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— (chapter seventeen.) —
Aurora woke up still in the Common Room on Sunday morning. Luckily no one was down yet except a certain ginger-haired boy. He too had fallen asleep downstairs but Aurora was certain she'd seen him go upstairs.
"Weasley." she groaned, rubbing her eyes clean of sleep. "What're you doing down here?"
Ron sat up and looking around, seemingly forgetting he'd come back down to sleep here.
"I was watching over you." He said sheepishly. "I didn't want anything bad happening to you..."
Aurora nodded. "Right. I'm off to get dressed then."
Ron caught her wrist.
"Look Aurora — I'm sorry." He said slowly, the guilt evident in his eyes. "I didn't mean what I said I was just mad and needed someone to vent it at."
Aurora pulled her wrist from his grip coldly.
"I'm not in the mood, Weasley."
And with that, she stormed off up the stairs, catching Selene just as she too was getting ready for the day.
The pair dressed in silence. Aurora didn't automatically reach for her signature leather jacket, instead she pulled on a fitted green jumper, the breast pocket embroidered with the Reyes family crest and it's motto in smaller cursive writing beneath it; nos vincere aut mori. We must win or die.
"Come on, Aurora," Hermione said as Aurora entered the common room with Selene. "We need your help with some research for the first task — "
"Not my friend, not my problem." said Aurora firmly. "Leave me alone."
Aurora barely slept that night. Perhaps it was the guilt, perhaps it was just the fact Aurora hardly ever slept when she had something one her mind. When she awoke on Monday morning, she seriously considered for the first time ever just running away from Hogwarts. But as she looked around the Great Hall at breakfast time, and thought about what leaving the castle would mean, she knew she couldn't do it. It was the only place she had ever been happy... well, she supposed she was happy with the McKinnons and her grandfather too, but the good had been outweighed by their untimely deaths.
Somehow, the knowledge that she would rather be here and watching all of her newly made friendships fall apart than back in Reyes Manor with Catalina was good to know; it made her feel slightly calmer. She finished her bacon with difficulty (her throat wasn't working too well), and as she and Atlas got up, she saw Cedric Diggory leaving the Hufflepuff table too with his sister.
