Her lower lip trembled at his voice, the sound of it. The reminders of summers spent laughing, playing, talking intensely beneath the trees. Time when she didn't know about dark wizards under a Dark Lord, when Dark Arts were something that were just abstract concepts.
Sometimes she thought she'd give anything to go back to the time before. When things had been simple, when there hadn't been lines, right and wrong, black and white, dark and light.
When she had nothing left to focus on at her workstation, she turned her gaze back on him. What do you want? she wanted to demand of him. But the better question was ... is there a way to fix this?
Was it too late, even now? "Find out who it is," she asked him softly, the slightest edge of a plea to her voice. "I don't care, that they're calling me things. Saying things like that. I care that they don't have the courage to fess up to their words."
She wondered if he would. She wondered if, even now, he would try to help her - or had that bridge burned over the summer? Her lips parted, a silent word formed on them. Please.