CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - Don't Panic, Quidditch Instead

The Daily Prophet came the next morning at breakfast. And it wasn't good.

"Mass breakout from Azkaban, Ministry fears Black is 'rallying point' for old death eaters." Ten black-and-white moving photographs were plastered on the front page, sneering and jeering at the readers. Their faces were menacing, as if they were trying to instill fear into the minds of the readers. And by the looks on Harry, Ron, and Hermione's faces, it was working.

"Attuoria. Attuoria!" Hermione demanded, slapping the table. Attuoria glanced up lazily.

"Yeah?"

"Have you listened to what we were saying at all?" Hermione questioned, and Attuoria just shrugged.

"Breakout from Azkaban, Broderick Bode died. Yeah."

Hermione frowned at her, then glanced at her two other friends. Ron was whimpering slightly, shakily bringing his toast to his mouth, while Harry was staring towards the staff table.

"All three of you are so off today."

Ron glared at Hermione. "Well what else do you expect us to do? Jump up and start screaming? This is the absolute worst news we've gotten all year!"

"I think you're forgetting the part where Voldemort came back," Harry said very quietly.

"Yeah, well, second to that." Ron chomped down hard onto his bread, chewing angrily.

"Actually, that was last year. It's January, so Ron's right," said Attuoria. This time Harry glared at her.

A thought suddenly rose in her mind. January. It was a new year. What did Voldemort say about the timing of this Azkaban breakout? Something about the Ministry of Magic having a good start to the year...

"I'm going to go send a letter." Hermione stood up from the table and rushed out of the Great Hall before Harry and Ron could ask her any other questions.

"I hate when she does that," Ron grumbled, standing up as well. "Would it kill her to tell us what she's up to for once? Come on, Attuoria, let's catch up to that crazy woman."

Attuoria glanced up at her two friends, who were waiting for her by the table. "You guys go. I'm just gonna sit here for a bit."

They both gave her a weird look.

"I'm trying to process the news. Give me a while. I'll find you guys in class later." Attuoria replied truthfully. Harry nodded and dragged Ron away, who still looked a little confused as to what she meant.

Dragging her fork around her empty plate, Attuoria watched her own slight reflection on the white surface. The Daily Prophet said that they fear Sirius Black was a rallying point for the Death Eaters. It was almost laughable, knowing that the real person responsible for and orchestrating this mass breakout was no one but her. A quiet little student at Hogwarts who attracted no attention apart from the fact that she had good grades.

It caused so much fear for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. A simple piece of news. Attuoria couldn't help but think about this from the perspective of a Nightmare Demon. How was Voldemort able to do this so easily? To instill fear into people's hearts? Fear, to the point where it haunted them not just while they're sleeping in the night, but also during the day?

That was bound to raise the efficiency of the Nightmare sector's work.

A flash of ginger appeared in her peripheral vision, and Attuoria turned around to see that Fred had sat down next to her. By himself. Not with George, not with Lee. Just him.

"You've been dodging me," he said, picking up a slice of ham with his bare hands and plopping it into his mouth. He gazed at her from the side curiously, propping his head up on his hand.

"Dodging you?" Attuoria echoed, not quite understanding.

"You avoided me the entire day, yesterday. I tried to talk to you, but you just walked away."

Attuoria frowned. "No I didn't." And that was the truth, because she has never actively avoided a person before. What was the point in that? She never needed to. At least, she didn't think so.

"We don't have classes together, so I suppose it's understandable that I don't see you much during the day. But then when you came back to the common room last night, you dodged me twice. First when you avoided my Headless Hat and ran up to the boys dorm, mind you, what were you doing in the boys dorm?" Fred paused for Attuoria to answer, but she just shrugged. Seeing that she wasn't going to reply, he continued. "Okay, well whatever you were doing up there, I don't suppose it matters. But when you came back downstairs, you didn't even come talk to me."

"I said goodnight."

"But that was it."

The two stared at each other. Attuoria had no clue what he was trying to say. Isn't this how she usually acted?

Fred sighed, and waved his hand in front of his face. "Nevermind, nevermind. Valentine's day is next month, wanna go to Hogsmeade again?"

"What's Valentine's day?"

