Chapter 9

Chapter 9

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I stare in amazement as I walk through the large double doors entering the dinning hall with Nate, it was one thing seeing it in the light, but in the dark it's phenomenal. Everything is cast in a dark orange glow from the chandeliers and lit pumpkins, some of them are even levitating, which causes me to squeal in delight remembering the great hall in Hogwarts on Halloween. I have to duck my head to avoid the flapping wings of a bat coming my way. There are already students dancing around to the music, which right now is Def Leppard's Rock of Ages, a classic. I turn towards Nate and grin, he returns it and we walk further into the room.

"This is amazing!" I try to make myself heard over the loud booming of the music that is loud enough that I can feel it thumping in my chest. "How come you've never come before?"


"I've never had anyone to go with before." He smiles simply, I return.

I grab a hold of Nate's leather glove and pull him towards the food and candy. I grab a bag off of the hook on the side of the table and get a handful of candy, then I proceed to grab a steaming slice of pizza. Nate follows and watches my excitement in amusement, smiling to himself.

I find Remi, Kierra and Macy sitting down a table, eating away at their own plates of pizza and chips, talking loudly to each other. I see them and wave, the wave back slightly, but look uncomfortable about seeing Nate, which he notices and his smile disappears. I turn to him.

"Hey, Nate. I forgot my punch, do you mind going and getting me some?" I ask.

"Sure." He smiles at me and starts walking back towards the food table, this time the students don't part like a sea to make him a path. It's probably because they don't even notice it's him, I have a feeling most of them don't even think he's here because he hasn't been going to these.

I stand in front of my friends and look at them sincerely. "Guys listen," I sigh heavily. "can you please just accept Nate for one night? It's not like he's going to purposely hurt us, that's why he always wears gloves and long sleeves. I want to hang out with you guys, but I also want to hang out with him. I dragged him here and I'm not going to leave him standing alone in the corner."

They don't say anything for a few moments, only staring at me in consideration. Finally Kierra sighs, heavily and annoyed. "Fine."

"Thank you." I smile at them. "He doesn't deserve to be outcasted." The exchange looks at this statement, but I don't have time to question it as Nate taps me on the back from behind.

"Here you go." He smiles briefly and hands me my "vampire blood" punch.

"Thanks." I take a sip, it tastes mostly like sherbet ice cream, it's delicious. "Come on, let's sit down and eat." I take a seat across the table from my other friends. He just stands there staring at me.

"But--"

"It's okay Nate, just sit with us." He glances at Kierra, knowing she's the hardest on him. I glare at her from behind and she nods. Nate gives her a small, nervous smile and takes a seat beside me. I grin at him with my pizza still in my mouth, causing him to laugh.

We all end up talking, very loudly that is, while eating. Nate even joins in the conversation and talks a little with Remi and Macy, but I can tell Kierra is having none of it. For some reason she dislikes him more than the others, and I want to know why.

I'm about done with my pizza and have my head turned, talking to Nate, when I feel a tap on the back. I turn around and see Damian, who is wearing a Mad Hatter costume, looking surprisingly very attractive on him. But I can't think that, I'm still angry with him.

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering, could I talk to you? Maybe during a dance?" He lends out a hand for me to take. I glance nervously at my friends who are all encouraging me to go. I give Nate a look that he knows as my "I'll be back in a minute" look that's a mix between a sigh and rolling my eyes, he nods in return. I take Damian's white gloved hand and he pulls me to my feet and onto the dance floor, that is right now playing it's first slowish song, Collar Full by Panic! At the Disco I think. He puts a hand on my hip and holds a hand with the other, I put my free hand on his shoulder. I know to do this just by seeing the other couples dancing, including Tanya and Lucas about ten feet away.

"I really love your costume." He states quietly in my ear as we shuffle around. "But I do miss your white hair, it would really brighten the place up in here."

"Thank you." I swallow. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

This time his voice is louder. "I... I wanted to apologize."

"For what?"

"For earlier, at the decoration. I was hateful towards Nathaniel, I shouldn't have been." He spins me under his arm.

"Yeah, you shouldn't have been." I sigh. "Thank you, but maybe I shouldn't be the one you should  be apologizing too."

He looks down at our feet. "I know, I'm sorry, I'll apologize to him soon."

Now I can actually smile. "Thank you. Now, we can actually enjoy dancing." He smiles back and I realize for the first time exactly how close I am to him, and  my anger disappears.

The song ends a little too quickly and we break apart as a pop song starts playing. "You are a lovely dancer." He states with a smirk.

"Well, that's strange considering I've never danced with another person in my life." I chuckle nervously and push a stray strand of white hair back into my wig. We both start walking back towards the table, where Nathaniel is the only one left.

"Where is everyone?"

"They all went to go dance." He replies simply, taking a sip of his own punch.

Before I can reply Damian pulls out his phone and looks at the screen. He shoves it back into his pocket quickly. "My friend needs me for something apparently. Maybe when I get back we can dance some more?" I just kind of nod before he smiles and takes off.

"What did he want to talk to you about?"

"He actually wanted to apologize about earlier, about how he was mean towards you." As soon as the words come tumbling out of my mouth Nate scoffs.

"Well that's a first."

"Yeah..." I trail off. As another slowish song comes on I have an idea. "Well, would you like to dance with me?"

He looks at me like I physically pushed him. "Me?"

"Yes, you silly. Come on." I grab his hand and start pulling him towards the dance floor.

"But-- But-- I don't know how to dance." He stutters as I grab his gloved hand and put my other on his shoulder, like a did with Damian. He nervously puts his other hand on my waist. I don't know the song that's playing, but it's sort of upbeat, but a slow upbeat. It's hard to explain.

