It was safe to say that when the quartet arrived back at the castle that night, things were quiet. Neither of them knew what to say to one another with this newfound information.
Harry had hatred in his heart that was coursing through him like a poison. Charlie had spent hours replaying the conversation in his head to put pieces of the puzzle together, but that was hard to do when the final image was so unknown. Hermione couldn't help but worry about Harry's well-being after finding out who was the real reason for his parents' death. And Ron? Well, in typical Ron fashion, he had literally no idea what the hell was going on.
Charlie hadn't gotten to sleep until late into the night, but he was still up before Harry. He woke up, took a shower, got dressed, and had gone down the spiral staircase to a common room that was completely empty except for Ron, who was eating a Peppermint Toad, and Hermione, who had spread her homework over three tables.
"Morning." The boy said softly to his friends.
Ron waved to him from the couch in front of the fireplace while Hermione turned to face him.
"Morning," she said with a smile.
Charlie moved to take a seat next to Hermione. The boy looked down at the homework she was doing. They were all from different classes; Divination, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes...
The brown eyed boy raised a brow at her. There was no way she could be in all of these classes.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"How are you —"
Hermione cut the boy off as she placed her hand over his mouth. Charlie immediately gave her a look that basically said, "Um, what are you doing?"
The bushy haired girl nodded in Ron's direction on the couch. The ginger was currently stuffing his face with candy from Honeydukes.
"Don't get him started," Hermione whispered, only loud enough for Charlie to hear. "I'll tell you eventually, I just can't right now."
Charlie nodded in understanding before Hermione removed her hand from his mouth. Right as the brown eyed boy opened his mouth to spark up a different conversation, there was a voice heard from above where they were sitting.
"Where is everyone?" said Harry from the staircase balcony.
"Gone! It's the first day of the holidays, remember?" said Ron, turning around to watch Harry closely. "It's nearly lunchtime; I was going to come and wake you up in a minute."
Harry came down the stairs and slumped into a chair next to the fire. Snow was still falling outside the windows. Crookshanks was spread out in front of the fire like a large, ginger rug.
