beautiful - harry potter

chapter 22

Harry sat next to Thalia in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Thalia was reading one of the books from the bookstore under the table, something she's been doing for a while. She read her books during class so she could finish them quicker.

"I have the same book," Harry noted. Thalia shot him a small smile, only tugging her lips upwards just a bit. She was so close to finishing the book and now she knew it was completely useless because that obviously wasn't the book Harry bought her.

Out of frustration from reading so much, Thalia slammed the book shut and stuffed it into her bag. 

Harry frowned. Recently, Thalia hadn't been meeting up with him and they were spending less and less time together. He didn't know why but he was starting to think that Thalia was mad at him or something.

"Are you alright, love?" he asked worriedly. If he had done something wrong, he wanted to apologize as quickly as possible before it became something big.

"Fine," Thalia huffed. She covered her face with her hands and sighed heavily. The brunette barely got any sleep because she was up all night reading books. Thalia was so tired but Harry was bound to talk to her about the book sometime and she really needed to finish all of them.

"Have I done something wrong?"

Thalia removed her hands from her face and rolled her eyes before turning to Harry with the same small smile. She shouldn't be acting so rude towards him but she was just so tired. "No, you haven't," Thalia huffed.

She leaned back in her seat and faced forward with gritted teeth. Thalia was hungry. She'd skipped breakfast for a week now because her friends would ask why she was reading. They all knew that Thalia hated reading and they could always tell when she was lying. 

"Okay then," Harry said. He didn't like that Thalia was avoiding him and he still didn't know what he did wrong. The bespectacled boy frowned and tried to change the subject. "Do you want to meet later? In the library maybe?"

"I can't, sorry," Thalia responded. "I've got, um, homework."

Harry knew damn well that Thalia didn't have that much homework since they had half of the same classes, but he didn't pry. "Well, we could meet until you're done with your homework," Harry offered. "We could meet after dinner."

"For how long?" Thalia asked. She still wanted to spend time with Harry but she really wanted to get the stupid reading out of the way so she would know what to say if he brought it up. 

"An hour," Harry suggested. He saw Thalia's face contort as her perfect eyebrows furrowed and he quickly added, "or half an hour, if you'd like."

Thalia didn't have enough time to meet him for a half-hour. She covered her sadness and frustration with the same small smile. None of her pearly teeth were showing and it was barely a smile. It was the kind of smile that Harry saw all the time from her, the smile that said 'I am different from you and you will never understand, but I'll let you think that you will'.

"I'm sorry, I'm busy," Thalia sighed.

"What're you doing?" Harry asked. Thalia nervously picked at her thumb nail while searching her mind for a proper response.

"I'm studying," the brunette bluffed, "for the Herbology exam on Tuesday."

"We could study together then," Harry offered hopefully. The last time he was with Thalia was on Tuesday and they were together for a full thirty seconds before Thalia said she had to leave. And today was Friday.

"In my dorm," he added. Thalia bit her lip hesitantly and looked at the chalkboard in the front of the room instead of Harry's soft doe eyes. Harry wanted to spend time with Thalia, even if it meant that they would only be studying.