Chapter 27

Skuld sat next to Dean, staring at Moody without even blinking. That man... That man inspired something bad in her. Around him was that identical aura that Igor Karkaroff and that man from the World Cup had, leading her to have her moments of imagination where gray eyes tormented her.

" Skuld... Weasley " For a moment, the man went to say another last name when taking roll, something that made the redhead tense in her place, also remembering Narcissa Malfoy's whisper at the World Cups. She clenched her fists, hating the man's presence, feeling like she might vomit. "Skuld Weasley!"

"Present," She said, clenching her fists even more, listening as he named Ron and Zabini before finishing the roll call. As soon as he put the scroll away with the students, he looked directly at her, causing a tremor to run through her from head to toe.

Alastor Moody, as he had been introduced, was the well-known Mad-Eye Moody, one of the best aurors in the Ministry, a man touched by dark wizards (his scars, leg amputation, and absence of an eye demonstrated it quite well) and who many said that he was losing his sanity. Skuld did not understand how this man had come to be her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, but since she had no choice over teachers, she could not complain about Dumbledore's poor choice.

While she was wandering in her mind's eye, not paying attention to Moody's lecture on Unforgivable Curses (it seemed to be his favorite topic), Skuld noticed a soft touch on her clenched fist under the table, so she glanced there, uncovering the hand. Dean took her with some hesitation.

All that pent-up anger disappeared again.

But what if...?

.....

A scarred man entered the headmaster's office, immediately sitting in a chair in front of the wizard, and staring at him, without even greeting him. The atmosphere seemed tense, so tense that anyone who entered through that door would want to leave immediately. That same man sighed, unable to bear his gaze at the white-bearded old man.

"Will you ever tell her?"

Professor Dumbledore, still looking at him over his half-moon glasses, shook his head, the corners of his lips twitching slightly, and his beard swaying slightly.

"I'm not the right person to tell her something so important, Remus," he sat up slightly in his chair. "Neither are you."

"Then who, Professor Dumbledore?" He raised his voice a little, showing frustration, anger, sadness. "There are many things that not even I can understand despite knowing Skuld's condition, but I am sure that you could answer any questions."

The old man leaned on the wooden desk, and all the pictures, attentive to the conversation, followed his movements minutely, alert even to the sighs of both men. All the paintings perfectly remembered the conversation those same two people had thirteen years ago. The theme remained the same, but not the conditions. They also remembered the moment where, at the beginning of the previous year, the werewolf rushed in, announcing that he was willing to tell the girl the whole truth, including the Headmaster's assumptions about her future.

"Believe me, Remus," Albus seemed to have changed his tone of voice to a softer one. "I would also like to understand many things about Skuld Weasley."

"Don't call her by that last name, Professor," the man denied, with tears in his eyes and clenching his jaw with rage. "She's not a Weasley."

" For everyone, Skuld is the penultimate Weasley daughter, Remus."

"Sirius and I remember everything!" he shouted. "Can you imagine what it's like to live watching her suffer for what she thinks is her family?!"

"And who could Skuld be with, if not the Weasleys?"

" With me! I am her..."

" Professor Dumbledore?"

Barty Crouch's voice interrupted them, and Remus left without saying goodbye to the wizard, who looked at the werewolf with a look full of nostalgia and some sadness.

[T/N: Holy shit! Did they switch the Skuld with another kid!?!?!]

.....

" I want a girlfriend."

Zabini's sudden comment made Nott burst into laughter, completely forgetting about his book and punching the sleeping Weasley. The three of them, lying on the sofa closest to the fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room, seemed to be immersed in the world of tranquility. While Skuld tried to fall asleep away from Pansy Parkinson and Astoria Greengrass (mostly), Theo read a book on Charms, and Blaise rambled on, muttering things every once in a while so that only they could hear him.

"The dream affects you, Zabini," Skuld yawned, turning around and leaning lightly on Theo, who placed the blanket he had brought down from the boys' dormitory on her so that she wouldn't be cold in the middle of October with such a freezing Common Room. "Sleep for a while too and stop talking nonsense, or I'll cut out your tongue."

"I'm not sleepy," he denied, complaining like a baby. "I really want a girlfriend."

Theo closed the book after marking the page with a piece of parchment, and left it on a nearby table without getting up. After putting his book in a safe place, he turned again to look at the brunette with his arms crossed and a gesture of doubt.

" Do you like a girl?"

Skuld's green eyes snapped open, sitting up and also looking at Zabini, eager to know who could have won the heart of the strangest Slytherin in the entire history of Hogwarts. Blaise cleared his throat, hiding a laugh, and rested one arm on the back of the couch, going over Theo's shoulders and ending up with his hand on Skuld's head, further disheveling her uncontrollable orange hair with loose curls.

" No."

Skuld frowned, slapping Blaise's hand away, and tried to understand Zabini.

" So why do you want a girlfriend?"

"Because I want hugs and cuddles, but Skuld is worse than an iceberg," he sighed dramatically. "Colder than Russia, lonelier than a stone in the Sahara."

In response, Skuld took off a sneaker and threw it in his face, thus starting a war between the two, which included Theo receiving a hair pull from one of the two idiots, and which ended with Terrence Higgs, prefect of Fifth year Slytherin, sending them to bed after threatening them with all kinds of spells.

Without the blonde prefect realizing it, Skuld threw Theo's book at Blaise, hitting him square in the forehead and causing him to fall on his back due to the power of the throw.

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