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'What a marvellous feeling it would be,
If we could say exactly how we felt.
What a monumental victory, what a terrifying thought.'
[Akif Kichloo]
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That night, her fingers felt like ice. The cold of the night stung her skin as though the sheets and blankets that lay over her meant nothing. She was wearing Harry's woollen Quidditch sweater over her usual pyjamas, but even that made no difference to her shivering as she tossed and turned, unable to gain any sort of warmth.
It was 1'o clock in the morning, and even after hours of lying in bed, her eyes stinging with fatigue, sleep had never arrived. Beyond the dorm she shared with Hermione and Ginny, who were sound asleep, wind loudly intercepted the castle, creating a scary, ghostly whisper as it creeped through a gap of their window frame.
Her breath grew faster and felt shallow. She squeezed her eyes shut and lifted the blanket over her head to try and drown out the violence of the wind and the loud, inconsistent bullets of rain hitting their window.
With goosebumps trailing her pale skin, she sat up, rubbing her eyes. Not knowing what else to do, or who else she could go to, Addie pulled back the covers, and her legs wobbled as she planted her feet on the thick carpet and stood, feeling hollow and heavy all at once.
Although their dorm was cloaked in darkness to the point where she wasn't really sure if her eyes were open, the sounds of Adeline's tentative steps and the creak of the door were masked beneath the thundering of the weather as a storm brewed.
Shaking fingers grazing the smooth wooden handrail, Addie climbed the spiral carpeted staircase that led to the boy's dorms as quickly as she could muster, only stopping once she reached the sixth level. Given the lack of light, she ran the pads of her fingers over the wall to her left, and counted one, two, three, and finally the fourth door; twisting its knob and slipping inside.
He was the cove she'd steer toward in any storm.
Tiptoeing across the floor, Addie reached what she knew was the head of Harry's bed at the far end of the dorm.
The window was right by his bed, and a very faint glow allowed her to spy his figure enough to reach out and touch his shoulder lightly. She whispered "Harry!", and, given the noise from the storm, she didn't think he'd wake, but he did.
His sheets rustled as he sat up slowly, getting a small sense of déjà vu as he recognised Addie's voice in the dark. The sky through the window behind her flashed a with lightning for a moment, igniting her silhouette, and she flinched at the crash it made a second later. "Addie? What's wrong?" He asked quietly, reaching out, unsure if he was dreaming until his hand found her forearm in the dark. "You're freezing!"
