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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 167: Follower
Bella stopped for a moment and looked around. The moment she left the library, she could not help but feel that someone was following her.
However, no matter how much she looked, there was no trace of anyone.
This gave her a bad feeling, as it reminded her of that day when Snape and the other minions of Malfoy followed her.
The result of that was the destruction of James's laboratory on the sixth floor.
He never blamed her for it, but this did not help make her feel any better about it.
Since that day, she had always been so careful that she almost began to develop a sixth sense for these kinds of things.
Her original plan was to visit James in the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey had reassured them last night that his life was not at risk, although he had been close to completely exhausting his magic.
'What were you thinking?' Bella still couldn't understand what experiment could be so important to risk his life.
But that would have to wait now. She didn't want people to see her visiting James in the infirmary.
'Who could be following me though?' Since her latest return to school, no one had bothered her.
Rodolphus was now dead, and Malfoy was ignoring her for the most part, other than to make some snarky comment behind her back.
She did find it suspicious…
Bella was convinced that the other Lestrange brother was planning to get some revenge against her family. And Malfoy was definitely going to help him.
Without counting her older sister, she had no allies in the House of Snakes anymore. Once the news about her family's broken alliances spread, no one wanted to get close to them, as if they were cursed or something.
She stopped again and looked around. Still nothing, but the feeling of being followed was not going away.
Bella decided to try something and began to walk faster, making her way to the stairs that led to the fourth floor and continuing onto the corridors.
This floor had many classrooms she could use. And since it was Sunday, they should all be empty.
At the very least, she was confident in her ability to handle any students who tried to attack her.
After turning a corner, she walked inside the first classroom she found and closed the door behind her. She then placed an invisibility charm on herself and waited for someone to show up.
Bella stood in a corner of the room while staring intently at the door for a couple of minutes, but no one tried to enter the classroom, and she did not hear anyone passing by.
'Was I being too paranoid?' Bella wondered.
"They are not coming."
She was startled by the sudden appearance of a voice next to her. Her wand moved fast as lightning, and without thinking twice, she shot a paralyzing hex in the direction of the sound.
Her spell exploded into countless sparks of light, as if it had hit a brick wall. And then she spotted a figure covering its face right behind it.
"Could you stop throwing hexes at me? If I have to go back to the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey is truly going to get upset with me."
"James?!" As her eyes adjusted, she now recognized his voice.
James moved the metallic shield out of the way, and it returned to its original shape as his bracelet. "Mmm… Tertivor is still moving a bit slow." He would have to let it rest for longer.
"What are you doing here? You should be in the infirmary," Bella exclaimed.
"I had to leave. You see… I was very saddened by the fact that my own fiancée would not come to visit me while I was injured," James said in a dramatic tone.
"I was about to… wait…" Bella then realized. "You are not being serious."
"Maybe just a bit." James shrugged. "I did have to check on my project, so I could no longer stay in that hospital bed for longer than necessary. And also…" He pointed at Bella's hand. "I needed to retrieve them."
Bella lifted her fingers. She wore two rings, one black and one white. "Primum got seriously hurt, and Nyxaris didn't look too much better either," she said before handing them back to James.
"They both have an auto-recovery function. As long as they can get some rest, they will be back at full strength in no time."
"And what about you? Do you also have one of those functions?" Bella changed her tone. "Because the way I see it, if I hadn't gone into the chamber and gotten you out of there…"
"Speaking of… did you bring more people in there? The defense systems were activated, and I found my basilisk in the other room," James asked.
"It was an emergency…" Bella knew she had made a small mistake there, but given the circumstances, she had little choice. "Sirius and Andy came with me. You went missing for the entire day… your friends were very worried about you."
James put the rings back on his hand. "That was dangerous… When I told you to never bring anyone in there, it was only for your own safety. How did you even stop the basilisk?"
"That's… Nyxaris helped us."
"I see. I suppose it's fine. It's not like I don't trust Sirius to keep a secret. And the same can be said for your sister."
"Hold on, you are deviating from the topic like you always do when you don't like it. What in Merlin's name were you working on? According to Madam Pomfrey, you exhausted your magic enough to put your life in danger."
James grinned. "Looks like you are starting to know me. By the way, I took care of the two guys following you. You're welcome."
"You're doing it again!" Bella huffed. "Wait… who was following me?"
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