Ron's bedsheets and Scabbers is missing." Harry said gently.

Bella pried the sheets from Ron's tight grip and examined them. Right enough, there was small droplets of blood all over the sheets.

"Oh Ron." she said softly, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him to her.

"It was Crookshanks." he said, muffled by her hair as he hugged her.

"Not this again." Bella groaned.

"No, Bella you don't understand." Ron cried, pulling back from her. "There were ginger hairs on the sheets too!"

"Is that true?" Bella asked, looking round to Freya and Harry who both nodded their heads.

"Explains why Hermione and Emily aren't here."

"I never want to see her again!" Ron cried tearfully.

"Come on, you don't mean that mate." Harry said.

"I do! Her ugly scrubbing brush killed my rat." Ron buried his head in Bella's shoulder to hide the tears rolling down his face as she rubbed his back.

'Oh well' thought Bella 'the peace was good while it lasted'


It looked as though their group would never be the same again. Ron and Hermione were both furious with the other and no amount of persuasion would change their minds. Ron had taken Scabbers loss very hard.

"Come on, Ron, you always said how boring Scabbers was." Fred said as Ron continued to mope around the common room. "He'd been off colour for ages - it was probably better for him to go this way. One quick gulp, he won't have felt a thing!"

"Fred!" Ginny hissed as Bella elbowed him in the ribs.

"You're not helping." she whispered in his ear.

"All he did was eat and sleep, you said that yourself." George added.

"He bit Goyle for us once." Ron said sadly. "Do you remember?"

"His finest hour." Fred said, a smirk creeping its way onto his face.

Freya grabbed his arm and pulled him to the other side of the common room, from the way Fred's face had turned to a grimace, Bella assumed Freya was giving him into trouble.

"Why don't you come down to Gryffindor's practise with me?" Harry said in a last ditch attempt to cheer Ron up. "You have a go on the Firebolt after."

Ron's face lit up and Harry smiled too as Ron became excited at the prospect of flying Harry's Firebolt. Ron was still babbling on when they left the common room and Bella could still hear him out in the corridor.

"Do you think there's any way they'll ever be friends again?" Freya asked, eyes flicking to the other side of the common room where Hermione sat, barely visible behind her pile of books.

"I really don't know." Bella said honestly. "They're both as stubborn as each other."

"I hate this." Emily groaned.

"Don't we all." Bella said.

"Fred said that he thinks Ron will come around but I don't know." Freya said softly.

"I guess we'll just need to wait and see." Bella replied.

After a while Bella stood from the sofa; "I'm going to get a book from the library."

"Okay, see you when you come back." Freya said casually, her and Emily playing an intense game of Exploding Snap by the fire.

Bella shivered slightly in the cold corridors as she walked quickly to the library. The further she got from the common room the more she felt as though she was being followed. She turned to look over her shoulder and saw no one. She continued on and her panic began to rise as she heard footsteps getting closer. She made to run around the corner and yelped in fright as she crashed right into Cedric coming in the opposite direction.

"Merlin, tiny. You gave me a fright there." Cedric chuckled, brushing his hair from his face.

"There was someone following me, Ced, I'm sure of it." Bella said, turning to face the way she had come.

Cedric stepped around her and walked further up the corridor. He turned back to her half-way up the corridor.

"Homenum Revelio." Cedric flourished his wand, revealing nothing.

"There's nobody here, are you alright?" he asked.

"Where did you learn that?" Bella asked.

Cedric chuckled; "My dad showed me. Are you alright?" he asked again.

"Yeah, yeah - sorry, I'm fine." Bella replied.

"Where are you going? I'll walk you." Cedric smiled.

"Don't be silly, I don't want to put you out of your way." Bella said.

"I was only going back to the common room." Cedric chuckled. "Honestly, where were you headed?"

"The library." she replied.

"Let's walk to the library then." Cedric said.

He strode ahead of her and she watched him walk.

"Aren't you coming?" he said, turning over his shoulder.

"Yeah." she smiled, jogging to catch up to him.

"I heard Harry got a new broom." Cedric said.

"Yeah, the Firebolt. He's using it for the first time at practise tonight." Bella said.

"Slytherin's not going to like that."

"No, I don't think they will." Bella snickered.

They stopped outside the library and Bella looked up at Cedric with a smile.

"Thank you."

"No need to thank me, tiny." he chuckled, ruffling her hair.

"I'm going to get you back for that one day." Bella mock glared.

"Sure you will." he smiled. "Do you want me to wait for you?"

"It's okay. Thank you anyway." Bella replied.

"No bother. See you later."

Bella pushed open the doors to the library and crossed to the bookshelves. She spent a few minutes searching the shelves before she spotted someone through the gap between the books.

"Draco?"

He was sat at a table on his own, his hands fisted in his hair as he leant his elbows on the table. He looked up when she called his name and sighed.

"Are you alright?" she asked through the gap.

"I can't figure this out." he huffed, picking up his quill and throwing it back down again.

"Hold on a second." she said.

Bella walked around the bookshelf to where he sat and leaned over his shoulder, looking at his parchment.

"What is it?" she asked.

"The essay for Snape on the Shrinking solution. I've fininshed the essay but it doesn't look right." Draco explained.

Bella leaned over to examine it again and she chuckled.

"What?" he asked, offended.

"You've missed a step, that's all." Bella pointed out.

"No I haven't." he replied. "Where?" he bent low over the table, examining the essay and Bella chuckled again.

"Trust me, you have." she said.

"See there -" Bella pointed to his list of brewing instructions between 'stir slowly and with caution' and 'add a splash of cowbane'. "You've missed where you shake rat spleen and add it to the cauldron."

"I haven't, have I?" he asked, looking between her and the sheet of parchment on the table.

"Yeah, you have." she chuckled.

"I'm going to have to write this out again." he groaned, dropping his head to the desk. "When is it due for?"

"Tomorrow." Bella said slowly.

"Tomorrow?" he cried.

"Tomorrow." she said.

"Merlin, I better get started then." he said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." she chuckled, patting him on the shoulder. "See you later. And good luck."