The Blood Traitor || Oc x Oc

Room of Requirement

"Guys!" said Neville excitedly as he rushed into the Gryffindor common room. The five friends turned to face him. Sera looked up from her homework. "I think that I just found a place for us to go practice magic! C'mon!" 

He pulled Sera by the wrist, almost making her trip over her own feet. Neville apologized endlessly, though he kept going at the same pace. Finally, they reached a wall on the seventh floor. Sera grinned when she saw what Neville had unlocked. They went inside. 

"Congrats, Neville! You've found it!" Hermione breathed. "You found the Room of Requirements!" 

"The what, now?" Ron asked, turning to face Hermione. 

She only rolled her eyes in annoyance before smiling. "Also known as the Come-And-Go room? It only appears to the person when they have a special need, like this one." 

"So . . . . say that you really have to use the toilet. . . .," Ron tried to inquire. 

Several snickers rang throughout the room, which Ron ignored as he stared at Hermione with admiration. Hermione rolled her eyes again. A smirk tugged at her lips.

"Charming, Ronald," Hermione commented. "But, yes. That's the general idea, in a way." 

"It's brilliant!" Harry praised. "It's like Hogwarts wants us to fight back!" 

The next day, they had their first D.A. meeting. Sera was nervous. Sure, she was one of the smartest witches of her time. But she was nervous about people not wanting to cooperate. She had never taught a class before, let alone, her brother. 

They practiced the Disarming spell. According to Harry, this spell helped him the most when it came to defeating Lord Voldemort. It's saved his life — once. 

Neville was the first one up. 

"Expelliarmus!" 

A spark flew from his wand, but it didn't hit the statue's wand. He sighed, defeated. 

"I'm hopeless."

"You just need to flourish your wand a little more, like this: Expelliarmus!" 

Sera was very proud of her brother. Next was the Stupefy charm. Of course, Sera and Dante were paired together. Sera had a feeling that her brother put the two of them together on purpose. But she was not upset about it. She was just more worried about seeing Dante get hurt again, and she didn't want to be the guilty cause of it. 

Dante could sense Sera's uneasiness. He flashed her a reassuring smile that sent butterflies into her stomach. 

"Don't worry," he reassured the red-headed girl. "I'll be sure to go easy on you. I promise, I won't get mad if you get me, first." 

Sera felt her shoulders relaxing. She gave him another smile. 

"Thanks, Dante." 

They took their places. Some boys began to cheer Dante on. 

"C'mon, Dante!" 

"Yeah! You can beat a girl!" 

"One sickle?" Sera heard Fred whispering to his twin.

"You're on." 

"Okay!" Harry called out. "One! Two! Three!" 

Sera got there first with a whip of her wand. "Stupefy!" 

Dante was blasted backwards, landing on his back. Sera smiled triumphantly, though she still felt bad about hurting him. The boy had already gone through enough torture in his life. 

The girls squealed and began to surround her, talking excitedly, telling her how perfect her movements were. Throughout the noises of her fellow classmates, she could see Dante. He had a pained expression on his face, but he looked quite pleased with himself. 

"I let her do that," he admitted. "That's good manners. Very gentlemanly, don't you think? To let her get ahead of me?" 

Fred and George were clearly not happy about that. 

Finally, the week before Christmas came. They were still working on 'Expelliarmus' and 'Stupefy', one of the very few easy spells to learn. Nearly everyone had gotten the spell down except for Neville. Until the final day of practices came before they left for vacation. 

"— Expelliarmus!" 

Finally, he had succeeded in taking Parvati Patil's wand. And nearly every girl went nuts. 

"Right," said Harry after the end of their lesson. "So that's it for this lesson. Now, we're not meeting again until we come back from the holidays. So just keep practicing on your own as best as you can, and well done, everyone! Great work!" 

Everyone clapped, signalling that they had approved of Harry's classes. Dante grabbed his bag and began to walk towards the mirror that was on one end of the room. Sera couldn't help but watch. She noticed, through the mirror's reflections, that he looked a bit . . . . sad. 

She had to see what was on his mind. She knew that, one way or another, she would be able to get it out of him. He had always opened up to her, no matter what. Fred and George approached Sera and began to tell her their plans on how to fool Professor Umbridge when Sera finally snapped. Sure, she didn't want to be rude. But she wanted to make sure that Dante was alright, and quickly. 

"I appreciate you telling me about your plans, guys. But can you please tell me about them during the holidays? I . . . . I need to see if Dante is alright." 

Both twins glanced knowingly at each other. They knew that the Potter twin had a bit of a crush on the Knightley boy. So they stepped aside and let her leave. 

when Sera saw that everyone had left, she finally spoke up.

"Are you alright, Dante? You've been very . . . . quiet since today's rehearsal." 

"Yeah, I'm okay," he answered, not daring to look up at her. He couldn't let her see his tears. "It's just that. . . . everything that we've learned from your brother. . . . it makes me wonder if my parents would be proud of me. I know that they were ex-Death Eaters, and that's why the Malfoys hate me. But I don't know what they would think if they found out that I went behind Professor Umbridge's back fright in front of her." 

"I'm sure that your parents would be very proud of you, Dante," Sera reassured him in a confident voice. "I'm sure that they knew plenty of this stuff, maybe a bit more, since they worked for You-Know-Who." 

Dante chuckled. He finally had the sense to look up at Sera. He was relieved to see that she had a prideful look on her face. She was proud of him, not of herself. 

Something caught his eye, making him look up. Then he stepped closer towards Sera. She could see that his eyes were lit up, and not by his tears. A slight smile made its way up his face. 

"Mistletoe. . . .," he murmured under his breath. 

Sera didn't know what made her say it, but she responded with, "Maybe there are Nargles behind it." 

Dante gave her a quizzical look. He had forgotten about Luna Lovegood talking about Nargles. And he realized that he'd never gotten a straight answer from neither Luna nor Hermione. So he frowned. 

"What are . . . . Nargles?" 

Sera glanced back down at him after staring at the ever-growing Mistletoe. 

"No idea. You'll have to ask Luna about it sometime later."

"Merry Christmas, Seraphina," Dante murmured. 

Sera swallowed, her face heating up. "Merry Christmas, Dante." 

He began to lean forward. Sera felt herself leaning forward, as well. Her heart pound against her chest when she realized that her's and Dante's lips were connecting for the first time. 

And she couldn't feel any happier.