AN: In no way, shape, or form do I own any rights to the Harry Potter franchise. Inspired by the Broken Quill Challenge at FictionAlley. Thank you to Erin, my wonderful beta reader. Enjoy!
Hannah Abbot chewed her brown feathered quill thoughtfully, surrounded by piles and piles of books Madam Pince had supplied when asked for books on earwigs and scythes. Regrettably, Hannah had neglected to add that the books were for a Divination assignment so had been weighed down with heavy tomes like The Common Earwig and Its Medicinal Properties, How To Cut Wheat and other such useless books.
Well, she amended, only useless in this situation. If she were an aspiring farmer, she was sure she would need to know how to cut wheat. Perhaps there were many farmers who would give an arm and a leg for such a book, but could not because they were too poor. In fact, she thought, staring at How To Cut Wheat with new respect, perhaps I should read it, just to show I respect such hard done by farmers.
A few moments later she slammed the book shut, cursing her silliness. Why, by Merlin, should she be reading about how to cut wheat when she really needed to work on her Divination work?
Tossing the book carelessly to the side, Hannah bent over her parchment, blonde pigtails falling in front of her eyes slightly. Abruptly she abandoned her assignment to place the recently thrown book gently on a spare table, smoothing the pages slightly and closing the cover with a small smile.
Duty to Arthur Bentwhistle's book done, the Hufflepuff turned back to her books, quickly uncovering one The Dream Oracle. Really, it was silly that she needed to ask to borrow that particular book at all as it was part of the required list of books for her year, but she had lent it to Ernie a while ago and he, being the lovable yet forgetful twit he was, never gave it back.
Earwigs, she decided, were a perfect place for her to start.
Pulling the book towards her, she flipped through the pages quickly, stopping at the index at the back, knowing full well she could have simply turned the book over and opened it but loving the sound the pages made as they turned and hit each other. She ran the tip of her quill down the 'E' words, reading them all slowly. Eagles, ears, Earth, earthquake, earwig...
Cheeks flushed pleasantly at the knowledge of her discovery, Hannah quickly flipped to page 287 and started reading about earwigs in dreams.
"To see an earwig in your dream, signifies unpleasant news that will affect you and your business and family relations.
If you dream that you have an earwig in your ear then will you hear bad news that affects you personally. If you see someone you are talking with get one in his or her ear this will denote that you have been less then truthful with a certain person and your lies are hurting this individual."
Hannah looked skeptically at the leather-bound book. What utter rubbish! She had seen an earwig crawl into Ernie's ear, but she hadn't been untruthful to him lately, so it was impossible her lies were hurting him! And if she was hurting him, Ernie wasn't one for subtlety. He would out and out tell her!
Resisting the urge to simply lie about everything as it was rumored Potter, Weasley, and everyone else did, Hannah merely wrote down that perhaps she had lied to Ernie, knowing it was utter rubbish all the while.
It wasn't a complete lie, she told herself reassuringly as her quill formed the familiar words in her customary loopy script. There was evidence that it could be true, so it wasn't a total lie. She had at least researched it!
The loud voices of a group of Slytherins broke through her concentration. They were large boys and seemed to be enjoying the novelty of roughhousing in the Library. The added danger of the chance that Madam Pince could swoop down on them at any second seemed only to add to the joy they were experiencing as they pushed each other roughly into bookshelves and tumbled over chairs, grinning lopsidedly all the while.
Silly boys. The Library is where people go to work you twits, she berated them mentally, knowing she would never dare to actually yell at them.
That was, until one of the largest boys pushed a rather smaller boy into the table Hannah was sitting at.
Hannah rose with a shriek, ink dripping all over her parchment. Luckily enough she had dodged the black liquid, but she was still angry, a red haze obscuring her thoughts.
"You idiots! I was working on my godforsaken essay!"
