©Sunrisepainter: Because of Snape
Boy Below The Bed
„Hey Hope, want tocome with us to Hogsmead tomorrow?", Alicia asked as Hope entered the girls dorm.
Alicia Spinnet and her friend Angelina Johnson were sitting one one of the beds and had just finished talking about Quidditch. Now they watched their classmate going over to her suitcase and stored the book about love potions in it.
"Probably not", she answered as she put the suitcase back below the bed, "I have some revision to do for the UTZs,"
"What? Already?", Angelina was very surprised, "isn't it too early? I mean there's still plenty of time until the exams."
"To be exact we still have nine month, sixteen days and fourteen hours."
"Do you know, Hope", Alicia grinned, "you're really a workaholic."
Hope just shrugged her shoulders.
"What about taking a break for a change? Just let work be work and spend some at Hogsmead with us", Angelina proposed.
"Exactly! Lee, Katie and the Weasley – twins will be there as well", Alicia added excitedly.
"I'm sorry, girls. I couldn't stand to be with an airhead like Fred Weasley, not even a minute. It's already enough that I have to waste time with him because of Snape."
"Oh, come on, Hope. He isn't as bad as you think and it will surely be fun!"
"No, and now I'll excuse myself. I'm hungry!", having said this she went to eat dinner. Angelina and Alicia looked at each other.
"Well, at least we tried. If she doesn't want to have anything to do with us, it's her loss. But she has no right to think that we're excluding her in any way."
"I agree with you, Leesh!"
Fred did not tell anyone of his friends about his encounter with Malfoy. He was just to angry about Hope's reaction to his interference. Why did she always had to be so stubborn? Well, he admitted that George and him often made her a victim of their jokes but why did she need to be so easy too fool? Sometimes she reminded him of his older brother Percy.
"Hey brother, what are you looking at so intensively? It wouldn't be Shycates by any chance?" smirking George leaned forward.
"Just watching McLaggen, in case he's doing his next move. You'll always have to watch your opponent, especially if you have something on the line."
"You're thinking about the thing with Bagman?"
"Exactly!"
"You're right, we should really keep our eyes on the two of them. How about you take care of Shycates and I'll handle McLaggen?"
"Agreed!"
George truned around and Fred was relieved that he believed his lie.
The next morning Hope was woken up by a soft ticking. Sleepily she opened her eyes and saw a black owl pecking the glass of the window with its beak. Alicia grumbled something like "Shut the hell up!" and Angelina pulled her pillow over her head in irritaion.
Swiftly Hope jumped out off bed to let the small owl into the room which immidiately sat down on her bedstill. There was an envelope on her leg. Hope was surprised to find out that it had her address on it. She usually only got letters from her mother. And did not the post usually come during breakfast times in the Great Hall? Musing she opened the letter and started reading:
Dear Hope,
surely you are amazed to get a letter from me, but I just wanted to make sure that you are doing good in Hogwarts. I can only assume that you are quite angry with me because I never contacted you before. And I admit that you have every reason to be. I can only hope that you will not get rid of it before even open it. If you did not do so, please go on reading, because there is something I need to tell you:
I regret leaving you and your mother without a word of sorry or at least a goodbye and hurting you so much. I love Aglaja and sometimes love causes a lot of pain to others. I was blinded and maybe I still am. I did my greatest mistake and I was too much of a coward to realize it.
Now, it was the first time that I was brave enough to write to you and I hope you will answer. I beg you Hope, I just want to know everything I missed since I left you and how you are doing.
With Love
Your Dad
Hope read the lines for a second time but they did not change their meaning. He really dared to write something like this! Anger welled up in her. She was angry at her dad. She did not want to hear from him. He has never cared about her before and now, when she finally managed to forget about him completely, he looked for her.
She screamed in frustration which made Alicia falling out of her bed and Angelina opening her eyes in surprise. With watery eyes Hope put on her clothes, grabbed her schoolbag and rushed out f the dorm. She closed the door with a loud bang. Angelina and Alicia had watched her leaving and were too shocked to even utter a word.
Hope stomped down the stairs into the common room while being followed by the disbelieving eyes of her classmates. She stopped in front of the fire place. The flames dangerously were reflected in her eyes and some first year students frightened left their seats.
"Bastard!", she cursed her father and tore his letter apart.
"Damn coward!"
Rip.
"Major liar!"
Rip.
"Scumbag!"
Rip.
"Egocentric idiot!"
Rip.
"Dung grup!"
With her last curse she threw the remaining shreds into fire place. Immediately they were surrounded by the blaze and started burning. Filled with satisfaction she watched the flames eating the paper and felt a little lighter.
"Hope", softly, someone gripped her arm.
She swirled around and found Hermione Granger standing behind her, eying her with concern.
"I-is there anything wrong?"
Hope smiled. She had never been asked that question before.
"No, I'm sorry Hermione. I just had to release some stress."
The other girl nodded understandingly:
"I get it, but maybe sou should go apologize to the first graders. They seemed to be very startled by your sudden outburst. The little Euan Abercrombie even hid under his bed." Hope looked very ashamed of herself:
"Really?" Hermione nodded.
"Fair enough! I'll go apologize immediately. Thank you, Hermione", she showed her brightest smile and went to the boys' dormitory.
