- Chapter Fifty-Nine -
"Still talking out of your ass, huh?"

THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT SLUGHORN'S DINNER PARTY was the fact that the people there had to dress up, that was the only thing that had enticed Sherry and also probably the only thing that had convinced her to stay for the whole dinner instead of making an excuse and leaving early. The rest of it was filled with incredibly boring conversation topics that made Sherry want to fall asleep at the table itself.

Amber, Louis, Remus, Lily, Potter and Sherry had been some of the first ones there and therefore had the pleasure of having the awkward conversations whilst they waited for the others to show up and steal the attention from them. Luckily, he had been focused on Lily for a large amount of time. He spoke to them about O.W.L grades and how certain people could improve, obviously eyeing Sherry as she took a large gulp out of her butterbeer.

He spoke about Remus and Lily being sixth-year prefects, their ambitions to be head boy and head girl, whether any of the others would throw their hat in the ring. Amber and Louis had looked at one another, giggled and then announced that they would quite fancy the position. Lily offered compliments to them, as did the rest and Potter smirked too with a hand around his drink.

"I'm thinking of going up for it too." He butted in and Lily chuckled immediately with Remus laughing at her side, Amber had raised her eyebrows in disbelief and Louis tilted his head in polite confusion and disbelief. "I feel like I might make it my year, Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, Winner of the Quidditch cup..."

"Don't get too cocky, mate." Louis said, smiling over at the boy who grinned at the friendly competition and Slughorn made an excited noise. "I'm not planning on stepping down any time soon and even if I do, I'll have a killer replacement."

His eyes drifted over to Amber and the girl flushed red as she picked at her napkin on the table despite the absence of any food. Sherry grinned at her awkwardness, incredibly fond of the girl's shyness. Potter looked at Amber like he was scrutinising her every move, as though Louis had actually stepped down.

"Yes yes, Miss González, I've heard you're quite the warrior out on the pitch. You too, Miss Opal." Slughorn said, draining the last of his butterbeer from his glass and placing it back down on the table. Sherry and Amber gave one another knowing smiles with little eyebrow raises. "And Sherry, your fashion obviously doesn't stop on the pitch. You play in heels."

"Well, the rulebook does state that 'Students may wear any shoe type they feel is necessary for everyday activities.'" Sherry nodded her head and practically everyone at the table smiled. Obviously, the girl's habits lie famously in the minds of others. "I like to play in style."

"As an American, I suppose you have to have that trait."

"You know, recently, I'm trying to...to put America behind me." Sherry said, Remus nodded from beside her slowly. That night on the porch she spent cuddling him when she should've been hugging Lena brought bigger things to light, the whole summer had, America wasn't her home anymore. "Get in touch with my English routes you know?"

"Oh, how come?" Slughorn asked.

Sherry was about to reply, she was just about to let loose and spew out everything that had happened over the summer. Every little detail, every conversation she had had, each word that had escaped her mouth in anger and sadness and negativity. In this room, she almost felt safe. Almost. If she hadn't made the mistake of making eye contact with her teacher.

Her teacher for gods sake. It wasn't even like it was Professor McGonagall sat in front of her who Sherry would be ready to bear her soul too if asked what went wrong, or Professor Flitwick who even though he might not be able to give her advice or talk through her feelings. He would listen. Slughorn would most likely nod and ask her more questions, pry where he wasn't wanted.

Sherry wasn't ready for that.

Not to mention the fact that Potter was also sat with them around the table, a massive factor of Sherry's horrible summer. He knew everything that went on of course and maybe he would benefit from hearing things from her perspective, maybe he could learn. But Sherry didn't think she was ready to take that step yet, speak to him about the things that went on.

Admittedly, he had stayed away from her for a while. She didn't know what had gotten in his head and set his mind straight, but something had. His presence was actually beginning to be bearable, if she focused on the right things then she barely even noticed him around her. Potter was getting better and Sherry was thankful for that, still it would be a while until Sherry was ready to let him back into her life.

If she ever would be.

