Chapter 19
As she sat over the bubbling cauldron, her focus was impenetrable. A student could have sent off a thousand Weasley products in the corridor and she still wouldn't have looked up. Despite having sworn to herself she never would again, Pandora was concocting yet another potion for Bridget.
"Last one, I swear," Bridget had crossed her heart with her fingers upon Pandora's immediate refusal. "I'm just stressing so much, P. I need a little pick me up. That'll be it, I promise." Pandora wavered, and upon seeing her hesitation, Bridget pestered and begged until she finally gave in. And here she was, sitting in an empty corridor in the middle of the night cooking up a potion that would surely get her expelled. But being who she was had its perks, and she knew no one would stop to question her. As she picked up the glass vial to add the final ingredient, she heard footsteps down the hall. Even though she knew her reputation preceded her and no professor would probably stop her from her potion making, she still hesitated. When she saw Harry's gallant stride, his head bowed and his eyes, those beautiful eyes, so determined and searching, she couldn't catch her breath. He passed her quickly; it was as though he was never there. But her hands lost feeling and the glass vial shattered.
"Are you okay?" he was back in an instant, on his hands and knees picking up each glass shard like it was a piece of a pristine puzzle. His eyes were filled with such concern, such longing that she almost wept right there. But she regained her composure, shaking off her feelings like a shiver and looked down to try to wipe up the ingredient that was now seeping into the tile.
"Fine, sorry. Got distracted," she murmured before realizing what she was saying.
"So I'm a distraction, huh?" there was laughter in his voice, familiarity, friendliness, affection.
"If you didn't notice, it's almost the dead of night and I'm clearly breaking about ten school rules," she fired back, trying to appear her usual, confident self.
"Ah, you? A rule breaker? I'm shocked," he teased, looking up from the floor to make eye contact with her for the first time. She was so shocked by his eyes, by his electric gaze and the feelings they stirred within her that she didn't realize he had cut himself on the glass until she heard him wince. Apparently he had been too caught up in the stare as well.
"Blood," she assessed mechanically. She was reaching for her wand and his hand without realizing it. The second she touched his wrist she shivered, but she kept her face neutral as she pushed up his sleeve to repair the cut. He began to protest but she shushed him as she opened her mouth to perform a healing spell. But her voice caught in her throat when she took in the marks on his hand. I must not tell lies.
"I'm a klutz," he said hastily, yanking his hand away and pulling up his sleeve. She sat there, wand poised and her mouth still open. His eyebrows raised at her and she snapped her jaw shut and put her wand down quickly.
"Were you—did you—" she couldn't form words. All she could think was that someone had hurt Harry, her Harry, hurt him and she had to figure out who it was so she could kill them.
"Detention's a bitch," he laughed, playing it off.
"Umbridge did this to you?" she hissed, her anger boiling. This bitch would get it, she decided. She immediately began plotting how to concoct a projectile vomiting drink, perhaps a diarrhea one while she was at it—
"It's whatever," he shrugged it off like it was nothing.
"It's not whatever," she insisted. "We have to get even."
"We?" he scoffed. "Since when do you care? It's not like you, I dunno, wrote to me or anything." She felt a pang in her gut. So much for avoiding him and this.
"I've been busy all summer helping my father," that part wasn't a lie, though she was speaking rapidly to avoid any questions being interjected. "He's been grooming me to take over, the store I mean, and he's had me doing odd jobs and all that so I can be totally prepared for when I have to take it over." He looked as though he wasn't paying attention. She felt fire rising within her. Though she had planned on never speaking to him again, she felt the surging need for him to believe her, to forgive her, overpowering her common sense. "I read your letters—every single one. I felt your pain, heard your words in your voice and I wanted to write back, honest, I just really didn't have the time,"
"Somehow," he drawled his voice filled with venom, "that doesn't make it any better."
"It's my family," she emphasized helplessly. "My father needed me so I was there."
"Well I'm glad you're living up to the family name," he huffed.
"Well I'm glad you're living up to your bad boy reputation," she shot back.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, please, the boy who put his name in the goblet of fire and won and now, the boy that almost got expelled." She filled each word with the same venom he had laced his words with. "Why were you doing magic in the presence of a muggle? Were you showing him who's boss? Picking on someone you could actually beat up?"
"It wasn't like that," his tone softened, his eyes taking on a dreamy, faraway look. "I didn't intend for it to happen. One second, we're talking, the next, the sky is dark and then a dementor appears… I had no choice. I had to fight."
"Oh, but Hogwarts bad boy isn't afraid of anything, especially not a dementor! What happy memories did he take? All those nights snogging with cho chang? God forbid!" she was on a roll. Though every fiber in her being screamed at her to stop, to just hug him close and never let him go, she knew she must continue. "What ever will Harry Potter have to rely on for happiness? The fleeting memory of his defeat of Lord Voldemort? The memory that two adult wizards couldn't take Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard of our time, but Harry Potter, oh no, Harry Potter could, because he's such a bad boy!" He recoiled instantly, his face scrunching up with so much hurt that she almost choked on her own saliva as she hated them for forcing her, hated him for making it so difficult, hated herself most of all, for everything she couldn't be but wanted to so desperately be for everyone.
"Don't you ever reference my parents again," his voice was resolved, even, though his eyes were dangerous, filled with fire. "I was wrong about you. You're just like everyone else," and with that, he was off, gone so fast his scent lingered in her nostrils only for a second before it disappeared with him. She sat back against the wall and sighed. That was exactly what she had wanted; to be just like everyone else. She had ached for so many years to be told she was just like them, just like all the other Slytherins. She had questioned it so many times; it should have reassured her to hear it from him, to be told she was right where she belonged.
But as her body sank and her shoulders racked with silent sobs, she couldn't stop the thoughts from flashing through her mind: If this was what I wanted, why the hell does it feel so wrong?
