𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 109

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
AND NINE
✧
-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH AVIANA
REASSURES HIM

. . .

As much as Aviana had full faith in her own words, Harry seemed to fall into a state of perpetual quietness over that evening, and into the morning following. He stayed in his room at Grimmauld Place, and when anyone questioned it Sirius jumped in and sad that he was most likely tired and was sleeping the drama of the past few days.

And although it was certainly Harry's moment to be entirely confused by everything going on, it had left Aviana in some kind of limbo. She wondered, as she sat listening to Sirius singing carols and refusing to help put up the holly garlands all over the house, whether or not she should go and talk to him. Of course, in the eyes of everyone who believed she was his girlfriend, it was almost expected of her - if she was not who she was and had not managed to perfect the image of not caring about anything at all for years.

But... it wasn't hard for her to confess, at least to herself, that she had gotten more than used to the idea of having Harry around. They were supposedly dating to most, but he was truly her friend at that point, and had been for a while, truly cemented since the DA had begun. Certainly, she had joined simply because she couldn't stand Umbridge and didn't agree at all with the Ministry's idea of amending their curriculum to simply fit their perception of what had happened at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, but it was clear there was no way she could have continued going should Harry not have been there, particularly not with what Hermione, Zacharias Smith and many others thought of her.

He was, Harry was her friend, even something more, because she had been thinking - and she was really given a lot given that she was contributing absolutely nothing to helping to decorate, having had more than enough of that with Draco as a prefect - that if anything, there was nobody in Grimmauld Place that she was more comfortable with.

And really, truly - for Sirius's sake as well as her own, as it seemed more than likely she would not be returning to the manor she had spent majority of her life in again - she was supposed to be working on herself.

Sometime in the afternoon, not all that long since Mrs Weasley brought in mugs of soup and an assortment of sandwiches, just as Sirius was burst into another rendition of some Muggle band's Christmas song - something about 'wham', she didn't know, she hadn't been listening - she picked up the pile of books she had been flicking through and made her way upstairs, leaving behind all the jolliness and returning to the usual gloom of the house.

She knocked on the door once, twice, and without waiting for an answer she pushed the door open. There was hardly any surprise to what she saw; how could she have expected two boys - two Gryffindor boys, too - to live in anything but a general pigsty, beds not made, clothes all over the floor, a half-packed trunk on the verge of falling off Harry's bed as he sat upon it, his eyes wide behind his glasses as he looked up at her.

"Merlin." She breathed out, taking several steps across the room to pull open the windows to allow the light in, the rays of winter sun beaming down over the dust. "We've been here two days, you still haven't unpacked?" She asked, her wand emerging from her pocket to pick up dirty laundry from the floor and chuck it into a pile in the corner.

"No..." Harry shook his head, seeming to be in some kind of shock that she was even there. "Leave it, Aviana." He implored, scrambling upwards to lug his trunk of his bed. "Really, leave it, come sit down."