Luckily, in her moments hesitation of answering Slughorn's question, there was a knocking on the office door and the man got up to open it. She supposed her breath of relief might've been obvious. Remus' knee brushed up against her own under the table as a way of making her feel like she was okay, she was safe and she didn't have to answer any questions.

Her drink was finished in a mere second, the butterscotch taste fizzing on her mouth as she wiped a bit of the cream that had settled on her top lip. The glass made a clink as she set it down on the large oak table before her, there were six seats empty including Slughorn's grand chair which meant that they were waiting on five other people who she supposed Slughorn was letting in now.

She heard him before she saw him.

His voice sent unwelcome shivers down her spine and goosebumps appeared on her arm at once, the back of her neck tingled like she was in unwanted danger. Memories circled her mind, fresh and scarring. Yelling, slapping, the mere sight of him kissing her best friend, his hands on her skin pleasurably, and then quickly not.

She had done so well at avoiding him and now he was here.

"Mr. Rowley! Yes, yes, welcome. Rosier, Upton, Black, Morrey." Slughorn greeted them all, very clearly oblivious to what was running through Sherry's head. She would need lots more butterbeer and lots more firewhiskey. "Take a seat, take a seat."

Matt Rowley came into view, hands in his pockets and such a smug smirk on his face as he placed himself beside Potter with Emrys Morrey on his other side. They were best friends. Sherry couldn't take her eyes off of him no matter how much she wanted to look away and even Potter started giving him the side-eye. Flora Upton shuffled in with a meek smile.

She seated herself beside Lily Evans and looked absolutely majestic in a satin orange dress with her extremely curly hair down on her shoulders. Evan Rosier, who gave Sherry a short wink, came in with Regulus Black whom Sherry had had the pleasure of seeing in her first Quidditch Match. They filled in the two seats beside Emrys and Slughorn, Regulus taking the place next to Matt's friend.

He was about a metre away and Sherry still felt her breath getting shallower and time slowing down, everything moving in slow motion. From Evan pulling out a chair to sit on to Slughorn clapping his hands together, happy that he had a full set of students with him. Most people were all smiles. Lily, Flora, Slughorn, Matt, Emrys, Evan and Regulus. But there were a select few, such as Sherry, Amber, Louis, Remus and Potter who were not amused in the slightest.

"A full set, ha-ha! How wonderful. Miss Opal, do you need a top up?" Slughorn asked and Sherry nodded after a small brief pause, watching as the golden liquid filled itself up again. It had barely finished before Sherry had tipped it to her lips again and started to drink it.

He was staring at her, she could see it from the corner of her eyes. She put her glass down and wiped her mouth of the liquid, meeting eyes with Evan from across the table as he raised his eyebrows in question. Sherry nodded slowly, he was asking if she was okay and she was lying to his face. She was most definitely not okay.

"We were just talking about Quidditch, Mr. Black you are on your house's team, correct?" Slughorn asked Regulus and the boy nodded, the two of them launching into a conversation about quidditch as Sherry's hand quivered around the glass in front of her. "Mathieu, have you ever thought of playing Quidditch?"

"Nah, it's not really for me." His voice said, loud and proud as he waved a hand in dismissal. Sherry lifted her shaking glass to her lips and gulped down the amber liquid once more, darting her eyes around and meeting Lily's very concerned gaze. "I'm more of a mind games person than a physical games person."

"You got that right." Remus mumbled from across the table and Matt turned and tilted his head the boy almost threateningly, Remus just delivered him a bittersweet smile back. Mind games were Matt's specialty.

"Oh and a little birdy tells me that we have a star couple around our table this evening." Slughorn quickly changed the subject before a brawl broke out between the two boys, looking at everyone and raising his eyebrows. The people of the meal quickly looked around at one another in confusion.

In sixth-year there was no keeping a secret, who was dating who spread around like wildfire. The whole year already knew about Sherry and Evan's late night rendezvous together. Gossip doesn't stay hidden for long and sooner or later, it would be fed into every student's ears. So the fact that no one knew what Slughorn was talking about made Sherry incredibly uneasy.

