Breakfast was one of Guin's least favorite times of the day, for it was when she was forced to sit with the other Slytherins. Granted, there were several that she liked, and even talked to, but the rest made the experience not worth its while. Malfoy made life miserable for everyone, even the other Slyths. His oafish minions, Crabbe and Goyle, were too stupid to be of a bother in general, though a fist in the stomach could greatly impede enjoyment of the breakfasting hour. Luckily they usually confined aggressive tendencies to the Gryffindors, and it was only Malfoy that was the problem.
Today, they wolfed down eggs, bacon, and potatoes. Guin poked at her food, which was rapidly growing cold. For some reason she wasn't very hungry today, and the heavy fare served by the house elves held no appeal. As usual, a whooshing, fluttering, and hooting heralded the arrival of the owls. Guin had no bird of her own, Liadan was more than enough. The tiny kitten was, at the moment, prowling underneath the table and attempting to cut Malfoy's ankles to shreds. His yelps of protest caused Guin to snicker, momentarily diverted.
"Something wrong, Malfoy?" she asked lazily.
"Your bloody kitten's trying to rip my socks off!" he growled, aiming a kick at Liadan, who hissed and redoubled her attack. A thump announced that his foot had connected with Lia's skinny body, and a sharp mew told her pain.
"Liadan! Here!" Guin ordered, glaring at Malfoy. "What, you haven't tortured people enough today, you have to hurt the animals, too?" Liadan leaped into Guin's lap and shot a dirty look at the pale-haired boy, growling low in her throat.
L'Argent's owl, Kerwin, careened into the room and buffeted Malfoy on the head before dropping off a small package, which quite unfortunately spattered eggs all over Christian Nott's robes. The avian was smaller than Malfoy's eagle owl, a compact creature that had more of a hawkish look about him than anything. Nott brushed egg irritably away, flicking bits of yellow from his shirt. L'Argent ignored him and opened the package carefully, pulling apart the twine that bound it shut. His face lit up as he lifted up a small notebook, and a letter accompanied by a picture.
"What's that?" Guin asked, curious despite herself.
"Letter and sketchbook from my Uncle Henry," L'Argent replied absently, scanning the letter. Oddly enough, his voice lacked any sarcasm whatsoever.
Guin peered at the picture over his shoulder. It showed a dark-haired couple, smiling and waving, and a blond-haired man who looked oddly familiar to her. Dark brown eyes glittered cheerfully as he watched the boy – she supposed that was Uncle Henry. Now she remembered – someone very much like the man in the picture had been in the Leaky Cauldron, the day she visited Diagon Alley. "Lives in London, does he?" she asked, watching the picture as it stared back.
"No, but he was there over the summer, said he was meeting someone—" L'Argent broke off abruptly and eyed her with a disbelieving expression. "D' you know, Marlowe, we actually exchanged several sentences that didn't contain insults?"
"I hadn't noticed."
She finished her breakfast, which was quite icy.
-----
Guin recited the list of complicated potion ingredients, staring at the wall as she did so. Perhaps if she focused on the walls, she could ignore the glares directed in her general area by most of the Gryffindor students. Snape nodded approvingly, and then snapped at the scowling students, "Well? Are you listening? Copy that down! Marlowe knows what she's talking about." Wonderful, Snape, though Guin bitterly, a fat lot of good that'll do me. If anything, the glowering intensified. She sighed and finished.
"What's worse?" Rilla whispered, "Having Snape like you, or dislike you?"
Potions, however, was the least of her worries, for several events were fast approaching. One was the Halloween feast, and also, the beginning of the Quidditch season. It was rumored that the Gryffindors had a new Seeker, though Rilla would not tell her who it was. She merely looked mysterious and slightly smug, prompting Guin to roll her eyes in that special way which only near teenagers can manage. "You're being immature, Ril.. It's not like my knowing will make any difference in the outcome of the game."
"Can't tell, I'm sworn to secrecy."
But word got out eventually, and Rilla was able to look smug that she was not the one to let the secret slip. "You could have told me it was Potter," Guin said, aggravated, "It wasn't that big of a deal!"
In Transfiguration, they continued work on the matchsticks, and Guin was quite pleased to find that, after an initial shaky start, she began to get the hang of things. Rilla, surprisingly enough, after an equally slow start, hopped to the front of the class, surpassed only by Hermione Granger. "But," as Rilla was wont to say, "She's best at everything if it can be learned from a book. No use trying to be better than /her/." By the end of the second lesson, Rilla could change the matchstick to a needle in a snap, and was awarded ten points to Gryffindor.