He chuckled slightly. "It's a day where people hang out with the person they love. Usually people spend it with their significant other, which would mean their boyfriend or girlfriend. So, what do you say?"

"Yeah, sure." Attuoria didn't give it much thought. She'd committed herself to this, right? It was the human experience.

Fred shoved her on the shoulder, causing her to jump slightly at the sudden movement. "Why do you sound so reluctant?"

"I'm not." Attuoria said, suddenly realising that her voice was so void of emotion that she didn't sound particularly human right now. That was weird. She had been fairing fine over Christmas break, and even before that…

Hermione said that she was kind of off, today. What did that mean?

"Is everything okay?" Fred asked.

"I think I lost my emotions again." Attuoria stated flatly, not bothering to keep her thoughts inside her head anymore. Maybe externalizing her thoughts and expressing them to others would help pull her out of this again, because she had no clue why it was happening.

"Lost your emotions?" He didn't seem to quite understand what she meant, either. "How do you… lose your emotions?"

"I don't know," said Attuoria honestly. "I barely noticed. But it seems like you and Hermione both have."

While Fred pondered what she said, his twin and friend showed up behind them.

"Time to go to class," said George, punching his brother's back whilst giving Attuoria a small smile.

"What's up with you two?" Lee asked, a sarcastic-sort-of grimace on his face. "Did you break up or something?"

George punched his friend, but much harder. "Lee!"

"No," said Attuoria, seeing that Fred was still deep in thought. "I just needed some advice on life. He's trying to process my question. I think."

They all turned to look at Fred, who was concentrating on the dish of butter in front of him.

"What could possibly make him think so hard? Just ask me!" Lee said confidently, puffing out his chest.

Attuoria shrugged. "Sure. How do you recover your emotions?"

Both Lee and George blinked at her in silence.

"What?"

"My emotions. I lost them. How do you get it back?"

Silence, again.

"You can't just lose your emotions." Lee said slowly. He was the only one out of them that didn't know her true identity, so it made sense that he didn't understand. The other two probably didn't understand, either, but they were trying to keep up. "It's always there. Maybe you just don't feel anything at this moment."

Attuoria shrugged. "Maybe."

Without coming up with a final answer, they left the Great Hall and headed to class.

***

For the next month or so, numb might be a good word to describe Attuoria's feelings towards everything. People still talked to her, but her responses never seemed to satisfy them. DA meetings continued regularly, and that seemed to be the only thing that went well for her.

Surprisingly, teaching people became easier. With nothing else quite on her mind, all her focus went into the things she was currently doing. During DA sessions, she would observe people's movements carefully, trying to decipher exactly what made a spell successful, and what didn't. This proved to be extremely useful as tips for those who were struggling. Well, at least to those who even bothered approaching her for help. Most of them were boys, for some reason. The girls never seemed to need her help.

Neville became rather fond of her, something she thought was weird considering that she was currently lacking emotions.

"Attuoria?" Neville asked, approaching the girl who was sitting at the edge of the room, staring at the room quietly.

"Hi Neville."

He stared down at his shoes whilst fidgeting with his wand, not looking Attuoria in the eye.

"Um, well, I've basically got this shield spell down, but most people there haven't, and I don't want to bother Harry because he seems a bit busy right now, and Hermione's helping others, but I'm not great at helping people, I kind of just get a little nervous- oh, I'm doing it again- um, okay, I was just wondering if you could teach me any other spells while we're waiting?"

"Oh." Attuoria pushed herself off the ground and up on her feet. "Sure. I'll teach you the Disillusionment Charm. We're supposed to learn it this year but I doubt Umbridge will teach us."

Neville's eyes widened. "Isn't that the spell you use in our first year? When we all snuck out at night because of the dragon?"

"Yeah. That one."

Though Neville didn't successfully master the spell, he seemed happy nevertheless. Something jerked slightly inside her chest when she saw Neville's positive response. It felt weird, but she ignored it. She couldn't recognise what emotion it was, anyways.

As the weeks settled into February, another focus found its way into Attuoria's life: quidditch.

Angelina had announced to the new Gryffindor quidditch team that they would have training on Valentines day. Naturally, Fred heard of this news and decided he would just come watch her train, which was good enough of a date.

