"Ms. Black." Flitwick sounds beyond exasperated with her, hands on his hips as he glares at her from his desk.
"Yes, Professor." Audrina says cheerfully, looking up at him from her place on the floor. For a second, he struggles for words.
"Why?" He asks finally and she quirks her head.
"Why what professor?" She asks politely. "To what are you referring, my position or how I came to be here?"
"Audrina." He says tiredly. "Explain."
"Well you see professor, Ginny and myself were having a little debate of sorts." She explains easily. "She didn't believe me when I said that it would be possible to levitate myself. I aimed to prove her wrong."
"You know what," Flitwick waves a hand, looking wearied. "I don't want to discuss this any further. Couldn't you just do your homework like the rest of the class, quietly?"
"Actually professor, we'd prefer if she didn't." Jace calls from the back of the room and there's an outbreak of giggles.
"Work." Flitwick orders and Audrina scrambles up to sit next to Ginny. Ginny extends her hand and Audrina places a Knut in it.
"Antsy?" Seamus questions as she sits down at the Gryffindor table for lunch. She looks at him, eyebrows raised.
"What would ever give you that impression?" She asks loftily, reaching across him for potatoes.
"The fact that every professor wants to kill you." Fallon comments, sitting down beside them and grabbing the jug of pumpkin juice, Jace trailing after her. "I was in the teacher's lounge to talk to Professor Sprout and I overheard them commiserating."
"Well, what can I say?" Audrina gives a nonchalant shrug. "I am a bit bored and distracted."
"You're going to flunk out is what's going to happen." Fallon chides and Audrina claps her back.
"Not when I have you, Fal."
"Well Snape's here at least." Jace glances at the head table. "You were right Audrina, I think they're expecting trouble."
"What gives you that impression?" Audrina says dryly, looking around at the grim faced men that line the walls. "Maybe they just all really like celebrating Halloween, you know the feast is legendary."
"You're making teachers angry." Millie says, sitting down in the midst of them and Fallon gestures to her pointedly.
"If it's not in the plan, don't be doing it Rin." Neville sits down and she looks around at all of them.
"When did I get so many mothers? Calm down people, this is all going according to my plan." She declares.
"Worrying." Fallon muses.
"Alright, enough talking about this." Seamus mutters, as a cluster of Slytherin girls passes behind them.
"Good point. We'll all meet in our common room before the feast and go down separately like planned." Neville says under his breath and they all nod in agreement.
"Well I'll see you all then." Audrina claps Jace's shoulder. "I am going to go to the library to study."
"Wait, really?" Millie and Fallon look at her in astonishment.
"No." Audrina laughs. "I've got a book on healing I'm going to read because I'll just copy Fallon's homework anyways. See you guys at the feast!" She waves and walks away. She wanders up to the bay windows in her favorite tower, curling up in it with her book.
"I don't care what you say, I'm fine." She hears Malfoy's voice, tensing up. A moment later, he and Blaise appear on the landing.
"Oh, hullo Audrina." Blaise steps back with a self-satisfied smirk, looking between her and Draco. "Fancy seeing you here."
"Zambini." She hisses, shutting the book.
"How unplanned." He folds him arms, apparently unaware of the fact that they're both glaring.
"Blaise." Audrina tries to communicate via glares and sharp head jerks. "What's going on?"
"Draco here was just saying that he was having questions about the potions homework. I believe that since it was your idea for the curriculum, you'd know how to answer his questions." And then he melts away, leaving them staring at each other.
"Sorry." Audrina says automatically.
"I don't actually have questions about potions." He says, a little uselessly and Audrina closes her book, swallowing a lump in her throat.
"I figured." She says, observing him sadly. He still looks pale and skinny, drained. The dark circles under his eyes she's seen in Hogsmeade are still there, perhaps a little more pronounced. He looks gaunt and unshaven, his eyes tired and his mouth thin. "I know you've been doing fine."
"How's that?" He frowns slightly.
