stardust ⋮ george weasley

fifty-four :

F I F T Y - F O U R

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Harry had managed to escape his charges and stay enrolled at Hogwarts despite Minister Fudge's best efforts, and the Hogwarts letters had arrived for all the students at Grimmauld Place a few days later.

Adeline, Hermione, and Ginny were all hanging out in their shared room when Mrs. Weasley arrived with their respective letters. Hermione was delighted – and the other two girls weren't surprised in the slightest – to learn that she had been made a Gryffindor prefect.

As she shook her letter out of the envelope, Adeline didn't notice a large blue badge with silver writing that had fallen onto her pillow until Hermione gasped. "Adeline!" She exclaimed excitedly as she picked up the badge. "You're the Head Girl!"

Adeline stared at the badge with her eye wide with shock, and Ginny rushed over to get a closer look as Adeline took the badge out of Hermione's hands. "Is this some sort of mistake?" Adeline questioned as she grabbed her letter from off her bed.

Reading the letter, Adeline discovered that the badge didn't end up in her envelope as some sort of mistake. Back when Adeline had been made a prefect in her fifth year, it had been Professor Flitwick to write the letter. However, this time, Professor McGonagall congratulated Adeline in her letter and told her that she was going to be a wonderful Head Girl for the next year.

"I mean, it's not really a surprise, is it?" Ginny said. "You've been a prefect for the past two years, and you're the Triwizard Champion. I think almost all the teachers at Hogwarts love you."

"It is to me..." Adeline muttered as she stuffed the badge under her pillow. "Can you guys just...not say anything about it?"

"Are you joking?" Hermione questioned with a small laugh. "You're the Head Girl! That's incredible! I'd be screaming and jumping if I were you."

The truth was, Adeline didn't think she deserved it. For years, she wanted nothing more than to wear that Head Girl badge with pride and be a leader at Hogwarts during her seventh year. But now Adeline was more terrified than ever of letting everyone in her life down, and she didn't think she would even be taken seriously because it seemed as if the whole wizarding world doubted every word Adeline said – even if everything the Daily Prophet was saying was a lie.

Hermione and Ginny were still staring at Adeline expectantly, waiting for an answer. So, she shrugged and just said, "I just don't want people to know about it yet, alright? It's not that big of a deal anyways."

For a moment, it looked as if Hermione was about to protest this. But with a look from Ginny, Hermione decided to move on from the topic and start talking excitedly about the book list and new prefect privileges. Both girls could see the dark circles beginning to grow under Adeline's eye and how exhausted she had seemed the past few days. Even though they didn't know that Adeline had barely slept in days, they could tell that she wasn't in the best mindset, and neither of them wanted to push her too much.

"You should go tell Ron and Harry," Ginny suggested to Hermione. "They're probably opening their Hogwarts letters right now too."

Hermione agreed and nodded excitedly as she stood up and ran down the hall towards the boys' room. The door to Ron and Harry's room flew open as Hermione burst inside with Adeline and Ginny close behind, clutching her Hogwarts letter in her hands. She saw the prefect badge in Harry's hand and lunged towards him, wrapping him in a hug. "I knew it! Me too, Harry, me too!"

Embarrassed, Harry shoved the prefects badge back in Ron's hands "No!" He exclaimed. "It's Ron, not me."

"Congrats, Ron!" Adeline grinned immediately before anyone could say aloud their surprise over Ron being given the position. "You're going to do great!"