Hola! I've finally gotten over my writer's block (I think) and I'm making myself write this because I just cannot stand it anymore. So read...review...pweeze? I'd be really happy if you would... :) So yeah...I hope it's good!
"Blah blah blah blah...whoop de doooo..." Gabbi was bored to no end in her first Transfiguration class. Turning needles into matches - big deal! Gabbi already had a pile of nine needles and was working on her tenth.
If father could see the rubbish we were doing right now, Gabbi thought, inserting one particularly pointy needle into the tip of her finger. I bet I can Transfigure objects at a fifth year level! This is so stupid...
Dissatisfied with the results of the finger-pricking experiment, Gabbi picked up a different needle and jammed it a bit harder into her index finger. She drew in her breath sharply as a droplet of crimson blood appeared where the needle had punctured her skin. Gabbi particularly liked blood. Not that she was a vampire, or anything - though she could be mistaken for one - it just interested her greatly. Blood...deep...dark...a sign of death...mesmerizing, yet frightening...
"Gabrielle!"
Gabbi turned from her blood-stained finger to Kassandra, who was staring at Gabbi in horror. "Are - are you okay? What did you do?"
Shrugging, Gabbi replied, "Nothing," and turned back to look at her finger, on which the blood, that had been a droplet before, was now slowly sliding down her finger in the fashion of a tear escaping down someone's cheek. Shocked, Kassandra turned back to her needle, which was still made of wood, but had a sharp tip.
Gabbi sighed and pressed the tip of her finger into the bottom left-hand corner of the desk, staining the wood a dark red. She didn't think anyone would notice, and if they did, well, who cared? Gathering up her ten perfect needles and shoving them into a small pocket in her bookbag, Gabbi packed her books away and sat watching Kassandra lighting her wooden needle on fire.
A bell sounded a few moments later, and Gabbi stood up abruptly, waiting for Paula and Kassandra to pack up their stuff. They hoisted their bags over their shoulders and walked down toward the dungeons to put away their things before dinner.
Finally! Gabbi thought, rolling her eyes. She couldn't wait to get to dinner to get away from Kassandra and Paula. She had older, more important friends to chat with. Draco, in particular.
Gen hopped down the stairs two at a time, with Taylor close behind. She really wanted to get to dinner; she was starving!
"Gen! Gen, wait up!" Taylor panted, jumping four stairs and landing at the bottom right before Genieveve.
"Aw, no fair, you cheat!" Gen whined, sticking out her bottom lip.
"How so?" Taylor asked, grinning, as they entered the Great Hall.
"You're taller than I am!"
Taylor just shrugged and took a seat in the middle of the Gryffindor table, then turned her head upward to the sky - or, rather, the ceiling. It was a beautiful starry night, and the sky was completely devoid of clouds.
"Mmmm.." Taylor murmured, a pained look suddenly shadowing her normally cheerful face. She shut her eyes and muttered something.
"Come again?" Gen giggled. She was in a particularly hyper mood.
"Oh, um...nothing, nothing," Taylor muttered, her brow furrowed.
Gen raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
Suddenly, food appeared on the table and Gen let out a strangled cry and leapt for the potatoes. Taylor grinned and acted as though nothing had happened.
A while later, Genieveve and Taylor emerged from the Great Hall, stuffed with good food and feeling very hyper indeed. They had left dinner early, owing to the unknown objects that kept sailing into their soup from Fred and George's end of the table.
"Let's go back to the common room, we have homework to do," said Taylor, sighing sadly.
"Awww...no, come on Tay! Let's go explore the castle, we've hardly been here a whole day! Besides," Gen added, seeing Taylor's dismayed face, "we need to find out how to get to tomorrow's classes!"
Taylor sighed again. "Oh...all right, let's go, then."
Genieveve skipped up the stairs and turned right, running down a dark corridor that was usually deserted. Taylor ran behind her, her feet pounding loudly on the stone floor.
"Gen! Gen! Slow DOWN!" Taylor squealed, and Gen came to a halt in front of an unused classroom. Taylor came skidding along behind her, grabbing Gen's shoulders to stop herself. Gen didn't giggle, however, or even make any noise at all. She was staring intently into the room in front of them, her eyes wide. Taylor saw the expression on her face and turned around to look into the room.
From the inside there was a faint, purplish light filtering through the doorway. It was so faint, though, that you wouldn't notice it just passing by the door, or from farther down in the corridor. Taylor frowned and peered closer.
"Let's go see," Gen whispered, tugging at Taylor's sleeve. She sounded confident, but Taylor noticed her hands were shaking violently.
"I - I don't know..." Taylor whispered back. She didn't have a good feeling about this...
"Oh, come on!" Gen pulled her arm harder until they were right in the doorway. They looked around cautiously, then Taylor kicked the door open the rest of the way with her foot.
Both girls gasped loudly. Sitting on a desk in the back of the forgotten classroom was a - crystal ball? Sighing with relief, Gen trooped into the room with the air of one on a mission to destroy. Taylor followed more timidly.
Tugging on her blonde locks, Taylor peered over Genieveve's shoulder nervously. "W-what do you think it - it does?" she whispered quietly.