Oh crap, she suddenly thought, I'm yelling at Slytherins. Big Slytherins. Scary Slytherins. Slytherins who probably have access to a wealth of hexes and curses I've never heard of, jinxes I'll never be able to dodge...
Her mouth apparently not listening to her brain, she continued railing at the boys.
"And furthermore, this is a LIBRARY!" she positively thundered, jabbing her quill at the boy who had fallen into her table. "People come here to WORK!" The quill inched closer to the boy's hand as Hannah's fingers quivered with rage, exhaustion, and the inescapable feeling that she was digging her own grave. "You probably damaged some rare and priceless book too!"
Not having much more to say and blushing all the more fiercely every second, Hannah spun on her heel, pulled out her wand, and siphoned the ink back into its bottle.
The Slytherins, looking slightly in awe of the petite girl in a yellow and black striped tie in front
of them, shuffled off. Thinking they were out of earshot, one of them, the one with cropped black hair, started slapping the others' heads roughly, yelling at them for being told off by a Hufflepuff of all people.
Hearing them, the anger rose in Hannah once more.
She was sick and tired of people looking down on her just because she was in Hufflepuff! There was nothing wrong with Hufflepuff, nothing at all! Was it bad to be a hard-worker, to be devoted and loyal?
No!
With an uncharacteristic growl of anger, Hannah chucked her quill at the black-haired boy viciously. Upon contact with the ground it shattered. Her aim not being too great, she missed, but the black-haired Slytherin noticed the quill he had seen Hannah chewing not too long ago and put two and two together.
Sneering meanly at Hannah, he pocketed the broken quill and continued on his way.
Collapsing back in her chair once the group was out of sight, Hannah grimaced at her ruined essay. The ink had soaked into the parchment so much it couldn't be saved. Divination was her worst subject; she was too logical and sure-footed to actually believe in any of it so Trelawney hated her and routinely predicted not earth-shattering things but small issues, like that Hannah would get a hangnail in the near future, or would have a bad hair day tomorrow.
If Trelawney learned of this she would probably make that weird face of hers and moan in her misty voice that it was fated. That perhaps Hannah did not have the Inner Eye, that she would never pass Divination and it was better that she just left like Hermione did in third year.
Oh how Hannah wished she had that much courage! How liberating it must feel to just leave what she did not like...
Allowing herself to daydream of such things for only a moment, Hannah tidied up the mess that was formerly her Divination essay quickly, hoping Madam Pince wouldn't order her out, claiming she was a menace to books everywhere.
Once the last drop of runaway ink was cleaned from her current table, Hannah drew her large, canvas bag towards her, grabbing her roll of extra parchment and groping for another quill.
She was sure she had one in there somewhere...
Perturbed that she hadn't found a quill without actually looking for one, she pulled the bag even closer to herself and stuck her head into its dark cavern, blue eyes peeled for a protruding feather.
After an exhaustive search during which a rather heavy book in her bag toppled onto her nose, Hannah emerged and admitted defeat.
She had no extra quills in her bag.
Too bad really as her essay was due tomorrow.
Damn.
Feeling slightly empowered by the swear she would never dare utter, Hannah debated whether or not returning to her dormitory to find a quill from her trunk was a good idea.
Probably not, she thought.
The homey Hufflepuff common room would only distract her from her work and it was likely that Ernie or one of her other friends would be there and invite her to play Exploding Snap and she would agree and have her eyebrows singed off because she was never any good at Exploding Snap anyway and in the ensuing laughter and jokes she would forget all about her Divination work and never do it and have to make excuses to Trelawney and still get a detention and House points deducted and then her entire House would hate her.
So no, going to the common room was definitely out.
She did have another option however. She could always ask the other students in the Library to lend her a quill.
That sounded much safer and probably couldn't result in the entire Hufflepuff House hating her.