"Wonderful!" Guin said, slapping her friend on the back, and accidentally causing Rilla to lose control of her wand and magic large purple splotches onto Malfoy's face. McGonagall, face twitching in an admirable effort to hide a grin, removed them, much to the girls' disgust.
"I wonder if I could learn to do that on purpose?" Rilla wondered.
Halloween had arrived before they knew it, and along with the holiday came Rilla's eleventh birthday. The Muggle-born girl was one of the youngest in their year, but shrugged it off. "When you're ninety, I'll be eighty-nine for.. er.. A couple more days, at least." They trudged to the hall, which was decorated to what could only be termed an extreme.
Black, thin shapes usually seen only at night fluttered spookily across the ceiling: bats. Some of the first-year girls shrieked and covered their heads, prompting Guin and Rilla to share a quiet roll of the eyes. "They're going to get in my hair!" squeaked Pansy Parkinson, clutching Draco Malfoy around the neck. Guin assumed that she was attempting to hug him, though the end result was closer to strangulation. Large orange pumpkins leered unpleasantly, and Guin had a nasty suspicion that the carvings in the vegetables moved into new expressions every now and then.
Guin and L'Argent were fighting over the rights to a particularly appetizing piece of bread when Professor Quirrell staggered into the hall and collapsed dramatically onto the staff table. Guin let go of the bread, causing L'Argent to tumble backward with the sudden release of tension, and stared at the distraught teacher. "Troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know." With the loose flopping of limbs that comes only with loss of consciousness, Quirrell fainted.
People immediately began yelling and screaming, much to Guin's disdain. Pansy Parkinson dissolved into tears on Malfoy's robes, causing him to push at her bad-temperedly. She was not to be deterred, however, and soon had him in a chokehold once more. L'Argent sniggered uncontrollably at the sight, and all was a pleasant sort of chaos and pandemonium for several moments until Dumbledore exploded several bright firecrackers. "Prefects! Lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"
Pansy was forced to release Malfoy, who gasped like a beached whale until the Slytherin prefect slapped him on the back of the head to clear his senses. L'Argent was gasping also, though with suppressed laughter. Guin sighed and poked him in the stomach. "Come on," she said, annoyed. Most of the other students were streaming through the doorways in a mindless panic, and she tugged L'Argent's arm to force him to hurry up.
They had lost contact with the main body of their House, who were now turning into another hallway. L'Argent twisted out of her grasp, rubbing his arm thoughtfully for a moment. Reflexively the two children moved sideways to stand against the wall, out of the way of the crowd. "You know," L'Argent said, "It would be a shame to miss on an opportunity like this.." A slightly wicked gleam appeared in his eyes as he glanced sideways at Guin. "Are you up for it, Marlowe?"
"Up for what?" she asked, though an idea was already forming in her head.
"You heard what Dumbledore said at the beginning of term, right?"
"I assume you're not talking about 'nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak,' are you?"
"Of course not."
"So.. that must mean the out-of-bounds third floor corridor, mm?"
"Now you're using your brain. Your mummy would be quite proud."
"I'm game." There was no way in hell she was going to let L'Argent go on an adventure like this without her. She was quite sure that he'd never let her forget it.
Stealthily, they made sure that no one was looking before slipping into the next hallway. In utter silence Guin and L'Argent walked up several sets of stairs and towards the corridor, keeping whatever nervousness either felt hidden. Guin was surprised to find that actually she wasn't scared at all, but excited – a small rush of adrenaline made her alert and wary, eager to see what they could find. The Charms hallway looked deserted at first, but then – footsteps!
"Quick!" Guin hissed, and frantically, they dove into the beginning of another hall.
Ears straining, they could hear the sound of footsteps, and then a voice said, "Alohomora!" They stared at each other, shocked – it was Snape's voice, right down to the annoyed snap. There was the sound of a door swinging open, than shut, and then.. Guin fancied that she could hear a growl, a bitten of shriek, and then the noises of a door opening and slamming shut quickly, and then Snape limped away, muttering curses. Sweating, the two hidden children waited until the footsteps faded into nothingness, before slipping out of their hidden vantage point.
"That," L'Argent murmured fervently, "Was too weird."
"Yeah.." Guin said, frowning at the door. "I wonder what's in there?"