"Feeling confident?" Fred asked as they walked down to the quidditch pitch.

"No." Attuoria was wearing an oversized uniform, and she looked like a paper bag. "I wouldn't be surprised if Angelina kicked all of us off the team by the end of this."

"That bad?" Fred ruffled Attuoria's hair, but then smoothed it back down again when she didn't respond. "Don't worry about it, I'm here for moral support."

"Yeah… I don't know about that. I think you're just here for the laughs."

"Dang, you saw through me." He winked, then nudged her on the shoulder. "I'll head up to stands, now. Do your best."

"Yeah." Attuoria watched as he bounded up the stairs. She turned and went the opposite way, into the changing rooms. Ginny waved to her happily, and Ron gave her a meek nod. He was nervous again.

"You ready for our first training practise?" Ginny said excitedly. It seemed like she'd been waiting ages for this.

"Eh, not really," Attuoria said truthfully. "I can barely hold the bat."

"Don't worry about it!"

A lot of people have been telling her that. Weird. She didn't think she was worrying about anything.

"Just get out there and follow Angelina's instructions, and things will be fine."

The team gathered in the center of the quidditch pitch. It was a relatively cloudy day- a good thing, since it wasn't too hot. It also meant that there would be no sun shining in their eyes while they played, which was also a good thing.

Angelina gave a quick talk before everyone mounted their brooms and flew into position. From Attuoria's position in the air, she could see a few specks of orange and red on the stands. They waved their arms.

The current drill was going to be a sort of miniature-game. They were only using half of the court, with Ron as keeper, half the team as defenders, and half as attackers. Jack Sloper, the other beater on the team, was defending. Attuoria was attacking. She had Katie on her team, while Alicia was on the other team.

"Attuoria!" Angelina yelled from above her. "Your goal is to clear Katie's way to the goal and let her score! Sloper! Your job is to make it difficult for Katie to score. Alicia, try and steal the ball. Ron! Just do what you usually do. Let's give this a shot."

The quaffle was tossed to Katie, and a single bludger was let loose into the air. Attuoria clutched the bat tightly, using both hands. She didn't need her hands on the broom to fly, which was an advantage.

"Go!"

Katie zoomed forward immediately. The bludger flew towards her, as well. Attuoria shot forth, readying her bat on her side to swing. Her wooden bat reached the iron ball before it could touch Katie's broom. In that split second of contact, Attuoria suddenly realised she'd forgotten how strong the bludger really was. Though she did manage to save Katie by staggering the bludger just slightly, she herself was pummeled upwards, the hard iron relentlessly pushing against her.

In the head of the moment, Attuoria thought, if I can't do this with my human body, I can do this with magic.

A burst of magic blew through her hands into the bat, and the bludger was immediately repelled. It made a perfect course towards Alicia, who was coming in to steal the ball from Katie.

As the bludger flew away from her, Attuoria took a quick look around at everyone else. It didn't seem like anybody noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Sloper was flying clumsily towards the bludger Attuoria had swung towards Alicia. Alicia ducked swiftly to avoid the attack, reaching out her arm to try and grab the ball from Katie. Katie swerved to the side and nearly rammed into Sloper, who had been so focused on the bludger that he didn't even notice Katie coming towards him.

"SLOPER WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Angelina screeched.

The boy glanced up just to see Katie whiz past him, the end of her broom brushing through the top of his spiky dark brown hair.

Everyone watched Katie pull her arm back and shoot the quaffle towards the ring on the right. Ron reacted a second too late, and only reached the hoop after the ball had sailed cleanly through it.

Angelina brought her hands to her face and let out a groan.

"Sloper! What is going on in your head right now?" She yelled, and Jack Sloper literally shrunk away from her, his broom inching backward slowly. Angelina's gaze moved to Attuoria. "And you! Your aim was good but you were too slow. It looked like the bludger was about to knock you out. I'm surprised you even got it back."

"Same," Attuoria agreed.

Below her, Ginny giggled, her hand covering her mouth as she laughed.

Angelina heaved out a long sigh. "You know what, let's just do some independent skill practise, first. You guys need that. Alright, Chasers work with Ron- Ginny you can work with the Chasers for now- You two beaters will pass the bludger between each other, okay? Get a sense of control over the ball."