She approached Madam Pince cautiously, knowing the Librarian was notorious for going off into mindless rages for no apparent reason. She only just escaped with her life, having to dodge Madam Pince's horrid purple duster to a score of the Librarian going on and on about "should have brought your own quill" and "stuff to do that doesn't include ill prepared milksops!"
Striking Madam Pince from her mental list of people to ask, Hannah scanned the Library for a Ravenclaw, any Ravenclaw, on the basis that Ravenclaws, being the intellectual type, would most likely have extra quills and Ravenclaws, being friendly with Hufflepuffs, would probably actually lend her one.
There were no Ravenclaws.
Annoyed, she looked at the other people in the Library.
There was a Hufflepuff first year with long black hair with pink streaks in it speaking to another Hufflepuff, presumably a first year also.
There was a Slytherin seventh year, too imposing to approach.
And finally there was on Lavender Brown, notorious Gryffindor gossip for once not flanked by Parvati Patil and other, just as brainless, Gryffindor sixth years.
Now, to anyone other than Hannah Abbot, asking Lavender Brown for a quill would not be too bad because, though she was a gossip, she was a harmless gossip. But Hannah Abbot hated Lavender Brown.
She hated Lavender Brown for many reasons, not the least of which because Hannah had a crush on Ron Weasley.
Lavender Brown's boyfriend.
Before Lavender had come around, Hannah thought she had been making progress with Ron. She though Ron liked her and was planning on asking her out. Oh how wrong she was.
Now every meal she went to in the Great Hall she could see Lavender's long brown hair falling over Ron's back as she straddled him and kissed him passionately. It almost made the Hufflepuff sick.
Thinking lovingly of her quill and wishing that she could Summon it back or something but knowing Madam Pince would have her thrown out if she even tried, Hannah steeled herself and walked towards Lavender's table.
The Gryffindor girl not noticing her arrival, Hannah had time to read a small amount of her essay. At a quick glance, the scrawl was indecipherable, but upon further scrutiny Hannah could read the word 'echo' twelve times in the first three inches.
She stepped back from Lavender's table so it didn't look like she had been reading the other girl's essay, cleared her throat nervously, and tapped Lavender on the shoulder quickly, before her confidence could fail her.
"Yes?" the brunette said cooly as she knew Hannah didn't like her.
"Well, um, I was wondering if you had a quill I could borrow. I only had one, but I threw it at a Slytherin who ruined my Divination work and he took it. So, um, may I borrow a quill?"
Slightly astounded by the Hufflepuff's ability to say what should have been three sentences in one breath, Lavender rocked back in her chair.
"Only if you promise to do something for me."
"What?" Hannah said eagerly, sensing that her Divination assignment could be over and done with very quickly if she complied.
"You promise?"
"Of course," Hannah said, slightly perturbed by Lavender's questioning.
"Alright. You may borrow this quill," she took a lovely black feather quill from her bag and brandished the feather at Hannah's face, "if you promise not to be such a pushover all the time."
"Push-pushover? You think I'm a pushover? Well, I guess maybe I am sometimes..."
"There! Do you see it? You just accepted what I said as fact. Don't do that anymore."
"Oh. Um. Alright. I'll try." Still confused by Lavender's request, Hannah accepted the offered quill. "Thanks. I'll give this back to you once I'm done."
Nodding again at Lavender, Hannah was shooed away by the Gryffindor's long, tan fingers.
Scurrying to her table, Hannah bent over the copy of The Dream Oracle she had and looked up a word in the index. Flipping the pages anxiously, glancing over at Lavender every so often, Hannah gasped as she found the entry she was looking for.
"Echo – To hear or make an echo in your dream, symbolizes your need to repeat yourself in order to be heard and for others to believe you."
AN: Just in case you don't get the ending (because Erin didn't), here's what is basically means: Lavender thinks she needs to repeat herself in order to be heard and for others to believe her. It shows that Lavender does have insecurities, just like Hannah. Hope that make sense and, if it doesn't, leave a review criticizing it. Please?