"Only one way to find out.. Will you do the honors?"
"Alohomora!" Guin whispered, pointing her wand at the lock.
They didn't go in, they only looked; after the sound of Snape's limping Guin and L'Argent were inclined to be slightly more wary. And, they saw instantly, there was good reason, too. Confronting them in the darkened hall was a gigantic, three-headed dog. "Cerberus!" Guin whispered, shocked, as the thing glared malevolently at them with reddened eyes, its mouth a slavering hole of gaping teeth and an overbite that would have put an orthodontist to shame. It stood atop a trap door; it growled at them, and started forward.
"I think," said L'Argent weakly, "That we should close the door."
And they did, backing away hurriedly. Two sets of footsteps, one the now-distinct limp of Snape, and the other an uneasy shuffle, interrupted their thoughts and they dived back into the hallway. "I d-don't k-k-now w-what you're t-talking about, S-severus.. I was j-just m-making s-s-sure that the t-troll d-didn't sh-show up h-here.." The stuttering voice could only be Quirrell. He sounded terrified.
"You recovered from that faint rather quickly, didn't you?" Snape asked nastily, though his voice was taut with pain, "And what a coincidence, Quirrell, that you decided to check the third floor corridor, which, might I add, is off-limits for certain, rather secret reasons?"
"Y-you're c-crazy, S-severus," Quirrell stuttered. "The t-troll's n-not here, let's g-get b-back t-to the s-staff r-room.."
They walked, or, in Snape's case, limped away, and Guin and L'Argent were able to breathe again. For a moment, they stood there weakly, hands shaking, before a thought occurred to both at the same time. Guin looked at L'Argent and her eyes widened. "If Snape gets back to the Common Rooms before us.." She trailed off.
"We're so dead," L'Argent finished. In perfect concert and silent agreement, the two children ran as fast as they could back to the Dungeons, and the Slytherin Commons. Along the way they faced several close calls: there was a commotion happening in one of the bathrooms, it seemed, and Guin could vaguely make out Professor McGonagall yelling at someone, but they bypassed the area and continued on their way, completely out of breath but not daring to slow.
Guin had never been so glad to see the bare face of a wall before. "Anaconda!" she gasped, and they stumbled into the room, to the curious stares of the Slytherins still remaining there. Malfoy took one look at their flushed faces, and snorted softly. "What a darling couple you make," he drawled. Unfortunately, Guin was too busy attempting to breathe, and was unable to answer.
Today, they wolfed down eggs, bacon, and potatoes. Guin poked at her food, which was rapidly growing cold. For some reason she wasn't very hungry today, and the heavy fare served by the house elves held no appeal. As usual, a whooshing, fluttering, and hooting heralded the arrival of the owls. Guin had no bird of her own, Liadan was more than enough. The tiny kitten was, at the moment, prowling underneath the table and attempting to cut Malfoy's ankles to shreds. His yelps of protest caused Guin to snicker, momentarily diverted.
"Something wrong, Malfoy?" she asked lazily.
"Your bloody kitten's trying to rip my socks off!" he growled, aiming a kick at Liadan, who hissed and redoubled her attack. A thump announced that his foot had connected with Lia's skinny body, and a sharp mew told her pain.
"Liadan! Here!" Guin ordered, glaring at Malfoy. "What, you haven't tortured people enough today, you have to hurt the animals, too?" Liadan leaped into Guin's lap and shot a dirty look at the pale-haired boy, growling low in her throat.
L'Argent's owl, Kerwin, careened into the room and buffeted Malfoy on the head before dropping off a small package, which quite unfortunately spattered eggs all over Christian Nott's robes. The avian was smaller than Malfoy's eagle owl, a compact creature that had more of a hawkish look about him than anything. Nott brushed egg irritably away, flicking bits of yellow from his shirt. L'Argent ignored him and opened the package carefully, pulling apart the twine that bound it shut. His face lit up as he lifted up a small notebook, and a letter accompanied by a picture.
"What's that?" Guin asked, curious despite herself.
"Letter and sketchbook from my Uncle Henry," L'Argent replied absently, scanning the letter. Oddly enough, his voice lacked any sarcasm whatsoever.
Guin peered at the picture over his shoulder. It showed a dark-haired couple, smiling and waving, and a blond-haired man who looked oddly familiar to her. Dark brown eyes glittered cheerfully as he watched the boy – she supposed that was Uncle Henry. Now she remembered – someone very much like the man in the picture had been in the Leaky Cauldron, the day she visited Diagon Alley. "Lives in London, does he?" she asked, watching the picture as it stared back.