Independent practise went on for a good while, but the two beaters didn't exactly make much progress. Sloper's timing was extremely off, while Attuoria was still getting pummeled by the bludger unless she used magic. It seemed like she didn't have much of a choice now. Magic was the way to go, even though it was cheating. Would she get expelled for this? Banned from quidditch, maybe?

Attuoria wasn't sure if she should tell Angelina that she can't play beater if she doesn't use magic. Angelina would most likely tell her to resign and they'll find a new beater. Gryffindor team probably couldn't risk something like that again.

But nobody noticed when Attuoria used magic. As long as she was consistent, it would be fine, right?

Training ended before Attuoria could come up with a final decision. It had rained halfway through, so by the time they were done, everyone was drenched in both rain and mud. Why mud? Well, Angelina made them run laps.

"You didn't do that bad," Fred reassured, following her out of the changing room. Attuoria gave him a pointed look. "Really. You're better than the other kid."

"Hm, yes, I didn't drop my bat." Attuoria glanced down at her now-brown uniform. How many times did she trip while running laps with the team? She couldn't count. Perhaps it was because her uniform was too big for her, so she kept stepping on her own pants.

"Go take a shower before you catch a cold. I'll be in the common room."

After Attuoria cleaned herself up, she found all her friends sitting in the common room.

"Hey!" Hermione waved to her. "I heard you did well."

Attuoria shot Fred another look. He was grinning.

"No. Fred's just being nice."

"Aw come on, admit it! You're not that bad."

Attuoria shook her head. "You want to know the truth? I'm using magic."

George clicked his tongue loudly. "See? I was right. I knew something was off."

The rest of them stared at her with mouths wide open.

"You were cheating?" Hermione gasped, the ink on her quill dripping onto the parchment laid out in front of her.

"Yeah." Attuoria shrugged. "Either that, or a concussion. Or internal bleeding. Take your pick."

"Jeez, you make the bludger sound like a murderer." Fred teased, but Attuoria took it seriously.

"Exactly. There's a heavy iron ball whizzing at my head or my stomach. I'd be insane to willingly get hit by one of those."

Harry nodded furiously. "No, she's right. Remember when I broke my arm during second year? Oh, you weren't there. Well, a rogue bludger smashed into my arm and broke it completely. It wasn't pleasant."

Sighing, Attuoria flopped down onto the couch next to Fred. "My body hurts."

Fred chuckled, pulling her into his arms. "That's normal. It's what happens when you exercise."

"Does that mean exercise is bad for you?"

"No, the opposite, actually."

"That's weird. So people do willingly put themselves in pain?"

"You could say that."

Attuoria's gaze snapped to Harry. "Stop putting yourself in pain."

"What?!" Harry yelped, his eyebrows knotting together. "What are you talking about?"

"You're always beating yourself up over everything. Stop doing that. Some things are out of your control, so just let it be."

Harry stared at her blankly for a few seconds. But as if something clicked into place in his head, he stood up.

"I'll try." He went up to his dorm without another word.

Fred tapped Attuoria on the shoulder. "How do you do that? The things you say both make sense and make no sense at the same time."

"Apparently it made sense to him," Attuoria shrugged. "I hope he sleeps well tonight."

Saturday was the day of the big game against Hufflepuff. The big game that ended in less than 20 minutes because of how badly the Gryffindor team played. Even Attuoria's very lowkey use of magic wasn't able to save anything.

Sloper swung his bat into Angelina's face. Ron could barely save a single goal. Attuoria forgot there were two bludgers in the game and panicked when both came at her at the same time. Luckily for her, the Hufflepuff beater was kind enough to hit one out of the way before it barrelled into her nose. She thanked him and they almost had a full-blown conversation about bludgers until Angelina and the Hufflepuff captain both screamed at them to focus.

The Hufflepuff beater came up to her after the game.

"Honestly just curious, why are you playing beater?" The boy was taller than her, with ashy-brown hair and freckles. "Not that you were bad, but I just didn't think someone like you would be playing beater."

Attuoria stood awkwardly with her broom at her side. Angelina was currently fuming in the Gryffindor changing room, and she could feel the tension behind her. She and the boy were standing in the small hall between the changing rooms.

