Kjærlighet Verbrennt

III.

The Great Hall was full of bustle and chatter, as it usually was. From the Slytherin table on the far side came sharp whispers and cold laughter, while the Ravenclaw table on the other end was full of calm murmurs and intent discussion. The Gryffindor table boasted some of the school's loudest and most mischievous students along with its upright citizens and brave wandbearers, providing for a mix of noisy plans Dumbledore was sure to overhear and ordinary conversation that struggled to counter it.

Rotis, Gaiter, and Dicken sat amongst the cheerful laughter and earnest debating that was trademark to Hufflepuffs, listening to the noise of the Great Hall. Much of their table's talk was over the upcoming match, and there was a fair amount of Potter-bashing to go around, some of it quite terrible. None voiced it, but ever since last year and the loss of Diggory, every Hufflepuff had held a quiet grudge against the Boy Who Lived and his house. Rotis, being a year older than the famous Potter, had never witnessed it, but there had been several awful stories as to what they had done to Harry and his crew to make life miserable when the houses had shared Divination class earlier in the year.

"We've got Astronomy tonight, haven't we?" asked Dicken, stirring his bowl of potato soup languidly. Neither the girls answered, Rotis too occupied with devouring her vegetable stew (the practice had taken a lot out of her), Gaiter staring off into space.

Or so it looked. She was really staring at the teacher's table, watching the space between where Hagrid, busy refilling the flask he always carried, and the sallow-faced Snape sat. His name was Professor Herring, and he was the new head of the History department at Hogwarts (since Professor Binns had disappeared mysteriously over the summer, though most rumored he realized all the fun he was missing being a teaching ghost and not a haunting one). Aside from Herbology, Gaiter had an insane interest in the past of the wizarding world, having come from a Muggle/witch parenting in a mostly Muggle area, where magic had been frowned upon (but not forbidden), and all Gaiter's persistent questions ignored. Having the young and intelligent Herring for a teacher was just another of the reasons she loved the subject, though it was quickly becoming the main one.

She couldn't help it if he called on her all the time, she thought to herself. Or if he was always up for some after-class discussion over how dragons killed the dinosaurs, or the beginnings of Quidditch. It was entirely out of her hands that he smiled at her so often, or that she could feel his glance when she was taking notes. She was blameless for the fact that he had dark auburn hair, or that his eyes were flecked with red, or that

She suddenly glanced over and saw Snape boring a hole into her skull with his eyes, having been watching her this whole time. Shuddering, she turned her gaze away from the greasy-haired, perfectly terrible Potions teacher and focused on her near empty glass of kiwi juice.

"Gaiter! Hello!" said Dicken, poking her in the side. "Are you back yet?"

She glared at him, wishing yet again that he didn't love to annoy her so. "What, Dicken?"

"Astronomy, tonight - have we got it?"

She thought back to the last time they'd been up in the Tower with Professor Sinestra. "Yes, I think so." She'd said something about Orion, something about a broken telescope, 'next class will be Wednesday night.' She nodded, her pink hair bobbing. "Yes, I'm sure."

Rotis slapped her forehead and swallowed her last bite. "Cripes, do we? The team's supposed to meet, I've got to be there. . . " She turned to ask Jiminy what to do about the conflict when she suddenly overheard something.

"We might be moaning over some of the kids who've graduated and gone off, but at least we're not like those Hufflepuffs," a distinctively Irish voice from the Gryffindor table was saying. "They're still shedding tears over their beloved Pretty Boy Diggory."

Seamus Finnagin, one of Potter's friends, was running his already overrun mouth again. Rotis felt the blood rush to her ears, gripping her fork like it was a club.

"I mean, they act like they lost their bloody god or something - "

There was a crash as Rotis suddenly stood, knocking over several glasses of fruit juice and upsetting a bowl of peas, and turned on the Gryffindor table. Gaiter and Dicken passed worried glances to each other.

"Don't you ever - " Rotis shouted, brandishing her fork like a sword, "insult Cedric Diggory like that! Ever! You understand, Finn?"

Seamus' face had gone rather pale as he looked up at the furious Beater, her hair almost horn-like, her face contorted with rage. The lad beside him, a chubby boy they called Longbottom, looked as though he was about have a breakdown.

"I-I'm s-s-sorry - " stuttered Seamus.

"You have no right!" she screamed, not noticing how quiet the Hall had suddenly grown. "No right in the least!"

"Rotis," said someone, and she whirled, looking down at the face of Harry Potter, his green eyes, she noticed gladly, tinted with a tinge of fear. "He didn't mean anything by it."

"Yes, Rotis," said Hermione Granger, looking as collected as though she was simply facing another test and not the most infuriated girl in all of Hogwarts. "It has, after all, been an entire year."

"Listen, Hermaninny," said Rotis, knocking over a Gryffindor pitcher as she bent to meet the girl eye to eye. "A month, a year, a millennia," she growled, meeting the bushy-haired bookworm's cool gaze. "It will never be enough."

"Is there a problem here?" Rotis jerked up to see the grave figure of Professor McGonagall looking at her most unhappily.

"No, Professor," said Harry. "Just a few friendly threats. . . "

She raised one eyebrow, giving her a highly unfriendly appearance.

"The Quidditch match, Professor," offered the boy beside Harry, the very redheaded Ron Weasley. "Just the Quidditch match."

The Professor's gaze went from the Gryffindors to Rotis, still looking like quite the aggressor.

"All right," she finally said. There was an audible sigh of relief from the Hufflepuff table. "Why don't you have seat, Miss Wood," she said, "or I'll have to inform your brother."

Rotis slunk back into her seat, cursing Oliver's existence. How many times had he sent her Howlers for being violent on the field? You want to get anywhere as a Beater, they always screamed, you've got to stop beating the players instead of the Bludger! And that damned Potter. . .

"Well, I think she behaved rather childishly," she overheard the Granger girl say, and then a sharp, "Oof! What was that for, Ron?"

Chatter slowly resumed in the Great Hall. A few of the Hufflepuffs smiled at her, and Roderick Childermass, the team's Keeper, actually gave her a thumbs-up.

But she wasn't proud - maybe a little, with the Granger girl (she still didn't understand what anyone saw in her, especially Harry), but the rest was just a reminder, just another, awful reminder that sent her back in the past, to the years before when she and

"It makes me sick," said Dicken, interrupting her thoughts. She watched his glass of pumpkin juice refill itself.

"What?" asked Gaiter.

"All of them - of us, and our malice towards them," he said, pointing to the Gryffindor table with his spoon, where the students were still eyeing Rotis nervously. Rotis glared at him, tired of his always being the just and fair one, the perfect example of a Hufflepuff, making her outbursts seem immature and senseless in comparison.

"No, I know, Rote, you've got your reasons, but still," he said.

"Haven't we all got our reasons?" asked Gaiter.

"You might," said Dicken, looking at Gaiter, "and you do," he added, turning to Rotis. "But I don't."

Rotis sighed, her anger slowly turning to sadness, and she scanned the masses of students, all calmly eating their dinner, having already dismissed the previous minutes, long since forgotten the previous year. How could they do it so easily - go about their days and meals like nothing had ever happened? How could they have already forgotten it?

She clumsily brushed a tear out of her eye with a fist, feeling her throat tighten up.

"I can't eat anything," she said suddenly. Gaiter looked up from her plate and nodded.

"Yea, me neither. Maybe I can get a few more inches of my scroll done before Astronomy," she said, scooting her chair back as her plate magically cleaned itself. Dicken followed suit, following the girls out of the Hall.

The entire student body watched them leave, Waverly Lysander's eyes lost in the crowd.