ONLY LIGHT. harry potter

╰➢ late night rendezvous

— HARRY HAD STARTED TO BECOME TENSE AROUND NICOLE.

Nicole, however, liked to pretend that she never kissed Harry's cheek after the game. She knew that it would only make things awkward if she chose to talk about it— and for the first time in forever, chose to actually shut her mouth.

The quartet decided to go visit Hagrid's hut and ask him questions about Buckbeak, and the walk over there was silent. Not in the natural way, but in an uncomfortable one.

"Beautiful day." Hermoine started, trying to diffuse the tension.

"Gorgeous." Ron said in an overly cheery voice that did not suit him at all. "Unless of course you've been ripped to pieces!"

"Ripped to pieces?" Harry asked. "What are you talking about?"

Nicole whined as Mcgonagowl perched on her shoulder. She heard of Ron and Hermoine's big argument about Scabbers dying— and they had finally shut up until Harry asked about it again.

"Ronald has lost his rat." Hermoine says, shaking her head.

" I haven't lost anything! Your cat killed him! Maybe your stupid owl was a part of it too! You've seen them— conspiring!"

Nicole looked at her friend with a threatening look. "Rubbish. Don't bring Mcgonagowl into this mess of yours."

Ron decided that he wouldn't blame Mcgonagowl unless he wanted his ass handed to him. He decided to just blame into Crookshanks. "Harry, you've seen the way that bloodthirsty beast of hers... is always lurking about. And Scabbers is gone!"

" Well, maybe you should take better care of your pets!" Hermoine fired back. Nicole nodded in agreement, handing Mcgonagowl some food.

"Your cat killed him!"

"Did not."

"Did."

"Didn't."

One the way to Hagrid's, Nicole had her fingers stuck in her ears.

They went to the lake, only to their surprise, see Hagrid talking to Aurora who was sitting in a giant rock infront of the black lake while taking to Hagrid.

"What's she doing here?" Nicole asked to no one in particular, watching as Aurora attempted to skip another tock.

"She's your sister, not mine." Ron whispered. "How are we supposed to know it?"

Aurora seemed to hear Ron talking, because she eventually turned around and looked at the quartet. With a raised brow, she placed a rock down and stood up so she would be face to face with her friends. "You don't think you're the only one's who's friends with Hagrid, right? I've been trying to help him with Buckbeak's case. I just came." she explained, sitting down to throw a rock again.

They reluctantly took a seat on different rocks.

"How did it go, Hagrid? The hearing?" Hermoine questioned after a few minutes of silence. They were sure that it wasn't good, since Hagrid didn't seem to be his cheery self.

"Well, first off, the committee members took turns... talking about why we were there." he started off, imitating their accents.

Taking another rock, he spoke again. "And then I got up and did my piece. Said how Buckbeak... was a good hippogriff, always cleaned his feathers." he sighed.

"And then Lucius Malfoy got up. Well, you can imagine. He said Buckbeak was a deadly and dangerous creature... who would kill you as soon as look at you."

Aurora sighed. Her mom took her to trips to the Malfoy manor a lot of times whenever Nicole would spend time with her dad and his teammates— and Lucuis Malfoy and them got along quite well. She tried to send him a letter about Buckbeak, but he was stone cold on his decision. Nothing could convince him.