Starry skies and Gardenias

Chapter 49

With November started the Quidditch season. And for Isabella, this meant a couple more turns on the time-turner. She was currently living at least thirty hours in a day, where there were only supposed to be twenty-four. 

She wasn't complaining though. She thoroughly enjoyed her classes and wanted to keep them for as long as possible. And she used to give a few extra turns to the time-turner, just so that she could take a nice nap between classes.

She had gone to McGonagall about the Extracurricular classes and McGonagall shot her down immediately. Then she proceeded to give an ultimatum, it was either all the subjects or a normal timetable and one extracurricular class.

Obviously, Isabella went for the first one. She wasn't going to waste away all her classes for one, rather irregular extra class. 

It was at this time that Isabella noticed something strange. 

It was not unusual for Remus and Peter to come and watch their Quidditch practise sessions, but they didn't come every single day. It was usually once in three or four days.

But recently, the two of them have been hanging around much more.

And Isabella was no idiot. Just because she didn't like interacting with her surroundings much and wasn't social, didn't mean she was blind and completely detached from her surroundings. 

She knew what those group huddles of the Marauders could be hinting at. The constant glances, the uncontrollable sniggering, and there was a lot of annoyed swearing too. 

It could mean two things, neither was good. Either they thought she had a crush on one of them, or one of them had a crush on her. 
Two very terrible options. 

At first, she thought she was thinking too much and being a bit pretentious, but then it kept getting obvious.

Isabella decided she was going to ignore it. Sometimes feigning ignorance did the job. 

And she had other, more important things to worry about. 

One of her frequent dilemmas was if she should tell Dumbledore about Riddle making a Horcrux.

Well, if Harry was going to destroy it anyway, maybe she should just wait for it. 
But every time she hears the news about yet another person being killed and the Dark Mark being set off, her resolve to wait would shake dangerously. 

Maybe she should tell Dumbledore. . .But what can he do about it?

Well, he could track down the dairy and then pull out the sword from the Sorting Hat and then destroy it. . .wait, that wouldn't work. The Sword wasn't what destroyed the diary, it the basilisk fang. 

Oh, great! The only way to destroy it is by opening a Chamber that has a monster that can kill instantly with just one look. How wonderful. . .

And she had those dreams, the one with the box. She had to find it. . .But why? Or How? What was she supposed to gain from it? Not to mention, she had no idea where the thing was...That's what she's supposed to do find, obviously.

"We've had the Cup for the last two years," McLaggen, who was still the captain told the team as they sat in the locker room.

"And we all want it this year too, don't we?" 

The statement was more of a dare to contradict him than an enquiry. And in all honesty, Isabella was for a healthy competition. 

But the Gryffindors seemed obsessed with winning the Quidditch Cup.