A/N Here it is, what you all have been waiting for! We're getting a little heavier in this chapter, but not too much; Alexia's stronger than that. Just a little update on the story, there are now officially 29 chapters, 42 reviews, and (holy crap, guys!) a whopping 4,407 views!Thank you so much! XD!
A few days later…
"Oh, there you are! Guess what time it is!" Melanie called as she bounded over to me from the common room door, where I was packing my bag to go to first period. "Er…8:30?" I guessed obligingly, not quite sure what had her so energetic. "No, silly! It's time to decide, once and for all, who is in the Secret Santa! We've been putting it off and we need to get down to it. Come on, we've got to find the others." She dragged me out of the common room, me still shoving books in my bag, to go look for the missing persons. When Melanie and I had successfully located the others, who were still in the Great Hall, Max was doodling on a spare bit of parchment and Jessica was talking to Michael Corner. "Max! Jessica! It's time to decide about the Secret Santa," she announced determinedly as we stopped in front of them on the opposite side of the table. Max looked up from his drawing when she called his name and smiled, but Jessica was a bit slower to turn around because she was still talking. "Oh, sorry, my friend's calling me," she apologized, ending the conversation. "Ah, it's alright; I'd better be off anyway," Michael got up and departed in the direction of our next class with a little wave. Melanie looked a bit sheepish when she noticed that she had interrupted, but Jessica waved it off.
Placing her palms on the table, Melanie leaned forward and said, "We need to figure out who's going to be in this with us and who isn't. Max, did you get a reply from Mrs. Jones?" He nodded. "Okay, so we know she's in. Here, somebody write this down." Max obediently flipped over his parchment and started scribbling names, starting with us four and then adding Mrs. Jones at the end. "Should we include our parents?" asked Max as he paused in his writing. I shook my head, saying, "Nah, let's stick to people around our own age. Well, except for Mrs. Jones. Oh, I know! Let's include Lizzie! I'm sure she'd love to join us." Melanie nodded in approval, and Max wrote her name down, but then he countered, "If Lizzie gets to join, then Felix does, too." Pulling a face, I weighed the pros and cons. Lizzie would probably love to join. But it's Felix. She doesn't really have friends in the building to do this kind of thing with. But it's Felix. She might feel left out. But it's FELIX! Well, maybe he wouldn't be so bad at Christmas time, when you're supposed to be full of good cheer and holiday spirit and all that. I sighed and nodded in agreement, willing to put up with him in order to make my sister happy. "But," I conditioned, "you have to be the one who asks Felix about it." Hopefully, he'd say no if his brother was involved.
Melanie piped in thoughtfully, "Well, my brother Andrew is too small to pick out a present on his own, so let's not include him." Aha, I knew she had a sibling! But seriously now, is there anyone else I want to add to our little motley crew…one person came to mind, but I shoved that thought down. He wouldn't want to join anyway, and if you suggest him to the others, you'll never hear the end of it! Someone poked me in the side, grabbing my attention. "Do you have anyone else in mind, Alexia?" asked Melanie. I shook my head, but Jessica said, "I still say we should include the Gryffindor Quidditch team."
Sighing, I asked, "Why not the Ravenclaw team?" She shrugged, "Because we don't actually know anyone on our Quidditch team?" Well, she had me there. After eyeing her for a second, I replied wearily, "And what about the people on the team that we don't know like the Keeper and the Chasers? To be honest, we don't know many of their team, besides the Weasleys, and I've only met the Seeker once. Sorry, but that's out." Jessica huffed a little, but agreed. I thought I heard her mumble something like, "just wanted to move things along…" Diplomatically, I chose to ignore that.
"Now that we've got that settled," Max interjected, "can we go to class? We have about 10 minutes left." We glanced at our watches to verify what he said, grabbed our stuff, then calmly exited the Great Hall (read as: pelted out as fast as we could). The seconds were counting down against us as we dashed to the dungeons for Potions, a most terrible class to be late to; Professor Snape had a bit of a temper and would accept no excuses for tardiness. My bag banged against my leg, slipping gradually off my shoulder despite all of my efforts to keep it from falling. It slipped too far and fell onto the ground, spilling its contents all over the hallway. I skidded to a stop and bent to retrieve my things, motioning to the others to go on without me. Reluctantly, they kept going, glancing back occasionally until they turned a corner and they couldn't see me anymore.
