The Calm Before the Storm (feather)
Ethel perched her broom upright against a big hulking oak tree that towered so far up it blocked the sun. She inhaled sharply before walking through the twin iron gates that led into the cemetery, it was eerily silent, as graveyards were wont to be but Ethel was determined to finally visit Esmeralda for the first time since the funeral before the start of this term.
She smoothed down the purple cloak fluttering behind her, the wind tugging it with such force that the gold wrought Hallow family crest that clasped it together began to dig into her throat. She slung the cloak over her arm the rest of the way, all the while delicately cradling the modest bouquet of white lilies close to her chest, shielding them from the brisk wind.
The closer Ethel got to the Hallow family plot, the harder she found it to put one foot in front of the other. You're the reason she ended up here, the least you owe her is a visit.
A little iron fence painted white separated the Hallow's final dwellings from the public area of the graveyard. She swallowed hard and was almost startled at how loud and pronounced it sounded in a place where even the crows felt guilty for cawing.
"You never did like graveyards, did you?" Ethel laughed mirthlessly, shuddering as her fingers grazed her sister's headstone. "I don't blame you, you'd swear we lived in one, the atmosphere in our house."
Now more than ever that statement rang true. Ethel wasn't there when it happened, she was studying in the family library a few yards from the Manor and out of nowhere she'd heard the most horrific scream to peirce human ears. She'd gone outside to find out what all the commotion was about and that's when she saw her. With her eyes, she'd followed the open window at the top of the house and trailed all the way down to her sister's mangled corpse, bathed in a pool of blood.
The image threw her violently out of her ruminations."I should have noticed, I'm so sorry Esme. You deserved so much better." She laid the flowers on a slant, the little flowerpot was full already from the overly ostentatious floral arrangement that screamed Ursula Hallow in every way, a little note stuck out, Ethel noticed, and on it a line of loops and flicks, written in her mother's grand cursive hand.
'Sleep tight, darling.
Mother x'
Ethel's tears fell fast and free, whispering ruefully, "God, I miss you so much, Esme."
Another cloud of smoggy black air marred the walls of the potion lab, for the third time that day. Through the chorus of coughing and hacking and gasping for that last lungful of uncontaminated air, Maud Spellbody could be seen at the helm of her group's bench, slouching into her cauldron. "Bollocks." She whined into her hands.
"HB's going to flip her shit!" Enid cackled from the row above, "This is what happens when you send Mildred to get the ingredients unsupervised." Maud peered over at Mildred, stood at the other end of the room by the herbs bench, idly fidgeting with a handful of Mandrake Root. She had a faraway look in her eyes, and when Maud thought on it, she'd realised she'd been looking at that same vacant gaze for the past few days.
"You alright, Millie?" Mildred didn't notice Maud creep up on her. She was surprisingly stealthy and light on her feet for a plump girl.
"Yeah...Yeah, I'm fine. It's just.." She began, but then she wondered why she cared so much about Ethel when the latter had gone to such extensive lengths to avoid her. Ethel hadn't so much as looked at her since the incident in her room, and that had been a week ago. "I was just wondering where Ethel was. I never saw her at breakfast either."
"You mean you don't know?" Felicity appeared over Maud's shoulder, "She got up really early this morning. She's gone to visit Esmeralda." She checked her watch, paying absolutely no attention to Mildred's retreat into deep state of contemplation. "She should be back any minute now."
Ethel was pensive as she rode her broomstick back to the school grounds. She allowed rippling of her cloak riding on the wind to be the one and only sound to accompany her back to the unbearable looks of pity and everyone speaking to her with a voice so soft it was as though she might shatter if the spoke any louder. And then there was Mildred.
Her feet hit the freshly cut grass with a soft thud. She hadn't spoken to Mildred since that day in her room, since her...my grave miscalculation, Ethel told her self, instructed herself. I must have been under the influence of a spell of some sort. If that were the case, the effects of such an enchantment would have surely worn off by now, and it had been a week, so why on earth did her stomach still flutter at the memory of Mildred's skin against hers?
She could feel the rush of blood heating up her face and quickened her pace. Her eyes were scrunched shut, trying desperately and failing miserably to exile the phantom touch of Mildred's lips against her from her memory, opening them only when she got up off the floor to scream at the idiot who'd just bumped into her. "Do you mi-"
"Sorry, babes." The girl muttered, not even doing Ethel the courtesy of looking at her whilst mumbling out a half-arsed apology and admiring herself in her pocket mirror.
Who are you calling babes? Ethel might have screeched, but the girl transferred away before she finished wiping grass off her cloak.
"Bitch." She said under her breath, and walked across the school field and back into class, all the while muttering to herself about the earful that rude bitch is in for if they were ever unfortunate enough to cross paths again...
...in about five minutes.