You're My Hero

Rebecca Jude threw her hands over her ears. Noise was the last thing she needed right now. Her ears were already ringing too much. She felt like throwing up. In fact, she actually hurried into the Forbidden Forest a couple of times and dry heaved as her phone vibrated tirelessly. Fourteen missed calls. Twelve unread messages. Draco Malfoy was one step away to sending out a search party.

Rebecca failed at one last attempt to throw up before getting back on her path and rerouting herself in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. She figured he’d still be awake. Something deep in her gut told her so.

Her mind lurched back to Draco. She had sex with him. She had sex with Draco Malfoy and then he goes and cheats on her, practically right in front of her face. If that meant nothing to him then fine, but it meant the world to Rebecca. Draco Malfoy probably had sex with a different girl every week. Why the fuck should a Hufflepuff sixth year be any different to him?

She had barely gone another twenty feet when she stopped again. Her whole body was fidgety and the confines of the cobblestone path felt too small for me to handle. Pacing along the edge of a field, back and forth like a pendulum, she tried to concentrate on breathing steadily. She was just about to Hagrid’s by now. The only thing surrounding her was grass and the smell of the pumpkin patch.

She picked up every rock, stick, and dirt clod in sight and chucked them into the field. Rebecca waited till she heard the distant crash of the unlucky pumpkins that were being struck before she picked up another. After a while, she felt like she was throwing the same twig over and over again like it kept coming back to her as if it were a boomerang.

Her arm started to ache from exhaustion. It was getting late, and she really needed to see the boy in Gryffindor.

As she kicked dust up on the path, Rebecca heard her phone pulse in her robes. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Her feet echoed in the empty Hogwarts corridors, thankfully drowning out the sound of the phone and the sound of Rebecca’s heart crumbling. Almost there.

“Rebecca?” Harry Potter yawned as she walked into the Gryffindor Common Room. “Merlin’s Beard, it’s like two in the morning.” He blinked firmly a couple of the times, readjusting the round glasses that were his signature. Realization fell over his face as he took in Rebecca’s appearance. “What’s wrong?”

She really didn’t have an answer to this question, let alone the ability to formulate a sentence. Instead, she threw myself onto the sofa, buried her face in a pillow, and screamed. She screamed until her throat went raw. Her fingers grew numb with the force she was gripping Harry’s shirt hem as he rubbed her back gently. She screamed and screamed and screamed. She screamed until the screams turned to sobs and Harry laid next to her, positioning himself so that Rebecca could nudge her head into his shoulder and cry, letting countless tears fall down the soft, cotton sleeve of his shirt.

“I- I- I- I’m s-s-s-sorry,” she sobbed. “Y- You w- were right. D-Draco d-did break my h- h- h- heart.”

“It’s Ok,” Harry whispered into her hair.

“Y- you were a- always the r- r- right one. This i- is what I g- g- get for not realizing it s- s- sooner.”

“Oh Rebecca, you can’t blame this on yourself. I was always going to be here waiting for you, no matter what happened.” His sweet breath breezed coolly over her raging tears.

“H- Harry P- P- Potter... Y- you’re my hero.”