Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
the fall of eve
THE CLOUDS BEING darkwas probably for the best. It confirmed the uneasiness that Betty Lupin was feeling as she entered the Great Hall that morning. She didn't even look at the headline on the Daily Prophet — it was more than likely going to be news of more deaths. More people that never got to say goodbye.
She made her way over to Kellan as he was joking around with his friends and quietly sat down next to him. It took a couple of moments for him to take notice of her, but when he finally did, he smiled and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.
"Good morning!" he exclaimed, his cheeks bulging from the food that he'd shoved in. "Can I get you anything from the table?"
"Maybe a croissant, please," she said. "With jam and some clotted cream?"
"Of course, madame," he replied as he reached forward and handed her the food she requested.
She gingerly took it, her hands shaking for a reason that she did not know, and spread the jam on the piece of croissant that she'd ripped off and then put a spot of clotted cream on top. Kellan looked down and laughed.
"My gran would kill you for spreading it like that," he joked.
"She's obviously from Devon," Betty mumbled. "Savages."
His belly rumbled in a chuckle at her small joke, but he turned away to face his friends again. Her entire body tingled as she ate, slowly loosing her appetite the more she did. And that's when she realized — she was surrounded by people who were talking and laughing and living life to its fullest and these people probably cared about her, but she'd never felt more alone in her entire life.
When she looked up from her brief train of thought, licking her thumb, she noticed that he was shoving books and parchment into his bag hurriedly as his friends did the same. He constantly checked the watch on his right arm as he did so.
"Going so soon?" she asked as she looked up at him, her eyes filled with a touch of judgement.
"Well, yeah," he said as he looked at her carefully. "We need to go over quidditch stuff and you don't mind? You always talk about how you like to be alone to people watch."
Betty opened her mouth to protest — to beg him to stay, but she decided against it and closed her mouth again. She smiled and shook her head.
"You're right," she conceded. "You go on."
"Thanks, love," he said as he pecked her lips on his way out. Her eyes stayed on him as he and his friends left the Great Hall. The hole in her stomach that had been growing — the one that knew what everyone was saying was right — seemed impossibly empty.
