Beneath Her Skin

Chapter Nineteen

Alastriona and Darcy were in the process of guiding Dawn Winston down a hallway - trying to get somewhere quiet - when Pansy Parkinson, flanked by Millicent Bulstrode and Tracey Davis, stopped right in front of them. 

Pansy did not look well, she seemed wild, she was sweating and her nostrils were flaring and Alastriona genuinely wondered if she was all right.

"Are you okay, Pansy?" Alastriona asked, her voice soft and light but it still reached Pansy and her friends.

Pansy immediately bristled at the question, she gritted her teeth together at the sound of the girls ridiculous Scottish accent, "Are you with Draco?" She demanded to know, questioning through clenched teeth.

"Umm," Alastriona's eyes flickered to Dawn who was just as confused as she was before going back to Pansy, "yes."

Pansy stepped closer to Alastriona, she was breathing heavily, seething with untapped rage, "Don't expect it to last long, Breen."

Pansy didn't wait for a reply, she pushed past Alastriona, knocking into her shoulder, Millicent followed with her nose in the air and Tracey Davis trailed after them slowly with her head down and hands in her pockets.

Dawn shook her head, "That girl needs a new hobby." She mumbled under her breath. 

Alastriona and Darcy nodded their heads in agreement and kept leading Dawn through the castle. 

They eventually came across an empty room and the two Hufflepuff's shoved the tall Ravenclaw in without a second thought.

Dawn sat down by one of the windows, Alastriona and Darcy right near her.

Darcy tucked her dark hair behind her ears and crossed her arms over her chest, "We want to know everything." From the strictness in her voice there was no room for debate. 

"Okay," Dawn surrendered, "you both deserve to know. When I first met Charlie had a crush on him as soon as I saw him. It was silly really, I would just sort of avoid him and hope he was working around me during the day, we talked but I could tell he thought I was just some girl there for a holiday around dragons. When I went back the next time I was so focused on the dragons that I didn't realise how close Charlie and I had become." A sweet smile made its way onto Dawn's face at the memories created, "We would stay up all night in the main tent where meals were served and just talk until the sun rose up. One night while I was there I just accidentally said it, you know? Out of the blue I said, 'I like you'! He panicked and just like ran away from me, he avoided me at all costs for weeks he kept telling me I was too young and he couldn't possibly feel that way about me and so I asked him 'If you can't possible feel that way about me then why the bloody hell are you ignoring me?'." Dawn was grinning now, she couldn't help it, these were some of the best memories of her life and she'd been waiting for so long to share them with someone. "He avoided me for a little longer but we found each other in the main tent one night and sat down, it was like no time had passed at all and we talked all night." Dawn sighed heavily and felt the stinging in her eyes of tears ready to come but she refused to cry.

"My mum is muggle-born and while the Wizarding world declares us as adults at seventeen she doesn't share the same views." Both Alastriona and Darcy nodded at this, coming from muggle families they understood exactly what Dawn was saying.

"I love Charlie Weasley." Dawn stated clearly, meeting both her friends gazes. "I told him as much but he'll hardly come more than a metre close to me let alone tell me how he really feels. I swear that it isn't one sided though... I can see it, you know? And I just feel it but there can't be anything between us, not yet at least."

Alastriona's heart ached for Dawn. 

Dawn breathed in deeply and squared her shoulders, putting a fake smile on her face. "I can keep waiting. I'll graduate and then I'll talk to Charlie about all of it and my mum won't have anything to say because I'll be an adult in both the Wizarding world and the muggle world. And then I'll finally know how Charlie really feels." She declared firmly.