Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
————————————
Aurora Areli
THE NEXT MORNING, HERMIONE and I decided to go to breakfast before Harry and Ron, who I figured were sleeping in. However, Ron came down alone ten minutes after us. When I asked him where Harry was, Ron just shrugged and said that Harry hadn't been in their dormitory when he woke up.
"He better not have done something stupid," I said, pushing my porridge around with my spoon.
"Well, knowing Harry," Ron shrugged, before stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth.
"What's there to know?" a voice asked to my right, as its owner slipped into the empty seat next to me.
"Nothing," I said innocently. "Toast?"
"Thanks," Harry said, accepting the buttered piece of bread I offered him.
"Hey," I said, remembering what Ron had said. "Where were you earlier?"
"Er — I was in the Owlery, giving a letter to Hedwig," Harry told us.
"Who were you writing to?" Hermione asked.
Harry glanced around to make sure nobody was listening in, before dropping his voice so that only Ron, Hermione and I could hear him.
"I told Sirius that I only imagined my scar hurting, so that maybe he'll stay wherever he is and won't come back here."
"That was a lie, Harry," Hermione said sharply, at once. "You didn't imagine your scar hurting and you know it."
"So what?" Harry said. "He's not going back to Azkaban because of me."
"Drop it," Ron said sharply to Hermione, as she opened her mouth to argue some more, and for once (to my surprise), Hermione listened to him, and fell silent.
Over the next couple of weeks, Harry's worrying about Sirius had begun to rub off on me. I often found myself anxiously watching the owls as they brought the post every morning, or looking out the windows in hopes of getting a reply from Sirius.
"Hello? Earth to Rory?"
A large hand waved in front of my face, snapping me out of my Hedwig-searching trance.
"What — sorry?" I said, shaking my head.
Cedric was sitting in the chair next to me, a look of concern on his face. We were in the library at our usual table by a window, working on homework and chatting.
"You've seemed a bit out of it lately," he said. "Is everything all right?"
"Yeah — yeah, I'm fine," I assured him. "I've just had a lot to think about lately. Were you saying something? I'm sorry — I completely zoned out," I added apologetically.