"No, but he was there over the summer, said he was meeting someone—" L'Argent broke off abruptly and eyed her with a disbelieving expression. "D' you know, Marlowe, we actually exchanged several sentences that didn't contain insults?"
"I hadn't noticed."
She finished her breakfast, which was quite icy.
-----
Guin recited the list of complicated potion ingredients, staring at the wall as she did so. Perhaps if she focused on the walls, she could ignore the glares directed in her general area by most of the Gryffindor students. Snape nodded approvingly, and then snapped at the scowling students, "Well? Are you listening? Copy that down! Marlowe knows what she's talking about." Wonderful, Snape, though Guin bitterly, a fat lot of good that'll do me. If anything, the glowering intensified. She sighed and finished.
"What's worse?" Rilla whispered, "Having Snape like you, or dislike you?"
Potions, however, was the least of her worries, for several events were fast approaching. One was the Halloween feast, and also, the beginning of the Quidditch season. It was rumored that the Gryffindors had a new Seeker, though Rilla would not tell her who it was. She merely looked mysterious and slightly smug, prompting Guin to roll her eyes in that special way which only near teenagers can manage. "You're being immature, Ril.. It's not like my knowing will make any difference in the outcome of the game."
"Can't tell, I'm sworn to secrecy."
But word got out eventually, and Rilla was able to look smug that she was not the one to let the secret slip. "You could have told me it was Potter," Guin said, aggravated, "It wasn't that big of a deal!"
In Transfiguration, they continued work on the matchsticks, and Guin was quite pleased to find that, after an initial shaky start, she began to get the hang of things. Rilla, surprisingly enough, after an equally slow start, hopped to the front of the class, surpassed only by Hermione Granger. "But," as Rilla was wont to say, "She's best at everything if it can be learned from a book. No use trying to be better than /her/." By the end of the second lesson, Rilla could change the matchstick to a needle in a snap, and was awarded ten points to Gryffindor.
"Wonderful!" Guin said, slapping her friend on the back, and accidentally causing Rilla to lose control of her wand and magic large purple splotches onto Malfoy's face. McGonagall, face twitching in an admirable effort to hide a grin, removed them, much to the girls' disgust.
"I wonder if I could learn to do that on purpose?" Rilla wondered.
Halloween had arrived before they knew it, and along with the holiday came Rilla's eleventh birthday. The Muggle-born girl was one of the youngest in their year, but shrugged it off. "When you're ninety, I'll be eighty-nine for.. er.. A couple more days, at least." They trudged to the hall, which was decorated to what could only be termed an extreme.
Black, thin shapes usually seen only at night fluttered spookily across the ceiling: bats. Some of the first-year girls shrieked and covered their heads, prompting Guin and Rilla to share a quiet roll of the eyes. "They're going to get in my hair!" squeaked Pansy Parkinson, clutching Draco Malfoy around the neck. Guin assumed that she was attempting to hug him, though the end result was closer to strangulation. Large orange pumpkins leered unpleasantly, and Guin had a nasty suspicion that the carvings in the vegetables moved into new expressions every now and then.
Guin and L'Argent were fighting over the rights to a particularly appetizing piece of bread when Professor Quirrell staggered into the hall and collapsed dramatically onto the staff table. Guin let go of the bread, causing L'Argent to tumble backward with the sudden release of tension, and stared at the distraught teacher. "Troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know." With the loose flopping of limbs that comes only with loss of consciousness, Quirrell fainted.
People immediately began yelling and screaming, much to Guin's disdain. Pansy Parkinson dissolved into tears on Malfoy's robes, causing him to push at her bad-temperedly. She was not to be deterred, however, and soon had him in a chokehold once more. L'Argent sniggered uncontrollably at the sight, and all was a pleasant sort of chaos and pandemonium for several moments until Dumbledore exploded several bright firecrackers. "Prefects! Lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"
Pansy was forced to release Malfoy, who gasped like a beached whale until the Slytherin prefect slapped him on the back of the head to clear his senses. L'Argent was gasping also, though with suppressed laughter. Guin sighed and poked him in the stomach. "Come on," she said, annoyed. Most of the other students were streaming through the doorways in a mindless panic, and she tugged L'Argent's arm to force him to hurry up.
