Running From Lightning

I spent one more day in the hospital wing, and then it was time for me to go back to classes. I was nervous. Extremely nervous. Albus had told me that he had explained what he could to the school the day before, but to be honest, that just sort of made me even more nervous than I initially was. Hermione offered to walk into the Great Hall with me, and I accepted her offer immediately. She picked me up from the hospital wing in the morning, and she led me slowly to the Great Hall. To be honest, I think the only reason it went so slowly was because every now and then I’d stop and start walking away until Hermione grabbed my arm and continued to drag me along. Because of this, we got to the Great Hall about halfway through breakfast. I made her stop in front of the Great Hall entrance, and pulled her over to the side of the wide-open doors.
“You go on ahead; I think I’ll just go to class.”
“Oh no you don’t, we got this far, you are not turning back.” She started to drag me out, until I stopped her again.
“Hermione, please, I just want to—“
“Ariana, weirder stuff has happened at this school.”
I didn’t say anything in reply, and allowed her to tow me through the Great Hall.
As soon as people saw me, they went quiet and just sort of watched as Hermione pulled me along to sit by Harry, and Ron. I dared a glance at the Slytherin table, and immediately regretted it. Draco had his mouth wide open, his eyes wide with shock; however, as soon as he saw I was looking at him, he turned back to his table, a strange look on his face. Of course, I couldn’t go through all of this without blushing. Blushing almost seemed like my signature now, seeing as I did it so often. But of all the times I had blushed before, it was nothing compared to how I blushed at that moment. I kind of felt numb as Hermione sat me down. So many people were watching me. I looked over at Albus-who was eating as if nothing was happening- desperately, trying to plead for help with my eyes. But, after a few minutes of complete silence, people began to go back to talking, which was a huge relief for me. Despite the fact that I was hearing my name a lot.
“Did you see Draco’s face?” Ron finally said, letting out a laugh that I guessed he was holding in that entire time. “That was priceless!”
“Hey, at least you have double potions with us now, Ariana.” Harry said, trying to distract me from Ron.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Hey, have you lot seen all the rules Umbridge has been putting up?” A twin asked, sitting down at the table with us, the other twin sitting beside him.
“I’ve sort of been stuck in a bed for the last six days in a bed. So no.” I said.
“All the stuff she puts up just makes me hate her even more,” the other twin said, ignoring me.
“With OWL’s coming up, I can see why it’s so frustrating. Absolutely no freedom to—“
Hermione stopped dead when she saw I had frozen stiff.
“You didn’t, did you…?”
“She totally did.”
“I almost died! I- how do you- it…”
“I can’t believe you forgot about OWL’s.” Hermione said harshly.
“Yeah, even I have been doing some studying.” Ron said.
“Gee, you guys are really helping me out, here.”
“Sorry, but… blimey …”
I frowned down at the eggs on my plate.
“I don’t know if you should be so worried, you’re a child genius and all.” Fred said, trying to cheer me up (it was getting easier for me to differentiate between the twins).
“Yeah, you managed to get into fifth year classes.” Harry piped up.
“You guys don’t get it. I only have two fifth year classes. I don’t know the fifth year curriculum for charms or transfiguration! Or anything else, for that matter. I’m done for.”
“Dumbledore probably wouldn’t have had you go for the OWL’s unless he was confident you were ready for it.” Hermione joined in.
“I… I was the one that requested to do the OWL’s.” I said quietly.
“Mate, you’re screwed.”
“Ron!”
“Hermione, why do you always elbow me?”
“You’ll be fine. I’ll help you with homework. We can study after classes, okay?”
“Okay.”