I'm worried that switching between le Puff's and Orla's viewpoints within the same chapter makes the story disjointed – what say you, oh readers?
Concrit appreciated, as always.
Chapter Six: Knitting
"I'm Serenity Aramantha Malfoy-Snape-Potter, and if you know what's good for you you'll tell me how to get to the Slytherin dorms."
Orla groaned. She and Alexis were already late for Transfiguration, and now she was faced with another person with a name so complex it made a Gordian knot look simple. She'd known the normalcy of her first weeks of school had been too good to last.
"Could you repeat that?" Alexis asked. She had produced a piece of parchment and quill from her bag, and had an inkwell balanced precariously on her forearm.
"We don't have time for this, Alexis," Orla muttered out of the corner of her mouth. Alexis took no notice.
"Look," Orla said, stepping in front of her friend. "We're Ravenclaws, not Slytherins. We have no idea how to get down to the Slytherin dorms. Go ask Professor Snape."
Serenity tossed her thick, midnight hued hair over her shoulder and glared at Orla. Her electric blue eyes blazed from within heavily mascaraed lashes.
"I asked a question, and I expect to be answered, fool!" she snarled.
Orla reconsidered her attempt at bravery and took a step back, getting ready to run if Serenity reached for her wand or made any threatening move.
"Alexis!" she hissed, as Serenity stalked towards her, black-nailed hands closing into fists.
"Gimme a second, I'm nearly—eep!"
Orla pulled Alexis out of the way just in time as an all-too-familiar yellow and black blur tore past them and launched itself at Serenity.
Ignoring Alexis' protests that this was interesting and she wanted to see, Orla streaked off in the opposite direction, dragging her protesting friend behind. She didn't stop until they'd reached the Transfiguration classroom.
Two men and two women were standing over Serenity's bloody corpse.
"Still here I see, Riddle," le Puff said. "Must not be the one, then. And here I was thinking she looked just your type. Here's your wand back."
She handed it to the younger man, ignoring the red smears it left across her palm. "I am continually awed by your radiant personality and amazing people skills," Riddle said dryly, holding his wand delicately between two fingers with his arm extended as far from his body as possible.
Huff le Puff snorted and nudged at Serenity's body with a toe.
"You've gotten bloodstains all over my nice, clean floor," Filch snapped. "Wands, le Puff, are used for magic, not brutal, physical assault."
Le Puff shrugged.
"Where's the fun in that?"
She bent down and seized Serenity's head by its luxuriant raven (and by now tangled and blood-matted) tresses.
"You have a choice," she said. "Either you can tell us what we want to know and I'll let Riddle kill you quickly with magic, or you can be stubborn and idiotic and I'll hand you over to Rave'n'claw who will kill you slowly and titter idiotically while she does so."
Serenity's eyelids flickered and she groaned weakly.
"I see," le Puff said, stepping back and released her hold on Serenity's hair so that the girl's head thumped down on the cobblestones. "Rave, she's all yours. If you need us, scream."
As the other three moved off, Rave'n'claw bounded forward, giggling happily.
"You're all leaky!" she exclaimed, crouching by the prone Serenity. Serenity moaned and tried to crawl away.
"No, don't go, I want to play!" 'Claw protested. She seized Serenity's arm, leaving long gashes where her nails dug in.
Serenity began to cry, leaving long trails of mascara down her face.
"You can't kill me!" she sobbed, laying a hand across her brow. "I haven't found my true love yet. I'm too beautiful and angsty to die!"
Rave'n'claw watched with interest, head cocked slightly to one side.
"I don't want to kill you, oh heavens no!" she said, sliding forward on her knees until she her nose was nearly touching Serenity's. "I just want to play with you!"
"Wh—wh—" Serenity tried.
"Tag, you're it!"
Rave'n'claw tapped Serenity lightly and sprang to her feet like Tigger on crack. She sprinted away, sniggering madly. Serenity staggered upright, hand clapped to her throat where 'Claw's nails had torn it out in her 'tap'. She took one step, another, and then collapsed in a pool of her own blood where she twitched once and lay still before dissipating into a puff of smoke.
"Who was that?" Alexis demanded as soon as they reached their seats.
Orla prodded the stubborn quill she was supposed to be transfiguring into a toothbrush and pretended not to hear.
"Orla!"
"Do you have a problem, Miss Rivers?" McGonagall asked, appearing behind Alexis in that startling and inexplicable way teachers do.
"Er…no, Professor, sorry," Alexis muttered, going red.
"Then continue your assignment alone, if you would be so kind," McGonagall said, moving away to put out the desk a Hufflepuff boy had managed to light on fire.
Orla dared to think that she'd be safe from Alexis' questions, at least until the end of class, when the other girl surreptitiously slid a note over to her. Against her better judgment, Orla opened it. 'Well?' it read. She crumpled the note and shoved it in her pocket, pointedly ignoring Alexis' attempts at eye contact.
She didn't count on Alexis' persistence. Outside class, Alexis cornered Orla before she could escape to lunch.
"Who was that person, Orla?" she demanded. She pulled them into a small wall niche out of the way of traffic. "And don't you try escaping again."
Orla resigned herself to the inevitable. If she'd learned nothing else from her first few weeks at school, it was that Alexis' curiosity, once aroused, could not be sidetracked.
"Which one?" she asked, sagging against the wall.
"Don't try and worm out of it."
"I'm not. Which person? We met two," Orla pointed out.
