𝖶𝖨𝖢𝖪𝖤𝖣 𝖧𝖠𝖳𝖤 | 𝖥𝖱𝖤𝖣 𝖶𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖫𝖤𝖸

17

BACK TO QUIDDITCH

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"I'm fucking exhausted," the girl claimed as she leaned her head over her bent knees. Pauline looked more tired than ever before. Dark circles were formed under her eyes, her hair was a bit messy and her voice sounded pretty much without energy.

"Exams?"

"Yeah, and all the madness going around the school. Everyone is trying to keep up with our homework while we support Fleur, who by the way, is incredibly nervous."

We were chatting in the garden, enjoying one of the few free hours we had, I was leaned against a tree while Olivia was comfortably laid down with her head over my lap. The winter cold atmosphere from February and Scotland's cloudy weather didn't stop us from having a little break in the outside air. After Liv's little breakdown a week ago, we told Pauline about everything and she quickly offered herself to defend both Liv and Luna in case those pricks from Ravenclaw dared to come back again at them. Actually, she seemed even as mad as I was, which surprised me since she only met us four months ago.

"Lilith, can I talk to you for a moment?" I heard a soft stuttering male voice behind the tree. Neville Longbottom was looking at his feet with a big herbology book in his hand.

"Yeah, sure!" I said, standing up a bit confused since he never approached me in public. I saw his intentions of wanting to speak alone so I got my bag and waved at the girls who gave me a simultaneously confused look. Once we were a little bit away from all the crowd, I asked him, "well, how can I help you?"

"I suppose you already know what the new task is about, and Harry has been trying to find a way to breathe underwater but nothing seems to work." his voice started to falter and I saw how he swallowed hard. " I-I was reading yesterday the book Professor Moody let me and I found something that might help, but the nearest place where I can find it is in y-your uncle's o-office," he said with such a shy and scared voice.

"And you want me to let you in?" I asked raising my left eyebrow.

He nodded.

"You know I could be helping Cedric rather than Potter, don't you?"

He looked a bit disappointed, "Yeah, sure, I should have supposed it. I'm really sorry for bothering you." he said and started to walk away.

"Neville, I never said I'm not going to help you." I stopped him. "I'm not Potter's number one fan but if you ask me to help you, I'll do it. Especially because I know Snape wouldn't give it to you."

His eyes shined with pure relief and he couldn't hold his smile back.

"Come on, I know for a fact that now he has classes at the Dungeons with the Third Year kids. If we go now, you can keep them until tomorrow and give them to Harry." I started walking in Severus' office direction. I couldn't believe I was going to sneak into his office, but honestly, it wasn't exactly the first time I did it. Neville seemed pretty nervous and was looking around him all the time as if he was afraid of someone noticing us.

"You do know that you don't have to be scared, right?" I talked with normality. " All the Professors know I have the entrance allowed into Snape's place anytime I want. They won't say anything to us."

The Longbottom boy looked at me with his eyes open widely.

"Are you saying that you have free access to everything in his office?"

"No, I'm saying that I can enter his office whenever I want, that doesn't mean he wouldn't tell me off if he knew I took something from him."

We got to the door where a huge lock blocked the entrance. Neville looked at me worried.