They had lost contact with the main body of their House, who were now turning into another hallway. L'Argent twisted out of her grasp, rubbing his arm thoughtfully for a moment. Reflexively the two children moved sideways to stand against the wall, out of the way of the crowd. "You know," L'Argent said, "It would be a shame to miss on an opportunity like this.." A slightly wicked gleam appeared in his eyes as he glanced sideways at Guin. "Are you up for it, Marlowe?"
"Up for what?" she asked, though an idea was already forming in her head.
"You heard what Dumbledore said at the beginning of term, right?"
"I assume you're not talking about 'nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak,' are you?"
"Of course not."
"So.. that must mean the out-of-bounds third floor corridor, mm?"
"Now you're using your brain. Your mummy would be quite proud."
"I'm game." There was no way in hell she was going to let L'Argent go on an adventure like this without her. She was quite sure that he'd never let her forget it.
Stealthily, they made sure that no one was looking before slipping into the next hallway. In utter silence Guin and L'Argent walked up several sets of stairs and towards the corridor, keeping whatever nervousness either felt hidden. Guin was surprised to find that actually she wasn't scared at all, but excited – a small rush of adrenaline made her alert and wary, eager to see what they could find. The Charms hallway looked deserted at first, but then – footsteps!
"Quick!" Guin hissed, and frantically, they dove into the beginning of another hall.
Ears straining, they could hear the sound of footsteps, and then a voice said, "Alohomora!" They stared at each other, shocked – it was Snape's voice, right down to the annoyed snap. There was the sound of a door swinging open, than shut, and then.. Guin fancied that she could hear a growl, a bitten of shriek, and then the noises of a door opening and slamming shut quickly, and then Snape limped away, muttering curses. Sweating, the two hidden children waited until the footsteps faded into nothingness, before slipping out of their hidden vantage point.
"That," L'Argent murmured fervently, "Was too weird."
"Yeah.." Guin said, frowning at the door. "I wonder what's in there?"
"Only one way to find out.. Will you do the honors?"
"Alohomora!" Guin whispered, pointing her wand at the lock.
They didn't go in, they only looked; after the sound of Snape's limping Guin and L'Argent were inclined to be slightly more wary. And, they saw instantly, there was good reason, too. Confronting them in the darkened hall was a gigantic, three-headed dog. "Cerberus!" Guin whispered, shocked, as the thing glared malevolently at them with reddened eyes, its mouth a slavering hole of gaping teeth and an overbite that would have put an orthodontist to shame. It stood atop a trap door; it growled at them, and started forward.
"I think," said L'Argent weakly, "That we should close the door."
And they did, backing away hurriedly. Two sets of footsteps, one the now-distinct limp of Snape, and the other an uneasy shuffle, interrupted their thoughts and they dived back into the hallway. "I d-don't k-k-now w-what you're t-talking about, S-severus.. I was j-just m-making s-s-sure that the t-troll d-didn't sh-show up h-here.." The stuttering voice could only be Quirrell. He sounded terrified.
"You recovered from that faint rather quickly, didn't you?" Snape asked nastily, though his voice was taut with pain, "And what a coincidence, Quirrell, that you decided to check the third floor corridor, which, might I add, is off-limits for certain, rather secret reasons?"
"Y-you're c-crazy, S-severus," Quirrell stuttered. "The t-troll's n-not here, let's g-get b-back t-to the s-staff r-room.."
They walked, or, in Snape's case, limped away, and Guin and L'Argent were able to breathe again. For a moment, they stood there weakly, hands shaking, before a thought occurred to both at the same time. Guin looked at L'Argent and her eyes widened. "If Snape gets back to the Common Rooms before us.." She trailed off.
"We're so dead," L'Argent finished. In perfect concert and silent agreement, the two children ran as fast as they could back to the Dungeons, and the Slytherin Commons. Along the way they faced several close calls: there was a commotion happening in one of the bathrooms, it seemed, and Guin could vaguely make out Professor McGonagall yelling at someone, but they bypassed the area and continued on their way, completely out of breath but not daring to slow.
Guin had never been so glad to see the bare face of a wall before. "Anaconda!" she gasped, and they stumbled into the room, to the curious stares of the Slytherins still remaining there. Malfoy took one look at their flushed faces, and snorted softly. "What a darling couple you make," he drawled. Unfortunately, Guin was too busy attempting to breathe, and was unable to answer.