Alexandra Weasley: Book 6

21

Alex was in a rotten mood all week. She'd started avoiding everyone, even Hermione, and began using her circlet to strengthen her magic. People sucked, and especially adults. Adults all sucked. And technically, yes. She was an adult. But, that didn't matter. She was yet to meet an adult who hadn't let her down. Except, perhaps, Andromeda. She didn't know her all that well, so she wasn't sure if she counted.

Hermione managed to finally corner her, as she always did.
"So, you've been a little MIA lately. You've been avoiding me in all our classes, and you've been quiet. You haven't even been making fun of Harry."

"So?"

"Is this about Pedro? I still think he should know, because you won't disappoint him. You are not a disappointment. And I know the more you learn about Morgana, the less disappointed you are."

"New Zealand. This Easter?" Hermione furrowed her brows. "I'm serious. Let's just pack. We'll go home and apparate and get away until we get there."

"Are you sure?" Alex nodded. "What happened?"

"I can't stay here." She shook her head. "I just, I found out about something and Dumbledore won't let me tell you. If I tell you, he's going to show Harry my memories of when I was with Voldemort."

"He said that?" Hermione gasped.

"Well, no. But it was implied." Alex said. "So I can't tell you. But, H, it's big and it's bad and I can't stay here. And everyone thinks it's best to just hunker down and fight, you know, but it's not, and I think we're gonna lose. It'll take a huge miracle to win. And even if we do, I'm not so sure we'll survive this. At the very least, I'm not so sure I'll want to."

"Do you, in any way, feel like that right now?"

"No. No, I'm fine. It's just- something's going to happen, and it's gonna shift the tides to the dark, and I've already lost Cedric, and I've half lost Snape. And he's made an unbreakable vow, so I might genuinely actually lose him too. You've been my friend for years, and you're the one person who knows me. You're my best friend, and my family, and if I lose you too, I'm going to lose it."

"You won't lose me." Hermione assured.

"You can't promise that. Katie got cursed, Cedric was murdered, and everyday, people are taken and killed." Alex put her hand up to her head, threading her fingers through her hair. "Morgana should have stayed with Andromeda when she had the chance. I don't want to make the same mistake."

"Okay, okay. We'll leave." Hermione said. "You sure this can't wait till we graduate?"

"It can't." Alex shook her head, and Hermione nodded.

"Are we going to have to kidnap Ginny or are you going to ask her?" Alex grinned.

"I'll talk to her first and see." She let out a sigh a few moments later. "We can't leave. It's a nice fantasy, but we can't, can we?"

It was a nice fantasy. Alex wished she could just leave with Hermione. Do what Morgana should've done when she helped Andromeda set up a new life. But she couldn't leave her family.

The only thing that felt right was the felix felicis potion. Hermione was right, Voldemort had already taken enough. She couldn't give up her love of potions either. Sometimes the fear crept in, but she was working on it. She talked to Shay about it.

Eventually, when March came around, she had almost reached the end of her potion. She'd ended up finishing it in class.

Every other sixth year student was working on poison identification potions. Draco stopped by as she was grinding up occamy eggshells.
"No." She said before he could say anything.

"I didn't even say anything." He protested.

"Draco, I like you. You're a really good friend of mine. But I'm not giving you a dose of my felix felicis if it turns out right."

"I can pay you." He offered.

"I don't doubt that. But I don't want your money."

"I need it." He pleaded.

"Precisely why I can't give it to you. I'm not sure what you're being made to do, but I do know I can't help you with it. Not if it's helping a certain evil tosser."

"Worth a try." He said.

"What do you even have to do?"

"I don't think I'm allowed to tell you either."

"Figured." She shrugged. "Hey, where's Zabini? Is he sick?"

"Nope." Draco scoffed. "There's a girl who has none of the same free periods he has, so he's ditching."

"Of course there is. He does know he needs to actually do his work this year, right?" Draco shrugged. He glanced back over his shoulder and dropped his voice so no one could overhear.

"You know, I think Nott fancies you a bit." Alex gagged and he laughed. "I'm serious. I know he's an utter shithead around you, but he definitely finds you attractive."

"Oh, that's gross. Wait, please don't tell me he talks about me."

"Blaise usually shuts him up when he gets a little crude."

"I'm never going to be able to look at him the same way, that's disgusting."

"I just wanted to give you a heads up. I think he'll try to ask you out soon." He saw the look on Alex's face. "You could always tell him you're with someone else. Someone's got to have caught your attention. It's been almost two years, since..." he trailed off.

"Okay, first off, if Nott does... ask me out, I'm not going to lie. I might laugh in his face, or throw up, but I don't need to make up a boyfriend. And secondly, Cedric set my standards way too high. Every other boy in this school is immature and idiotic. So no, no one's caught my attention."

"What about the alchemy teacher? You seem comfortable around him."

"There is so much wrong with that statement. And I'm not comfortable around him, I just knew him before he came to Hogwarts. Also he's our teacher and that's just wrong. And, uh, move back. If this goes wrong... your face'll be the first casualty." Draco took some steps back. She added her grinded eggshells to the mixture and slowly stirred. The colour started to change as she turned up the heat. She added a sprinkle of powdered rue, and stirred vigorously, before turning up the heat again. "Okay, this is it." She said and Hermione walked over.

"Wait, wait. I don't wanna miss it." The Gryffindor stood next to her friend. "Okay, go."

Alex laughed, but raised her wand and waved it over her cauldron in a figure eight. "Felixempra!" A cloud of white smoke rose out of the cauldron. When it cleared, the potion was a beautiful molten gold, looking more like fire than a liquid.

"Wow." Hermione sighed. The potion was still bubbling, and droplets leapt up before falling back into the cauldron.

"Very, very impressive Miss Weasley." Slughorn praised. "I can hardly believe my eyes."

A/N- Okay, I'm not going to post tomorrow, or the day after because my drafts are a little lacking and I want to try to add to them a bit. So far this isn't my favourite book and I'm more writing to get to the next day rather than for enjoyment. So I will be back in a couple days, but I just want to figure out a better direction, xx.

Favourite line is "Are we going to have to kidnap Ginny or are you going to ask her?"