It was the last day of school before summer vacation. Ava, Donna, Elaine, Mary and Stacey were outside by the black lake lying in the sun.
Seamus, Ben, Dean and Tyler were with a bunch of other boys and were not too far away, they were all standing under a tree doing who knows what.
Ava didn't notice that Seamus would glance over at them every so often, though when she did turn to look at the boys, she noticed Tyler casually glancing over at Elaine. Ava looked at Elaine, she was sprawled on the ground with her eyes closed, she obviously didn't notice that Tyler was looking at her.
Ava smiled to herself and laid back down, the sun felt warm on her legs. Ava glanced over at Donna, she seemed to be sleeping, she couldn't blame her. It felt good to lay back and relax, the past week was stressful for everyone from exams. The last day of school was their day off.
All of a sudden Ava heard someone yelling, she could also here a laugh that sounded very familiar. She looked over towards the tree to where Seamus and the others were standing and saw a couple of Slytherins. Their leader, of course, was Mafloy. Ava sighed, she didn't want to deal with him on their last day.
Elaine, Stacey and Mary must have heard it, as they were both looking in the direction of the tree. Donna was still asleep.
Ava sighed. " Let's go see what's wrong" she said. They all got up and walked to where the boys were standing. A couple of them looked at them as they approached. When they reached the tree she could clearly see what was happening. Seamus and Malfoy were standing right in front of eachother. Seamus was giving Malfoy a glare that even scared Ava a little bit. Malfoy was giving him one right back, twice as hard.
As Ava walked up to them she could hear Seamus snarling at Draco " Get out of here Malfoy, I told you already that your not going over there, now go away before I make you go away"
Draco was about to say something back but when he saw Ava he smirked. " Hey mudblood, want to join in on our little conversation"
Seamus glared at Malfoy
" Just get out of here Malfoy, no one wants to deal with you right now"
Ava stepped up " Please Draco, it's the last day of school, can't you just run off and not bother anyone today?'
"Yeah Malfoy" Stacey said. " Just grow up and leave us alone"
Malfoy snarled at her " watch your mouth asian"
" Hey, don't talk to her that way" Ava yelled. Malfoy smirked at her " I can talk to any of you however I like" then he looked at Mary. " You're a mudblood also are you not?" he said. Mary looked down at her feet. " Father would discipline me for being here, surrounded by mudbloods" He shook his head.
" Don't get started on them Jackass" Ben said. " We are sick of you picking on people weaker than you, you can talk to guys however you like, though you might just get your ass kicked, but don't pick on girls or we will all kick your ass"
Draco's face turned white but he snarled at Ben " and where's your little girlfriend then?" he said. " off to the whore mansion to pick up some white trash guys?". Ava knew that was talking about Donna and that he could clearly see her over Ben's shoulder, still sleeping by the lake, but he wanted to taunt Ben. Ben's face went red and suddenly he stepped forward but Tyler and Seamus held him back.
Draco smirked. Ava could tell that Draco was pleased with the reaction. He looked towards her " I will see you soon mudblood" He began to walk away but Seamus pulled him by his robes and dragged him back " Don't ever call her that!" He yelled and punched him in the stomach. Draco doubled over in pain. The other Slytherins that were with Draco ran at the Gryffindors. Two of the Slytherins ran toward Seamus and tried to pry him off Draco but Ava would see that they were having much
difficulty trying to get him off . Ava, Mary, Elaine and Stacey backed off. Ava was speechless, There she was standing in the middle of a war between the Gryffindors and Slytherins and there was nothing that she could do about it.
Three teachers ran out then, it was Professor Lupin, Professor Mcgonogal and Professor Snape. Mcgonogal drew out her wand and jinxed the students that were outside of the circle of the fight. Professor Snape and Lupin went right in the middle and broke up the inside of the fight. Ava watched as Snape pulled apart Seamus and some other Slytherin. Draco was lying beneath them whimpering on the ground, his face and his nose was bleeding.
Professor Lupin broke apart a few other pairs. " That is enough!" Lupin yelled. Ava saw the look that Snape was wearing as he held Seamus and the other Slytherin. Seamus was sporting a black eye and his face was bruised, but overall he looked better than the Slytherin did who's face was all bloody, the inside of his mouth was bloody too, which Ava assumed Seamus knocked out a few of his teeth.
