- Chapter Fifty-Three -
"I make my own fucking decisions, for myself."

"THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE."

"That's because it's in Ancient Runes, Sher." Amber so kindly pointed out to the girl lay haphazardly over the Ravenclaw Common Room sofa with a book in her hand whilst her half-closed eyes scanned the page lazily with her eyebrows furrowed together. "You picked up my textbook instead of yours."

"And you took Ancient Runes for NEWTS?" Oliver looked over at his twin, face contorted into disgust as he looked at her. Amber gaped at him, shaking her head with a scoff at her brother who raised his hands up in surrender and looked back down at his own book on Defence Against The Dark Arts. Oliver had claimed the armchair whilst Louis and Amber stayed sat cross-legged on the floor.

It was a Friday evening and already the group had six essays to do between them for the Monday morning. The prospect of having free periods in sixth-year had excited them all but the work load had shocked them, Sherry remembered being sat in McGonagalls lesson and snapping her head up at the mention of homework on the second day back at school. She had been up for a while the previous night so in no way was she prepared for Transfiguration on a Tuesday morning.

At the very least, McGonagall had been nice and placed Potter in the very back corner of the right side of the classroom and put Sherry in the front corner of the left side of the classroom so that the two of them were the furthest away from one another they could be. She had also put Sherry very kindly beside Evan Rosier with whom she had shared a night of bliss with previously.

He simply cleared his throat and settled himself down beside her with the tiniest smirk but said absolutely nothing about the night before. They simply talked like any other desk partners would talk and laughed at each others spell failure. It was odd because Sherry felt nothing for him in their current climate, a desk partner was all she saw him as compared to last night where she had definitely felt something else for him.

And with him.

An embarrassing blush had almost took place on her cheeks but she quelled it, telling herself that the old Sherry wouldn't have flushed over something as trivial as sex. She had hooked up with Marlene McKinnon for gods sake and now sat with the girl at lunch, cracking up over things that weren't even that funny with no feelings or tension whatsoever.

Maybe all she needed was a one night stand, something to make her feel good but not to bring her into any commitments. Except it ended up being more of a two night stand. Monday night and then Thursday night when Sherry had been walking again, this time angry over the amount of work she had been given by Slughorn in Double Potions which she had been dreading all week. Their first singular period of Potions was on the Monday where she had been seated beside Dorcas Meadowes.

Dorcas was a friend of Marlene and Lily's who Sherry hadn't talked to that often but now got a larger chance to. They got along supremely well and even managed to complete the lessons task on time. Although impressed by their time management, Slughorn still decided to give out lots of cruel homework to the class. Sherry stayed up doing it, needed a refresher, made her way out of her dorm to sneak into the kitchens she had been told about.

And there he had been. Same windowsill, it was like deja-vu and Sherry couldn't help herself. Then on the Friday they were just simple desk partners, no mention at all of how they acted with one another the previous night. No subtle winks, no smirks, no lust-filled gazes, no nothing. Just Transfiguration and liberation. Sherry enjoyed it.

She didn't feel obligated to give him anything. He wasn't with her every second of every day, chasing her lips everywhere she went. It was their own little secret, even Amber didn't know about it and Sherry suspected she might flip her shit if she found out. Evan was Sherry's secret and she seemed to be his which was...freeing.

"What are you thinking about over there, blondie?" Louis asked, looking up at the girl on the sofa who even though Amber had swapped the books so she was reading her Care of Magical Creatures one, still looked like she was miles away.

"Nothing." Sherry sighed, flipping the page to reveal an ugly-looking lime green Fwooper scowling at the girl from inside the book. Their singing was believed to cause insanity which sounded suspiciously like Cressida Bridge, a Slytherin in seventh-year. Sherry smirked to herself at the thought. "I'm so bored. I have nothing to do."

She tilted her head back with a groan and blinked up at the astronomy drawings on the ceiling of the large common room, there were students on the upper floor, searching through bookcases and looking through the telescopes at the night sky littered with specks of stars and a crescent moon that one boy was sat sketching into a notepad.

Evenings in the Ravenclaw Common Room were incredibly peaceful. No one disturbed anyone and everyone got on with their own things, it was a beautiful place filled with beautiful décor and design. Sherry was happy she wasn't in any of the other houses since she wouldn't get to see this marvellous view if she had been placed somewhere like Gryffindor. The horror.

"Who would've thought you'd miss your Friday meetings this much?" Oliver said musingly. The silence between them all changed, no longer comforting and more tense as a muscle tightened in Sherry's jaw and Amber glared at Oliver from her place on the floor. "Sorry. Too soon."

Sherry sighed shortly and looked back at him with a smile. "Don't apologise, Oliver. I'm fine. I don't miss the meetings, I'm having a perfectly fun time here. I know exactly what to do on a Friday night and that is to go and ransack Dumbledore's Honeydukes stash."

Amber gaped at Oliver and Louis scowled as Sherry stood from her seat, fixing her hair and adjusting the top she had pulled on before she grabbed her wand from the small table, slid it into her jeans and then left the common room without another word.  Louis closed the textbook on his knee and grasped it to hit Oliver on his head, the boy whined and rubbed it whilst Amber rolled her eyes at him and looked towards Sherry as she exited.

"Seriously, Ol?" She turned to look at him and he tried to splutter out an explanation. "No talking about Potter, remember?"

