Hey guys, here's a new chapter. I know it's been awhile, but I'm trying to at least finish this story no matter how long it takes. As always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review. I always respond. Love you guys! ~ Pipes
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of it's characters, they all belong to J. K. Rowling and I wouldn't have it any other way.
James walked in as Rose and I had just started to open our books and pull out our parchments of notes to compare. I waved him over, smiling at him, and motioned for him to join us.
"Ready to study?" I asked as James got closer.
"I guess," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "If I'm being honest I could go for something to eat."
"What is it with you boys and your appetites?" Rose asked him.
"Let me guess," James began, "Al…"
"Is on snack duty," I interrupted.
"And is back with the snacks!" Albus called out as he entered the room.
"Thank Merlin!" James said, setting his bag on the ground and sitting next to me.
"Do you want the other chair Iz?" Al asked as he placed some pumpkin juice and other various snacks on the table.
"No, I'm good, I'm a floor person," I said, motioning to my things set up around me so I could face the chairs and have everything I needed to study around me.
"You're a floor person?" Rose asked, raising her eyebrows at me.
"Yeah, I'd rather sit on the floor than in a chair, or on a bench," I continued.
"That cannot be comfortable," Rose scoffed out.
"Well for me it is, now can we please start studying?" I asked, stressing the e in please.
"Yeah," Albus continued, "We probably should otherwise I'm going to fail all of my exams."
"You sure that won't happen anyways?" James asked him, smirking as he spoke.
"Oh sod off," Al said, leaning down and shoving him a bit.
We began to study, and talk over everything we had learned for our exams. Rose and I helped Al study, first by giving him our notes to look over, but then also by helping him make his own set that he could study on his own. We kept studying and snacking, until it was almost time for dinner. It was only studying, but it was some of the most fun I had had in weeks.
"Hey guys, we should get going to the Great Hall for dinner," James said, looking at the time.
"Thank Merlin cause I'm starved," Albus said, getting up and collecting his things, as we did the same.
"I'm going to run my things upstairs, you want me to take yours Ro?" I asked offering a hand for her bookbag, "Then you lot can go get us a good spot."
"Sure," she said handing me her bookbag, trying to offer me a little trust. I knew based off of the warning look she shot me that seemed to say, 'if you do anything stupid, I will make sure you regret it.'
I made my way upstairs to our room, and placed our bookbags next to our beds when I got there. I then looked around for a second, smiling, happy with things the way they were. I was finally doing better and having fun again, and for once I wasn't worried about the future. I made my way down the stairs and found James waiting for me.
"You didn't have to wait you know," I said, looking at him, a little hurt that he didn't trust me."Oh I know, I just thought you might want someone to walk with, it is a bit of a walk anyway," he said, smiling at me, trying to reassure me.
"I guess that's true," I replied, as we stepped through the doorway to the stairs.
We made our way down to the Great Hall, talking and joking around a bit. It was mostly me telling him that I would be beating him at Wizard's Chess later that night, and him rebutting and telling me that I was simply wrong. As we were walking down the main hallway, I saw Professor Longbottom waiting outside the Great Hall, greeting students, and locked eyes with him. I knew that he was going to talk to me, but I didn't know what about.
"Miss Gregory, may I have a word?" Professor Longbottom asked me, nodding to James, "She'll be inside in just a moment."
"Go ahead James," I said, with a smile, looking at Professor Longbottom, who led us away from the doors of the Great Hall to a more private area.
"I just wanted to talk to you for a moment about your marks," he started with a bit of a grim look on his face, "I have reason to believe that you haven't been doing your work on your own, and possibly have been turning in work done by others. Now, I want you to tell me why I shouldn't believe this."
My face dropped, I felt like I was going through every second of the past year all over again, "I swear Professor, I've been doing all of my own work. I don't know how I can prove it to you, but I promise. I've been working on all of my work with Rose and Albus, and we've all been doing our own work."
"The thing is, it doesn't look very good for you," he began again, "Your marks have only been high when you've been around the smartest witch in your age group. Any other time during the year, your marks have been extremely low."
"So what do I need to do to convince you that I've been doing all my own work?" I asked him, getting to the point. I didn't want to sit here all night defending something I had no proof of.
"Well I've spoken with the headmistress, and she decided that we would give you a chance, by having you take your exams separately from everyone else. You will be given an enchanted quill to keep you from copying any work of another student's, and you will be in a room to take the exam by yourself with no one else. You will have different exam times as your peers, and then we will see which marks you truly deserve."
I nodded, giving him a glance, "May I go please? I need to eat, and then get back to studying."
"Of course, and by the way, your brother told me he was worried about your mental health," He said, as I began to walk away, "Has something been going on that your professors need to be made aware of?"
I looked back as he asked this and shook my head, "No sir, I'm doing better than I have in awhile. I'll be sure to let my brother know he has nothing to worry about."
I made my way to the Great Hall, looking for Rose when I walked in. I noticed her in a seemingly annoyed state, looking as if she were debating with the boys over something. I began to walk towards them when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"How're you doing Bella?" my brother's voice asked, coldly with a mocking tone, "Having some trouble in class? I'm really worried about you."
