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NINE.
WHEN ERIN Martell heard the news of her best friend - Zoe Rosenkrands - having to stay in the hospital wing due to severe third-degree burns, she had rushed straight out of the dorm room to spend the day sat beside her. Racing out, she had muttered something to Bella about wondering where Zoe had been all the times she wandered off towards the Forbidden Forest, before leaving Arabella to sit in the dormitory on her own.
After just minutes of sitting alone - bored and lonely with only herself to talk to, it all began to piece together for Bella. The blonde werewolf that she and Viktor encountered the night before, the one that got burned, was Zoe.
It was times like these that she wanted Viktor. But she couldn't have him, because she blew her chances, and at the time she had nobody else. Deanna was studying, Fred and George were off around Hogsmeade (since it was a Saturday, and all their free time involved was spending hours in Zonko's Joke Shop) and the rest of her peers, some of whom she considered slight friends, she felt would not be supportive enough in troubling situations like these. And besides, she couldn't go around telling the school that Zoe Rosenkrands was a werewolf. She hated the girl immensely, but still never had the heart to do such a thing and expose her like that.
"Shit," Arabella spoke to herself, grabbing her wand off the dorm floor where she left it from when it was dropped. She slammed the door shut behind her, running to the library where she swiftly entered with panting breaths. She decided that she would ask Deanna to help, despite her incredible study ethic, because Bella needed someone to talk to at that moment. She would go insane if she spent one more second talking to herself.
The redhead picked up a large and heavy book entitled Werewolf Encyclopaedia and ran up to Deanna, knowing that she would be in the library, and banged the book on the table so that it made her jump up from where she was vigorously writing Divination notes. "Wh--What?"
"I need your help," she ordered, flicking open a random page that happened to display werewolf anatomy. "See this werewolf?" The girl nodded. "That's Zoe."
Deanna chuckled loudly, earning a furious shush from Hermione Granger who was clearly trying to concentrate. "What are you talking about, Bella? Honestly, anyone would think that you had consumed Alihotsy or something."
She grabbed the girl's wrist tightly, taking her by surprise. "No, Dea, listen to me. I'm serious. I didn't tell you, but I went out with Viktor last night and we came across a werewolf. Viktor casted the Confringus Charm on it, and we escaped, but the werewolf was badly burned. Zoe miraculously ends up found just hours later, with third-degree burns. This werewolf's fur was blonde, Zoe has blondehair." Arabella threw up her arms in frustration, releasing her grip off Deanna which made her sigh with relief as the grasp was starting to hurt. "I'm telling you, it all adds up! That's the secret that she was keeping from us, and that's why she kept disappearing - she would go away on a full moon so nobody would know her secret when she turned!"