"Is that really the best option though?" Oliver asked, adjusting himself on his chair. His sister and Louis both raised their books ready to hit him and he flinched back into himself before slowly coming out of his little ball and speaking carefully. "I'm just saying, it could help for her to talk about him. The situation. Instead of just like taking her anger out on stuff and pushing it away. Like I don't mean this to sound mean or weird or anything but I think she needs some kind of...therapy."

Oliver flinched again, covering his head quickly with a pillow over his head to protect him from his friends. But nothing came; he slowly removed it and found the exchanging lances with one another, sighing and putting their books down. The cogs and gears in their brains were turning and they looked almost guilty, stuck, disappointed. Amber looked as though she could cry, Louis looked as though he could punch something and Oliver just swapped his gaze between the two of them.

"We shouldn't be talking about this. The last thing she needs is her own friends gossiping about her-"

"Oliver's right." Louis took a deep breath in, looking at Amber who cut herself off and scowled at the boy beside her on the floor who opened his mouth slightly at the look on her face and hurriedly tried to explain himself. "Listen, Ams, she can't just push this away it needs to be explored and talked about and communicated. She needs to talk about how she feels-"

"What she needs is her friends supporting her, listening to what she wants to do and what helps her cope. Not an intervention talking about the one thing she wants to avoid most in her life." Amber said, looking in between the two boys before her with a face of incredible disbelief. "Dumbledore's gonna pull something. I know it, I-I can feel it. So for right now we need to make her as happy as possible so she doesn't fall into that same depression she was in all summer."

"Well at least Rowley isn't around anymore." Oliver said but his sister didn't stop scowling.

"Yeah. But that doesn't mean he needs to be replaced by two other dicks." Amber directed her comment at the both of them, looking them straight in the eye to make her point crystal clear. The boys stayed silent for a moment and she sighed deeply before collecting her books. "I'm going up. Get me when you have common sense."

Louis exhaled heavily as she walked away, putting his own book back in his bag and rubbing his eyes tiredly as Oliver put the pillow to the side and awkwardly bit his lip. He had driven Sherry straight out of the Common Room, she didn't even ask Amber to come with her, she just up and left. Remorsefully, Oliver hit his head into the pillow and groaned.

"Is your friend okay?" A third-year came up to the two boys by the sofa and the two of them looked at her, furrowing their eyebrows at what she meant. "The blonde one. I just came in from the corridor and McGonagall is like pulling her away and she's like freaking out and like nearly crying."

Louis gulped and glanced to the staircase towards the girls dormitories where Amber had just gone after claiming Dumbledore was going to try something. Which now was clear he was. The third-year took their lack of response as an answer and moved away, running a hand through her hair and catching up to her other friends.

"Shit." Oliver mumbled.

•*•*•*•*•

"In all due respect, Professor, you are out of your mind if you think I am going along with this." Sherry raised her voice at her headmaster. Once again sat at his desk, once again close to tears, once again having her heart pound out of her chest whilst beside James fucking Potter. "This is exactly what lead to the incident, putting two people that can't stand one another in a room together. I don't want to make up with him, at all, he ruined my life."

"I have been lead to believe it was the fault of Mr. Black." Dumbledore was sat behind the desk, eyes glinting like always and not possibly understanding the gravity of what he was forcing Sherry to go through. Again.

"It was both of their faults! Potter stood there and let it fucking happen!" Sherry slammed her hand on the desk.

It was preposterous. Too much for her to handle. She had been about to go back into the Common Room after she had taken the breather she needed after Oliver's comment about the Friday meetings where she was cornered by McGonagall and told she needed to be in Dumbledore's office. Despite what people might've believed, Sherry wasn't dumb, she wasn't an airhead and she wasn't a bimbo. She knew what was coming.

So she resisted. But Professor McGonagall was like a superhero with a super strong grip that Sherry couldn't find. She panicked, tried not to, panicked again, attempted to calm down, cried silently, calmed down again. Then they were at the office and she tried to leave, she was forced up, Potter was in there, she tried to leave again, McGonagall stopped her.

Dumbledore proposed his plan. Sherry refused. Potter sat silently.

"I'm not doing it." Sherry shook her head and for the first time that evening, Dumbledore looked annoyed and angry before sitting back against his chair whilst Sherry brought her hand off the desk and let it fall into her lap. "You can't make me."

"Actually Miss Opal, I can. New developments have arisen where parental agreement is available for you and I have permission from guardians of both of you." He stated calmly and Sherry's face scrunched up in anger. She couldn't believe her mother had done such a thing. "Friday evenings, the both of you will report here. Normal time, normal circumstances."

"That bitch does not speak for me." Sherry clenched her jaw before standing from the chair and walking back over to the door, more like stamping before she turned and addressed her headmaster one last time. "I make my own fucking decisions, for myself. Not you, my mom, my friends, my shitty ex or anyone else."

Potter's head turned slightly at the mention of an ex but Sherry didn't notice. He scolded himself as he adjusted himself again, it wasn't fair for him to perk up at the news of a breakup and ignore her own problems. He was surprised his mother agreed to him seeing Sherry again after how much he was screamed at when he got home for the Summer. He was even more surprised that Sherry's mother had agreed to it to.

By the sounds of it so was Sherry.

"I'm sick of everyone thinking I need to be helped or- or fucking forced into something." She said, breathing heavily. "I just want to be normal. A normal fucking person who's not looked after or guarded all the fucking time. Let me hate who I hate and love who I love."

Dumbledore watched. Sherry left. Potter sighed. The room went silent. The castle felt tense. Sherry felt lost and lonely. But that was no different.

•*•*•*•*•*•
A/N: sorry that i died for a sec there guys