"Well...I dunno, it doesn't look like a normal crystal ball, though, does it?" Gen answered, staring at it.
True, it didn't look like a normal crystal ball, and it wasn't. This one was set on what looked to be a real gold base which was decorated with elaborate etchings. It was slightly smaller than your standard crystal ball, and it didn't have white mist swirling around inside it like most did. Inside the ball was an almost blindingly bright lavender light that shot in all directions. This was what had attracted their attention.
Gen moved forward and stared straight into the purple depths of the ball, not blinking. Taylor chewed her nails nervously, fighing the impulse to run. A moment later, Gen jumped back, terror stricken.
"I - it - no...it can't...!" she whimpered, pointing a trembling finger at the crystal ball.
"What?" Taylor asked, hurrying over to her. "What?"
"It - it..." Gen stuttered incoherently, looking at the ball in horror.
Taylor stalked forward and peered at the base of the ball. Carved in miniscule writing were the words, "Pateo nunc mysteria intus voster olim." Frowning, she turned back to Gen, careful to avoid looking into the ball.
"Do you know what that means?" she asked, looking into Gen's eyes. As she did so, she felt her stomach contract in horror. Her eyes. Her eyes!
Gen's eyes were spookily light. There seemed to be no iris whatsoever, just a dark, black pupil. Looking closely, Taylor saw that Gen's iris was intact - it was just so light of a purple you could barely see it. Taylor gaped. Gen, who was breathing very fast and shaking so hard she was in danger of falling over, didn't seem to notice.
Pulling herself together, Taylor grabbed one of Genieveve's clammy hands and pulled her hard toward the door, saying, "We need to get out of here." Out in the corridor, Taylor slammed the door of the classroom and gripped Gen's arm tightly. The eerie purple light was still visible through the crack under the door.
"What happened?" she questioned sternly, avoiding Gen's freaky eyes.
"I...um...it...I can't tell you!" Gen stuttered, bursting into tears.
"Why? What did you see?" Taylor wrung her hands and paced back and forth. Without waiting for an answer she muttered, "It said something...in Latin...on the base...did you see?"
Genieveve shook her head slowly, wiping the salty tears from her cheeks.
"Come on...I don't want to stay here any longer...that thing gives me the creeps," Taylor pulled Gen back up the corridor, heading in the direction of the Gryffindor common room.
Gabbi sat in a velvety green armchair in the Slytherin common room, observing the fire. She seemed to be in some sort of trance; her pupils were dilated and she was not blinking. Everyone was acting as though she was sick with something contagious, and if they came any closer they'd be infected too. Gabbi didn't care.
What did it mean?
In the middle of dinner - and an extremely pleasant conversation with Draco Malfoy - something had happened.
She had been explaining to him, in a bored sort of drawl, how her first day at school had been.
"...And Transfiguration...that was the most boring class of all. I Transfigured about ten matches into needles, no big deal, really. Father says I have great powers, he's already taught me lots of Dark magic and..." she had broken off, staring at Draco, but not really seeing him, or his bemused expression.
It was as though someone was showing her a television (her father had told her something about it; a Muggle contraption) and she was viewing an event. But like her dreams, it was again through the eyes of this mysterious girl, who she had yet to discover the identity of. This "viewing" that was taking place in front of her eyes also didn't seem to have any sound. She had the strange feeling that the girl that she was seeing things through was talking, but couldn't hear her voice, or the replies of her friend. This friend, Gabbi realized, was the girl shehad met on the Hogwarts Express. Her name was...Taylor?
She was running down a corridor Gabbi didn't recognize and then came to an abrupt stop, Taylor halting behind her seconds later. Gabbi realized the reason they had stopped was because they had noticed a faint purple glow coming from underneath the door of a classroom. They walked in...and saw a crystal ball.
But Gabbi knew that it was much, much more than just a crystal ball. She knew this even before Taylor or the unknown girl did. Realizing what the object was, she gasped aloud at the dinner table, attracting a lot of attention. People up and down the Slytherin table turned to stare at her. Draco, who she was still staring at, gaped as her eyes turned from deep purple, to a lighter, royal purple, to lavender, then to a purple that was so light, he thought, there wasn't a recognizable name for it.
Then, as suddenly as the trance had come, it left. Gabbi blinked, her eyes starting to return to a their normal state. She looked around, to see people in every direction gazing at her in horror.
"Wh-what's going on?" She looked from Draco, to his friends Crabbe and Goyle, who were wearing identical expressions of stupid bewilderment.
"You...kinda went into a trance thing," said Draco, looking confused. "Are you...all right?"
Gabbi's cheeks turned a bit pink with embarrassment (it wasn't an emotion she usually allowed herself to feel) before she suddenly snapped, "Yeah. I'm fine. Just - just leave me alone." And with that she spun around, her dark hair flying wildly as she ran through the Great Hall, out the double doors, and disappeared.
The warmth of the fire certainly did not spread to Gabbi. She looked around the room with an icy glare that the likes of Draco Malfoy could not match. Why was all this happening to her? Her first day at Hogwarts, and she had to go off into some weird trance thing, making her an outcast. No. Gabrielle Ervin was not, and would not be an outcast. It would make the Plan much more difficult that way.