Chapter 89: Feelings

The trip to the Hogwarts kitchen was really nice. Irena told Chris about the history of the Great Hall, the kitchen and the Hufflepuff common room. All were built by Helga Hufflepuff. She really liked the idea of a place where people comes together which the Great Hall represents. Irena also explain that Helga Hufflepuff wanted to stop the abuses on the House-elves so she brought them in Hogwarts so they can live and work peacefully. Chris realized how much Hermione was wrong about the slave labor.

Chris told all these to Ginny, Luna and Colin; and they decided to visit the kitchen sometime.

Thursday afternoon they walked out of the Charms class happily as the four of them performed the spell very quickly.

"Hey I need to catch Harry for a moment. I want to tell him about Dobby." Chris said as they head out of the class.

"Yeah, Dobby will be really happy to meet him." Luna said.

"We tried to catch him before but he's always busy, then in Great Hall we sit on the different tables and I asked Chris, not to talk to him in front of Hermione." Ginny replied.

"But Ginny don't you think you should tell Hermione what Chris learned from the kitchen about the House-elves?" Colin asked.

"I'll Colin if she decides to listen." Chris said with sigh. "By the way, I heard they had Defence Against the Dark Arts class this afternoon. So if we hurry we can catch Harry there. Let's go."

They ran towards the DADA classroom, as they entered the passage which leads to the classroom, Chris saw a boy standing there alone. As they came near Chris realized its Neville Longbottom, he was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite him with a horrified, wide-eyed look.

"Neville!" Luna whispered.

Neville didn't hear her, he was standing like a statue.

"Neville!" Chris said touching his arm.

Neville jerked back to life.

"Oh hello," he said, his voice much higher than usual. "Hi Chris! Hi Ginny! Hi Luna! Hi Colin!"

Ginny and Luna exchanged worried looks.

"Are you all heading to..... the Great Hall? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm — I'm starv­ing, aren't you?" Neville said like he wasn't thinking what he's saying.

Harry, Ron and Hermione came running towards him.

Hermione looked at Chris and Ginny for a brief moment then turned to Neville.

"Neville, are you all right?" She said gently.

"Oh yes, I'm fine," Neville mumbled in the same unnaturally high voice. "Very interesting dinner — I mean lesson — what's for eating?"

"Neville, what — ?" Ron started but an odd clunking noise sounded behind them which stopped him, and they turned to see, Professor Moody was limping toward them. All of them fell silent, watching him apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.

"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come on … we can have a cup of tea. …"

Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Harry.

"You all right, are you, Potter?"

"Yes," said Harry, almost defiantly.

Moody's blue eye quivered slightly in its socket as it surveyed Harry. Then he looked at Chris for few moments, "You've got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you've got to know. No point pretending … well … come on, Longbottom."

Chris remembered, the same thing he said to third year class few days ago. Neville looked pleadingly at everyone around him.

".... er.... Professor?" Chris spoke.

"Yes? Norton?" Professor Moody's magic eye turned towards her.

"Actually I asked Neville to help me with my... Herbology homework. I really need to finish that tonight. So if he can come with me.... it'll be great." Chris said thinking what would be Moody's reaction.

Moody looked around at everyone's faces but no one said anything.

"Fine. Go." He growled after few seconds and walked away with his weird leg.

"Thank you Chris." Neville sighed with relif.

"You know you shouldn't have lied to him. Maybe he meant best for Neville." Hermione said, giving a nasty look to Chris.

"Who said I lied, Hermione? I really need Neville's help with Herbology." Chris replied with a big fake smile. Then she turned to Neville, "C'mon Neville, I'm really serious."

"O... oh.... I.... ok...." Neville answered nervously.

"Great. I'll see all you later." Chris said to Ginny, Luna and Colin.

They nodded and Chris walked away with Neville.

Chris and Neville walked in silence untill they reached the fat lady portrait and entered the empty Gryffindor common room.

Neville sat on an armchair still looking nervous and terrified. Chris sat on a armchair opposite to him.

