Stars in Her Eyes {Wolfstar's Daughter}

Chapter 67: Flashbacks

"Hey how was it- what's on your hand?" It took no more than three seconds for Hermione to notice something off with her friends as they came into the common room after their detention.

She quickly saw the way they were both holding their left hands with a more gentle care than the other. Nothing got past that girl.

"What? Nothing" Both Harry and Nell immediately shoved their left hands into their pockets and headed to the sofas before the others could question them any more.

"Did you see that?" Hermione whispered to Ron and they followed the pair in sitting down.

Ron nodded before sliding down onto the sofa beside Nell whilst Hermione took the seat beside Harry.

"Hey Nell, give me your hand for a second" he asked innocently and without hesitation the girl stuck her hand out for him to see.

"Your other one" he raised his eyebrows knowingly as the girl struggled to come up with an excuse.

"Er, no" She pushed her wounded hand further into her pocket.

"No?" He asked raising his eyebrows even further.

"I just um- Harry?" Nell turned to Harry for help but by now Hermione was looking over the boy's shoulder giving her a perfect view of his hand with him knowing.

"Did she do this to you?!" The girl cried, gently but quickly pulling Harry's hand up to get a better look despite the boy's resistance.

Both Ron and her were looking down at the boys hand with wide eyes, anger bubbling up inside of them before they turned to Nell.

"Nell" Ron said, holding out his hand for her to show hers.

"Please guys" she tried, knowing that their reaction would only be that much worse when they saw what Umbridge had had her write.

But they wouldn't budge and she knew that so with a defeated sigh she pulled her hand out of her pocket and let Ron take it.

The pair let out audible gasps and even Harry couldn't help but wince again at the sight. As she shut her gaping mouth, Hermione's features hardened like stone as she jumped up from the sofa without bothering to grab her bag.

"Where are you going?" Nell called after her, the other three of them standing up as Hermione made a b-line for the portrait hole.

"McGonagall, Dumbledore!" She spun around to face them again, catching the attention of the few other people in the room before noticing and dropping her voice slightly, "They need to know about this!"

"Hermione no" Harry called after her, stopping her in her tracks as she spun around again.

"Harry are you insane?" Ron turned to the boy with a baffled expression, "Someone needs to know what Umbridge is doing" he began to follow Hermione to the door himself.

"Don't" Nell tried, but much to their surprise neither her nor Harry offered a further explanation for their lack of action.

"Nell?" Hermione asked, both her and Ron looking to the girl to elaborate.

The girl looked desperately between her friends before giving in with a small sigh.

"She could make things really difficult for my dad at the ministry... he could lose his job" her eyes fell to the carpet and all at once they understood.

Ron let himself drop back down to the sofa with a conflicted look on his face whilst Hermione stayed put, an array of emotions washing over her features.

"But.." the girl tried but really had no solution to offer. None of them did.

"Can we just.. play gobstones or something?" Nell said but it was less of a suggestion and more of a plead for her friends to drop it.