A Muggle at Hogwarts

Around me, I could hear the faint yelling of people. But when I opened my eyes, it took me a moment to actually see. It must have been from the hit to the head, but soon, my vision cleared, and I found a boy with pale blond hair hovered over me.

“Draco!” I gasped when I saw the look of pain on his face. “Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” he quickly relied before trying to push himself off me. But just then, he winced in pain before tumbling back down. I quickly rose and caught him in my arms.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him as he leaned against me.

“It’s nothing,” he replied, though he still remained leaning against me for support.

I remained silent as I looked up at the people around us. It was as though everyone was moving in slow motion, passing Draco and me. Amazingly, no one seemed to notice the two of us there on the ground.

I then turned my attention back to Draco, who slowly parted from against me. As he pulled away, I couldn’t help but noticed how handsome he looked. His pale-blond hair was slit back neatly but for a stand of hair that hung over his misty blue-gray eyes. There were small droplets of water on his thin, pale face that slid down the side of his smooth cheek.

“You’re trembling,” he whispers to me.

“You’re hurt,” I replied sadly—our eyes locked.

Suddenly, our brief moment was broken when someone screeched: “WHERE ARE YOU DRACO!?”

I turned to look in the direction the voice had come from, and found Pansy, Crabbe and Goyal ascending the stairs to the Gryffindor viewing stand with Snape, McGonagall and Dumbledore behind them. Draco quickly stumbled to his feet and staggered away from me as Pansy raced through the crowd of Gryffindors in search of Draco.

“Violet?” shouted Harry from somewhere in the crowd. “Where are you?”

Suddenly, through a small crowd I could see Harry approaching me. When I turned back to look at Draco, he was already gone.

“Violet! Are you all right?” Harry asked as he knelt in front of me holding his arm.

I gasped. “Harry, what happened to you?”

“It’s nothing,” he said glancing down at his arm. “Malfoy’s broom swung into me and I crashed into the stands.”

“Harry it’s broken!” I exclaimed horridly as the rest of the Gryffindor team—along with Hermione—appeared around Harry and me. “Come on, we have to get you to the Hospital Wing!”

“I’ll go get Madam Pomfrey!” Katie Bell said as she along with Demelza Robins turn and leave.

“How’s Potter doing?” Professor McGonagall asked as she and Dumbledore appeared through the Gryffindor team.

“His arm’s broken,” Ron replied.

“That’s not good. Hurry up and get him to the Hospital Wing,” she ordered.

“Blood hell!” I heard someone scream.

I turned my attention to see Draco standing—surrounded by his teammates, Crabbe, Goyal, Pansy and Snape. He was holding onto his shoulder, and Snape looked to be examining it.
Dumbledore then stepped aside, and through the usage of his wand, said that the game was to be postponed due to the injuries of Harry and Draco.

“Let’s get you to the Hospital Wing, Harry.” Ron suggested as he and Jimmy Peakes—one of the Beaters—helped Harry to his feet. He let out a soft groan of pain as his team members lifted him to his feet.

Just as they did this Slytherins’ team approached the group furious.

“Forfeit the match!” Urquhart—the team captain—ordered.

“What—in your dreams!” Ginny snapped.

“Your player hurt our player. It’s only fair that you forfeit the match to Slytherin!” he argued.

“Are you blind? Everyone saw that it was Malfoy who caused Harry to fall in the first place!” Ron pointed out.

“Or so you say,” Crabbe said accusing Ron of lying.

“Oh please, you’re simply afraid that if there was a rematch, Slytherin would lose. Don’t try to make fools out of yourselves and force Gryffindor to forfeit,” Hermione commented.

“Shut your bloody mouth Mudblood!” Goyal snapped.

“What did you call her?” Ron snapped while taking a step forward to defend Hermione.

“Stop it!” I ordered as I stepped in between the two bickering teams. “You guys can bicker about this later! Is a game really worth more than your Seekers? We need to get them to the Hospital Wing,” I paused and glanced at Draco. “We need to get both of them to the Hospital Wing.”

“You stay out of this! We don’t need to take orders from a bloody Muggle like yourself!” Miles Bletchley—Slytherin’s Keeper—growled as he pushed me back into the team of Gryffindor. Despite the fact that Harry’s arm was broken, he ripped himself out of his team’s grip and caught me in his arms. Harry winced in pain as he wrapped his right arm around me to catch me.