My stuff decided to be complete jerks and spread out in the corridor beyond my easy reach. I wasted precious time snatching things off the floor that had flown away from the rest. At least I was lucky enough that my ink bottles hadn't shattered. It was like I could feel the time slipping away out from under me. Come on, come on, I urged myself, but unfortunately, mental urging wasn't giving me super speed. Okay, I've got quills, parchment, ink, and books. Yes, I've got it all; maybe I can still make it! I almost flew down the hallway and around the corner, with the dungeon at the end of the next hallway; the other first years were filing in under Snape's watchful eye. The world slowed down as I darted down the hall, drawing the gaze of everyone still outside of the dungeon, including Snape. Hopefully, if I didn't make it, he would have mercy after seeing how hard I was running. Ha, right. You're funny, you know that?, I thought sardonically.
The bell rung while I was still halfway down the corridor. I grimaced in defeat as Snape frowned at me. Panting, I finally reached the door and leaned down to put my hands on my knees to rest for a second and try to get rid of the stitch in my side. "Get in the classroom, Ms. Hendrix. Now." Just a little time to breathe is all I ask, sir!, I thought angrily, but there was no arguing with a teacher. As I stumbled into the dungeon, he slammed the door behind me and snarled, "For your tardiness, you receive one hour of detention. Report to this dungeon at 7 o'clock tonight, sharp. Don't be late. Again." Geez, there's no need to be so mean! I was only barely late; I was really close to being on time!
Still huffing and puffing audibly, I slumped, my face burning, into a chair next to my friends while Snape started the lesson. I tried to control my breathing so that it wouldn't be as distractingly loud in the silent classroom while he taught, but it didn't work well enough, apparently, because he soon thundered, "Ms. Hendrix! Be quiet while I am teaching!" Recklessly, I hissed back, "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm trying to! If you would just have some patience and give me a minute or two more, I would stop breathing so loudly!" My eyes widened and I clamped my hands over my mouth in shock. You just talked back to the teacher, idiot! And it's Snape, for crying out loud! If you're going to talk back, choose a forgiving teacher like Flitwick! His eyebrows shot up in disbelief and my classmates started whispering. Melanie stared at me in surprise, but Max was covering a smile and Jessica gave me a small thumbs-up.
"Enough! Silence, you fools," he growled darkly, and everyone shut up instantly. His dead-looking eyes latched onto mine coldly, "For your impudence, you've earned yourself another two hours of detention." He carried on with the class like nothing had happened, and I found that suddenly my breath wasn't so hard to control anymore. Ha! I think he scared the breath out of you, a nastier side of me joked. Those eyes look like they belong to a killer; he probably puts them to good use against unruly students like you.
For the rest of the day, I couldn't concentrate on anything but the impending detention with Snape. My friends tried to distract me, but really all that they could talk about was my uncharacteristic outburst at Snape. "Since when do you talk back to teachers?!" asked a delighted Jessica as we exited the dungeon. I shrugged, not really having an answer. "I always knew you had a rebellious streak in you somewhere," she continued, but Max interjected, "No, you didn't! She's never shown any opposition to authority of any kind. Not that that's a bad thing." He aimed the last part at me as I lifted and eyebrow at him. Melanie was the only one to see it like I did, "Oh, this detention is going to be so awkward for you. What possessed you to say something like that? And to Snape, no less!" Again I shrugged; I guess I just thought it was unfair of him to yell at me about something that I couldn't control very well. I might also have lashed out because it was a reflex. If someone like Draco had yelled at me like that, that's probably about the same response they would get.
At dinner I ate as quickly as possible, shoveling food into my face so that I would have enough time to calmly walk down to the dungeons. Truth be told, I was really embarrassed about having to go to detention; I was a good girl and good girls do not get detentions. Perhaps I wasn't as much of a goodie-two-shoes as I'd thought. "Okay, I'd better be off," I announced as I stood up. They waved at me with sympathetic expressions as I set off down the table. It felt like everyone was staring me down, but I knew that wasn't true. Despite that knowing, I could feel a blush creeping across my face. Since I had a little time, I walked to a nearby bathroom to make sure I was presentable. Hair in place, check. Robes straight, check. Concentrated expression, check.
