Chapter 360: Animosity
Sunday morning, Rowan woke up feeling refreshed until she recalled the previous evening's events. Disgruntled, she rolled out of bed to change, before stomping through the common room and into the Great Hall. She sullenly sat down and began to eat breakfast. Thankfully the Great Hall is sparsely populated since it is the weekend.
"Well, well, if it isn't our dear champion," a snarky voice sharply remarked from behind Rowan.
"Jorkins, what do you want?" Rowan grumpily asked without turning around to face the pesky, weasel-faced 7th-year witch, Bertha Jorkins. Thankfully, it was Jorkin's seventh year and she would finally be out of their hair after this year. "I am in no mood to play games with you. I have a very low bottom line this morning and I will not hesitate to pull out my wand and hex you."
The normally sulky, plump girl wore an expression of triumph this morning. "I don't believe a word of what your brother and Greengrass said last night," Bertha Jorkins crisply said. "I'm certain that it was all your idea all along."
Rowan's hand tightens around her knife and fork as if contemplating stabbing them into the plump witch before her. Controlling herself, Rowan flashes Jorkins a cold smile. "Even if that was the case, there was no coercion involved as I was still chosen as the champion for Hogwarts. A mere fourteen-year-old is considered to be a far better witch than yourself, Bertha Jorkins." Bertha Jorkins flushes scarlet in humiliation, before stomping away and back to the Ravenclaw table.
The students entering the Great Hall whisper and point at Rowan. Some believed Severus and Terry's words from last night while others did not. Those weren't the only rumors as some nasty gossipmongers whispered the selection only occurred because Rowan possessed the bloodline of three of the four Hogwarts founders and as a result, the Goblet of Fire ignored any other possible candidates. And those were tame rumors in the bunch, there are much nastier rumors being churned and spread about.
Afraid she would explode, Rowan scarfed down breakfast and left before more people arrived in the Great Hall. She spent the rest of the day hiding out in the Room of Requirements which currently was an exercise room. She swam, she ran, she punched, and just did everything in her power to exhaust her anger.
It mostly worked as by the end of the evening she had exhausted herself. Later Rowan did not stop by to eat in the Great Hall but rather made her way down into the kitchen for dinner and to visit Nadira. The house elves were kind to her plight and stuffed her with food, while Nadira happily lay curled up in her lap.
It grew late and it was time to go. Feeling much better than before, Rowan made her way back to the Slytherin common room. The common room was mostly empty and the Slytherin house members inside paid her no mind. She entered her dorms without being disturbed only to find Tiffany, Bethanie, and Silvia already sound asleep.
Feeling a bit guilty for ignoring her friends, Rowan quietly climbs into bed and falls sound asleep. The next morning, Rowan got up to face the world again. Feeling much better after yesterday, she decided to add an exercise regime to her schedule. She decided she would need to wake up an hour early at least three days a week to exercise in some way. She found that she couldn't even run a mile in eight minutes anymore. It took her twelve minutes, which she frankly found quite disgraceful.
During breakfast, Rowan sat down next to Regulus. Since she had not come down to eat in the Great Hall for lunch or Dinner, she had not been present for what had occurred. Regulus had eagerly recounted the events. Apparently, Terry and Severus had both gotten howlers!
Unable to hide an evil and rather pleased smirk, Rowan attentively listened to Regulus recount the tale. Terry's mother had shouted and vowed that he would be grounded come summer and be sent to the family farm to do chores. He would be doing physical labor as punishment. And for the delicate Terry that was equivalent to serving hard time.
Severus's Howler, on the other hand, had been rather scary, Regulus confessed. In an icy tone that filled them all with shivers, Reginald Prince had quietly asked what in Merlin's name Severus thought would happen. Had Severus not lost enough people in his life to stand to lose another? That was all the howler from their grandfather had said, but Severus looked like he'd been stabbed twice over. Frankly, Rowan viciously thought served Severus right.
On the bright side, Terry and Severus are given plenty of glares by the Hogwarts student body, who blamed them for the entire calamity. Needless to say, Terry and Severus had taken to not wandering on their own. Not that they couldn't handle themselves, but it's a bit difficult to duel ten or more individuals in higher years than yourself. Ah, yes, they learned that the hard way.
The rest of the day, Rowan was given a mix of looks of pity or disbelief. Some still didn't believe that she hadn't known, but that wasn't her problem anymore. She was stuck with the title of the Hogwarts Champion whether she wanted it or not. Though she did at least get her cloak back in the end. The two girls from Beauxbatons to who she had lent her cloak and who were profoundly grateful to her.