"The only reason I'm even playing quidditch is because Fred, George, and Harry are banned from it. It was just a coincidence that Fred and George are beaters. If they were Chasers, I would've tried out for Chaser."

"Oh, I see," said the boy. "Wow, you must be a really good friend, doing this for them."

Attuoria shrugged. "Well it doesn't bother me too much, so why not?"

He smiled, showing dimples on his cheeks. "I'm Anthony, nice to meet you."

"I'm Attuoria," she responded politely. "Thanks again for saving my head."

"You're welcome. Be careful of Jack in your next game. I doubt he has much control over where his bat or bludger goes."

"Ah yes, that's good advice." Attuoria nodded, hesitantly taking a step back. "Well, I think Angelina's going to want to yell at me now, so uh, I'll be off."

Angelina did not in fact yell at her, only sighed and patted her on the shoulder. "We'll work on it," she said through gritted teeth, and Attuoria suddenly discovered a newfound admiration for Angelina. She managed to keep her emotions together quite well- well, until she realised Jack Sloper had chipped her tooth with that bad swing that hit her in the face.

The common room was gloomy that evening. Ron sulked in the corner with a bottle of butterbeer, no doubt replaying those fourteen-fifteen missed saves over and over in his head. Attuoria noticed a few bruises along her arm, but what hurt the most were her fingers, which had been gripping the bat so tightly that her skin was slightly raw.

"All this pain for what." Attuoria muttered to herself, staring at her red hands. It looked even redder under the light of the flames that danced in front of her.

"You gave it your best shot, I guess. That's worth something." Harry tried to comfort her. But Attuoria didn't really need comforting. She was just thinking.

"All this pain... for what?" she mumbled again, rolling the words over and over in her head.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked quietly. "You've been acting so distant lately."

Attuoria shook her head, but she wasn't exactly answering his question. "Nothing makes sense anymore. I don't know why. Was all that just a phase? A phase of early human-ness? Do I have to go find it again?"

There was no response, and she knew she'd confused yet another person.

"Are your emotions… gone?"

Oh. Maybe Harry did understand, even just a little.

"Yeah." Attuoria sighed, letting her hands relax. She glanced at her friend, the frail-looking boy with black hair and green eyes. The boy who put so much responsibility on himself.

"You've met those centaurs before. In the forest. Do you remember one whose body was light brown but had white silvery hair?"

Harry's eyes widened. "Yeah, I think so. He saved me from- from Voldemort. In the forest. It was that detention in our first year, the one where you got lost."

"Firenze." Attuoria nodded. "He seems to know quite a lot about…humans? Life? Though he himself is a centaur, he sees things from an odd but refreshing perspective. I talked to him. We talked about that feeling of not belonging to the place we currently are. His is quite clear, there are two sides and a middle ground. But me… it just doesn't make sense."

She realised how vague her explanations sounded. It wasn't that she wanted to hide anything from Harry, but more so that her thoughts were formulated in a general idea rather than with specific examples and details.

"I… don't really get what you mean." Harry said honestly. "But I guess in some ways, I also do. I wonder the same thing, sometimes, about being here. Do I really deserve it? Can I live up to it? What if, five years ago, after Uncle Vernon burned that first Hogwarts letter, no second one came?"

Attuoria glanced at him. He was staring intensely at the fireplace now, his head resting on his hands.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." Attuoria recited from memory, recalling the phrase Dumbledore said to them when they snuck out to see the Mirror of Erised.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "We're here, there's no changing that. The only thing now is to keep going."

Attuoria held out her hand to Harry, and he frowned.

"Together," she said. "Though I may not truly belong here, I will be here for as long as it takes for me to understand how to belong."

Harry glanced at her hand before hesitantly placing his hand on top of hers.

"Here's to more sleepless nights and bad dreams."

A small laugh escaped Attuoria's lips, surprising her slightly. "Remember, just scream if you need help. You have a literal Nightmare Demon for a friend, and a huge serial killer wizard invading your head every night, nothing could be worse than that."

Harry grimaced, but then smiled as well. "Somehow, you always know exactly how to make things worse, and I'm starting to think it's kind of funny."