After few minutes of silence when Neville realized that Chris isn't speaking, he looked at her, only to find her staring at him.

"Wh... what.. happened?" Neville said nervously.

"Nothing. We've a time till everyone comes back. If you want to talk about what happened today at Professor Moody's class. I'm listening." Chris replied with a soft and gentle voice.

"But... what... the Herbology.. your Herbology homework?" Neville asked surprised.

"Well... honestly I'm not good at Herbology but you're.. so I can use your help.. but again in this state of mind you can't help me." Chris replied.

"You think I'm good at Herbology? I mean it's the only subject I like." Neville said, slightly relaxed.

"I know you're good at Herbology. Harry told me." Chris said smiling.

"Then I can definitely help you right now. Really." He replied a little loudly then usual and tried to get up.

"Neville?" Chris stopped him. "We can sit silently if you don't want to talk, but please stop doing this to yourself. You're not ok. Not ok at all." Chris said with a sigh.

There was long pause then,

"Professor Moody was showing us the unforgivable curses today...." Neville said very quietly. "The Imperious Curse, the Killing Curse and the.... Cruciatus Curse."

Neville was looking down, unable to meet Chris's gaze. Chris didn't say anything.

"He showed us what the curses can do... By using Imperious Curse, you can fully control anyone. Killing Curse will kill.... and... the Cruciatus Curse will give pain, it'll torture the person... to... to...." Neville suddenly looked up, eyes red. "Before Harry faced You-Know-Who, there was a witch with Him, Bellatrix Lestrange... she tortured my parents.. my Mom and Dad with that Curse so much that.... that... they... lost their minds.... they don't even recognize me."

Saying this Neville sunk into the armchair, defeated, full of pain. Few drops of tears escaped his eyes. He shut his eyes tight. Chris hold his hand, and just sat their.

After few moments Chris spoke, "I was six when my mom left me and my Dad, for someone else. I loved her so much that after she left.... I felt she didn't deserve me and I was angry ... so angry that I stopped communicating with her..... three months ago she..... died."

Neville looked at her.

"And she.. wrote a letter for me when she was in the hospital, in her last few days... in the letter she told me... that she was sorry... she also loved me very much... I...." Chris realized her cheeks were wet, she was crying. "I felt so angry on myself after that... I was so angry on her that she thought I'll not want to see her in hospital. She wanted to see me but I couldn't.. I didn't..." she sighed. "After I attended her furenal, I realized how much I loved her... I didn't even cry... not even once... I.... I.... couldn't tell anyone how was I feeling.. not to my Dad... not to my best friends..."

There was an another long pause, Neville hold her hand back tightly.

"Everytime I couldn't do magic properly... I feel, I failed them... they were so brave... but me? Even a little Hufflepuff boy can scare me away if he want." said Neville. "I also didn't tell anyone about my parents. But I know why we didn't... you know why? Because our friends will feel bad about this... but they'll never understand what exactly we're feeling."

Chris was really surprised to hear Neville saying this, because his words were exactly why Chris couldn't bring herself to tell everything to Ginny or anyone of her friends.

Chris felt a great heavy thing lifting from her heart, she felt alive again. She gave a greatful smile to Neville and saw the same kind of smile on his face.

And there two not very close persons understood each others pain, feelings and emotions; and formed a good, strong friendship.

___________________________________

Next few days, went very quickly, Chris got house points from Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwik, Professor Trelawney, Professor Babbling, Hagrid and even Professor Snape. Chris was getting interested in Potions very much, she was doing it very attentively. So when Snape checked her potion, it was so correct that he had to gave five points to Gryffindor.

Neville helped Chris with Herbology and Chris helped him with Charms and Potions. As Snape was forcing them to re­search antidotes and he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked. Neville was certain he was going to die. Chris thought this, as a good opportunity to learn about antidotes, so she spent lots of time on third and forth both years Charms and Potions.

Other than that Chris heard the incident at the Quidditch World Cup in detail from Harry and wrote it down clearly from her point of view. Luna really liked the article as she read it before sending it to her father.

