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ii. Doom and Gloom
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THE DULL BURN in her chest stubbornly flickers away. Her friends are talking animatedly, but she can't stop herself from looking around the Great Hall, with an uncomfortable tightness in her chest. The Hufflepuff table has a dark cloud lingering over it, and she can make out the seventh years from where she is. They're all silent and there's an empty space between two of them. Thea sighs heavily, wishing there was a way to get everyone to believe the truth about Cedric's death. It's the least he deserves.

As her gaze moves around the room and back to her own table, she can make out Harry, Ron and Hermione a few people down. Then Harry's looking at her and she wants to run away, but she tries to give him a little smile instead. He returns it with a narrowing of his eyes and a fierce glare, before turning back to his friends.

Brilliant.

"You alright, tiger?"

Thea's head snaps to the voice that sounds from the person sat on her right.

She smiles a little at Dean Thomas, who's looking at her a little concerned. Then she sighs.

"No. I hate my life."

"Why's that?" Dean asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Harry just gave me a shitty look." She glances at her lap and then grimaces, looking back at Dean. "He hates me."

"Why don't you just talk to him?" Dean says. "You don't believe in any of that crap that your mum's writing anyway, so he has no reason to hate you."

Thea's face flushes a little. "Because...they're scary."

Dean sniggers.

"Scary? Harry, Ron and Hermione? You're being daft now."

Thea rolls her eyes. "I'm not. It just makes me nervous, OK! What do I even say? I bumped into him when I was getting off the train earlier, and I just completely froze! I had my chance, and I totally blew it!"

"Just explain that you don't believe any of what your mum's writing in the Prophet," Dean says, a little too loudly for Thea's liking. She doesn't want Harry to think she's talking about him and then think she's obsessed.

"Stop talking so loud," Thea snaps.

"I'm not!" Dean says. Loudly.

"You are fairly loud," Seamus Finnegan leans across Clare to talk to them.

"You two are fairly wrong," Dean retorts, folding his arms across his chest.

"In Potions last year, Snape put us three all on separate tables because we talk too much," Seamus says. "And I could still hear you. From the other side of the room."

"I could still hear you, Dean." Thea mutters when the two boys stare intently at her to back them up.

Dean frowns. "We've been back for not even an hour and you're both ganging up on me."

"We're not, it's just the truth," Seamus says.

Thea frowns then. There appears to be a tension pulling at the air between the two boys that's so subtle, she barely noticed it before. She's about to ask them both about their summer holidays to change the subject when a loud burst of song interrupts all of the chatter in the room.

Thea looks to the front of the Hall, where the first years stand before the Sorting Hat, waiting to be sorted. As Thea listens to its song, she feels the presence of the imminent war work its way into the Hall. What a cheery start to the year, she thinks.

"What a wonderful way to greet the first years," Thea says quietly to Dean, Seamus, Clare, Polly and Daisy. "Scaring the shit out of them by making the Hat that'll choose which House they'll be in for seven years sing to them about doom and gloom."

"You're forgetting most people don't believe You-Know-Who's back," Clare says back in a whisper. "Mum doesn't really understand it because she's a Muggle, but my dad and sister refuse to accept it."

"Do you believe he's back?" Seamus asks Clare in a low voice.

"Can we not talk about this?" Dean adds quickly, so quickly that Seamus has barely finished his sentence.

"Good idea," Thea says, noting Dean's look of discomfort.

Thea and Clare exchange a frown.

The six turn back to the front of the Hall, where the Sorting is already halfway through. As the last first year scrambles onto the stool and is sorted into Ravenclaw, Thea sighs at the sight of Dumbledore. They're in a complete mess.

"To our new-comers – welcome! To our old hands – welcome back! There is a time for speech-making, but this is not it. Tuck in!"

As golden plates, goblets, bowls and jugs erupt before them on the table, Thea grins.

"Merlin, I could eat this whole table!"

"I'd recommend eating the food, T. Not the table."

"Piss off, Dean," Thea says as she reaches for the basket of bread and butter and fills her cup with steaming hot tea.

"So, what do you think that old thing was rantin' on about, anyway?" Seamus asks as he pours himself a glass of water.

"No idea," Dean replies.

Thea frowns at him, but he gives her a look that seems to say he'll tell her later. Thanks to Daisy and her radiant presence, the tension seems to dissolve the second she opens her mouth. She recounts her tales about Spain, which Dean responds to with his travels in France and asserts there was a Veela there that definitely fancied him. Thea argues with him about how true this is for about five minutes, before Polly shouts over them that she is ready to kill both of them.

"Are you trying to say I'm not attractive?" Dean says to Thea.

