CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - What's a Date?

At eight in the morning, Attuoria woke herself up. Fang was still asleep on her lap, and her legs were rather numb. She gently pushed him off of her, and he fell to the floor with a thump, but continued sleeping.

The fire in the fireplace had gone out, but the bluebell flames in the lamps around the house were still flaring. Attuoria summoned each of them back to her wand before heading out of the cabin. Eylense flew out into the morning sky and circled the hut a few times. His tremendous wings casted a long shadow over the ground, each flap dissipating the morning mist that hung lazily near the treetops. He cawed twice, and flew away into the Forbidden Forest.

Attuoria left the door unlocked for Fang and went back to her dorm to change out of her school robes. For a casual weekend like this, she didn't have any clothes that were appropriate - her wardrobe consisted of her school uniform and some of Narcissa's old dresses, which were very formal.

She threw on her usual white uniform blouse, black skirt, and a Gryffindor sweater. Hermione woke up right after Attuoria finished changing.

"Hey Attuoria…" Hermione grumbled, rubbing her eyes as she sat up on her bed. Her bushy brown hair frizzed in all directions like a massive bird nest.

"Good morning," said Attuoria good-naturedly. She stood by Hermione's four poster bed, glancing across the room at Lavender and Parvati, who were both still sound asleep.

"We have so much homework to do…" Hermione groaned and climbed out of bed.

"Yeah…" Attuoria said hesitantly. She had finished all her work already. Because she didn't need any sleep, she always did her homework on the same night it was assigned. Plus, getting everything done early keeps her mind clear.

"I know you don't have any work to do," said Hermione. "You stay up all night doing it. Lucky you. I would too, but I can't function without sleep."

Attuoria shrugged. "Your health should always be your priority. Everything else comes second."

The two went down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Ron was already there, and Harry came a bit later. As per usual, the morning post arrived and a flurry of owls entered the hall. Hermione received a copy of the Daily Prophet, which Ron and Harry didn't seem too happy about. Attuoria watched the three of them talk about Sirius Black, who was currently in hiding. Apparently the Ministry was alerted of his presence in London, which alarmed the three of them greatly. The details of their relation with Sirius Black was something Harry, Ron and Hermione wouldn't tell her, so Attuoria didn't ask them anything.

She listened silently as they moved on to a man named Sturgis Podmore, who was arrested recently by the ministry for trying to break into a top security door. They seemed to know him, and Attuoria heard Ron mention that he was part of "the order", before Hermione immediately shut him up. They were behaving rather suspiciously, but Attuoria figured it had nothing to do with her.

After Ron and Harry left to get warmed up for their quidditch practise, Hermione excused herself and went back upstairs to the common room to finish her homework. Attuoria was left alone once again, unsure of what to do. She could go and watch Harry and Ron play quidditch, but she didn't particularly fancy watching balls being tossed around in the air. The concept of quidditch was interesting - Attuoria didn't get why people enjoyed tossing a ball around while flying. Plus the fact that so many people enjoyed watching people do that. Maybe it was a human thing she couldn't understand - but it was too repetitive and meaningless for Attuoria's liking.

After retrieving her bowtruckle from her dorm, she walked down past the courtyard and through the Forbidden Forest to the bank of the Great Lake. As she passed by the students hanging out in the courtyard, people seemed to whisper around her. But they were too far away for her to hear, and neither of them looked her in the eye, so she ignored it.

She arrived at a small clearing in the forest, where the lakewater gently lapped onto shore. The dirt ground was littered with small pebbles and rocks. It was like a very small gulf, and the area was surrounded by a semicircle of trees.

Attuoria sat down on the slightly sloped mound that was covered in grass, and gently set the bowtruckle on the ground next to her. It glanced around warily, poking at some of the fallen leaves nearby.

Staring at the mountains on the other side of this large body of water, Attuoria felt unbelievably small. Her existence was one out of billions, trillions, quadrillions. Probably uncountable, now that she thought of it. She was just another nightmare demon out of the hundreds of thousands within the spiritual dimension, yet she was down in the mortal realm, experiencing a second life. This was something that no other nightmare demon has ever or will ever experience.

A soft tuft of fur brushed against Attuoria's back, and she turned around to see a medium sized unicorn standing behind her. It's body gleamed a pearly white under the sun, even brighter than she remembered.

"Oh, it's you." said Attuoria, bringing her hand up and gently smoothing out the unicorn's silky, silver mane. It tilted its head downwards and lay down on the ground by her side. This was the baby unicorn she had encountered in the forest during her first year at Hogwarts. It sure wasn't lying when it said it wasn't going to forget her.

Attuoria heaved out a content sigh. She felt the rays of sunlight hit her face, and the warmth that spread through her skin. The bowtruckle hopped onto her shoulder and sat down, gently hooking its arm along the cuff of her ear.

"The fact that we all exist… That's pretty extraordinary, isn't it?" She said to the two creatures around her. They sat in silence, immersed in the surrounding nature.