"Slughorn told me." She folds her legs underneath her.
"He told you about my potions?" Draco asks, frowning and taking a step closer to her.
"Yes." She admits.
"Why?"
"Well," She struggles for a second to explain. "He mentioned to me after class that our potions are some of the best in the class. He asked why, I explained that my mother had taught us." She says quietly.
"Why are you there after hours?" He is close enough now for her to see just how exhausted he looks.
"I've been brewing potions outside of class." She watches as he sits across from her, still frowning.
"You've been brewing potions outside of class. Is that why every student seems to know your name?" He asks smartly and she smiles coldly.
"I like to think it's my winning personality."
"I knew that's why you picked healing potions." He says tonelessly and she watches his balefully.
"I picked them because I can do good with them. What else was I going to do, make bubble juice?" She's struggling to keep the spite out of her voice but she can't, not when he's right here, close enough to touch but so far away from her at the same time.
"No, you're going to be in the thick of the action, doing all you can to help everyone, no matter the cost." He only sounds a little bitter.
"No matter the cost." She echoes. "I don't see a cost in helping people, especially innocent people."
"You know there's a cost." He looks at the scars that litter her hands and arms before looking up at her with haunted eyes.
"I'll pay it." She says flatly.
"Will you though? Will you really pay the cost of this war?" He asks her bitterly. "Or do you just want to think that you can?"
"I have paid the cost, over and over again." She hisses. "If you think this is the worst of things, you know nothing."
"Oh no, I know." He looks at her with clear disgust. "You don't think I don't know your little plots and ploys? I grew up with you. I know how you operate. I know how you plan."
"And what are you doing to do, leave me again?" She taunts, anger rising. "Go to the dark side? Break my heart, crush my soul? I have survived all those things, Draco. Do not think I cannot survive much, much worse."
"Do you think you can survive torture and beatings everyday?" He demands incredulously. "Do you really think you can keep this up and they won't start hurting you, really hurting you?"
"What are they going to do?" She asks, with a mirthless laugh. "I'm not the girl I was in that tower. She is gone, she is dead. Look at me now."
"Do you really not care?" He questions. "Do you really think you're so high and mighty, so cold and unfeeling? Answer me that. If they touched Rigel, what would you do then?"
"Blame you." She hisses. "Blame you and your stupid war, your leader, our awful families, the whole damn like. I would rage against him and you and every single Death Eater so that you would know that nothing you do is going to break me, not until you kill me." He looks taken aback by this, like the idea of her being willing to die surprises him.
"Why do you let them hurt you?" He asks finally and there's no malic in his tone, just a faint pleading note.
"Because if they're hurting me, they're not hurting anyone else." She says quietly, standing and tucking her book under her arm. "And if there's one thing our childhood taught me, it's how to tuck myself into armor and never, ever let them see how bad it hurts."
"I…" He tries to start saying something but she cuts him off.
"The fact that you're ever asking that shows me that there's not a chance in the world that I could ever help you." She says sadly. Then with a little nod of her head, she walks away. Blaise is waiting a couple landings below, apparently waiting for her.
"How'd it go?" He asks, falling in step and Audrina keeps her head high, refusing to let any tears well in her eyes.
"You are a jerk for doing that. You are even more of a jerk for doing it knowing fully well that I cannot change him." She says, a slight tremble in her voice. Blaise looks at her, frowning slightly.
"Black, I don't know what-"
"Know what Blaise?" She rounds on him, struggling to keep herself from breaking down. "You didn't know that he is the same cowardly person he was before? If the idea of me dying doesn't get through to him well then I don't know what I can do. I thought I could help."
"Are you saying you can't?" He demands and she takes a deep breath to steady her nerves, nodding.
"He's gone Blaise. The people we were when we loved each other, they're gone. It's not happening." She declares.
"Bullshit." Blaise spits. "You coward. House of the brave, my ass. You're a coward Audrina."