"Here, just shuffle your feet, like this." I start to lead him back and forth. He keeps looking down at his feet, causing me to giggle.

"Like... this?"

"Yes sir."  

Once Nate gets the hang of it we start to have a little more fun, especially when an even more upbeat song comes on and we start dancing back and forth, swinging each other around and him spinning me around. It's nice to see him laugh, like genuinely laugh for a change. He seems to be having the time of his life, and so am I.

But my fun is over when I catch a glimpse of Damian on the other side of the room, looking at me with disappointment as he sees me with Nate. I think about going over there and having him and Nate trade places for a little while, but one look at Nate's smile causes me to do otherwise. Damian is a lot more happy than Nate is most of the time, I can't take this from him.

After about an hour we are exhausted. We plop down on the table, tired, but happy. I take a grateful sip of my punch, only to realize it's now hot.

The rest of the night is pretty much the same, lots of dancing and talking and laughing is shared, even between my friends and Nathaniel. Kierra even made the effort to talk to him some. All of us are truly enjoying ourselves. Well, maybe except for Damian. He's been here, hanging out with us, but he doesn't seem to be necessarily happy. He seems to hold some kind of grudge against Nate that nobody is telling me, but it's so obvious it's there. Nobody has ever just walked up to him and started sassing him, they all just keep their distance out of fear and silently judge him. It really makes me wonder...

As it grows closer and closer to twelve o'clock, the students start to slowly make their way back to their dorms. We have been sitting down at the table for a while, just talking. Damian left about half an hour ago. But the rest of my friends still seem to be acting nice towards Nate, maybe even enjoying his company. Maybe this will be the night that I'll always remember as the night my friends finally excepted Nate. They're treating him normally, like they aren't even afraid anymore, and it makes me so very happy.

This happiness is replaced with odd curiosity and somewhat fear when there is a loud, high pitched scream coming from the hallways. The music stops playing and it seems to go silent for a few seconds before everyone starts to rush towards the scream. My friends and I follow them, exchanging curious glances at each other. 

When the body of students stop, we can hardly see over them to see what's going on. Even Nate, who is at least six foot, can barely see a thing. He jumps to try and see, after a few jumps he turns to us.

"It looks  like a--" But he doesn't get to finish.

"It was him! He must've did it! That-- That Nathaniel!" We hear from the front.

Slowly, everyone parts aside so there is a clean view from Nate to the front, where we finally see what's going on. There's a girl laying on the floor, lifeless it seems. Nate looks at me, horrified.

"That's impossible! Nate's been with me this whole time!" I spat back at the girl, who is the flaming red and orange haired girl from my class, the one that looks like she has flames dancing on her head. I push my  way to the front and bend down next to the girl. She is wearing a simple cat costume, drawn on whiskers and nose, black pants and top, cat eyeliner, and a pair of black ears. I don't recognize her, she seems to be younger, about twelve. She does in fact, seem lifeless, but not lifeless enough to be dead. I use my energy to make my senses stronger, and I can feel the faintest heartbeat, it's not even a heartbeat, it's more like the feeling of blood flowing through her veins, but it is slowly coming to a stop. It seems like everyone in the room is holding their breath.

"She's alive!" I exclaim. "Where is--" Before I can finish there is frantic moving of the group of students. It's Mr. Allore.

"Move, move!" He finally pushes his way to the front and examines the girl for himself. "Elina, are you sure she's alive? I can't feel a heartbeat."

"She's alive. It's just faint, she needs to be taken to the hospital wing." I look at him pleadingly. I expect him to doubt me, but he doesn't. He just scoops up her fragile body and starts to run towards the hospital wing. This riles up my curiosity about him again, about why he has so much faith and blind trust in me, a sixteen year old girl.

"The other teachers will put you to bed!" He calls behind his shoulder before disappearing into the lift, the unconscious girl held bridle style. As he says that the rest of the teachers come forward, looking harried. 

"We need you all to go back to your dorms immediately." Mr. H announces. "So will all of you please calmly escort yourselves to bed, no detours. Don't come out of your dorms unless we tell you. You will be informed when we can." I can tell this isn't just a case of "teenager drinking herself into a coma" or whatever. She seemed too lifeless, she was so close to dead that it was unreal. To them she was dead. Whatever did this to her was no form of sickness or consumption, it was a charm. And the teachers know it.

Everyone starts to frantically shuffle back to their dorms, everyone talking about what had just happened and not a single thing else. I turn to my friends, all of them looking pale. 

"You know that had to have been done by a charm right?" I look at them and get unexpected surprise.

"How do you know?" Kierra asks, now seeming to be wary of Nate again.

"Because, she was way too close to dead. The only way I could tell she wasn't was by using my charm to feel the barely flowing blood from her heart. It wasn't even a heartbeat to be honest."

"Well, what kind of charm could do this sort of thing, besides Nate's." She glances at him warily, but she knows she can't blame him because he was with us.

"Don't look at me, I've only been here for a few weeks." I counter. Now we are all waiting for a lift to become free.

"We've never really studied something like that yet in Charms Basics." She sighs. "But, the teachers will figure it out. For now we had better just stay in our dorms." We all pile onto a lift. I scoot closer to Nate, feeling... well, I wouldn't say scared, more like alone maybe? 

The lift stops on the third floor and we get off but Nate stays on of course.

"Be careful, Nate." I tell him.

"You too, all of you." He replies sincerely before the lift shoots upward again at high speeds. I pull off my wig and shake my head, my real hair in a mess.

Tanya sighs heavily before we enter our dorms. "And tonight was going so well."


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Author's Note

Thanks for reading guys! Hope this chapter wasn't too bleh. I love you!