When the sun rose to the top of the sky, Attuoria made her way back to the castle with her bowtruckle. She found Hermione eating lunch in the Great Hall, and the two headed back to the common room after their meal. The common room was quite empty for a Saturday afternoon, but most people were outside soaking up the last weekend of warm weather.

"How much homework have you done?" Attuoria asked, watching Hermione pull out a long roll of parchment from her bag.

"Most of it," said Hermione. She pulled out her quill and ink bottle, flipped open a thick Astronomy book, and began writing. "This is my last one. I'll have to look over McGonagall's essay again, though. I'm positive I listed all the examples I need, but it doesn't hurt to check again."

Just then, the common room door swung open, and in trudged Harry and Ron. Both wore grim expressions on their faces.

"Hey!" Attuoria called, waving them over. "How was practise?"

"Completely lousy," said Ron hoarsely, slumping into the armchair next to Hermione.

"Well it was only your first one," Hermione said, attempting to comfort him. "It's bound to take time to -"

"Who said it was me who made it lousy?" snapped Ron.

"No one," Hermione said with a frown. "I thought -"

"You thought I was bound to be rubbish"

"No, of course I didn't! Look, you said it was lousy so I just -"

"I'm going to get started on some homework." Ron interrupted, stomping up into the boys dormitory. Attuoria sat there confused. When she trained with Ron, he did fine. He couldn't have been that terrible during practise.

"Was he lousy?" Hermione asked Harry.

"No."

The two stared at Harry.

"Well okay, he could've played better. But like you said, it was his first training session."

"He couldn't have been too terrible," said Attuoria. "I've seen him play. He's fine. Not perfectly accurate with his blocks, but good enough."

"Oh yeah, you helped him train. Yeah, I think he was just nervous. Plus, the Slytherins were being such, such -"

"The Slytherins were there?" asked Hermione.

Harry nodded. "Malfoy and his gang of friends. I'm honestly not surprised at this point. It's like they knew it would be Ron's first training and they showed up just to mess with us. Which is kind of weird, because we didn't exactly make it public that Ron was the new Keeper. Anyways, then Katie got a nosebleed…"

Wait, what did Harry say? "We didn't exactly make it public that Ron was the new Keeper..." Attuoria frowned. If they didn't tell anyone, then how could Malfoy and his friends have -

"Oh gosh I am so sorry," Attuoria suddenly blurted out, interrupting Harry's recount of practise (which Hermione wasn't exactly listening to).

"What?"

"I… told Malfoy that Ron was trying out for Keeper, so that's probably why they showed up today…"

"WHAT?!" Ron's voice yelled from the bottom of the staircase that led up to the boys dorm. All three of them turned around and saw him holding his books in his arms. He looked positively infuriated.

"So the rumours were true, huh?" said Ron viciously, slamming the books on a random table before stalking over to Attuoria. "You and Malfoy?"

"Huh?"

"Everyone's been saying today, you and Malfoy went on a date yesterday. Right before my tryouts, too! What were you saying to him, huh? How absolutely rubbish and incompetent I was at playing Keeper?" Ron's face was glowing a bright scarlet.

"I didn't. I just said I was going -"

"To watch me embarrass myself at tryouts, right? You told him how bad I was, no wonder he showed up with his stupid friends today and watched me make a fool of myself. I really thought you were my friend, Attuoria." He spat the last sentence with so much passion that Attuoria genuinely felt like someone had poked her chest with a needle. She spent her past week helping Ron train for quidditch, and he just forgets all the effort she put in because of some rumour that got spread around?

"Ron!" cried Hermione. "You can't just say -"

But before Hermione could finish, Ron angrily picked his books back up and disappeared into his dorm.

The three fell into silence. Harry and Hermione stared awkwardly at Attuoria.

"You guys heard this rumour, too, huh?" said Attuoria quietly. They both nodded meekly. "So that's why people acted weird around me this morning."

"Did you really go on a date with Malfoy?" asked Harry.

"Of course she didn't," Hermione said confidently. "Attuoria wouldn't go out with a brat like Malfoy. Rumours are rumours, they're always fake."

"Can we hear it from her, please?"

Hermione immediately shut her mouth and glanced at Attuoria.

"Um, what's a date?" asked Attuoria sheepishly.

"Oh." Harry and Hermione said, coming to a realisation at the same time.

"It's when you spend time with someone alone because you're romantically interested in them." Hermione explained.

"But because you don't have any emotions, I'm assuming you can't exactly be romantically interested in anyone, either." said Harry.

"Romantically interested in someone…" Attuoria contemplated the phrase for a while, absently staring at the fireplace. "That's associated with love, isn't it?"

"Yep."

Attuoria sighed. "I mean, I wish I knew what it was like to love someone. It's one of the most complex human emotions. Anger, I've had, multiple times, especially towards Malfoy. Sometimes he really pisses me off. I've also experienced joy during Christmas -"

"First-year Christmas!" Harry exclaimed, smiling. "That was fun. The first good Christmas of my life."