The look on Snape's face made Ava pray that she would never see that look on his face ever again.
"Enough of this girlish behavior!" he yelled. " I will see that both of you have detention for the rest of your lives".
Then he dragged them off leaving Lupin and Mcgonogal to tear apart the rest of the fight.
Ava watched as Lupin pushed Ben and Goyle away from each other and then he went to separate Tyler and Crabbe
"That is enough! Or I will also see to it that you will have detention for the rest of your lives" he yelled
Slowly the fight eased up. Mcgonogal had to levitate Malfoy to the hospital wing.
Tyler and Ben and Dean walked up to them. Tyler had a cut on his cheek and his nose was bruised and bloody. Ben's mouth was bleeding and his face and arms were bruised and cut. Dean's eyebrow was cut and he had a deep cut on his cheek and forehead.
" That was quite a bloodbath" Ava said.
Ben wiped the blood off of his mouth " It wasn't that bad" he said.
" Wasn't that bad!" Elaine said loudly, " Look at all of you, you're a complete mess, you need to see the hospital wing right away, especially you Tyler, it looks like you nose is broken"
Elaine was right about the broken nose because as Tyler was about to object his face scrunched up in pain.
" We are not going to the hospital wing" Dean said, and the look on his face told them that they were not to argue with him.
" He is right, we are perfectly fine" Tyler said.
Elaine sighed " If you guys won't go to the hospital wing, then I guess that we have to patch you up ourselves"
Ben, Dean and Tyler looked confused
" I know I may not seem like it but I love potions, I have healing potions and everything right in the Gryffindor common room"
" Its true" Ava said. " Every night she is always working on something that has to do with potions, and we have bandages and everything upstairs in our room"
Ben, Dean and Tyler looked at each other and shrugged " Sounds good to me" Tyler said then winced.
" First we have to wake up Donna" Elaine said.
" You mean that she slept through the whole thing" Ben said. Ava nodded and then walked to Donna to wake her.
When Donna took one look at Ben, Dean and Tyler she shot straight up " What happened to you guys?" She said.
" We will tell you when we get upstairs" Ava said. " It's a long story"
Donna walked over to Ben and placed her hand on his cheek as she inspected his body for major wounds, " Are you hurt badly" she asked him.
" No, really I am fine" he said.
She sighed " Where's Seamus?" she asked.
" He got taken away by Snape, he and Malfoy started the fight" Stacey said.
" We will meet him back up in the common room, lets take these guys upstairs" Elaine said.
They walked up to the castle, Stacey and Mary left when they reached the Great hall.
In the common room, Tyler, Dean and Ben were sitting on the couch rather painfully, it turned out that Ben broke his wrist but didn't want to say anything, and Dean hurt his foot, as it was hard for him to walk up to the castle
" do you know how bad it would have been if you didn't get it looked at" Donna scolded " It could heal the wrong way"
Elaine and Ava went upstairs and left Donna and Ben bickering about his broken wrist. While Elaine grabbed her potions, Ava grabbed bandages and tape.
They went downstairs and dropped the stuff on the floor. Elaine went and took care of Tyler, while Donna worked on Ben and Ava worked on Dean. Ava grabbed the disinfectant cream and put a dab on each of Dean wounds, then she took out her wand and whispered a spell which made the cuts vanish completely. His foot would be a little more difficult, she wanted to know if it was broken or not. She gently felt around, but could not feel any lumps. She sighed " Your foot is not broken, but you either sprained it or ripped a muscle" she told him. " Thanks Doc" he said and smiled at her. Just as she got up to get a healing potion for Dean, the portrait hole opened up.
A beaten up looking Seamus walked in, Ava sucked in a breath, his wounds looked worse up close, it looked like he was in a lot of pain. His black eye was a lot darker up close and his face was puffy and very bruised. Ben, Tyler and Dean laughed and greeted him with a cry of delight. When Seamus saw them he smirked at them
" Look at all you guys getting pampered but all these pretty ladies, makes me kind of jealous" he chuckled. Ava laughed as she gave Dean the potion. In a few minutes she asked him to get up and when he did he gave a little woop. Obviously his foot was fine now. He smiled widley at her and gave her a bear hug " Thanks Ava" he said. Ava laughed at him.