And Rowan did somewhat cheer up, especially after haven seen that Igor Karkaroff had it just as bad as she did. Apparently, there was a bit of contentious air running in Slytherin against Karkaroff led primarily by Delilah Pizarro. There was no blatant obvious bullying going on, but there were certainly sniggering remarks made by the Slytherins about protecting one's behind and trousers. Needless to say, Igor Karkaroff had earned himself the quiet nickname, "The Trouser Champion."
Feeling much more energized after that, Rowan made sure to disregard the presence of Severus and Terry in between classes and simply ignored them when in class together. Everyone knew she was angry with them both as she refused to sit next to either of them even going as far as to sit with Quyen Crowley and her gang. Even Crowley and her gang knew better than to antagonize Rowan and silently accepted the new temporary sitting arrangement of her sitting next to them.
And to be perfectly honest, Rowan actually found herself mildly, but pleasantly surprised by Quyen Crowley. Despite being aloof and snappish, Crowley was not that bad of a seatmate and was actually rather bright. Quietly Rowan found herself reevaluating the girl, who she had been antagonistic from the very start. They would probably never be very good friends, but there wasn't any reason why they couldn't at least be civil to each other and friendly upon occasion.
And despite Rowan's bizarre newfound rapport with Crowley, she had not changed her mind regarding Hortense Sicca and Gertrude Fowl. Those two girls were still as spiteful and nasty as always, but at least they had learned to keep their mouths shut in her presence. Not that they had a choice because if their parents heard about it, there would be high hell to pay.
Though some classes were harder than others to ignore Terry and especially Severus in. Take for example their Alchemy class with Professor Boas where Severus and Rowan were the only two students in the classroom. Rowan didn't make any conversation beyond that which was required, and even Professor Boas noticed the abrupt change in behavior. But Professor Boas couldn't very well force Rowan to talk to her brother as he'd even been present at the event.
Interestingly enough, the delegation of students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons did, in fact, attend seventh-year classes with the Hogwarts 7th-year students. However, the classes attended were only those that are part of their curriculum and those that aren't are taught separately by one of the professors at Hogwarts, who is qualified to teach the subject in question, or by the headmasters of their prospective schools. This still wasn't an issue with Rowan since she only attends the 6th-year classes at the highest level and not the 7th-year level classes.
Nor could Albus Dumbledore do anything about the subject either. If he tried to force Rowan to speak to Severus it was always in cold curt tones and never beyond what the subject entailed. In effect, Dumbledore's office had become the scene of something out of the Cold War. Rowan ignored Severus and Severus did all in his power to try to get her to talk to him again.
Finally, in the second week since the event, one evening, Dumbledore finally held Rowan back to privately talk to her. Severus kept glancing back at them as he left the office leaving Rowan staring at Fawkes and Dumbledore solemnly at her. The moment the door closed, and Dumbledore was certain Severus was gone, he said, "Rowan, how much longer are you going to continue this?"
"Until he apologizes," Rowan instantly replied as she turned to stare Dumbledore right in the eyes.
"I've already forgiven him," Rowan tiredly confessed as she slumped back in her seat. "Don't get me wrong, I still feel rather hurt, but I'm no longer as angry as I was before. And I will be getting even later on, believe me. And despite everything that's occurred Terry's already apologized, but Severus still hasn't said anything of the sort to me."
Dumbledore wryly smiled as he says, "Then once he apologizes things will go back to normal."
"For the most part, yes," Rowan plainly stated. "But Severus has to learn to apologize. He's never been much good at it as his pride won't allow him to. It's important to say, you're sorry even if it won't change the circumstances or the outcome."
"I see," Dumbledore wisely said. "It's a good lesson to learn. But I hope you don't mind me giving him a hint."
"I won't mind," Rowan frankly admitted. She was starting to miss Severus whether she wanted to admit that out loud or not. He was her twin and she'd never been this angry with him for this long before.
"Run along then," Dumbledore said, "Dinner's being served as we speak."
Nodding at Dumbledore, Rowan leaves as he stares at her long after she departed from his office. Something about her words stabbed him right in the chest. "It's important to say, you're sorry even if it won't change the circumstances nor the outcome."
Had he ever said those words to Aberforth? He frankly couldn't remember and nor did I believe he had ever done so. But it was much too late now, Aberforth would never stand to hear those words from him now.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
EsliEsma
EsliEsma What's one of your worst bad days that you can remember? Let's see, it was a few years back it was on my birthday, my back tire blew out, I was late for work, an important work file went missing, and the computer wouldn't update........It was a terrible, bad, no good rotten bad day......... Thankfully, most bad days aren't quite that bad.
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