"Yeah, me too." said Attuoria, smiling at the memory. Compared to a few months ago, the happy memories in her mind were starting to come back to life just slightly. She could almost feel the joy again. Almost.

"Literally your first Christmas," Harry pointed out.

"I still don't know what the point of Christmas is, but I like snow." Attuoria said randomly. "And that bread mixture thing."

"Stuffing?"

"I think so. That was pretty good."

"We're going off topic!" Hermione interrupted.

"Oh, right." said Harry, immediately getting his thoughts back on track again. "But the rumours did say you guys hung out after class yesterday. A whole bunch of people saw you two walk down to the quidditch pitch together."

"Honestly, I was confused too. He came up to me after dinner and started talking. He was really nice, which was surprising. He walked me down to the quidditch pitch and then left." Attuoria explained.

"That is so… not Malfoy." said Hermione.

"Yeah, it sounds nothing like him." said Harry.

"He's not as mean to me as he is to you guys, but yesterday he sure was a little too nice to be normal." Attuoria admitted, thinking about the interaction.

"So what are we gonna do about Ron? Is he going to listen to us?" Hermione asked.

"I'll talk to him tonight, after he cools down a bit." said Harry. He stood up from his armchair. "I'm going to go do homework with Ron."

Not long after Harry left, the twins climbed into the common room through the portrait. The two of them spotted Attuoria sitting by the fire and exchanged glances. Before they could sneak past and up to their dorms, Attuoria called, "Hey Fred, George! Is Katie alright now?"

"Er, yeah, she's fine." Fred said awkwardly.

"She's at the hospital wing," George added, casting Fred a look before trying to shuffle him up the stairs.

"The rumours aren't true by the way!" Hermione said loudly, catching the twin's attention.

"Oh, yeah, the rumours." Attuoria realised that the rumour was probably why the twins were acting so odd in front of her. Although she wasn't really sure why people were making such a big deal about her hanging out with Draco, she might as well explain her side. "I didn't go on a date with Draco Malfoy. I didn't even know what a date was until Hermione explained it to me just now."

Fred and George glanced at one another warily, but then their facial expressions loosened up. They strolled over to where Attuoria sat and squatted down around her chair. Even squatting down, the twins were so tall that they almost reached the same height as Attuoria on her chair.

"Sorry about just now," George apologised. "We just weren't sure what you would be like if you started dating Malfoy."

"I would still be me. I wouldn't change." Attuoria said, frowning.

"Did you say you didn't know what a date was?" asked Fred, tapping her arm.

"Now I know. It's when you hang out with someone you're romantically interested in. Unfortunately, I'm not wired to love."

"Well you said you weren't wired for emotions, yet you still managed to experience a few human emotions. Who's to say the same won't happen for love?" Fred's eyes shone as he gazed at Attuoria.

"Love is really complex… but I guess that's fair. It's always worth a try." said Attuoria, smiling at Fred.

"Yes, it is." Fred stood up and pulled Attuoria to her feet. He held each of her hands in his. She stared up at him, curious as what he was about to do.

"Our first trip to Hogsmeade is in three weeks. Would you like to go with me?" Fred asked.

"Huh?"

"I want you to go on a date with me." said Fred. He bit his lip nervously, awaiting her reply. "To Hogsmeade," he added quickly.

Attuoria blinked a few times. "You… want to go on a date… with me?"

"Yes."

"What is that supposed to mean…?"

"It means he's romantically interested in you," said George, who was sitting on the arm of the armchair Attuoria had previously occupied. He wiggled his eyebrows at Fred.

"You are? That's weird. Why would you be interested in me when there are so many other girls in your year that -"

"Just shut up and say yes, then you can ask him these questions on your date." George suggested, a grin on his face.

"Oh, okay then. Sure, I'll go on a date with you." Attuoria smiled at Fred.

"LET'S GO!" Fred let out a whoop of joy and spun around just to trip on the armchair and fall onto the carpet. But he quickly scrambled up and announced grandly to everyone in the common room (who had been watching the entire time), "Malfoy can KISS MY A-"

He stopped, glancing at Attuoria who was tugging his arm.

"Kiss your what? Why do you want Malfoy to kiss you?" asked Attuoria. Then she broke out into a grin. "Do you wanna go on a date with him, too?"

"Pfft -" Fred tried not to laugh but couldn't hold it in. "You're the only person I want to go on a date with."

"Well to be fair, if someone paid you ten Galleons to go on a date with Malfoy, you would." said George.

"Hmm," Fred cocked his head side to side. He was actually considering it. "Twenty, then yes."

"Can you guys please help me get rid of the rumour?" asked Attuoria, glancing at Fred and George. "It's been causing me a lot of inconvenience, surprisingly. Ron is pissed at me."

"Oh yeah, don't worry about it." said Fred. "Leave it to me."

George smirked. "Yeah, we got you."