SMILE » n. longbottom

lii

"DISTRESSED"

Erise had not returned to the meeting at any time.

Which she would have been glad to miss, Alana thought. The meeting wasn't exactly the most exciting after she had left. Harry Potter had only discussed with the crowd what the group was and how it was vital that they should try not to be discovered by anybody else and especially not to be discovered by Professor Umbridge in particular.

She hurried quickly and swiftly through the corridors of Hogwarts towards the kitchens of the castle. The Hufflepuff felt as though she had been a ghost floating through the corridors as she thought about what had previously happened. Alana's eyes felt as dry as the desert of the Mojave Desert that she had briefly learned during her earlier years at Hogwarts when she had to write an essay about certain terrains on Earth where magical creatures could flourish due to the lack of a Muggle population.

But when she arrived at her dormitory and shut the door quietly behind her, she could only feel some type of remorse for not standing up for her secretive guard here at Hogwarts. But the Hufflepuff knew that if she were to do so, other students at the meeting would be suspicious of her — more suspicious of her than the suspicion they felt towards Erise when she had followed him.

Alana quietly hopped into her bed, her tired eyes feeling even more tired than they had been before. However the conflict between the Gryffindor and Slytherin frightened her and she did not know why.

She felt her face getting hot and she felt her cheek and looked at her hand. She noticed through the faint glimmer from the moonlight that her hand was wet with tears. Alana however did not notice how long she had cried for but she thought about the scene over and over again until she fell asleep.

She gasped awake to the sound of the dormitory door shutting into place. Alana looked up to see her roommate Erise looking back at her. she cleared her throat and mumbled quietly, "What time is it?"

"I presume that it is a couple minutes before three. Why?"

Alana sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes to clear the blur that covered them. She looked towards her roommate and noted at how Erise seemed to be unmoved by how late she arrived here, "Well — you did leave the meeting earlier than expected ... how did Jayden get into the room without us noticing?"

"He never told me," Erise sat down onto her bed, taking off her shoes and hopping into bed. "I suspect that he got there shortly after we did. I did not really bother to ask him, he seemed distressed."

Erise turned her body away from Alana, quick to go to bed. But the Hufflepuff girl was determined to know what else had happened between her roommate and her secretive bodyguard other than the lack of the explanation of how he had arrived in the Room of Requirement. Alana got up from her bed and sat next to Erise's and tapped onto her shoulder, "How was he distressed?"

Erise turned over to look at her, then looked into the distance faintly before turning back to Alana: "I don't know. You could tell, he never explained why — even after I had asked him. The only thing that he had seemed to say was that 'he was disappointed in himself.'"

Alana thought about the scene again and how Jayden Brooks could seem to be so aggressive despite his internal disappointment in himself. "I'll talk to him about it. Maybe he'll have thought about opening up about it by tomorrow ... I mean today," she shrugged, realizing that her tomorrow would be everyone else's today. "I know that you fancy him — did you ever talk to him about how you feel?"

"No," Erise sighed. It has noticeable how she gloomed over the fact, "I did not want him to determine that I had followed him because I only fancied him, but instead I wanted him to know that I had cared about him."

Alana nodded, as it made sense to her. Anyone would suspect that, especially the Slytherin that she had come to know about. She entered her bed and turned away from her roommate, bringing their conversation to an end. The scene that happened at the beginning of the meeting was made clearer to her eyes as she considered the Slytherin's perspective:

Jayden Brook's sudden appearance during the meeting had shocked everyone. However when she had appeared without a formal invitation, the whole assembly seemed not to care. Every student at the meeting belonged to every Hogwarts house except for Slytherin. How would have Neville only seen him before anyone else could? She thought. Only if he had been expecting it.

Perhaps she would have to speak with Jayden Brooks, Neville Lomgbottom and Harry Potter in the next following days.