Actually, this Granger girl was pretty nice. It was not the first time that Hope took notice of her younger schoolmate. She often would meet her in the library, where she used to learn while her two boisterous friends Ron Weasley and Harry Potter would turn the school life upside down. And for some reason she suddenly felt a glimpse of fondness toward the younger girl.
Gently she knocked at the door with the sign "First Years". No one answered. Did she really scare them that much?
"Euan?"
Again, nobody answered, but now there were steps coming closer and some time later a boy opened the door. When he noticed her, he panicked and tried to close the door again, but she put her food in between the frame.
"Don't worry, I won't hurt you or anything like that! I just wanted to say sorry for being so rude", she said hastily and was not sure if the boy did even understood a word of her rambling.
"Really?", he squeaked warily.
"I promise!", she raised two fingers as if to take an oath. Hesitantly the boy fully opened the door.
"So, maybe you can even give us a hand here, Miss! Euan still hides under his bed and refuses to come out, because he's really scared of you", she did not miss the accusation in his tone. Embarrassed Hope looked at him.
"I'm really very, very sorry."
Determined and with the intention of calming the frightened boy as fast as possible, she entered the dorm. Another boy crouched beside a bed still and desperately talked at a pair of shoes that peered below the bed.
"Please Euan, she won't do anything!"
"How do you know? Did you see her scary eyes?"
"But you can't stay forever under your bed."
"Why not?", the voice under the bed asked sullenly.
"Cause...cause eventually you have to eat something and what do thing McGonagall will do if you won't show up during Transfiguration?"
"I can easily summon food with magic and if you tell me everything that you did in class, I won't have to ever come out again!"
Hope thought it was time for her to take some action. The boy beside the bed looked more and more helpless.
"Well Euan, I think you're friend is definitely right. If you don't come out, you'll miss out on so many fun things. You won't experience your first Halloween at Hogwarts or the final ceremony and additionally it's pretty dark down there!", her voice had a soothing ring to it, but when Euan realized who was talking to him, he even pulled his feed below the bed and fell silent.
"Euan?"
"Go away!" Hope sighed:
"Okay, as you wish! At first I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, but now that you are so stubborn there seems to be no other was as to sit here and wait until you come out of there!"
Silence.
"Great", she sat down with bend knees and waited patiently for what he might do next. However, nothing happened.
Well, I guess have a choice. Like this, I have to be a little meaner, she though mischievously.
"I don't want to frighten you but I heard that your face gets winkled if you stay in the dark for too long."
"So what? My face can't be seen anyway if I stay like this forever", his answer was quite feisty.
Crap!
"And down there may be a lot of spiders. Do you want to throw a party with them?"
(Pow). Immediately he raised his head and knocked into the bed frame. He groaned with pain and swiftly left his shelter.
"I hate spiders the most!", he cried and jumped onto his feed.
Bull's eye! I found his weakness by chance though!, Hop thought and smirked. Euan saw her mischievous expression and rubbed his head, looking quite huffy.
"There are no spiders at all, right?" Hope started to laugh:
"Well, at least I never saw one down there!"
Even his room mates were laughing at him now although a bump was forming where he crashed into the bed.
"Haha, very funny", at first Euan seemed angry but then he joined there laughter as well. It was just too funny thinking about an eleven year old boy hiding under the bed because of a girl. Hope gave him a pat on the back:
"I'm sorry, I'm usually not so short tempered like I was back then. I promise I'll never do it again
"Really?"
"Yeah!", and for the second time this morning, Hope gave a word of honour. Everything was settled and Hope left the first graders dorm with a bright smile on the lips. However, she istantly bumped into someone, right after closing the door behind her.
"Ow!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Weasley?"
"Shycates?"
The smile on Hope's face ceased and her face turned to stone.
"What are you doing here? That's the boy's dormitory, Shycates!"
"I'm aware of that."
"Did you perhaps come for some secret night activity?", Fred had the usual smug Weasley-smirk plastered on his face. Hope would have loved to smack it off.
"With the first graders?", he whistled insinuatingly.
"You know, Weasly, sometimes you're so, so..."
Her voice died away as she could not think of something suitable. Oh, his stupid face drove her crazy!
"Handsome? Charming? Kissable?"
"In your dreams!"
"Or in yours?"
"Don't go overboard, Weasley", she hissed.
"Why not?", he put his face dangerously close to hers. Quickly, she drew back a few inches.
"I warn you! Don't come closer or I'll hurt you", she angrily pressed her wand under his chin. He just gave er an amused smile:
"So what? You want to curse me?"
"I would do anything to get you out of my way!", she spit out.
Before she was able to grasp the situation, he clutched her wrist and turned her around, so that he was now facing her back. She gasped.
"If I were you, I would be more cautious around me, Shycates. I told you something like this before, remember?", he hissed next to her ear which made her blood run cold.
"Stop playing games, Weasley. You're hurting me", her voice was hoarse.
He realized what he did on the spur of the moment and let go of her immediately. For a moment she just glared at him before she spun around and rushed down the stairs. She didn't want him to see her tears. However, he saw them anyway and felt more guilty than ever.
"Damn" he cursed himself and punched his fist into a door frame. He definitely crossed a boundary this time. But since when did he posses something like a conscience? Was it possible? Yes, he could feel it deep inside of his chest. If she was scared of him now?
"Sometimes you're such a jerk, Fred Weasley", he mumbled and he decided to apologize to her, at least to salve his conscience.
End of Chapter Seven.