Obliviate My Heart {Book 2}

26. The Aftermath

Slowly, but soundly, everything seemed to go back into place after the fallout on boxing day. Draco kept shooting me sad looks, but I wouldn't look him in the eye. I kept telling myself it was for the best, but every time I saw his face, I felt a pull at my heartstrings.

Cole and Gennie were comfortable around each other, but everybody could sense that there was some sort of unspoken tension between the two of them. I totally thought they would be a cute couple--Alia and I were trying to get them together. 

Ron and Hermione seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement not to discuss their argument. They were being quite friendly to each other, though oddly formal. Ron and Harry wasted no time in telling Hermione, Gennie, Cole and I about the conversation they had overheard between Madame  Maxime and Hagrid.

Hermione wasn't as surprised as Ron thought she would have been, and I wasn't the least bit surprised either.

“Well, I thought he must be,” she said, shrugging. “I knew he couldn’t be pure giant because they’re about twenty feet tall. But honestly, all this hysteria about giants. They can’t all be horrible… It’s the same sort of prejudice that people have toward werewolves… It’s just bigotry, isn’t it?” 

Gennie looked very proudly at Hermione, with a giant grin on her face. Ron looked as though he would have liked to reply scathingly, but perhaps he didn’t want another row, because he instead was caught shaking his head disbelievingly while Hermione wasn’t looking. 

 It was time now to think of the homework I had neglected during the first week of the holidays. Everybody seemed to be feeling rather flat now that Christmas was over - everybody except maybe Harry and I--the second task was approaching.

Even though I had the poem from the egg, I just couldn't get the slightest clue about what the second task was about. I supposed something to do with water--as it was how to acctivate the clue, but I had no further deductions.

Harry told me that Cedric gave him a stupid clue--take a bath with the egg. I knew exactly what Cedric meant, but I couldn't get a word-in to tell Harry that it wasn't nonsense.

He kept ranting to me about Cho and Cedric, and for some reason he thought I actually wanted to hear the tatters of his non-existence love-live with Cho Chang. 

Snow was still thick upon the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were covered in condensation so thick that they couldn’t see out of them in Herbology.

Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures much in this weather, though as Cole said, the skrewts would probably warm them up nicely, either by chasing them, or blasting off so forcefully that Hagrid’s cabin would catch fire. 

Cole seemed to be in high spirits since we all knew about his past now. He'd told the others and Alia, driving his sister to tears before she almost throttled him with a hug. He seemed to finally understand that we all loved and accepted him, no matter how screwed up his past was.

Another part of the reason was the departure of Cameron and Sam. Cameron was awaiting trial by the Ministry, a trial that Cole and Alia were attending. (Alia to support Cole).

Sam had disappeared after she turned Cameron in. All of her belongings were gone; she had clearly done a runner. Cole didn't seem too concerned about the departure of her. He just shrugged and said 'I suppose she's gone off to be with Jia'. 

I strongly suspected that he was getting over Sam, slowly. There were moments that I caught him glancing at Gennie with looks of admiration, that I was sure was the beginning of a crush.

 When we arrived at Hagrid ‘s cabin for our lesson, however, they found an elderly witch with closely cropped gray hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door.