Go on, Scream

Seamus had stopped following Audriell. Days ago, this would have been a blessing. Now, she wasn't so sure. She kept finding her gaze wandering back over to wherever he was, kept trying to think of some reason for going over to him.

Her friends noticed her preoccupation but didn't say much about it. They assumed that she was still worried about controlling her powers around the student body. Or, all of them did except for Morag. He had always been more in tune with Dria's thoughts than anyone else was.

One day they were sitting in the library, doing a particularly nasty essay for their Defense Against the Dark Arts class and Morag stood abruptly, announcing that he had promised to meet Terry Boot on the grounds.

"You could have mentioned that before!" Dria said, agitated. She relied on him to proofread when she was finished, just as he relied on her for fact-checking. It was a mutually beneficial partnership and if he left, she was sure she was going to screw something up royally.

"Relax!" Morag told her. "You'll be fine. You know this stuff better than anyone I know." With that, he hurried out of the library. Audriell covered her face in dismay, trying and failing to calm herself. The last bit he'd said was a complete lie. She had missed the lesson on Inferi, which was what she was supposed to be writing about. And a quick glance at the table showed her that, just as she had feared her would, he had taken his notes and- Merlin's beard!- both of their textbooks.

Grumbling to herself, Dria stormed away from her desk and went to look up books on Inferi. The next time he was happy, she thought ruefully, maybe she'd be sure to take a little bit of it.
This thought brought her to a quick stop. Though she knew that the more positive the feeling someone was radiating, the more delectable it would be, she certainly had no plans to take any emotion, positive or otherwise from anyone. She'd been kidding... right?
What was she becoming?

Audriell felt an immediate need to see Seamus. She could picture the look of disgust, even fear, that would play on his face when she told him about her urges. That would snap her right out of this. It had to. Otherwise she would just have to leave Hogwarts. Her mother would certainly be pleased. Audriell didn't want to have to leave Hogwarts, but better that than to hurt anyone else.

Seamus would be, Audriell thought, just getting out of Care of Magical Creatures. The small part of her that wasn't panicking started wondering when it was that Audriell had memorized his schedule, but she paid that particular thought no mind.

Dria didn't even bother picking up her books before running out of the library and hurtling down stairwells. She threw herself outside sooner than she would have thought possible and almost ran straight into Dean.
Audriell managed to catch her balance just in time. "Dean! Where's Seamus?" she demanded, her breath wheezing a bit.

Dean didn't seem to mind at all how rude she was being. On the contrary, he was positively grinning. "You just missed him. He was headed up to the Hospital Wing-"

"Hospital Wing? What's happened?" Audriell asked, cutting him off. Possibilities raced through her mind, each grittier than the last.
"Relax, it's nothing. Hagrid just thought he had better have Madam Pomfrey look at his Jarvey bites to make sure they don't get infected. You know how he's been about injuries, ever since..." Dean didn't need to finis his sentence. Everyone knew about Draco Malfoy's "serious" injury three years ago.

"Thank you, Dean." Audriell turned to go, but he reached out and caught her wrist.

"Hold on, I'll come with you to the Hospital Wing. I was headed up there, anyway." Seeing no way out of it, Dria nodded her agreement.
The two walked in companionable silence until Dean said, "Seamus thinks very highly of you, you know."

Dria glanced at him in surprise. "He thinks I'm a monster," she disagreed.

"He only did at first. He doesn't anymore. I don't know what changed. But for ages now, a year at least, he's been insisting that he would work up the nerve to talk to you. He thinks you're brilliant."
"Aren't you betraying some sort of trust by mentioning this?" Audriell asked, if only to move the topic away from herself. Behind what she hoped was a convincing mask, she was trembling with happiness. Could what Dean was saying be true?

"I don't think I am. The way he's been carrying on is pitiful. I refuse to watch it anymore."

"You're a good friend." Dean glanced over at her to see if she meant it, then gave her a satisfied grin.

"I knew you'd see sense."

They had reached the Hospital Wing. Audriell went straight in, but when she turned around, holding the door open for Dean, she saw that he had disappeared.

She shook her head, smiling, and headed for the single occupied bed.
Seamus was sitting up, staring disdainfully at the wrapping around his left arm. "The little bugger hardly even got me and the woman's talking about keeping me overnight for observation!" he complained in outrage.

Perhaps he had assumed that it was Dean who had come to visit him, Audriell thought, because when he glanced up, she saw shock written plainly across his Irish features.

"Audriell," he said, sounding strangely strained.

"Well, I had to be sure you weren't going to lose your arm, didn't I?" she said, smiling. Just then it was almost too easy to believe that what Dean had said was true.

He puffed up his chest. "Please, I'm not a pathetic prat like Malfoy." They looked at each other for a moment before a look of minor confusion crossed Seamus' face. Audriell remembered that it was a little strange for her to show up like this, even if it did feel natural.

It had seemed so distant, her worry over the impulse she had had, earlier. But thinking about it brought the feeling of her spite and longing back. Hanging her head, Audriell confessed, "I wanted to sap some emotion from Morag, earlier."

Though Dria was watching Seamus closely for a reaction- specifically, that repulsion that she had so been craving- he did no more than blink once. "And your first reaction was to come find me and confess, was it?"
"That's a bit of overstatement, to be fair," Dria said. Her biggest defense mechanism in life had always been sarcasm. "First I squashed the impulse to chase after Morag. Then I gave in to panic. Next I questioned my own sanity. And then," she finished with a dramatic wave of her hand, "I went looking for you."

"And you happened to run into Dean," Seamus said with a slight smile on his face.

"Yes."

"And you came rushing up to see me in my hour of need."

"He told me you just got a little bite."

"Little?"

Dria grinned. "Sorry, didn't mean to insult your man pride. I'm sure that it hurts spectacularly."

"Oh, it's nothing," Seamus assured her. They stared at each other for a long moment, one during which many silent conversations seemed to play out.

Finally, feeling that she could put it off no longer, Dria broke the eye contact, focusing instead on her hands, whose fingers were knotted together. "I really thought that telling you would ruin any chance of us talking again."

"Is that something you want?" Dria shook her head slowly, still unable to meet his gaze though she could feel it burning into her. The very air around them seemed to crackle. How, she thought, had Madam Pomfrey not noticed the sudden change in atmosphere and come investigating? When had it gotten so very warm?

"Well, now we're getting somewhere, Dria." Seamus stood and Dria suddenly realized how close to him she had been standing.

"I had really better get back to the library. I've left all of my things and really need to get an essay finished."

"Now there's the Ravenclaw I know." Dria raised her eyes to meet his one last time. Just for an instant, she thought, it was all too easy to imagine that he did know her.

That was, of course, utter foolishness.

Though Seamus had never given her a proper reaction to her confession, Audriell found that she was feeling recharged just from having told him. She no longer felt angry with Morag in the slightest. After all, she had been wanting to speak with Seamus for a while. This had finally given her the opportunity.

It helped that, upon her return to the library, she found her stolen book sitting atop the rest of her things with an apology note on it. In it, Morag had promised her an impressive supply of licorice wands the next time they were allowed in Hogsmeade. What more could she ask for?