She walked over to Seamus and gently grabbed his face, he winced in pain from her touch. She inspected his entire body " Are you hurt badly anywhere else other than your face?" she asked. " Not that I know of" he said, she sighed in relief and smiled to herself, she didn't need to think twice if he was lying or not, she could tell that he was telling her the truth. She kept her hand on his face a little longer than she should have, then realizing what she was doing, quickly pulled her hand back.
" Come here" she said and walked over to the couch. Seamus followed her obediently, she pushed him on the couch and went to go get Elaine's potions. " Finally my turn" Seamus said and winked at her. Ava chuckled at him. She gave him one of the healing potions and in matter of minutes the bruises were all gone and she was back to looking at that perfect face with the playful grin.
" Thanks Doctor Ava" he said and smiled kindly at her. Ava never saw him give her a nice smile before, it usually was a sarcastic or teasing smile. This gave her butterflies and made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. Ava smiled back for a brief moment and then turned away from him and went to take Elaine's things back up to her room. She looked at one of Elaine's potions and a name on it caught her eye. It said Severus Snape on one of them. Ava looked at Elaine shocked.
" Elaine did you steal this from Snape?" she asked. Elaine blushed " I didn't steal, I simply borrowed it"
"I'm going to go return it" Ava said. Elaine huffed " its fine Ava, its just one potion". " yes but this one potion could equal forever death if Snape finds out, I will be back soon" she said and hurried off. As the portriat hole was closing she could hear Elaine say " she is defiantly meeting someone"
Ava couldn't blame Elaine for saying this, Ava really didn't care about the potion, she took stuff from Snape all the time, but what she really wanted was to be alone, she liked walking in the school hallways by herself, it helped her think and right now at 12:30 at night, it was the perfect place to walk alone in the halls.
She wanted to think about Seamus, and her feelings for him. Her feelings were defiantly strong, but when he gave he that smile, it just boosted up her feelings ten times more.
She reached Snape's potion cupboard and after a few peeks behind her shoulder, she slipped inside. She looked at each label to see where the potion fit. She found the matching label and set the potion on the counter. She climbed down the ladder and and walked out the door, shutting it behind her. Safe. She thought and began to walk away.
Suddenly a hand pulled on her robe, before she could scream a hand covered her mouth and another set of hands grabbed her arms. She was dragged back into the potions cupboard. The set of hands threw Ava into the wall. She turned around, but she was too scared to scream, to scared to move, to even breath. Malfoy was standing there barking orders to Crabbe and Goyle, they were trying to lock the door. After a few minutes of trying and being unsuccessful, they gave up turned and looked down on Ava's cowering form. Draco laughed at her. " Looks like we got her trapped boys" he said. Ava willed herself not to cry.
Draco stepped towards her and grabbed her wrist. He forcefully pulled her up and pulled her so close to him and she could feel his breath right on her neck. She tried to pry her off him but found it useless. She knew fighting would be useless. She was surround by 3 huge guys, there was no way she could win.
Draco gave her a sarcastic kind grin, his eyes gave away how angry and how fierce he was feeling. " aren't you hot Ava?" she said. " Why don't you take off your sweater?". Ava didn't look at him, she didn't answer him. " Don't make me force it off you" he said. Ava still didn't answer him. " Fine" was all he said. Draco held her as Goyle walked over and ripped the sweater off of her shoulders.
Ava gave everything she had not to cry. " look at me mudblood" he said. Ava slowly looked up at him, then she spit in his face. Instantly she regretted her actions, the anger in Malfoys eyes told her that she was done for. " Alright, we will make this fast then" he said. He hit her in the face, she fell to the ground. She tried to get up but Malfoy pinned her on the ground.
Ava struggled hard. She punched and kicked and hit Malfoy as much a possible but it was no use. Malfoy called Goyle over and he kneeled over her head and held her hands down. Malfoy's hands got caught on her shirt and it ripped showing much more skin then Ava liked. Ava broke then, the tears fell down her cheeks, she tried to scream but Malfoy covered her mouth with his hand. All of a sudden she heard Crabbe whipser " shh shh I hear someone coming down the hallway" they were all silent. Draco's breath was still on her neck, Ava tried to make a sound but Draco pushed down so hard on her throat that she couldn't breath. Soon the voices were gone.