"Of course you're attractive, you idiot! I'm just saying –"

"Shut up!" Daisy choruses with Polly, as Clare lets out  "My God, enough arguing, kids!"

Thea rolls her eyes. She reaches for the fruit plate, which disappears just as she grabs a strawberry.

Dumbledore stands up again, ready to address his students.

"Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start of term notices. First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students – and a few of our older students ought to know by now, too."

Thea hears Dean snicker something about Harry. She wants to cringe at the thought of him. She feels awful.

"Mr Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four hundred and sixty second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted between classes."

"Absolute rat, Filch is," Thea scowls. "That bog-brush of his especially, it tripped me up and scratched Zelda once!"

"I hate his guts!" Daisy whispers. "He snitched on me for magicking away the juice that had spilled in my school bag and ruined my books on my way to Potions and I got a month's detention for it from Snape, so I'd miss the Quidditch game with Slytherin. And Angelina nearly kicked me off the team! Yet when Strenegal flew through the castle on his broom, nothing happened!"

"I think that's more to do with Snape," Dean counters quietly.

Thea nods. "Strenegal gets away with everything."

Thea looks over at the Slytherin table, to see the dark-haired boy laughing about something with Blaise Zabini. He catches her eye, and she feels her cheeks burn before she quickly turns back to her friends, and tunes back into Dumbledore's speech. He's talking about extra-curricular classes and Quidditch when something interrupts him.

"Hem hem."

Call her dramatic, but Thea wants to scream.

Not this bitch.

"Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome."

"T..." she hears Dean whisper.

"Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say, and to see such happy little faces smiling up at me," Thea looks at Daisy, who's making a mockery of Umbridge by smiling so big that Thea wonders if it's hurting her cheeks. "I'm sure we'll all be very good friends."

"Why does she keep staring at you?"

"Every headmaster and mistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is how it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay."

"...And why do you look like you're about to murder her?"

"...Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent of preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."

As a splintered applause sounds, Umbridge takes her seat at the end of the teacher's table.

"What a load of bullshit!" Daisy exclaims.

All of her friends make sounds of agreement. Thea just sighs.

"She's absolutely awful. She's called Dolores Umbridge, she's like soul sisters with my mum," Thea says. "She's helping her on the Harry campaign. But I had no clue she was coming to teach."

She sees Dean's eyes widen. "You could've told me you were getting tortured all summer. I'd have come and got you!"

"You know, every year I wish more that I'd gone to Beauxbatons like my sister!" Clare exclaims.

It's not long before the students in the Hall are dismissed to bed. Thea stays beside Dean and grabs his hand, so she doesn't lose him in the mass of people, whereas Clare, Polly and Daisy stride ahead with Seamus. When they find their way into a somewhat empty corridor on the way to the common room, Dean mumbles something to Thea.

"What? I can't hear you, Dean."

"Seamus thinks Harry's full of shit about You-Know-Who."

Oh.

She hears him sigh. "He's my best mate. But I know Harry's not lying. I've known him for four years, and I just know he wouldn't lie about something like this. He just wants everyone to be alright, you know? He doesn't want attention like they all think. But I don't want to fall out with Seamus over it all, that won't solve anything."

Thea grabs his other hand, and frowns at him. "That's rough, I'm sorry. Do you not think he's just scared?"

"It's his mum who believes it, he said. She almost didn't let him come back this year," Dean replies.

"Well, I guess he probably feels bad going behind her back...but really, we were there too after the Final Task. Everything happened so fast, hopefully it's just a matter of processing the truth..." Thea shrugs at him. "But, I think Seamus will come round. We can both just keep talking to him about it."

Dean smiles weakly. "Thanks, tiger."

"Any time," she says, wrapping her arm around his waist and leaning into him to give him a sort-of hug while they're still walking.

They eventually reach the painting of the Fat Lady who guards their common room. Dean says the password, before they both climb through into the solace of the cosy room that's warm already from the roaring fire in the hearth. She feels like she's finally home.

"I've missed this place," Thea says with a soft smile.

"Me too." Dean says quietly.

She gives him a proper hug this time, before telling him that she's exhausted and to have a good night, before making her way up to bed. She really is exhausted. She finds that Daisy, Clare and Polly have already gone to bed and are all sat up under their covers talking about summer and the year ahead. Thea puts on her pyjamas and brushes her teeth in their small adjoining bathroom, before slipping into her own covers and turning on her bedside lamp.

The pain in her chest is alive, but she reminds herself that she is too. As she listens to her friends and adds to their conversation every now and again, she feels a calm wash over her. And although they all know there's a hell of a shit-storm coming, at least they can appreciate the calm before it comes.