In between these works, Chris barely got chances to sleep and eat. She was very sure, if she wasn't very fond of sleeping and eating, she couldn't able to get time for them.

But what troubled Chris the most was Jason's behaviour. In every class which Gryffindors had with Slytherins Chris saw him sitting in the far corner of the class, clearly distracted and also missing each and every DADA class after the first one.

One afternoon when Chris was returning from her Runes class with Irena, she caught a sight of Astoria, who was also going back to the Great Hall with her friends. Chris couldn't help herself, she was really worried.

"Sorry Irena. I remembered something really important. I'll see you later." Chris said and without waiting ran towards the Slytherin group.

"Astoria!" She called and Astoria turned around, looked very surprised to see Chris.

"I need to talk to you for sec." Chris said.

Astoria nodded and sign her friends to go on without her.

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"Yes Chris?" She asked. "Everything ok?"

"No. Actually yeah. Everything ok with me." Chris was searching for right words. "Well Astoria, look I'm not a very good friend of Jason but you're."

As Chris expected, Astoria blushed hearing this.

"Yeah. We're really close." She replied smiling.

"Yes. I know." Chris said a little loudly.

Astoria startled looked at her.

"Well.. I mean... you see Jason isn't attending his class regularly and in class he isn't very focused either." Chris said quickly with a normal tone. "I thought I should tell you, as you and your sister are the only friends he have. And also Professors are really not happy with him because of this. He can get into trouble."

"Really? But Jason is one of the most talented wizards I know and more importantly he's very serious about his studies." Astoria replied, surprised.

"I know right. I've talked to him few times, he talks about books and classes all the time, that's why when I noticed his this behaviour, I felt concerned and I thought you'll be concerned too. That's why..."

"Thank you so much Chris. Thanks for telling me, really, there's very few people like you; who think about others. I'll talk to Jason. This is really not right." Astoria said with a determined smile.

"Yeah, alright. See you later." Chris gave a forced smile and walked away.

It's not like Chris couldn't ask Jason herself that what's wrong with him but the problem was other than the classes, Jason was nowhere to be found. Chris tried but didn't find him so she thought of this plan. If she tells Astoria then Astoria will definitely tell Jason about this and knowing him, he'll come running to Chris to confront her, about why she told this to Astoria. Of course he'll be very angry but that's the only way Chris thought, unless you count her idea to break into the Slytherin common room.

When Chris arrived in the entrance hall, she found it very crowded with students congre­gated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. Chris made her way through the crowd and saw a notice.

TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o'clock on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons will end half an hour early.

Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast.

"Isn't it exciting, Chris?" A boy said as Chris came out the crowd.

Chris looked up to see Melvin Catterick.

"Melvin? Yeah it's nice." Chris replied simply.

"You know our Hufflepuff Prefect is going to participate." Melvin said more enthusiastically.

"And who's your Hufflepuff Prefect?" Chris asked as there was no escape from that conversation.

"Cedric Diggory." He replied grinning.

"Cedric is participating? Is he already seventeen?" Chris asked surprised as she knew Cedric was in sixth year like Fred and George.

"Yeah. He's... you know him?" Melvin said with slight disappointment.

"Yeah. We went to Quidditch World Cup together." Chris said, as too lazy to include the details.

"Oh." Melvin's face fell. "That's great. Bye."

And he ran off. This was the first time Melvin walked away but not Chris, from their conversation.

Feeling a little more surprised, she sat on the Ravenclaw table with Ginny, Luna and Colin.

"Of course he was upset, you crazy girl." Ginny said after hearing what happened with Melvin. "You said you went to the World Cup with Cedric and everyone knows how handsome and good looking he is, also so many girls are crazy about him. So he thought..."

"That something is going on between us?" Chris said with a mouthful of roasted chicken.

"Exactly. How you can be so slow in understating these matters, Chris?" Ginny asked.

Chris rolled her eyes.

"It's not my fault. Boys are weird."