by chilly_a
...5:49am
The Albertus is covered with lines and squiggles and numbers. It looks kind of pretty. I like making all the little circles and dots and little funny arrows. I like how each line of numbers breaks up into a new line, and then another, then another, until you get to the very bottom and it's still the same thing, only you're at the bottom of it. Then you can start again at the top. And then you cross it, or wiggle it. Double squiggle it. Blow it up. I like the way the chalk squeaks when I squiggle out numbers. Some of the squiggling takes a little longer to make sense, so usually The Albertus has to explain a lot before I understand, and then he gets angry. But it's not so bad.
It's almost as good as being asleep. I just do everything slowly. I think hard. And I write hard.
...
"Alright. Well, that's enough. You'd better get going."
I blink.
Sometimes I forget I have to stop when I'm writing on The Albertus.
I kind of forget where I am. I forget about the old classroom. The cobwebs. The dark. About my nose itching, and the dust, and about school and Hogwarts. About having to creep back to the dungeon before the others wake up. But then I remember and it makes me all cranky.
I remember all the doorways, floors and walls and long, moving corridors. I remember how it'll still be all black. How I'll still be cold, and hungry. And it'll still be raining when I get back to the dorm. And Crabbe will probably still be snoring on his side. And my neck will be all cranked like usual and my eyes'll be all squinty again, because I haven't closed them all night. And Draco will say I'm ugly. Then all the pansies will be sprouting outside in the morning. And they'll probably have something revolting like porridge for breakfast.
Maybe Draco will let me copy his Transfiguration homework, at least.
"The next time you come, I want the proof for this, here. Understand?"
I peer at the board.
I scratch my head. That looks pretty hard.
"It's trivial and I expect a solution, you moron!"
I shuffle, crossly.
"Don't even think of coming back to me until you've solved it, do you hear?"
I scowl.
"What?"
I blow my nose on my sleeve. "Yeah," I grumble.
"Unless you're stupid."
I hate blackboards.
"Unless you couldn't work it out if you thought about it for a year. Then you might as well come back and learn how it's done. Are you stupid?"
I scowl at The Albertus, and blink. "Uh... yeah."
"Well, what are you doing scowling? Get out of here! Honestly. I don't know why I bother with you."
...
Sometimes I wonder if I am the most stupid person in the world. If I was smarter, I don't think I'd be crouching outside The Albertus' door, like I am now, because I can't remember the spell to put out the light on my wand, so I can't start heading back, because Filch or someone will see and catch me and give me detention. It takes me a while, sometimes. I don't know. I guess if I was really smart, I also wouldn't be crouching here because I would have remembered the word for that sleeping spell, anyway, and I'd be in bed right now, dreaming of roast chicken and beef. Somnicubicle, or something. Somnocannypous.
It's like this, almost every night.
But I don't know, who knows? Maybe I'll end up like Rotundo Griddlewarf, go loony, and just die, maybe before Transfiguration, so McGonagall won't get to expel me from the class again, today. Maybe they'll have bacon at breakfast. Maybe it's stopped raining. Maybe I'll figure out The Albertus' problem this time, it's happened before. I hope I don't die, though.
Crabbe would probably get all my robes and my shoes. That's what he's always wanted, that arsehole.
end