Secrets & Lies

KyleGranger

Chapter 4

The following morning, James met Tracey and Gertie in the Gryffindor common room and they walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast all dressed in their school robes. Classes start today.

Professor Longbottom was at the head of the Great Hall with the other three heads of house distributing class schedules.

"Hello Neville!" James said as he reached to the front of the line to get his schedule with the girls.

"Jim. You can call me Neville outside of school, but here it's professor or Longbottom or whatever," Professor Longbottom said looking around to see if anyone had heard them.

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I'm just used to calling you Neville from the summer and such," he said embarrassed.

"It's fine, here's your schedule," he said shuffling through the papers then handing one to him followed by Gertie and Tracey. The students then walked out of the Great Hall, grabbing some toast and patting their siblings on the head as they walked by.

"Ugh, Divinations this early in the morning?" Gertie said, upset.

"At least Firenze is teaching the course and not some random person we don't know," James said.

"I still miss Professor Tralawney," Gertie continued, "it was so horrible that she died."

"It was just her time," Tracey said and then, softly gasped.

"What?" James asked, hearing her.

Tracey turned in front of her two best friends and leaned in. She whispered, "It's Jake, in the corner, behind the statue. DON'T LOOK!" It was too late. Both James and Gertie turned their heads in the direction of statue she was referring to of a medieval wizard.

A tall boy with short dark hair and a few freckles here and there along his cheeks. Once James and Gertie turned to look at him, he quickly focused his attention on the statue, acting as though interested.

"What should I do?" Tracey said nervously.

"Er, go talk to him? Snog? Do whatever you do?" Gertie said crossing her arms. James nodded in agreement.

"Just go over there. It's not like he's planning on killing you or something," James said, then he smiled and said mysteriously, "Unless you've done something…bad."

"Shut up," she said hitting him. "Okay, I'm going over there. I guess I'll see you guys in class."

Gertie and James watched her as she slowly walked over to him, then turned to continue their way to class.

Class went by as expected: slowly. James and Gertie sat at a circular table in the corner of the room. The only interesting part about class, besides the fact that Firenze gave them a quiz on their first day of class, was that the chair sitting between James and Gertie remained empty then entire class period. Tracey hadn't shown up at all.