Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Betrothed ❯ Chapter 10 ( Chapter 10 )

“There's another way to get out of this betrothed situation,” he said in a sickening voice which sounded very happy. His grip tightened against the struggles feeling the last of the breath escape the lungs. “Now you wont ever have to worry about this again.”

 

How could this happen?

 

“NO!” screamed Harry and sat straight up in bed. He was drenched in sweat. His bed was drenched in sweat. Even though he wasn't wearing his glasses he could see Ron, Neville, and Seamus sitting up in bed staring at him. Seamus then fell back down asleep as if he had never woken up. He rubbed his burning scar and pulled on his glasses.

 

“Harry are you alright?” demanded Ron climbing out of bed. “You were screaming bloody murder just now.”

 

“I had a bad dream,” he muttered looking around. What had he been dreaming? It was fading fast like most dreams, but a feeling of reality still lingered. He only remembered feeling horribly scared and almost in pain. He couldn't remember anything else except for someone saying not having to worry about something.

 

Ron was now by his side patting his shoulder. “More like a nightmare. What were you dreaming?”

 

His scar wasn't burning anymore. Harry shook his head. “I don't remember. I only remember….it was bad. Really bad.” He rubbed his face. “What time is it?”

 

“Five,” answered Neville. “You gave us quite the scare Harry. I'm going back to bed for a few more hours.” Neville then passed back out into a deep sleep.

 

Ron had gone back to bed and pulled the covers up to his chest. “See ya in a few.” He was out like a light.

 

Harry had never had a bad dream like this before. Sure, the occasional horror dream, but this one was worse. So much more worse. With the horror dreams he could remember some stuff unlike this one. It was now just a blur. One big blur. He placed his glasses back on the table and laid back down.

 

It had been at least four or five weeks since Lullia had arrived and her kiss with Harry. At first the kiss was fine until she pulled back saying that she couldn't do that since she didn't know him that well and since there was the issue of also being betrothed Draco. Lullia hadn't found out that Draco had seen them until she saw Zack and Blaise in the astronomy tower the next day. Apparently Draco hadn't cared and just shrugged it off, but Zack had muttered that afterwards Draco had been quiet. Harry had agreed with Lullia's reasons for not kissing and didn't press the issue since then, but that didn't help with all the new rumors floating around.

 

Harry dealt with dirty glances from most of the Slytherins since he had “stolen” Malfoy's girlfriend even though Harry and Draco denied of ever dating Lullia. Most of the rumors were ridiculous like usual, but some were very close to the truth. One was even scary true. This one luckily barely floated around since everyone thought it could never happen. A few people had said that Lullia only came to school to choose a husband and since Harry was famous that made him a great candidate while Draco was extremely rich that also made him a great candidate. The other choices were one of the Weasley sons since Mr. Weasley worked for the Ministry, Zack because no one knew where he came from so they assumed he came from the same world as Lullia and her family, and some even said Severus Snape for being one of the top teachers at Hogwarts (Lullia had nearly died laughing at that one).

 

Now the memory of the dream was long gone and Harry began to drift once more. He just hoped that he didn't have another bad dream to wake up everyone again. He then heard Ron snoring and Harry rolled onto his side. The hot drenching sweat now became cool on his body.

 

So far Hermione and Lullia had become great friends. Hell, everyone at the Gryffindor table loved her. Fred and George ran new ideas by her for the joke shop and she would always give her honest opinion about each other. Ginny had even warmed up to her after Harry had told Ginny of the situation. At first she didn't believed him until Draco (muttered it to her) confirmed it and that they showed her the Marcus letters. Harry even noticed that Blaise and Zack from Slytherin had taken a liking to her. John Marko, on the other hand, kept up with his flirting and asking Lullia out on dates and hadn't stopped trying to woo her either. Lullia tried to avoid him at all costs.

 

He couldn't fall back asleep. For some reason his tired body wouldn't let him fall back asleep. For God's sake, it was a Saturday morning! Harry climbed out of bed, pulled on his robe, and grabbed the letter from Sirius that had finally arrived late at night. He went down into the common room and flopped onto the couch by the warm fireplace. Even though Harry loved the wizarding world, he did miss waking up and watching Saturday morning cartoons. Even at the Dursley's, they at least let him watched the cartoons with Dudley before they went crazy on him.

 

Harry unfolded the letter and began to read: Harry, I'm sorry for not telling you earlier about the situation and for not writing you back sooner. I thought that since everyone believed you had also died that night and that they chose someone different, that you would be free of the situation. I must tell you though that they are a nice respectable family. Her aunt was engaged with my brother, but unfortunately she passed away. I do hope that everything works out for the best between you and Malfoy no matter how big of a jerk he is. P.F.

 

That was new. Regulus had been engaged to her aunt? That was something no one had ever mentioned. He didn't think that they would, but he hadn't even heard a whisper about it. He then briefly wondered what else they were keeping from him. He understood what Sirius meant, but still….Sirius should've told him no matter what or at least mentioned it.

 

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

 

Harry hadn't been able to fall back asleep, so he decided to take a walk around the school grounds. Fall had turned into winter and a light snow now covered the grounds. His feet crunched beneath it as he walked along the lake bundled up. He honestly couldn't believe that it December already and Christmas was just around the corner.

