Sweet Dreams

After Quidditch tryouts, I was utterly exhausted. Most of our good players were gone because they graduated, so our only good player – at the start – was, regrettably, Malfoy. Just thinking about it made me shudder. He stared down TJ as if she was a piece of meat, which unnerved me. After everyone was gone I had made him stay to run some more drills because of that. Harsh? I think not.

With TJ still asleep after drilling the Quidditch team hopefuls – and knowing her, she’ll be like that for awhile, as she sleeps like a fucking boulder – I walked off to find my other favorite creatures that resided in Hogwarts, Thestrals. Whenever I saw them, I talked to Luna Lovegood, who was there regularly. We would chat for awhile before she would bound off and I’d stay with them.

As I neared the creatures, one had their head bowed as if it was being petted. I let a small smile grace my lips as I guessed it was Luna, since she was here after almost all dinners. “Hey Luna-” I called out, causing the hand to stop petting the thestral. My brow furrowed before I saw who was really there…Harry Potter.

“What an unpleasant surprise,” I snorted, taking a piece of meat from the tote-purse hanging off my shoulder. The silence was eerie as I tried to avoid looking at him…but he was definitely looking at me. “What, Potter?” I finally snapped, not liking his stares.

He was taken aback by my tone before turning back to a threstral in front of him. “Sorry, I’m just surprised that you’re not with that girl like you always are.”

“She can’t see them.” I said simply, my mind flashing back to his comment in the train. He nodded understandingly, which made me twitch.

“Do you come here often?” I said after moment of silence before bursting out in laughter at my own statement. It was a cheesy pick-up line used on me more often than I care to remember and I was slightly horrified at myself that that was what I could come up with.

Harry began to chuckle as well and I regained my composure as best as I could before I reverted back to my cold glare. He raised an eyebrow at my change, but said nothing further.

“It’s actually only my second time here, as I’ve just begun to see them.” He didn’t even need to tell me, I knew that Cedric was dead thanks to my father’s minion. I just nodded as if I didn’t know. “How long have you been able to see them?”

“Too long to remember,” I answered, the thought of my father’s body-less soul ordering his minions to kill in front of me for the first time clouded my head. It was a rebellious little boy – buck teeth, spikey sandy blonde hair, and deep, deep blue eyes that always reminded me of the sea at night – who Wormtail had avada kedavra-d. He took it as a sign of a horrible memory of someone close to me and I secretly smirked to myself as a fake-memory filled my head, in case I needed a quick story, of course.

“Why are you and that girl so cold to people?” He finally asked after an awkward silence. My nose twitched as I turned to him, forgetting about the thestral in front of me. All that consumed me was not how we were mean, it was how everyone else was mean. “That doesn’t even deserve a response, Potter.” He sighed at my sudden change again and a flick of regret flashed through his eyes as I turned on my heel and stomped away.