A/N: I had a ton of fun with this chapter, despite having writer's block in the beginning. The imagination part is a bit of a throwback to Annie on My Mind, which was something that I really wanted to do.
I'm really enjoying writing this, and it would be great to know if any of you are enjoying reading it! Leave a review and brighten my day? :)
I made sure that I would be at the library early on Monday night, but when I arrived, it was only to find that a load of dung bombs had been set off in a student's bag, and thus the library would be closed for the night. I decided to just wait outside for Ivy to show up, and then we could figure out what to do from there. I assumed that she still needed tutoring, and would perhaps want to go somewhere else and do that . For some reason, it was sad to remember that the only reason I would be seeing her was purely academic. I felt like our time together should be about more than that. I shook my head, banishing these thoughts. I've seen her twice. Why does this matter so much? Its one thing to like a new friend, but why am I so…desperate? I silently pondered this, and argued with myself, as I sat on the stone floor, waiting.
It wasn't too long before I saw her round the corner, and give me a questioning look before coming over. As she approached, I stood up (and tried as hard as I could to stop all of the thoughts that I had been grappling with only a few seconds before). She waited until she had gotten to me before she spoke.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"A bunch of dung bombs went off in there," I said, nodding to the door. "I expect that we won't be allowed back in again until Filch finishes cleaning up the mess for his girlfriend."
"You believe that story?" Ivy looked incredulous, but amused. About half of the school was convinced that Filch and Madame Pince were involved in a secret love affair.
"You know it's true." I replied, smirking.
"I'd rather not think about it. They're both gross, and imagining them together…" She exaggerated a shudder. I giggled.
"Anyway," she continued. "Where should we go?"
My heart leapt. She still wanted to see me. "You still want to…?" Hang out? Study? Spare some time for me? I couldn't find a way to end the sentence that sounded right, but she didn't wait for me to find one.
"Only if you do."
"Of course!" I blushed. Honestly, how desperate was I? Sh probably thought that I was the loneliest person on earth. "I mean, yeah…that sounds good." I didn't look at her, and hoped that she didn't find me overly enthusiastic.
"What about finding an empty classroom?" Her voice didn't sound as if she was put off, and I took that as a sign that it would be safe to look up. "That's pretty much the only place that I can think of right now."
"That would be fine," I replied, and we set off down the hall together. There was something thrilling about the idea of hanging out with Ivy, completely alone, and I was determined to not to mess it up. I wanted her to like me. (Once again, I a part of me was ashamed of how desperate I sounded.)
"So, um, anything exciting happen today?" I asked, as we entered the first room that we found. I lit the torches with my wand, and we sat down on top of a couple of the old desks.
"Besides seeing you" –my heart skipped a beat. I hoped she wasn't joking—"not really anything." She shrugged. "Except trying to learn Silencing Charms while Umbridge was buzzing around the room. That was difficult."
"Trying to learn anything while Umbridge is buzzing around the room is difficult," I replied, to which she gave a snort of laughter. "She was inspecting Flitwick today, then?"
Umbridge had been appointed "High Inquisitor" at the beginning of the month, and since then she had been sitting in on other teacher's classes to "inspect their performance." It was awful, but I counted myself lucky that I only had the misfortune of being present for one of these reviews, in my last Astronomy class.
Ivy nodded, in answer to my question. "It's obnoxious, isn't it? Telling the worst teacher that she is the one who can go in and judge other teachers?" She rolled her eyes.
"Tell me about it," I agreed. "Can you believe that woman?"
"Toad, you mean," Ivy replied, and I burst into laughter.
"So you've also spotted her for what she really is?" I asked, and she began laughing now, too.
"It's not so hard, is it? Especially with that huge fly on top of her head."
"You mean her hair bow?" I asked, still chortling.
"No, it's definitely a fly," she said, trying to keep a straight face. "I keep expecting her tongue to snap out and eat it." We both laughed harder at this image.
"What, and those atrocious cardigans cover up her warts?"
"Of course!"
It was a moment before we got a hold of ourselves again. Finally, I took a deep breath, and shook my head.
"But seriously, she's evil. I wouldn't want to be on her bad side…you probably didn't hear about what happened to Harry Potter in detention, did you?" I asked.
"No, I didn't," she looked interested.
"Fred and George told me about it a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got a glimpse of it," I said.
"Got a glimpse of what?" Her eyes widened.
"He's got these bright red scars on the back of his hand, and they say 'I must not tell lies.'" Her jaw dropped. "She's got this mad quill that carves into whoever is using it, and she made him do lines with it after what he said in her class."
"That's disgusting!" She was appalled. "There's no way that Dumbledore would allow that!"
"I don't think he knows about it," I said seriously.
