Chapter 11:
Over the next few days I tried to keep up my spirits still trying to keep my promise to myself that Harry or anyone wouldn't know I wasn't happy, but I was doing an awful job. Even people who didn't know me well kept giving me odd glances, especially when everything was quiet and I didn't try to make a joke, or talk and fill the silences.
One morning Katie shook me awake, well I was already awake but she didn't know that, at 4:00 in the morning. "What?" I asked half groggily. "Quidditch practice." Katie barely yawned out. I looked up and noticed Angelina standing there too. "This early?" I asked shocked. They both just nodded still looking like zombies. I could then hear Wood shouting from the dormitory for us to get down hear, and then something about Harry. I sighed and started stumbling down the stairs yawning, thinking about how long I hadn't slept in. I think my running time now was 48 hours, no, 72 hours, I yawned just thinking about sleep. I hadn't slept since the day I had fallen asleep on the couch next to George, it was such a dreamless sleep I couldn't bare to try and fall asleep and have the nightmares again.
Suddenly I ran smack into George. "Oh sorry." I muttered yawning. "Uh guh la hu." George said back. I looked at him and said "What?" "I am tired. Shhh." Was all George yawned in response. Fred came down behind and whammed me down accidentally when he missed a step while yawning. "Sorry." He muttered. He picked himself off from on top of me and walked away. I sat up and laughed at him, I was about to stand up when George offered me a hand, and I took it and he helped me up. "Thanks." I said breathlessly. "No problem." He yawned. We then walked side-by-side to the field.
Suddenly I saw Professor McGonagall hurrying towards us with a letter in her hand. "Ugh." I groaned. "What?" George asked confused. Then he saw McGonagall with the letter in her hand walking towards us. "Hmm, well she hasn't noticed that we saw her so I say we keep walking." George said cheerfully, putting his arm around my shoulder as if sheltering me from more harm. "Okay..." I said kind of confused because Hermione would have made me wait, and Harry and Ron would have too. George sighed and said quietly to me, "I don't think that you are going to talk to Dumbledore anytime soon, and the only thing the meeting had done is get you upset so what's the point?" I nodded, and thought finally somebody who understands. "But don't take that to mean I won't from time to time quiz you. Or your friends, and why bother I can't control them anyway!" He said cheerfully. I didn't understand how George could always be so cheerful, even when talking about things like this. I guess though looking back it's the way I used to be before everything got really bad.
We made it to the field and to my relief, Professor McGonagall hadn't followed us there. I noticed that Harry was there too, I walked over and sat by him while George went over and sat by his brother. I saw Fred whisper a question to George, and then he went ahead and shot him a dirty look and shook his head at him. All Fred did was smile and nod his head. "What's that all about?" Harry asked watching them. "No idea actually." I whispered back. "So what's up with you and George?" Harry asked with a slight smile on his face. "What?" I asked genuinely confused. 'Why was everyone asking me that?' I thought. "Nothing." Harry said shaking his but still smiling. I was so confused but then Wood started talking so I couldn't ask Harry more questions about what he meant.
Wood's talk went on for hours, and I was so jealous of Harry because he didn't have to pay attention to any of it since he was a seeker. I wouldn't have been able to fall asleep anyway, for fear of waking up screaming. 'That would have been a great conversation with Wood' I thought sarcastically. "Ok so everybody got all of it? Any questions?" Wood asked. Everyone jerked upright and woke up. "Yeah why couldn't you have told us this yesterday when we were all awake?" George asked while yawning. "Now you listen here. Last year we could have won the whole championship. But- owing to unfortunate events we lost." Me and Harry both flinched guiltily we had both been unconscious during the game, and Gryffindor had suffered the worst lost it ever had in history since they were down a seeker and a chaser. "Now let's go." Wood said.
We walked out onto the field and saw Ron and Hermione sitting on the stands. I saw Hermione holding a letter and sighed, I knew George's plan wouldn't work for long, but I had hoped it would at least be put off until tomorrow. I sighed and I looked at George he saw the letter in Hermione's hand too. He winked and grinned at me. I was confused but I smiled back anyway, I hoped he wouldn't get himself into trouble for me though. "Hey you guys aren't done yet?" Ron asked. "We haven't even started." Harry said crankily. We got up in the air, and I saw George fly so close to Hermione that the letter flew up into the air out of her hands. He expertly caught it, while Hermione was still searching the ground of the stands with it.
His plan would have worked perfectly if he had accounted for Harry, or maybe he did and assumed he won't tell her, but I knew he would of course. 'Oh well.' I thought. A clicking sound went off in the stadium right as George flew up to me and Harry. Harry was frowning at George still, while I smiled a little because it was Colin Creevy the kid who adored Harry. "What's that clicking noise?" Fred asked flying up behind George. "I don't know." Harry said turning bright red when he finally noticed that the source of the clicking was from Colin taking pictures. "Why is he taking pictures? I don't like it he could be a Slytherin spy." Wood said, after flying towards us. "He's in Gryffindor." Harry said quickly. "And the Slytherins don't need a spy they are here themselves." Fred said pointing out the team of Slytherins in green robes walking up to the field. "No! I booked the field today they can't!" Wood said positively spitting in rage.
We all flew down and met them at the end of the field. Katie and Angelina came swooping down immediately after we landed coming to a stop at my side. On my other side was George and he slipped me something, I fingered it and realized it was the letter, I put it in my robes before anyone could notice. "What are you doing here? I booked the field for today." Wood said close to screaming. "We are here to practice too in order to train our new seeker. We got a special note here from Professor Snape."
