CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The next day was Saturday, and Jane was afraid to leave her dorm room. She wasn't exactly ready to be amongst all these people that believed such horrid things about her. She didn't go down to breakfast, she just lay in her bed until she had worried so much that she thought she might be sick. So for the time being, she worked on her scrapbook to take her mind off of things. Besides, it was fun for her to be able to rip Aaron from any pictures that she had taken while they were still together and set them on fire with her wand. As for the bracelet he had gotten her, it broke with ease when she wrenched it apart in her hands, much to her pleasure.
No one tried to make her leave the room; in fact, when lunch rolled around, Alice and Mary brought her up some food. They all agreed that she needed this weekend to herself. Come Monday, maybe she'd be ready to face the halls of Hogwarts with a brave face.
James had found Ashby alone outside near the Owlery.
"Thought you might be looking for me," Ashby had said, smirking that smug little smirk of his.
James had only glared at him for a moment.
"Well? I'm waiting, Potter," he said, laughter in his voice as though this were all a joke to him. "Give it your best shot!"
James eyed the wand that was already in Ashby's hand.
"I want to know why you did it. Why hurt her? What had she ever done to you?" James asked, forcing himself to stay calm.
Ashby laughed coldly.
"Nothing. She's especially kind, isn't she? Maybe too much for her own good, aye?"
James clenched his teeth together, but stayed quiet.
"You know, at first, I was only nice to her because it annoyed you. But then, you became somewhat tolerant, and that was just boring to me. So I decided to take it a step further, ask her out. She just made it so painfully obvious that she liked me; it was almost cute," Ashby said.
James listened carefully, trying to keep his breathing steady.
"Plus, I figured she'd be a pretty easy shag, her being so naïve and all. But as it turns out, I was wrong. I thought that maybe she'd come around, but she never did, and I just got bored, so I figured it was about time I wrap things up with her. Do something to hurt her because it's just so entertaining when you're angry with me."
"But she didn't do anything! If you wanted to make me angry, you could've just hexed me. You never even had to go near her," James said angrily.
"I learned when we were kids that the best way to get to you was to break one of your toys," Ashby said maliciously.
James almost lost it.
"But she's not a toy, she's a person, Ashby! Jane's not just something you can pick up and throw away whenever you want—"
"Maybe not to you, but everything's pretty disposable to me," Ashby corrected in a bored tone.
"She's not," James said. "And let me tell you that you're going to get everything you deserve."
"I'll never understand the need that people have to protect someone else. It alludes me as to why you care so much," Ashby said, studying James.
"That's because you're not just an arrogant prat, you're a sadistic sociopath. You don't know how to care for anyone but yourself, and you use people as entertainment for your pathetically dull life," James said.
"Are you going to try and hex me, or just bore me to death with a monologue?" Ashby asked in that same, bored tone.
A slow smile spread over James' features.
"What you-you think I'm going to hex you?" James asked. "You think I'd do something so utterly simple as that when you hurt someone so close to me?"
Aaron smirked.
"You must be way more stupid than I thought," James said.
"Oh, please," Ashby said. "What else do you think you could possibly do to me?"
James let out a laugh.
"You think I came here alone, don't you?" he asked. "Maybe you've mistaken the situation."
"Expelliarmus!" came a voice from somewhere near the two of them.
Ashby's wand flew out of his hand.
"I'm not the only person you pissed off," James informed him.
The other three boys appeared behind James. Remus was twirling Ashby's wand in his hand. Peter, though still mousy looking, had this determined expression on his face. And Sirius, whose features were graced with a dark smile, was holding a bundle of rope.
Jane was in her room, being distracted by Marlene and Mary fighting over Marlene's disappearing lipstick. Apparently, Marlene was under the impression that Mary had taken it and never given it back. Of course, Mary thoroughly denied this accusation.
"Look, all I'm saying is that it was right here before I went to lunch," Marlene said, pointing to her bedside table. "And you and Alice came up here after lunch, and now, it's gone."
"I didn't take it!" Mary said for the hundredth time. "Why don't you ask Alice about it?"
"Alice doesn't wear lipstick!" Marlene said.
Jane was just about to give Marlene her own lipstick when someone burst into their room. Jane looked up to see Patricia Foley, a fourth year Gryffindor that Alice hung around sometimes.
"Come down to the Quidditch pitch! I don't know who did it, but it's absolutely priceless!" she said before running off to tell anybody else she could find.
The girls all looked at each other and then ran to the window.
"Can you see anything?" Marlene asked Mary.
"No, I can only see half the pitch from here," she said. "But something's definitely happening because people are practically running down there."
They looked to Jane. She didn't have to think twice about it. This was something very big apparently, and she wasn't about to miss out on it. And whatever it was, it was taking people's focus off of her.
The three girls ran down to the Quidditch pitch. By the time they got there, about half the school was already gathered at the far end of the pitch, staring at something. Some were pointing and laughing, others were trying to get a better look. They managed to push their way to the front of the crowd. Jane's jaw dropped as she beheld the sight.
There, tied to one of the three goalposts, was Aaron Ashby, passed out, wearing a vibrant red lipstick, and stripped naked in front of God and everyone. He had various obscenities written and drawn on him with the lipstick as well.
Jane let out a surprised laugh. The slight damage that had been done to her reputation was nothing compared to the humiliation that Aaron was going to suffer when he woke up. Nobody was even going to remember her name after basically the entire school witnessed this. She almost felt bad for him, but then she remembered he was an arrogant arsehole that had ripped out her heart and tried to ruin her life. She had no pity for the likes of him.
Patricia Foley had said that she didn't know who'd done it, but Jane had a fairly good idea. She looked around and saw the boys standing off to the side, triumphant smiles on all of their faces. She made her way over to them, pressing through the steadily growing crowd of students.
"I told you we'd fix it," Sirius said.
Jane smiled her first actual smile since before the Easter holidays.
"You did this?" Mary asked, appearing beside Jane.
"Who else would think of something this ingenious?" James said, happy with his work.
"You could get expelled for this!" Mary told them.
Jane stopped smiling abruptly, a worried look crossing her facial features.
"No, we won't," Sirius said. "He won't say anything."
"How do you know?" Jane asked.
"Because Memory Charms are extremely potent," Remus answered, smiling. "When he wakes up, he'll think he's done this to himself."
"That's brilliant!" Jane said.
"Yeah, and in a few months, we'll lift the charm, probably while he's taking one of his O.W.L.s, and he'll remember everything," James said happily.
Jane laughed, unable to contain the overwhelming sense of happiness inside of her. It was perfect.
"How am I supposed to repay you for this?" she asked, smiling.
Sirius draped his arm over her shoulders.
"This was absolutely free of charge, Janie," he said, grinning like an idiot.
"What a lovely sight," Alice said as she joined them, staring up at Aaron.
James pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it to Alice who caught it.
"Thanks for letting us borrow it," James said.
Jane looked down to see a lipstick tube in Alice's hand. Alice smiled.
"It was my pleasure."
Marlene scoffed and grabbed her lipstick out of Alice's hand.
"It was Marlene's pleasure too," Alice added.
Someone on the Quidditch pitch yelled the dreaded word "teacher," and everybody began to scatter. Jane ran with the boys off of the Quidditch pitch and back up to the castle, laughing so much that she could hardly catch her breath.
Maybe things did get better after all. Well, maybe not for Aaron, but for her, things were beginning to look up.