"Sod off Harry," I replied firmly, not looking back, making my way to Rose. Unfortunately before I could walk away, my foot connected with his and I found myself square on the ground. Harry was leaning over me, when I turned over, offering me a hand to look friendly.
He whispered, "Better watch your back, or you'll find I can tell anyone that you didn't deserve to be admitted to Hogwarts in the first place. I've found that I can be very persuasive, especially when it comes to you."
He held on to my wrist tightly as he was pulling me up, knowing that I was at his mercy in that moment, but he didn't do anything else other than give me a disappointed look before walking back to the table that Scorpius was at. I made my way to my friends, and sat down next to them, rubbing my shoulder which I had hurt slightly when I fell to the ground.
At this point Rose was standing as she was trying to make her point to the boys, "I'm telling you, that is not how any of it is! Just let it lie!"
"Let what lie?" I asked, curiously.
They all eyed me as if I had snuck up on them out of nowhere. I figured that gave me an out for explaining what happened with Harry and Professor Longbottom, since it seemed like they were all so busy in their own conversation. I figured it would come up eventually, but for now I could keep the focus off of me.
"It doesn't matter," Rose said, shooting me a look as if I couldn't say anything.
"We were just wondering why Rose wants to know more about Muggle culture, it's not like it's better than ours," James said.
"I mean Quidditch is so much cooler than, what's the equivalent?" Albus added.
"Football," I answered quickly, "You guys are so quick to judge, but you don't know how many amazing things Muggle culture has: stories, food, stores, etc. And football isn't bad like you make it out to be. Maybe you aren't on a broom, but it takes stamina and coordination to be good at it, and I wouldn't trade my championship trophy for anything."
I loaded some food on my plate, proceeding to eat some of it, and ignore the boys. I looked to Rose like I wanted her to start some kind of a conversation, but she didn't catch my look fast enough.
"Wait you've played Muggle sports?" Al questioned, puzzled.
"I went to a Muggle school until this year," I replied, continuing to look at my plate. I loved Albus and James, but they could still be so close minded to the things they didn't grow up with.
"Oh," he responded, leaving a lingering silence between our group.
James spoke up to try to break the silence, "So what happened with Professor Longbottom?"
I looked at him, my eyes daring him to ask further than my answer, "We can talk about it later."
After that, the clatter of plates and conversations took over our little corner of the world, but in our bubble we were surrounded by silence. I finished eating quickly and stood up, motioning to Rose to come with me. She understood, and we left the boys to finish feasting on the food that was there.
"You alright?" I asked as we walked back to the common room.
"I'm fine," Rose replied softly, "Thanks for not saying anything about me and wanting to see the Muggle side of things."
"No problem," I said with a shrug, "Trust me I was just fine to go off on them for being gits for the comments they were making. Like imagine if a Muggleborn had heard them?"
"Yeah, they would come off as right gits," Rose replied.
"You sure you're okay?" I looked at her softly, "Cause I was thinking maybe we could owl my mum about you coming to ours for the holidays."
"Thanks," Rose said, grinning from ear to ear.
We made our way up the stairs and to our room where we both pulled out sheets of parchment. Rose had decided she was going to try owling her mum to test the waters and see how she felt about the idea as well. We wrote out our letters as quickly as we could so we could make it to the owlery before curfew. Once we were done, we began to make our way downstairs excitedly. That was until we ran into the boys. James looked at me, trying to figure out what was going on, so I decided to look at Al instead.
"If you would excuse us, we need to make our way to the owlery before we get in trouble for being out of bed. If you don't mind," I said, pushing past them politely.
Once we were on the other side of the portrait, we made our way to the owlery, getting there with more than enough time before our curfew. We sent off our owls, and then I took a moment to look up at the stars. I hadn't done much stargazing recently, and I had missed it. Of all the things that calmed me down, stars were some of the best.
"Are you alright?" Rose asked me.
"Yeah why?" I asked softly, as if I was trying to not disturb the stars.
"You're smiling, like actually smiling, as if you're happy," she said smiling at me.
"The stars," I said with a chuckle, leaving it at that. I figured if she wanted more of an explanation she would ask, but she didn't. She just stood next to me and stared at them with me. After a little bit of calm and silence, we began to make our way back to the dormitory.
"So, if you don't mind, what did happen with Professor Longbottom?" she asked, quietly.
"Oh, well apparently someone is concerned that I haven't been doing my own work since the only time my grades were bad was when I wasn't friends with you, the smartest witch of our age," I said, rolling my eyes as I looked at her.
"Not that it's right, but it doesn't look that great. So do you have to make up all your work again?" she asked, gasping when she realized how much work that would be.
"No, thank Merlin," I said, with a laugh of relief, "I just have to take my exams alone so I can't copy anyone else's work."
"Well that's better than making up all of your work for sure."
"It really is though," I said as we reached the portrait, "So what's the plan? Do we want to talk to the boys? Just go to our room? I'll follow your lead."
"I think we should have a girls night, and let them fend for themselves," she said with a laugh.
"Then that's what we'll do, girl study session," I said with a grin, as we walked through the portrait.
Once we got into the common room, though, it was a ghost town, we must have been watching the stars later than we had thought. We realized this to be true once we reached our room, and our other roommates were asleep already. Rose and I shared a look and laughed a bit, we then got ready for bed ourselves and climbed into our beds, ready to sleep for the night.