She shook her head, still looking horrified. "I knew she was an idiot, and a bit twisted, but…"
"I know." I shrugged. "Let's just hope that the curse on Defense Against the Dark Arts professors hasn't warn off yet. I don't know what I would do if she was here next year."
"That would be unbearable. I don't even know if I can last the rest of this year with her, to be honest."
"Oh, believe me," I replied. "I was so angry at myself for not dropping the class while I could, when saw how she was."
"We should petition," she said, and I raised my eyebrows. She blushed, but smiled. "Really! We should make an anti-Umbridge petition! I bet that everyone in the school would sign it."
"You're such a Hufflepuff," I giggled.
She crossed her arms and looked defiant, but I could tell that she wasn't actually offended. "And what ideas do you have, O brave Gryffindor?" She jumped off the desk and pantomimed taking up a sword and shield. "Go to battle with her?"
I grinned. Ivy was comedic, that was for sure. "I dunno how that would go over…"
"Oh, come on," she came over to me, still pretending to be a knight. "I guess you're just not confident in your abilities, then!"
"Of course I am!" I turned up my nose jokingly.
"Prove it," she brandished her imaginary sword at me. "A duel, to prove your mettle!" She declared.
I gave in, and jumped off the desk, grinning, while pretended to draw my own sword. "En garde, then!"
We launched into a furious battle, laughing as we jumped, lunged, twirled, and blocked.
"You'll never defeat me!" Ivy cried, after a particularly impressive dodge. She danced out of my reach, and I chased after.
"I must!" I replied. "I must, for the honor for Gryffindor!" I threw a blow, but she parried; I made it as if my sword had been knocked out of my hand, and I fell dramatically to the ground. She feigned putting to the tip of her own sword to my throat, with a triumphant smile on her face. I clasped my hands together and pretended to beg for my life.
"Please, fair maiden," I pleaded in a ridiculously high voice. Ivy stifled another laugh. "Please, oh please let me go! You've won fair and square, but must you take my life as well as the victory?"
She pretended to deliberate for a moment. "Well…I suppose I could spare you. Just this once." She threw her sword aside, and reached a hand out to me, grinning. I smiled, and took her hand so that she could pull me up.
I had never touched her hand before, and it was electrifying to have it pressed against mine. I let go quickly as soon as I was on my feet. But I wanted to hold on longer. Her skin was smooth, and her fingers shorter than mine. I looked at them out of the corner of my eye, and I could see the evidence of her habit of biting her fingernails, something I had already noticed. I found it endearing.
I didn't know what to say next, and I wasn't sure if she did, either; but we were both saved but the sound of the door banging open. I jerked my head around to see Peeves zooming in, cackling.
"Oooh, what have we here?" he asked, a malicious smile spreading across his wicked face. He had a waste paper bin, and began pelting us with its contents of crumpled-up parchment.
We ran over and grabbed our bags, using them as shields as we sped out of the room. Peeves followed, guffawing and continuing to throw the paper wads at us as we dashed down the corridor. He finally got bored after a couple of minutes, and streaked off to find another victim.
We both put our bags down, panting, and I clutched a stitch in my side. I took a few seconds to catch my breath before speaking.
"Never a dull moment, is there?"
Ivy was still breathing heavily, but she smiled. "Definitely not."
We sat in silence for another couple of minutes, until we were both breathing normally again.
Ivy looked at her watch, and frowned. "Crap…I really should be going." She looked disappointed. "I haven't started any of my homework."
I bit my lip. "Neither have I…" I felt tired already, just from thinking of how late I would probably have to be up tonight.
"We should do this again, though," she said, and a pink tinge rose on her cheeks. "You're fun. I like hanging out with you."
There it was, that golden phrase that I had wanted to hear all day. I grinned wider than I had all evening. "Really?"
She saw me smiling, and returned it with an embarrassed one of her own. "Yeah…I would really like that."
"Me too!" I was ecstatic. "Maybe sometime this week?"
She looked far off for a moment. "I have a ton of work this week…I'm sorry…" Honestly, so did I. "What about this weekend?" She asked.
Wasn't there something happening this weekend? I thought for a minute.
"The first Hogsmeade trip!" I remembered. "The first Hogsmeade trip is this Saturday."
She gave me a hopeful look. "Would you like to, maybe, go together, or something?"
"That would be great," I said happily. "Perfect, in fact."
"Great!" She smiled.
And so it was settled. We decided to meet up in the Entrance Hall Saturday morning, and then spend the day in Hogsmeade together. We went our separate ways, and I practically skipped back up to Gryffindor Tower. It didn't even bother me that we hadn't gotten any studying done…I felt that we had accomplished something much more important.