Good Enough | hp

17| Cupcakes and Staccato

It had been three days since Estella had last spoken to Ernie. All her news of him came from her friends who couldn't understand why he'd lashed out like that.

But Estella had only told them part of the story. She had failed to mention, for instance, Ernie's last words to her before he turned and left the corridor.

"Do you support him because he is innocent, or because you like him?"

Those words haunted her like invisible ghosts, floating eerily through her mind and penetrating the barriers she had so carefully put up.

Was Ernie right? Were her feelings towards the situation entirely manipulated by her... fondness towards Harry?

She didn't want that to be the truth. She wanted her support to be entirely truthful and sincere, not because of some silly crush.

But she couldn't help but think, that if she hadn't paid so much attention to the green-eyed boy in the first place, she wouldn't have noticed the little things that so purely convinced her of his innocence: the crinkle of his eyes as he smiled, the way he fidgeted with his hands when he was nervous, or how he seemed to blaze with determination when speaking up about something he cared about.

But it was all true! Estella knew it!

Harry was innocent, regardless of her feelings or not.

Clearly, Ernie was wrong!

But then, the news came to her, courtesy of Lavender and Parvati: Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly-Headless Nick had been petrified, and the last person to be seen with them, was Harry.

The double attack turned what had hitherto been nervousness into real panic.

Curiously, it was Nearly-Headless Nick's fate that worried people most. 

What could possibly do that to a ghost? people whispered in the corridors, What could do that to something that was already dead?

Estella herself was in a sort of stunned daze. In most people's minds, this attack solidified what little 'proof' they had of Harry's guilt into full-on fact.

Estella stayed resolute, trying to convince her fellow peers of his clear innocence. It helped, she supposed, that she knew and was friends with most of the people in her grade. Those little, meaningless conversations had turned out to be the turning point in a few students' perspectives.

Still, even her closest friends were wary, and there had been a stampede of students hurriedly booking their spots on the Hogwarts Express.

Besides, she was only a second year and people would not be clambering anytime soon to listen to her over the rumours coursing through the school.

She did, however, see Cedric Diggory, a fourth-year Hufflepuff student who was quite popular within the school trying to convince his friends to keep the peace whenever Harry walked down the corridor.

Estella appreciated his fairness and open-mindedness. She wasn't sure if it was a Hufflepuff thing or simply his good morals, but his actions persuaded her of his good nature.

She had talked to Harry a couple of times, finding excuses to seek him out in the crowd and sit near him at lunch. She had reassured him and he seemed glad of her company. 

Estella did her best to cheer him up and a few times it worked, and she was rewarded with that brilliant smile that made his green eyes light up.

But most of the time, the jeering taunts and badly-hushed whispers got to him, and he excused himself to solitude.

At last, the term ended and a silence deep as the snow on the ground descended upon the castle.

The lack of bustling students hurrying to class and the occasional shouts across the hallway made Estella feel empty, as if her boisterous manner had left with the others on the scarlet express.