Look, it's okay that you got a detention. Everyone gets them at least once in their school career, I assured myself as I walked to the dungeon. But seriously, this couldn't get any worse! Or so I thought. It was about five 'til when I reached the dungeon. No sound came from within, so I knocked and listening for an answer. "Come in," called Snape in his signature snarl. When I entered, he pointed to a large pile of rusting cauldrons with various holes and serrations on their surfaces from careless potions-makers that weren't paying attention to the recipes and caused a toxic mess. "Until 10 o'clock, you are to repair these cauldrons by smoothing out the surfaces without magic, and placing this potion on the rusting spots and holes, but mind that you only use a dab of it on the rust. When you have done that, give the cauldrons to me and I will fix what you do wrong." He handed me a vial of opaque, deep red potion with an expression that told me that saying anything back besides an enthusiastic 'yes, sir!' would not be appreciated.
Instead, I said nothing and walked to a table near the cauldrons, where there were four pairs of dragon hide gloves, four sanders, four little droppers to put the potion on the cauldrons, four hammers for banging out bulges, four pairs of goggles, and not too far away, I noticed four benches for sitting and putting tools on. Either Snape wanted me to have a variety of choices or I was going to have some company, most likely the latter. I was early enough to have time to wonder about who might be joining me. Maybe they're scary juvenile delinquents!, was my first thought, but then I realized that I'd gotten an hour's worth of detention just because I was ten seconds late. They were most likely not that bad.
I dragged a cauldron off the pile, making a big clattering sound that made me cringe, but Snape didn't even so much as look up. Grasping a hammer, I proceeded to start banging on an odd protrusion that looked as if something had jabbed it from the inside, like in the cartoons when something runs into a brick wall and its impression comes out the other side. This was going to take forever to bang out with my sorry lack of arm strength. I'll probably screw every single one up, but I bet he could fix this is in a second with his wand, I mentally groaned bitterly. Even after minutes of nonstop banging, I'd barely made a dent in the dent. Huffing in frustration, I blew my hair out of my face and bent over it and started swinging with even more gusto, determined not to give Snape any reason to criticize my work or give me more detention to finish.
Unfortunately, my arms were not as motivated as I was and they needed a break badly after three straight minutes of swinging a hammer. I was resting for a bit on my bench when, right on time at seven o'clock, a knock sounded on the dungeon door, probably my fellow detention-mates finally arriving. "Come in," Snape called again. When the door opened, in strolled the last people I wanted to see, the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan. No! Why are they here?! They can't see me in detention! Because I was bent so low and wasn't hammering at the moment, they hadn't noticed me when they walked in, and now they were facing away from me. Let's keep it that way! I went completely still, as still was physically possibly. Oh God, I was so embarrassed. My face was burning and I couldn't help my hair going a deep purple. This isn't happening, this can't be happening! At least the lighting was bad enough that no one noticed my hair changing. Snape was explaining the job to them when I noticed that I felt stiller than usual. Yep, you guessed it; my powers were glitching again, while I was still purple. I knew they would come back, but how long was I going to have to be color-fied this time?! At least this was more toned down than last time.
Why does this stuff always happen to me?, I wondered as the three of them turned around and beheld the pile of cauldrons and the purple-haired girl sitting next to it. "Alexia? What're you doing here?" George asked with a small smile that, unlike his brother's, was symmetrical. "No talking! Get to work," Snape ordered before I could answer. They picked up their supplies and grabbed a cauldron without another word, although they were still sending me questioning looks, especially Fred, who knew me best out of the group. He plunked down next to me with a sander and whispered under his breath out of the corner of his mouth, so that Snape couldn't tell that he was talking, "So?" Copying him, I answered, "I was late to class." With that contagious half-smile, he replied, "That's it? Blimey, how late were you?"
"Stop smiling, Weasley. This is detention, there is no smiling," Snape commanded, glancing at Fred. The grin immediately dripped off of his face and my reply died in my throat. Snape returned to the papers he was grading and when I was sure it was safe to continue, I explained, "I was halfway down that corridor when the bell rang. But I also talked back to him, so I've got one hour for being late and two for 'impudence'." His shoulders shook a bit, and I realized that he was laughing, probably at me. "You talked back to Snape? You're such an idiot," he murmured with another smile, but it didn't last long in case Snape noticed it again. I huffed and kicked him gently, then returned to my cauldron, slamming the bulge in the metal.