" Its too dangerous to be here" Goyle said " We could get caught". Malfoy looked annoyed " Fine! Fine, your right" Malfoy looked at Ava underneath him " Just wait mudblood, I have a little surprise for you that I think you will enjoy, but let me give you this warning and you better remember it, if you tell anyone what happened tonight, I will hurt you and your little whore friend, and don't think I am lying" Then they got up and quietly opened the door and disappeared down the hallway,
Ava laid on the floor for quite some time. She was petrified, she knew what he tried to do to her, what scared her more is that he threatened to hurt Donna. She did not want them anywhere near Donna. If she told anyone what happened, they would do they same thing to Donna that they tried to do to her.
Ava slowly got up and put on her sweater, she zipped it up so it would hid the rip, she suspected that her friends would be in bed but just in case.
She slowly walked up the stairs, her wrist once again was covered in bruises, she could feel something on her cheek and she suspected that once again there would be a bruise.
She was happy that it was the last day of school, well the last night that is.
When she opened up the portrait hole, she walked in to see Seamus and Elaine.
Elaine waved to her when Ava walked in but her smile instantly faded when she saw the look on Ava's face.
" Ava are you alright, you seem troubled" Elaine said. Seamus looked at her. Please Elaine, shutup. Ava thought to herself, but unfortunately like always, Elaine didn't shutup.
" Oh my goodness what happened to your face, you have another bruise on it, Ava did someone hit you?" she said.
Seamus stood up from the couch and stared at her. Ava snarled at Elaine " No Elaine, no one hit me" she said.
" But the bruise sort of looks like a handprint, are you su—"
" Elaine shutup" Seamus said. Elaine looked at him like she was about to cry. If Malfoy didn't do this to her, Ava would of laughed at him, but right now she was just grateful for what he said.
Elaine looked at both of them, she huffed and marched up the stairs leaving Seamus and Ava in awkward silence. Seamus never took his eyes off of her. Ava started to get uncomfortable " Well goodnight Seamus" she said, her voice was a bit shaky. She hoped that it wasn't too obvious.
Just as she turned she felt someone grab her hand. She turned, Seamus was standing right in front of her. She was never this close to him, they were only inches apart. His voice startled her. " Who hurt you?" he said. Ava shook her head, " No one hurt me" she said. He didn't answer her, she knew that he didn't believe her
" Seamus you're over estimating, you don't know what happened"
" That's right, I don't know, so why don't you just tell me?" he said.
" Nothing happened" she said.
" Oh come on! I may not be the brightest person around but I'm not stupid, Elaine was right, it looks like someone hit you, and don't think I can't see the bruises on your wrist cause I can". Ava looked shocked and tried to hide her exposed wrist. Instead Seamus gently grabbed her tiny wrist and looked at it. He looked back at her. " Just tell me who it is, I will find them and beat them up, please just tell me" he said.
She almost told him, but for some strange reason, she didn't.
" No one hurt me, you don't understand, its not what it looks like".
She felt his hold on her wrist tighten, and she gasped at the pain, his hold kept getting tighter and tighter, she knew he was angry " Please, Seamus let go, your hurting me". Seamus looked down, and his eyes widened, he obviously didn't know that he squeezed her wrist. He instantly let go of her hand, and she cradled her hand in her arm. She looked up to find him staring at her.
"Was it Logan" he said. Ava's head shot up . She stuttered " N-No its not, honestly, Seamus no one is hurting me!"
" It was wasn't it, Elaine said you were going to meet someone downstairs, you go and then you come back up all torn up" he said.
Ava was angry " Elaine doesn't know what she was talking about, and you were stupid in believing her!"
" Elaine wasn't the only one who said so, Donna did too!" Seamus yelled.
Ava huffed " Well your all wrong, I went to go return Snape's potion and that's it, end of story" she said.
