Chapter 10
I lay in bed, pulling the blankets to my chest. Dumbledore had sent a patronus up to my room a few hours ago to order Hatter- no, Adair, back to his office. Already, my brain seemed to love his name.
We had been curled up together, him helping me with homework, when a silvery phoenix patronus had burst through my door, spoken in the headmaster’s voice, then dispersed into the air.
We had sat there for a moment, bathed in the warm lamplight, knowing, he did not want to go back to that prison. He’d looked at me and pulled me into a long lingering kiss.
“I think I might fancy you,” he’d breathed.
He dropped the locket into my palm. “What?” I asked, “Why-”
“I’m afraid Dumbledore might take it from me,” he whispered, “But I know you’ll keep it safe.”
Sighing, I slid out of bed, he had left shortly after that, hesitant. The cold air of the room chilled my bare legs.
Something bothered me though. When I was dueling Pansy, before I hit her with my wand, something odd happened. The spell she cast on me did nothing. At the end of class, some of the students congratulated me on a quickly cast shield charm. But I didn’t. Could any of the other students have cast it for me?
No.
If a shield spell had been cast there would have been a bright flash of light. But there wasn’t. Did this mean I was immune to magic?
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“Exponentia.” I say as I tap the charm to the worn leather hat. I barely slept the night before, thinking about my new predicament.
“Morning love,” Adair says. I nod, distracted.
“Hey, are mad at me?” he tilts my face back towards him so I am facing him. This jarred me out of my thoughts, “What- huh- no,” I blow out a breath, “Just thinking”
“About what?”
“Cast a spell on me.”
“What?”
“Just do it, I want to test something out.”
He frowns, but takes the wand from my outstretched hand. Still suspicious, he says, “Wingardium leviosa.”
I brace for something to happen, in case I am wrong. But I’m not, nothing happens. “What…” Adair whispers.
“Bloody hell,” I say
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The weeks drag on, it forms a repeating cycle of fetching Adair from the office, going to class, going back to my dorm, and watching him return to the headmaster’s office.
Most of my professors seemed to love Adair, Trelawney the most. One week turns into two, I sit with Adair in the courtyard. Most everyone deserts it this time of year, December, but I don’t mind the cold. Adair took great joy in the crisp, outside winter air.
I look up from my homework. “Is this right?.” He leans over to squint at my messy handwriting. His long eyelashes catch the cold light. “Maybe.” He rests his head on my shoulder. I adjust my blue and gray scarf to wrap around both of us. “You wanna get some food?” he murmurs.
We stride through the halls, on our way to get snacks.
“So, I think,” Adair starts, “that spells cast directly on you don’t work… but magic objects do?”
I nodded. “That would go along with what we tested out.”
All of a sudden, we see Dumbledore. He looks panicked, hurried.
“There you two are!” He exclaims. We stop in our tracks. Adair stiffens beside me. The professor strides over to us. “I’m so glad I’ve run into you. You see, I’m going on a trip, for work of course, and I needed to talk to you two before I left.”
I can feel Adair tightly gripping the back of my robe. I meet Dumbledore’s eyes, “What do you need?”
He gives a tender smile, “Since the boy’s attitude has much improved since you’ve befriended him, I want you to continue taking him to your classes. But since I’ll be gone, don’t return it to my office at night, since I cannot send a patronus that far.” He breaks off the sentence to glance around, his eyes landing on Adair. “I realize that I neglected to tell you how to turn him back into a hat, so I’ll tell you: it's the same spell that turns him human.”
I nod slowly, as if I will do that. Really, I have no intention of this, but I want Dumbledore to believe otherwise.
“Please behave well!” he says cheerfully.
We stand there, dumbfounded, as he skips away, almost like a giddy child. “So…” Adair says, “Still hungry?”
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I laugh along to Adair’s joke, even though my mind is racing. I’m not sure what to do. But he doesn’t seem phased by the implied intimacy of our new arrangement. He unlocks my door. “Well darling,” he says, “It’s almost eight, where am I sleeping?”
I stop dead mid-step, “I-uh well-”
“I can sleep on the floor.” he offered
“No sleep on the bed, I’ll sleep on the floor,” I said.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. You’re my guest, you have… guest privileges or something…”
He took in the room around us, eyeing every detail. “What if-” he paused and looked at me, “What if we share the bed?”
~to be continued~