We worked in relative silence, hammering bulges, smoothing down lumps, and filling in holes. The first time I used the potion, whose use wasn't explained very well to me, was disastrous. I took the dropper and filled it, careful to pick up only a little bit of potion. Holding the dropper close to the edge of the hole, I brought my face closer to it and squinted at it, squeezing out the tiniest drop that I could manage. It sizzled like lava for a second, but nothing really happened. Frowning, I leaned closer and squeezed a thin layer of it on one side of the hole, looking for a reaction. Unfortunately, I ended up using too much on it, and it sizzled louder than the last time, then smoke started billowing profusely from the edge as it grew molten and stretched across the hole. The smoke flew right into my eyes and stung as if someone had just thrown lemon juice in them. "OW! My eyes!" I screamed, accidentally dropping the dropper that luckily empty of potion, and making the others look at me, wondering what I'd done to myself. One look at the smoke that was rapidly disappearing over the hole and the dropper of potion lying on the floor told them all they needed to know because Fred and George got up and came over to check my eyes, Lee bent down and retrieved the goggles I had neglected to put on from my bench, and Snape did nothing but growl, "Foolish girl! I gave you goggles for a reason! And stop that squealing; the stinging will stop soon and your eyes will be fine."
My palms were pressed to my eyes, kneading them to try to make them stop hurting, but all it did was make stars explode behind my eyelids. One of them, I think it was George, asked me to take them away from my eyes, but when I refused, he forcefully pulled them away, saying, "We need to see your eyes, Alexia." Fred held my chin and tilted my head up so he could get a good look at me. Blinking furiously with tears streaming down my face, I stared up into Fred's face as he searched my reddened eyes for any sign of injury. Like Snape said, the sting was easing gradually and the flow of tears was subsiding, so this was rather unnecessary, but apparently he had to make sure. His expression was full of concern, which was nice, considering Snape was wholly unconcerned by my ordeal. "You really are an idiot," he said quietly, frowning. He released my chin and turned away, going back to his bench without another word.
An actual tear mixed in with the water still streaming down my face, but no one but me knew it. He really thinks that little of me? Well, yeah, I should have put on my goggles, but I wasn't stupid, I just made a mistake. Is that what he sees when he looks at me, an idiot? Wiping away the water left on my cheeks, I returned to my cauldron to inspect the hole I'd been filing, with my goggles placed securely on my face. It was covered, but by very thick metal that stood out ridiculously against the flatter metal surrounding it. Whatever. Snape said he would fix what I did wrong, so I didn't bother about it too much.
Well, this one's done, I thought dully as I lugged it to the slowly growing pile of repaired cauldrons off to the side. Moving in the opposite direction, I walked over to the pile of cauldrons yet to be fixed to choose my next one. One caught my eye, a cauldron with no holes and only a little bit of rust, but there were very many things that needed to be banged out. Snatching it from the stack, I hauled it back to my bench. He thinks I'm an idiot, huh? Well, who needs him anyway? I only made a small mistake, nothing was damaged and I wasn't permanently hurt. There was no need for him to call me an idiot. These thoughts whirled through my brain as I started going to work on the protuberances that riddled the surface of the cauldron. A bit of anger flowed into me, strengthening my arms as I smashed out the bumps in it, as if I could straighten out the bumps in my life if I hit it hard enough.
Clang, clang, clang! I smashed the cauldron as hard as I could, but at least I wasn't damaging it because I wasn't that strong. If the numbness in my arms was any indication, I was going to be ridiculously sore tomorrow, but I couldn't care less at the moment. Gradually, my anger was fading, but the hurt was still there. What if I was nothing more than a simpleton that was fun to tease to him? I mean, think about it, how many times had he called me an idiot before? Quite a few now that I thought about it. Of course, I usually deserved it, but that means he only ever saw me when I was screwing up at something or other. Maybe he really does think of me like that. A light depression settled on me, not too heavy, but enough to weigh me down. I could shake it off if I wanted to, if I thought of something else, but my thoughts were stuck on him, making it impossible.
The end of three hours came, and Snape dismissed me. The three of them apparently had done something worse than me, so they kept working. Lee and George waved at me surreptitiously as I left, which I returned, but Fred didn't even look up from the hole he was filing. That hurt worse than him calling me an idiot. Actions speak louder than words.