" Really Ava? Return Snape's potion, that's the best you got? I know that you don't care if she took a pathetic potion, I know you. You hate Snape more than any of us, there has to be another reason why you went downstairs"
" Maybe there is a reason but you wouldn't understand."
He grabbed both her hands, but he made sure to avoid the wrists. He looked right at her " I will try my best to understand, just tell me who did it, tell me what is going on, you have been acting so strange lately, you just seem to be avoiding everyone, everyone's noticed, we don't know what's wrong with you?"
" Since when did you care about my feelings?" she muttered,
" Since always" he said.
" I never thought that you could be so serious" she said.
" I am only serious when I need to be, and don't try to change the subject cause I know that's what your trying to do"
Ava looked at him for a long time, soon tears slowly started running down her face, then they came faster, and soon she was balling. He let go of her hands. She covered her face and backed up into the couch. She felt Seamus sit beside her. The sides of their arms were touching. She looked at him and he was just staring into the fire, waiting.
" Malfoy" was all she said between sobs. Instantly she felt his arm stiffen beside her. She couldn't stop crying, and she felt embarrassed that he had to see her like this. Everything that happened that night spilled out.
" he was with Crabbe and Goyle" she cried. He looked at her " you mean he wasn't alone, there was three of them, and only one you?" he asked, she could hear the pure anger in his voice.
" Yes!" she cried out. Through the whole conversation, he didn't move, he didn't blink. It actually scared Ava a little bit.
" Its happened before" she said. He whipped his head around to look at her, " What?" he said. " This, him doing this to me, its happened before, whenever I'm alone he ends up always finding me, I never told anyone because he threatened to hurt me really bad and he threatened to hurt Donna as well"
Suddenly Seamus stood up. He headed toward the common room entrance, Ava panicked. " Seamus? Seamus! Where are you going?"
She followed him out of the common room. She grabbed his arm to try to slow him down, but failed miserably.
" Please stop, don't do this!, don't hurt him, its too late anyway please can we go back"
Seamus laughed loudly, " Hurt him? Oh no, I am going to murder him! Then murder his parents for making such an jackass of a child, then go after Crabbe and Goyle, and then maybe the Slytherin prefect and a few other of his followers"
Ava ran in front of him and put both of her hands on his chest to stop him from moving " Stop please! Come back to the common room, don't go, do it for me!"
Seamus stopped " You're an idiot" he said " you're an idiot for trying to protect him"
Ava's tears came back and she started crying again " I am not protecting him. I am doing this for Donna, and for me"
Seamus looked at her, she grabbed his arm and led him back to the common room. When they entered the common room, Ava turned to wipe away the last of her tears, she was embarrassed for crying so much in front of Seamus.
When she turned back to him, he was right in front of her. He embraced her. Unfortunately her tears once more came back again and she cried into his chest. He held onto her tightly like he would never let her go.
" I promise I won't ever let him hurt you again" he whispered in her ear.
She didn't say anything, there was nothing to say to that, she just hugged him tighter.
" I am going to bed now" she said.
He let go of her and she made her way to the steps. " Tell me if he ever comes near you again" he said.
Ava smiled at him "okay" she said,
" Does Donna know" he asked.
" yes" she said
" I am telling Ben" Seamus said. Ava whipped around, she couldn't believe it, she opened up to him and he was going to run around telling people.
" What? I cant believe it! You cant tell him! This was suppose to be a secret"
" Woah, Woah relax, I am not going to tell him everything, just the part where Draco threatened Donna, he has a huge thing for her Ava, he would want to know, and we need someone to watch her"
Ava sighed " Well alright then" she said. " But no one else knows about this"
" Promise" he said.
Then she went upstairs to her safe little bed and hopped in, she was snuggled under the covers where she was safe, where no one could hurt her. Right now she felt complete, she had finally told Seamus, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of her chest.
She was so happy that she was leaving tomorrow, she was happy that she and Donna were leaving on the early train tomorrow. She didn't want to be near anyone but Donna at the moment. She felt suddenly embarrassed that she told Seamus. What if he thought that she was being to dramatic or that she was just trying to get attention?
Ava pushed the thought out of her head and willed herself to go to sleep. She slept soundly and had peaceful dreams, another year at Hogwarts was awaiting her.