Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [4]

⚡️ Chapter 60 ⚡️

After having breakfast on the following day, Sunday, Vega joined Harry, Ron and Hermione as they went up to the Owlery to send a letter off to Percy, asked him – as Sirius had suggested – whether he had seen he had seen Mr. Crouch lately. Vega was a bit wary that Percy would be too irritated with them to properly answer. But in the end, they sent the message anyway and used Hedwig as it had been so long since she had last had a job to go out for a flight.

Vega watched as Hedwig flew out of sight through the Owlery window, and she wished that she could have been here to spend some time on her own with Fred. But she was suddenly very concerned about what would happen to him if people started to spread rumours about him. She wished that the Triwizard Tournament would be over as soon as possible.

"Oh, we're going already?" Vega asked as she turned to see that her friends were getting ready to leave. She quickly moved away from the window to follow behind them. "Right around the right time – I'm feeling a bit hungry as well," She smiled at them, grinning.

"We're going to the kitchen to give Dobby his new socks, Vega," Hermione said, looking exasperated at Vega's eagerness when they had just eaten. "You had a full English breakfast!"

"And it was tasty," Vega replied. "You should just get used to it now – it has been four years now and it isn't going to ever change or stop,"

"You used to hide your eating," Hermione pointed out. "But now you're very confident,"

"It's true that I'm not exactly the person I was three years ago," Vega admitted, rummaging around her bag to see if she had brought the socks she had gotten for Dobby.

When they entered the Hogwarts kitchens, the house-elves gave the four of them a very cheery welcome, bowing and curtsying and bustling around making tea again. They made their way to Dobby with his presents, and Vega smiled as his face turned ecstatic in sheer happiness.

"Harry Potter and Miss Lestrange ae too good to Dobby!" Dobby squeaked, wiping large tears out of his enormous eyes as he looked down at the pairs of socks.

"You saved my life with that gillyweed, Dobby, you really did," Harry replied and Vega smiled.

"No chance of more of those eclairs, is there?" Ron asked, who was looking around at the beaming and bowing house-elves. Vega glanced over at Hermione, already knowing that –

"You've just had breakfast!" Hermione said irritably at the ginger, but a great silver platter of eclairs was already zooming toward them, supported by four elves.

"We should get some stuff to send up to Snuffles," Harry muttered.

"You're right," Vega agreed quickly, receiving some food from the many elves around them. "Dinner wouldn't be enough, given his current condition – we should do that,"

"Good idea," Ron said. "Give Pig something to do. You couldn't give us a bit of extra food, could you?" He looked to the elves, and they bowed delightedly and hurried off to get some more.

"Dobby," Vega said suddenly, looking around the kitchens for any sign of the female house-elf that they had met last year. "Where's Winky? How is she doing now?"

"Miss Vega, Winky is over there by the fire," Dobby answered quietly, his ears drooping slightly, and Vega turned around to notice Winky by the fireplace.

Winky was sitting on the same stool as last time, but she had allowed herself to become so filthy that she was not immediately distinguishable from the smoke-blackened brick behind her. Her clothes were ragged and unwashed. She was clutching a bottle of butterbeer and swaying slightly on her stool, staring into the fire. As the four students watched her; she gave an enormous hiccup.