"Don't look all confused, Sherry!" Their professor laughed heartily as she placed her cup back down with a still shaking hand and did her best to politely smile despite her heavy confusion. "I heard that yourself and Mr. Rowley make quite the couple-"

"Oh, no, sir-"

"That was old news."

"They're not together anymore."

Everybody piped up at the same time, attempting to save the conversation from the depths it had already sunk down to. The same depth as Sherry's heart she presumed, she had felt the heavy weights pile up as soon as Matt entered the room and now the organ was practically at the very bottom of her stomach. People were still talking all over each other.

Matt made eye contact with Sherry and it made her freeze in place as he pumped his eyebrows at her and smirked like this was something they could laugh about. Like this was something that was amusing to the both of them, she just stared straight back at him and felt her knee begin to bounce up and down.

"Oh, how terrible." Slughorn sighed, frowning at the damper everyone had put on the gossip at the news of the break-up. He looked utterly defeated and stared around at everyone on the table before looking over at Matt. "What happened?"

"We had some issues." Matt nodded casually and Sherry could've thrown up at the fact that he had said we. We had some issues. He was the only one with issues. "Decided that it was best for the two of us to go separate ways. It was a mutual breakup."

"Wow." Sherry spoke and everyone looked over at her, Amber placed a hand on her knee to try and comfort her but Sherry continued to stare down at her butterbeer. "Still talking out of your ass, huh?"

"Obviously there are some feelings that are still unresolved but-"

"Unresolved?" She spoke again, this time looking across the table and looking him dead in the eye. Straight ahead and there were angry tears burning against her own eyes. "I think you made your feelings pretty clear when you fucked my best friend and when you-"

Sherry stopped herself, her sentence getting caught in her throat as all of her words seemed to disappear before her mind at the thought of it. The memories, the pain.

"When you-"

A deep breath.

"You-"

His breath was on her face and she wanted to take a step back.

"Spit it out, Sherry." He said, eerily calm and everyone could feel the tension rising. The danger they all might be in in the case of an explosion of emotions. As soon as he had said the words, her face crumpled with sadness.

"What am I?" He shouted at her but this time she didn't even flinch, just felt her jaw tick and her heart skip several beats as his face turned red and he yelled. "Fucking spit it out, Sherry!"

"YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE." She screamed.

"When..."

"ALL YOU WANTED TO DO WAS KISS AND I JUST WANTED TO BE LOVED BUT YOU CAN'T FATHOM THAT BECAUSE YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO-"

Slap.

Sherry stood hurriedly from her seat, her face flushed with colour as she took one last look upon the table. Everyone was sat down and staring at her, seemingly shocked with the turn of events from the evening, the obvious panic Sherry was going through. And every eye on her was too much, every slow breath waiting for her reaction.

Choked up and ready to burst, she fled from the room in a flurry of red. The heels she was wearing clicked against the floor as her bright blonde hair leaving the room signified the fact she was gone. Yet her absence did not mean that the dinner started up again, instead it was just more awkward silence.

Amber watched as her friend ran and turned around to push her chair out, ready to go after her. Instead she saw Potter already up and standing, eyes trained to the door with one foot stepped in the direction of it. Already ready to run.

"Potter." She said, chair scraping against the floor. James looked at her, eyes screaming for a chance to help, trying to show her and plead with her that she let him go after Sherry. Instead, the girl spoke softly. "No."

As Amber rushed off out of the door, James Potter slowly but awkwardly sat back down in his seat and pulled his chair in. Slughorn made a little murmuring sound and smiled awkwardly as the whole table picked up a drink and sipped on it, excluding Matt and Emrys who just settled back against his chair and smirked slightly.

The sight almost resulted in a smashed glass and Potter having a cut palm from how tight he was gripping his cup. Amber was right to discourage him, it wasn't time yet. But oh, how he wanted to smash that loser's head against the table.

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A/N: james is winning me back tbh