Muggle | 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑊𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

Chapter 122

With a smile still dangling on my lips, I walked inside the common room where the party had slightly died down and went upstairs to our dorm.

       But the moment I opened the door, Hermione jumped up from her bed at my sight and quickly sprang toward me.

       "Oh, thank God you're here," she said urgently and took a hold of my hand, leading me inside. "I did something terrible!"

        "What is it?" I asked apprehensively, frowning as she sat on the edge of her bed and I followed her lead.

        Hermione then looked over the room to see if the other girls were overhearing or not. When she saw that Katherine was busy writing, and Lavender and Parvati were talking excitedly about her night with Ron, she finally turned back to face me.

       "I — I just asked McLaggen to Slughorn's Christmas party," she whispered.

        I snorted with laugher, causing her to give me a look and so I cleared my throat, regaining myself. As much as I hated McLaggen, I always thought it was funny how Hermione asked him out only to leave him under a mistletoe on the night of the party.

       "Ugh, I just wanted to piss Ron off," she huffed, giving Lavender a nasty look from the corner of her eyes. "Now I really wish I hadn't..."

       "Don't worry 'bout it, Mione," I said, shaking a hand at her reassuringly with a grin. "If it came to the worse, just ditch him. Who cares? It's a free country!"

       Hermione smiled at that slightly before looking away with a sigh. "Anyway, I better get our Charms' essay done. I didn't get to do it today because of the match."

         "But that essay is for next week!" I retorted, only to regret it in a few seconds when she started scolding me.

        "Well, we shouldn't leave our homework for the last minute! It's our sixth year. We should take the lessons more seriously."

       "Whatever you say, Herm-own-ninny," I said teasingly, causing her to stare at me blankly. I cleared my throat again. "Sorry."

***

Throughout the next week, Ron and Hermione didn't utter a word to each other and so Hermione dragged me up to the library with her each time she wanted to go there.

I was starting to get sick of studying that much, having absolutely no spare time. And so when one day Harry had joined us in the library, I took the opportunity and placed my head on the table to rest for a bit while Hermione was busy ranting on about Ron.

"Anyway," said Hermione, after she was done complaining, "you need to be careful, Harry."

"For the last time," said Harry, speaking in a slightly hoarse whisper after three-quarters of an hour of keeping quiet, "I am not giving back this book, I've learned more from the Half-Blood Prince than Snape or Slughorn have taught me in —"

"I'm not talking about your stupid so-called Prince," said Hermione, giving his book a nasty look. "I'm talking about earlier. Lexi and I went into the girls' bathroom just before we came in here and there were about a dozen girls in there, including that Romilda Vane, trying to decide how to slip you a love potion."

"What?" said Harry breathlessly, looking at her in disbelief.

"They're all hoping they're going to get you to take them to Slughorn's party, and they all seem to have bought Fred and George's love potions, which I'm afraid to say probably work —"

"Yeah, they really work," I said with a lazy grin, remembering the prank we had pulled two years ago on Peeves and Filch with their love potion.

"Why didn't you confiscate those girls then?" demanded Harry. "Aren't you supposed to be a prefect?"

     "They didn't have the potions with them in the bathroom," said Hermione scornfully. "They were just discussing tactics. As I doubt whether even the Half-Blood Prince could dream up an antidote for a dozen different love potions at once, I'd just invite someone to go with you, that'll stop all the others thinking they've still got a chance. It's tomorrow night, they're getting desperate."

"There isn't anyone I want to invite," mumbled Harry, probably thinking about Ginny.

"Well, it doesn't have to be a date," I said with a shrug, trying to sound helpful. "You can just ask someone as a friend."

"Yeah, I guess so," Harry nodded, before turning to face Hermione. "Maybe we could go as friends?"

"Oh..." Hermione pursed her lips together. "I-I can't Harry. I've already asked someone. But — you can go with Lexi. She hasn't asked anyone yet either."

My eyes widened at that. Man, how did I not see that coming? I thought to myself. Harry had to go with Luna.

"Er..." I started awkwardly, trying to quickly think of a lie. "I think i might want to ask someone else. Sorry."

"Don't you have a boyfriend already?" Harry questioned knowingly and I gulped nervously.

"I was going to ask him as a friend," I tried to reason, but before Harry could ask who, I quickly beat him into it and said, "How about you ask Luna?"

"Luna?" He raised a brow at me.

"Well, yeah," I shrugged, trying to act casual. "She's a nice girl, and I'm sure she'd like to go with you as friends."

"Alright," said Harry hesitantly, standing up from his seat. "Better find her before someone slips me a love potion, then." And with that, he walked off.

"Who are you going with?" Hermione asked me as Harry disappeared out of sight. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Actually I don't think I'll ask anyone. I just thought that — Harry would be better off to go with Luna."

"But why?"

       "Er..."

       "Well?"

"Oh, will you look at the time!" I suddenly exclaimed, looking at my wrist which unfortunately had no watch around it. "I better go — I've got — err — a thing." And so before Hermione could say anything, I hurried out of the library.

***

I went down to Slughorn's office on my own, meeting Luna and Harry there. We were soon joined by Hermione who looked like a mess, trying to get away from McLaggen.

The party was huge, and other than the students, many others were invited as well, from celebrated writers and important Ministry wizards to Professor Snape and Trelawney.

We were half through the night that soon, the party came to a sudden stop and everyone looked around when Filch bursted inside, dragging Draco angrily.

"Professor Slughorn," wheezed Filch, his ugly teeth gritting together, "I discovered this boy lurking in an upstairs corridor."

Draco pulled himself free of Filch's grip, looking furious, before his glance fell upon me.

"He claims to have been invited to your party and to have been delayed in setting out," Filch went on. "Did you issue him with an invitation?"

"Of course I was invited!" Draco snarled, before pointing at me and saying, "I'm her date for the night!"