As promised, this chapter is better, and out much sooner, than the last one. I think (Well… hope) you'll really enjoy it. It was kind of hard to write, but I pulled through.
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"How much have you got?"
"Two rolls," I answered Fred. He looked at me in confusion?
"How do you have two rolls of parchment written, and I only have one?" he asked, maybe a little too loudly. Madam Pince shot us a look.
"You three keep it down," she hissed, wagging a finger in our direction. "This is a library." The three of us had been sitting in the library for hours, huddled over piles of Potions books.
"I'm halfway through," George announced. "The problem is that we have everything in these stupid books. There's not enough information to write. My whole last paragraph was a bunch of stuff I pulled out of my ass."
"Lich, let me copy some of yours," Fred pleaded.
"No way," I dropped my quill down in frustration. "This is pointless. I have no intentions on ever creating a Draught of the Living Death Potion. Why write about it?" They both nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, but we still have this stupid essay," George said, rolling his eyes. "Someone go see if there's another book."
"Why can't you go?" his brother retaliated.
"Because I got the last one."
"Yeah," I pointed out. "And I got the set of books before that."
"Oh fine," Fred huffed. With a loud sigh and a glare from Madam Pince, he stomped off in to one of the many isles of enormous shelves of books.
"He's so stubborn," I said after Fred walked away.
"Sorry about him," George apologized. "If it doesn't involve food or Quidditch, he has no motivation. We're lucky he's actually mildly interested in finishing this essay.
"I should be used to it," I said with a shrug. "In the last seven years, nothing has changed. You, however, have stepped it up a bit."
"Yeah, well if my mother received one more owl about how I failed my last exam, she'd have a fit," he explained. "Better late than never, I guess, right?"
I nodded in agreement. "Just make sure once Quidditch starts you keep that in mind. Can you believe she wanted six practices a week?"
"She's just as out of it as Fred," he replied, shaking his head. "But I'm excited about Quidditch this year though. My mum and dad are going to come to a match or two. In all these years, they've never seen us play."
At the mention of his parents, I could feel myself frowning. Why couldn't MY parents come for a match? "Must be nice," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Sorry," he said apologetically. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"No, it's fine," I shrugged. "I can't get upset any time someone mentions parents. I'd never get through life that way. It's just… a little disappointing, you know? I know that when I go home this summer or for the winter holiday, it's not going to be the same. It's never going to be the same."
He gave me a sympathetic glance.
"Yeah, but things change, Lich," he said simply. "Feelings change."
"But that quickly? George, it was a sudden thing. It's like one day we were a perfectly happy family, but now, look at it."
"I'll say it again, Alicia, feelings change. Sometimes you just feel differently about someone. You wake up and realize you don't feel the same way about someone any more."
"Like you love someone, then you hate them?" I asked. He nodded.
"Or you hate them, then you love them," He locked his eyes with mine. For the second time, I noticed how incredibly green George's eyes were. Suddenly, there was a slam on the table we sat at.
"'Dark Potions and Their Dark Effects'," Fred said, sitting back down across from us. We snapped out attention to him after he slammed the heavy book on the table. "It's the last Potions book left on the shelves. Bloody awful trying to find it. I'm guessing we'll be able to finish these essays with this book. We better- it took me long enough to find it."
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"Spinnet! Weasley! Weasley!" I was snapped awake by Professor Snape. "Ten points from Gryffindor-each- for sleeping in class. If I so much as see you three blink, it's detention for a week."
I couldn't help but sigh. Fred, George, and I had stayed up until some ungodly hour in the morning finishing Snape's stupid essay. It was the end of the class, and we were having trouble keeping our eyes open. With a yawn, I tried to stay awake.
"Now," Snape continued. "I graded your essays. Some of you almost came close to a halfway decent grade. The majority of you did awful." He walked up and down the rows, passing back our papers. He finally came to us. "Next time, maybe, you three will actually do the research next time. You all fail." He threw the essays on the table. They all had a big red X on the whole front page. "You Gryffindors fail."
"Didn't do the research?" Fred asked, appalled. "Professor Snape, we did tons of research.
"Yeah!" George agreed. "We read every Potions book in the library!"
"Ten points from Gryffindor for back talking a professor,"
"But professor! You can't do that!" Fred protested.
"Fred, be quiet!" I said, hoping to shut him up.
"Make that twenty points Mr. Weasley, and a night of detention. If anyone has anything else to say…"
"Professor Snape!" George stood up for his brother.
"Thirty."
"George, shut up!" I said, kicking him from under the table. "We don't need any more points taken away and you don't need detention, either."
"But Alicia! This is a bunch of-"
"GEORGE!" he shut up, but you could tell he was just itching to get one last comment in.
For the rest of the class, not another word was said. When it was time to leave, everyone was thankful.
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"It's rubbish!" Fred said after dinner as we all walked back in to the common room. He took his belongings and slammed them on a nearby table. "Complete rubbish!"
"Fred, calm down," Katie said, shaking her head at him. "You're making a mountain out of a molehill."
"Calm down, Katie?" He just about laughed. "Calm down? I spent hours on a stupid essay- a good essay- to get detention?"
"Should that even surprise you?" Lee asked, sitting down on one of the scarlet couches. "Fred, you're a Gryffindor. He hates us all."
"That shouldn't be an excuse!" Fred said with a roll of is eyes. He leaned against one of the walls of the common room.
"Well maybe if you would have just shut your mouth when I had told you to, none of this would have happened in the first place." I pointed out.
"Alicia, if I'm not mistaking, your paper had a big red X on it too," he said. "Why aren't you mad?" He had a point- almost.
"Fred, how many times have you had a big red X on you Potions papers?" I asked. "We've all had them. You and I both know that. Just get over it. It's one paper."
"She's got a point," George said with a nod. "If we BOTH just shut up, you wouldn't have detention and we wouldn't have lost an extra twenty points on top of what we lost from sleeping."
"Thirty," I corrected. "We lost sixty total."
"Yeah Fred, just let it go," Angelina offered. "We're not even half way through the term and Gryffindor has lost too many points. We can't lose any more."
"Plus, if you get suspended from Quidditch again, like last year," Katie pointed out. "Angelina will wring your neck!" Angelina nodded in agreement. It made all of us laugh. Even Fred cracked a smile.
"Fine," Fred said with a roll of his eyes. "Simply for the fact that I value my life more than my grade."
"That's more like it," Lee said with a chuckle. (A/N: I hate the word chuckle. Don't ask why I used it. But I think that that word sounds so… blah)
"Wow," George said with a yawn. "You guys, it's been a long day. I think I'm just going to go up and go to sleep." And of course yawns are contagious. Within the next few seconds, we were all hit by it- the yawns.
"You're right," Angelina nodded. "I'm headed up to bed too. Good night guys." It was unanimous. We all walked up to our dorms for a nice night's sleep.
Before I drifted off to a peaceful sleep, I kept thinking about what George had said the night before.
I could blame change. Change was what had ruined my family.
People change.
Feelings change.
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Well guys, there it is! No shout outs this chapter, sorry. I'm waaay too tired. Goodnight.
Ooh, I just watched Troy… that movie was THE GREATEST!