“Harry!” I gasped as I pulled away. “I’m sorry, are you all right?”

“Yeah,” he lied through his teeth.

“You’re a horrible liar, Harry,” Hermione commented. “We really must get you to the hospital.”

“Come on, Harry. Let’s get you out of here,” Ron suggested as he quickly walked off with Harry and Hermione before the Slytherin team could stop them. The other members of the Gryffindor team quickly followed Ron and Harry, but Ginny and me. She looked kind of lost somehow. There was an empty look on her slim pale face as she watched the other leave. I couldn’t help but worry a little.

“Ginny,” I called out. She quickly snapped back into reality and looked at me. “Are you all right?”

A small smile appeared on her face as she nodded. “Come on, let’s go to the Hospital Wing with Harry and the others.”

I nodded in agreement and headed off of the field with Ginny. At the door, I felt the urge to look back at Draco to see if he was doing all right. Just when I began to turn my head, I told myself to stop. I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. I had to stop getting myself into situations where I feel for Draco. In the end, we simply go our separate paths, anyways. By trying to hold onto that person I met at Diagon Alley, I was simply making it harder for myself to go on with my life at Hogwarts. With all the determination in me, I restrained myself from looking back at Draco and hurried after Ginny.

***

I walked up and down the aisle of the Muggle section in the library in search of the fairytale book by the Brothers Grimm. However, I’ve been having trouble concentrating on the task because my mind was always wondering back to how Harry—and Draco—were doing. Draco, apparently, dislocated his arm. But at the requested of his mother—rumor has it—he to remain in the Hospital Wing to recover.

“Have any luck?” Hermione groaned as she appeared in front of me.

“What?” I asked as I snapped back to reality.

Hermione looked at me, and a small smile formed on her face. She leaned on one of the desks and asked, “Are you worried about Harry?”

I quickly turned to look at her. A heavy sigh escaped me before I asked, “Is it really that obvious?”

Hermione nodded.

“Ugh, I feel like an over-worried mother or something. It’s only been a day. Harry’s out of the Hospital Wing tomorrow and then he’s good. I don’t know why I’m freaking out about this so much.”

Hermione laughed and let out heavy sight before saying, “just go see him, then, Violet. It’s fine, really.”

“What—oh, no; I can’t,” I declined. “I promised you that I would help you look for the book.”

“It’s fine, Violet. Anyways, I don’t know how you can look for the book if you’re worrying about Harry,” Hermione grinned widely.

I flashed Hermione a smile and nodded. I then bid her farewell and headed out of the library. I hurried down the hallways. Just as I turned the corner, I ran into someone and fell backwards. Papers fell all around me, and I heard the breaking of glass.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized as I looked up at the person I ran into. Right at that moment, I felt my heart sink. I quickly picked up all the papers and handed it to the person.

“Ms. Bell,” Snape muttered looking down at me.

“I’m really sorry about this Professor Snape,” I apologized as he snatched the papers from me.

“Where are you heading,” he asked.

“I’m heading to the Hospital Wing, sir,” I replied.

“Ah, to check on Mr. Potter or Malfoy?” Snape questioned.

I stared sternly back at Snape and said, “I’m going to check up on Harry, sir.”

“Well, come with me,” Snape said as he walked passed me.

“But sir—!” I objected.

“Follow me, Ms. Bell,” Snape ordered.

I groaned as I followed behind Snape. We walked down the halls and went into his office. He told me to wait in front of the room while he went to his desk. Once back, he placed a pile of papers on his front desk and pulled out a quill, piece of parchment, and small bottle of ink. He strolled over to me and handed me the materials.

“What’s this for?” I asked as I looked down at the materials in my hand.

“Write a hundred times: ‘I will not run in the hallways’,” Snape said. As he retreated back into his office, he called back. “Make sure your number them. But first, organize the paper on my desk—alphabetical order by last names.”

“Are you serious?” I scoffed.

“You’re wasting time, Ms. Bell,” Snape simply said he closed the door.

I sighed heavily as I hurried to the front desk and began organizing the papers.