 

The fall had seemed like a dream almost just passing by with fun and adventure. Harry and Draco had started taking Lullia out on the “dates” that her mother requested at the beginning. Nothing too special except going to the Three Broom Sticks or taking a walk like he was doing now. They had to keep everything a secret since Lullia wanted to blend in with the other students. Sometimes a friend would join them like Hermione or Ron and for Draco-Zack was the only one who joined them. Blaise never seemed interested in hanging out with Draco and Lullia since he did get a girlfriend of his own-a cute little Ravenclaw. She sometimes joined Lullia for lunch and dinner when she sat with Draco.

 

Harry now kicked some snow around and headed back up to the castle. The morning light was shimmering over the forest bouncing off of the snow. It was a winter wonderland shinning even though maybe an inch or two of snow had fallen. Maybe he'd have some warm tea and crawl back into bed and fall asleep. God, that'd be great.

 

Luckily the situation with Pansy was over. She didn't dare go near Lullia after a full day of being literally frozen in place nor did she go near Draco either. She stayed away from both like they were the plague and barely even looked at them while in sight. Harry guessed that was a blessing, but he did believed that Pansy probably started some of the rumors and was going crazy about some of them.

 

Harry then knew that everything would turn out okay and he softly smiled.

 

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

Lullia sat on her bed dressed warmly in a green and dark blue sweater and jeans. She had woken up earlier this morning from a strange dream about a dark corridor, someone screaming, and strangely enough, a duck. A red duck. She had no idea where the duck had even come from, but after all those were dreams. Lullia had woken up cold, shivering underneath her three blankets, so she had pulled on her black knee highs.

 

She couldn't fall back asleep so she had gotten out of bed, pulled on her robe, and made herself some hot chocolate. It would be a week or two before heading back home which was exciting. She couldn't wait until she was back in her own bed, her mother's cooking, and of course, Christmas. It was her favorite holiday ever since she was little.

 

Besides the fact that Pansy had ruined her first day of school and some of the rumors became dangerously near the truth, everything for the most part was going pretty well. She had made new friends, enjoyed basically the public school life (everyone in her family was tutored by the greats, very few went to Hogwarts for more than two years, let alone one), and loved her time with Harry and Draco. Most of the time Harry was more enjoying than Draco, but nevertheless, she enjoyed her time. After all at the end of the year she'd be engaged to only one and not two boys.

 

Lullia's brown and black owl scratched at the bedroom window. She hoped off her bed dropping one of Hermione's Muggle books to the side. Hermione had started to lend Lullia books since she became fascinated with the Muggle world. This book was an American book about New York City's rich youth on the Upper Eastside. So far she was on the third book and it was very interesting to see what would happen. She opened the window letting the owl and the cold air into her warm room.

 

Lullia saw a letter from her parents and a copy of the Daily Prophet. She untied it from the owl, opened the window back up, and he flew out towards the owlary. She quickly hopped back onto her bed and opened the mail from her parents. Both had written a letter, which was highly unusual. She opened the one from her father first.

 

Lullia, What the hell is going on?! How in the world could you have told people of your betrothed situation!

 

She stopped reading. What was he talking about? Had some of Harry's friend told their parents? She highly doubt that all four Weasley children told their parents and Hermione's parents were Muggles…so what was he talking about? She knew Draco and his family wanted to keep the situation as unnoticeable as possible.

 

She then opened her mother's letter and it also started out as the same way except in a guiltier way. She paused then looked down at her copy of the morning's paper. Did someone leak it to the paper? No, that can't be! No one that I know would ever do that to us…

 

Lullia, shaking, unrolled the morning's paper and gazed down at the headline. Her mouth opened and she didn't waste any time by throwing it to the side. She jumped out of bed grabbing her black shoes, pulled them on and grabbed the paper and ran out of her room. It was only seven in the morning meaning that barely or if any students would be up this early on Saturday. She ran up the stairs nearly taking ten at a time before reaching the top floor where Dumbledore's room was located. She then darted down the corridor getting strange looks from the paintings that shrugged it off and went back to sleep. She then turned to the left, ran twenty more feet, then sharply turned back to the right where a dark woodened door was tightly shut.

 

She took a deep breath and pounded on the door. Pounding then turned into slamming her fists onto the door with no answer from Dumbledore. “PROFESSOR!” she nearly screamed without easing up with her fists. Where was he at seven in the morning? “PROFESSOR DUMBLEDORE!!!!!!!”

 

Lullia's hard fist then slammed itself onto Dumbledore's chest. She stopped on the verge of tears and looked up at the headmaster. He was standing in a red robe tightly around him and he concernedly stared down at Lullia.

 

“You have to help me,” she breathed and held up The Daily Prophet.

 

He squinted at the paper and concern spread throughout his face. “How did this happen?” Dumbledore then pulled Lullia into his room and sat her down on the sofa. His room wasn't that much bigger than her Head room, but looked like someone's home. “Lullia, please calm down and take deep, slow breaths.”

 

Lullia shook her head pointing to the headline. “You have to make sure no one gets this today! Can't you do something about this Rita Skeetcher?”

 

“Skeeter,” he softly corrected. “And no I cannot. After all this is still freedom of the press-”

 

“NOT ABOUT THIS!” she hissed angrily hitting her knees. “NO ONE CAN READ THIS!”

 

Dumbledore then patted Lullia's back as tears began to roll down her face in waves. The newspaper was now by her feet with three very distinct faces staring up at her. “I will do my best to keep the Prophet out of the hands of the students, but like yourself some will have already gotten it. Now please, Lullia, calm down. I'm sure no one would purposely do this to you.”

 

Lullia was now in tears wrapping her arms around her head. How could this of happened?