"Excuse me?" She gapes.
"You think you're so heroic and defiant." Blaise is on a roll now, looking furious. "Acting like you're this rebellious little leader. So high and mighty and yet here you are, quitting because it might get a little hard. So boo-hoo that he's not the same boy. But don't call him a coward when you're the one scared that he might just break you heart."
"He did break my heart." Tears are in her eyes now, despite every intention to stop them. "I loved him Blaise! I loved him with my whole heart, only for him to turn around and choose to be a Death Eater. Do you know what that does? Do you know how much it eats at my soul? To have the man that raised me try to kill the man that took me in? To have my cousins torture my friends? You can not called me a coward when every day I live through a hell you can't imagine."
"Then change it." His dark eyes are gleaming. "Stop giving up. Do not let this because something you live with. You're fighting so hard already. Stop being a little spoiled princess and-"
He doesn't finish his words because Audrina has slapped him, foregoing her wand. He grabs his cheek, stunned. She stands, quivering with anger, a little apprehensive of the curse she's surely about to receive but also feeling justified in her current actions. Then he turns to her with a sly grin.
"What?" She asks nervously.
"So the ice queen still can melt." He rubs his cheek. "Open your eyes Audrina. If you think he broke your heart, imagine what he's feeling." With that, he walks away, leaving her a little stunned.
"Hey, where were you?" Ginny asks, when Audrina storms into the common room, furious and upset. She doesn't respond, just throws her book at Ginny's feet and continues storming upstairs to their dorm.
"Ok, what's going on?" Ginny asks, following her. Audrina picks up her pillow and with a yell of rage, begins punching it. Ginny calmly sits down on her own bed and waits it out.
"Life sucks!" She yells. "And I hate it! And I don't know what to do or who I am! I want to go to bed and never wake up!"
"Did you talk to Malfoy?" Ginny asks, raising an eyebrow.
"I talked to Malfoy." Audrina grumbles.
"And?" Ginny demands. "Did he have a change of heart and realize that he is a complete ass?"
"No." Audrina states. "He asked why I let myself get hurt. I told him it's cowardly not to. Then I yelled and he did too. That was the extent of it. I told Blaise off and he told me to stop being a spoiled princess. I slapped him."
"You slapped Zambini?" Ginny asks in glee. "Tell me everything. What did he do? What did his face look like? Seriously, every detail."
"He told me I wasn't a total ice queen." Audrina grumbles.
"I hope you know only like 70% of this is making sense to me." Ginny informs her. "But are you doing alright?"
"Yes." Audrina states, sitting up and taking a deep breath. "Yes, I'm fine. I'm not going to let this bother me. We have work to do."
"You know, if you want to talk about it, we can." Ginny says slowly. "I'm always here for you."
"I know Gin." Audrina smiles at her. "And I appreciate it, I really do. You're my best friend. But I don't want to think about him, not right now. Not when we have something really important to do."
"Like stealing the sword for Harry." Ginny's eyes take on a hardened glint. "And getting it away from Snape."
"Hey." Audrina says quietly, watching her best friend. "Do you want to talk about Harry being gone?"
"No." Ginny says easily.
"Gin." Audrina gets up and comes to sit next to her. "It's killing me that I can't even talk to Draco and he's in the same school as me. I know this whole Harry thing has got to be hard. And it's worrying me that you won't talk about it to me. Because I know you have things to talk about."
"No, honestly." Ginny opens the top drawer in her bedside table and produces the diary Audrina had gotten her for her birthday. "I'm writing stuff down. You're right; it helps to talk about stuff. Especially in a diary that doesn't write back and tries to kill you."
"Are you sure?" Audrina pushes just slightly and Ginny gives her an over bright smile.
"Honestly Rin. You're right, we should just be focusing on what we're going to do tonight." She decides and for a long moment, both girls are still, lost in their own thoughts. Then they get up and begin to gather the items they need for tonight, setting aside what their friends will need as well.