“You are such a prick,” I growled under my breath as I quickly began rummaging through the papers. I tried to organize the paper as soon as I could so that I could go see Harry. But judging from the pile of papers in front of me, I knew that it would be at least an hour before I could go see Harry. But that didn’t include the writing portion I still had to write.

After about an hour, I finally finished organizing the stacks papers. It didn’t help that some papers written by the same person was scattered throughout the piles. But once I finally had the paper arranged the way Snape wanted them, I started on the written portion of Snape’s punishment. It seemed like another eternity as I sat in the quiet, dark room writing ‘I will not run in the hallways’. I was only on the seventy-fifth that I stopped because I had run out of ink.

I got up and headed to Snape’s office. I stopped at the door and peered into his room. Snape was away at his desk working on some papers. I wanted to ask him for more ink, but he looked busy. Not wanting to bother him more than I already had, I turned back and went to his front desk to look for ink. As I opened the small draws and looked for the ink, I noticed something heart-shapes and gold beneath some papers.

“What’s this?” I wondered. I looked behind me towards Snape’s office to make sure he wasn’t coming before I grabbed the picture frame. There were two people in the picture, a young girl—who looked about sixteen—with long chocolate brown hair and bright blue eyes—like me. Her red winter coat against her fair skin made her stand out even more. Beside her was a man with chin-length black hair and matching dark eyes. He didn’t look like the lovey-dovey type of person, but he did seem to be enjoying himself. When he let a small smirk fall onto his face, the girl in the picture smile widened even more than it already was.

“What are you doing?” Snape shouted.

I quickly put the picture frame back into his drawer and turned around to face Snape. He marched around from his office door to me and glared down at me.

“I—I was looking for ink,” I quickly explained.

Snape’s eyes remained on me for a brief moment before his eyes shifted to his opened drawer. The look on his face became stern with a slight show of anger.

“Get out!” he ordered in a low grumble.

“What—?”

“GET OUT!” he bellowed loudly while pointing to the door.

I stumbled backwards and fell onto the floor from fright and shock. I quickly got onto my feet and raced out of the classroom. I ran from his classroom and didn't stop until I reached the inside of the Gryffindor Tower.

“Violet, are you all right?” Hermione asked when I ran into the common room.

“You look frightening,” Ginny commented as she got up from her seat.

“I’m all right,” I said, though I was shaking.

“You’re almost as bad a liar as Harry,” Hermione pointed out as she too got up from her seat. “Come sit down, Violet.”

I nodded and went and sat down between Hermione and Ginny.

“You’re shaking, Violet,” Ginny said.

"Did something happen to Harry?" Hermione questioned.

“Doubt it; Ron’s with him right now. If anything happened, he would be here telling us,” Ginny pointed out.

“No—nothing happened to Harry. I didn’t even go to the Hospital Wing,” I explained.

“Are you serious? You’ve been gone for at least two hours!” Hermione exclaimed.

“I was in Snape’s classroom,” I explained. “I ran into him when I was heading to go see Harry. He made me organize some of his papers and write ‘I will not run in the hallways’ a hundred times.”

“But?” Ginny questioned.

“Well, I ran out of ink, so I went to get some from his desk. Inside, I found a picture of a couple. I think it might have been Snape when he was still attending Hogwarts. But he caught me looking at the picture and—well, I’m not really sure what happened myself. Snape just kind of—snapped.”

Both Hermione and Ginny’s eyes widened as they looked at one another.

“Who was the girl—do you know?” Ginny asked.

“I'm not entirely sure. But, I think it might be Scarlet,” I said more to myself than Hermione and Ginny.

“Scarlet? Who is that?” Hermione asked.

“I don’t know who she is. But Snape called me Scarlet a few time before. Like I said, I don’t really know who she is, but maybe the girl in the picture might be her. She might have attended Hogwarts because the picture was taken in front of the school.”

“Interesting…” Hermione trailed off.

“I think it’s best if you should head to bed, Violet. You need a good rest,” Ginny suggested.

“Yeah,” Hermione agreed. “Anyways, we need to be up bright and early tomorrow. Harry’s out of the hospital so we should go meet him.”

I forced a small smile and nodded. “Yeah, sleeping sounds good to me.”

“Come on,” Hermione smiled as she and Ginny too got up and we headed up to our rooms.