Flint handed Wood the note, and Wood looked at it. "Who's your new seeker?" Wood asked curiosity winning out over his rage. They all moved aside and I gasped in surprise. "Malfoy?" Harry said. "And that's not all that's new." Flint said, and then they flashed there new brooms to us. Hermione and Ron just made it up to the field, obviously they were worried what would end up happening between the two rivals. "At least none of us had to buy our way in. We got in on pure talent." I said defending our team.
"Nobody asked your opinion. You can't even figure out your own life without the help of the headmaster, how can you figure out Quidditch?" Malfoy hissed at me. My face burned with embarrassment and hurt, and suddenly George and Fred launched themselves at Malfoy, and everything went into chaos. Flint was able to stop Fred and George from attacking Malfoy, but not Ron. Ron pulled out his wand and said, "You'll pay for that Malfoy!" A bang went off with his wand, and green filled up the stadium. Except, the curse, instead of hitting Malfoy it backfired and hit Ron. Harry and Hermione ran over to Ron with the of Slytherin team laughing hysterically at them. I walked off the field, and started walking back to the castle. I could hear somebody following me but I didn't want to talk to anybody right now. "Arrington." I faltered a little bit in my stride. I realized it was George following me, I wasn't expecting that. I kept walking anyway, because the tears were still flowing hard and fast, and I knew they weren't going to stop anytime soon.
I walked up to the dormitory portrait and said the password, it swung open and I walked in. Thankfully it was still early so nobody was in it, everyone was still at breakfast. George walked in not long after, to find me sitting back in the small love seat staring at the fire. He opened his mouth as of wanting to say something but then closed it again. I took the letter out of my robes and opened it.
Dear Arrington,
I am going away for the time being, and will schedule another meeting when I come back. Best of wishes!
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
I gave the note to George. I just sighed, for all of that work it was for nothing anyway. "Alright enough of this moping around. I know I don't know exactly what's wrong with you, I will figure out though, but for now we are going to play wizards chess." George said throwing the note in the fire. I watched it slowly burn for a little bit and then decided George was right, enough moping around. "I don't even know how to play chess." I said in response. "Huh? Chess?" George said looking extremely confused. "Never mind, I'm just saying that I have no idea how to play." I said a small smile breaking out on my face. "See already working I'm just a ball of sunshine!" George said in delight. This I had to laugh at, it was true that there was no way anybody could be sad around George, he was too funny and sweet.
George ran over grabbed the board and started the difficult process of trying to teach me chess. In no time he had me playing chess, but an even more difficult task to accomplish was that he had me laughing again. Ron, Harry, and Hermione walked in after a little bit and Ron had a sort of green glow about him. "Hey, Arrington!" Hermione said sounding shocked when she saw me laughing and smiling. "Hey, don't mess up my concentration." I said shushing her but also waving back. "Don't tell me you were actually able to teach her to play!?" Ron asked shocked. "I was it was really easy you're just an awful player so you couldn't even explain it right." George said defending me. I just laughed and shook my head at the two of them.
I turned back to the game and was about to move another piece when suddenly Ron burped up a slug onto the chessboard. Me and George looked at each other, than Ron, and then back at each other again. "Well I don't know about you but I'm kinda done now." I said standing up. "Me too." George said looking in disgust at the slug moving around the chessboard. Everyone just burst out laughing at the whole situation. "So since when has Ron started burping slugs?" I asked. "Well I tried to curse Malfoy, but it didn't work out so well." Ron said shrugging. "You really should fix that wand." Harry said laughing at him.
"Oh, I almost forgot!" Ron shouted slapping his forehead, making both me and George jump in surprise from our game. We had finally gotten the board clean after trying out different cleaning spells with Hermione just sighing at us until she finally got up and did it herself. "We have detention tonight Harry." Ron explained. "Oh yeah!" Harry said. "What time is it at?" "Ummmm." Ron said and then looked at Hermione pleadingly. I just snickered under my breath. "What?" George asked not understanding. I gave a 'just wait' look and smiled. "Honestly I can't keep track of your guys schedule and my own! You two have your detentions at 8:00, Harry your at Lockharts office, and Ron your at the trophy room with Filtch." "Aww thanks Hermione." Ron said.
I just shook my head still laughing. "So we have what, an hour?" Harry said looking at the clock. Ron nodded going back to his potions homework. "Why don't you have potions homework?" George asked looking at the three of them completing the parchment. "Did you already finish?" "Well umm no." I said. "Huh?" George asked confused. "While I kinda don't have to do the homework." I explained. "Wait, why?" George asked confused. Hermione, Harry, and Ron had started listening in, and I realized they never knew what I thought about this whole situation with Snape. "I don't know." I lied. "Well I mean for some reason Snape likes me and never gives me homework." I had an idea of why Snape liked me, I was more like my mother and less like my father who he hated. I just couldn't figure out why he didn't hate my mother. "Oh that's weird, so he just likes you and not your brother?" George said summarizing.
"Hmm, I wouldn't say that Snape dislikes me more like hates me." Harry said scoffing. I hated when they talked bad about Snape because I could tell he was a good person at heart. Although I hated when anybody talked bad about anybody. "Alright well I'll be right back I should probably go get my homework." George said.