"That Serenity person, of course. She's been the fifth relative of Professor Snape we've seen since school began," Alexis said, waving the list of Serenity and her brethren's names on it in front of Orla's nose. "Unless the Professor has a hidden, turbulent, passionate youth we know nothing about, I just can't imagine him propagating so many impossibly beautiful relatives. Why, who else was there?"
"No one," Orla said quickly. "Now I'm hungry, let's get lunch."
She darted back into the hall before Alexis could say anything else. Alexis' hand around her forearm stopped her from getting more than a few steps.
"Who's 'no one'?" Alexis asked.
"Nobody important, probably just a student," Orla said quickly. Too quickly, she knew immediately, when a steely glint all too reminiscent of Arane entered Alexis' eyes.
"Why are you so uptight about this? Is it someone dangerous? We could tell the Headmaster…"
"No!" Orla said. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Dumbledore. That might bring her to le Puff's attention again. Orla was quite happy being forgotten by that particular person.
"Fine, I'll explain," she capitulated. Knowing Alexis, if she didn't find out the truth she would tell the Headmaster, just to make Orla sorry. "Let's just get some food and we can take it to…" she cast around briefly for a private place to eat. "We'll take it outside."
After a brief foray to the Great Hall for food, they hurried outside, where Orla had ample time to regret her choice of location. October was bitingly cold at Hogwarts, though at least this meant the grounds were as abandoned as Orla could have wanted them.
She and Alexis settled beneath a tree with their makeshift repast.
"The other person is…" She tried to think of a way to describe Huff le Puff from her few (and thankfully brief) meetings. "Well, her name's—"
Above their heads, a branch cracked, dumping a swearing yellow and black bundle between them. A head emerged from the tangle of clothes and limbs, and then the whole mess resolved itself into a person.
"—Huff le Puff," Orla finished faintly. Her mind gibbered and tried to run, cower, and scream all at once, with the result that she stayed right where she was.
Huff le Puff stood up and brushed a few stray twigs off of her robes.
"Hello, Quirke. Haven't you died yet?" came her friendly greeting.
While Orla whimpered, Alexis in all innocence engaged le Puff in conversation, asking: "What were you doing in a tree?"
Le Puff glanced down and seemed to consider and dismiss Alexis as not worth the effort of disemboweling.
"Trying to catch a squirrel," she said, stepping away from the girls.
"Why?" Alexis asked, ignoring Orla's frantic hand gestures to shut up.
"To eat," Huff le Puff said, not smiling.
"Oh."
Orla's mind kicked back into gear, and she shot to her feet, tugging Alexis along with her. She shoved a piece of bread that had survived le Puff's descent into her pocket.
"It's been really swell, but we've got to go now, so good-bye!" she squeaked.
"Don't go," le Puff said, stepping in front of Orla so that she had the choice of walking into le Puff or stopping. "I want to talk to you, Quirke. And you too…" She squinted in Alexis' direction. She cut off Alexis' attempt to answer with a sideways motion of her hand. "Don't tell me, it's… it's…"
Le Puff paused, looking bewildered. "Funny," she said after a moment. "I can't seem to find your name. That's odd; you don't look like a Sue."
She walked around Alexis, who stood stock still, perhaps driven by some innate survival instinct. Orla's hand crept towards her wand, but she stopped herself. She couldn't imagine Huff le Puff being discomfited by Wingardium Leviosa or the other spells of its ilk that made up her repertoire.
"Ah well. I suppose I shouldn't judge a grimoire by its cover," le Puff said, thrusting her hands into her pockets. "Your parents were probably something outlandish, and your secret powers will no doubt manifest themselves when you turn sixteen."
"…huh?" Alexis managed.
"You might want to step out of the way, Quirke," Huff le Puff said suddenly, her eyes fixed on Alexis. "Otherwise you might get a bit…spattered."
The hairs on the back of Orla's neck prickled, but before she could call out a warning to her friend, Huff le Puff hurled herself at Alexis. Her hands came out of her pockets to reveal a very rusty (or… something; Orla didn't like to think about what else could have created that particular red-brown shade), long, and pointy knitting needle in each one.
Alexis threw herself to the side just in time to avoid being speared in the throat.
Not knowing what good it would do, Orla whipped out her wand and pointed it at le Puff.
"Stop it, or I'll… I'll hex you into the next dimension!" Orla shrieked.
Sensing an empty threat, Le Puff took no notice; she dashed after Alexis, who had regained her feet and was running for the castle. Orla dared to think Alexis would get away when the girl tripped. Huff le Puff was upon her in a flash, needles poised to stab.
For a moment, Orla was torn between the desire to run away fast before le Puff finished with Alexis and turned her attention back to Orla, and the knowledge that if she didn't do something Alexis would die a stabby death. Loyalty won. Cursing herself for it, Orla pointed her wand at le Puff and shouted "Wingardium Leviosa!"
At the same moment, someone across the field screamed out "Stupefy!"
For a wonder, both spells hit Huff le Puff. She flew up several feet, then fell back to Earth with a bone rattling thump.
Orla hurried over to Alexis, skirting the unconscious le Puff. Alexis scampered to her feet, shooting anxious looks at her prone assailant.
"So that's why you didn't want to tell me about her," she said once she'd regained her breath. "She's a proper menace!"
Orla didn't have the chance to bask in the glow of being right, as the other person ran up. He skidded to a stop, panting.
"What in the world is going on here?!" he demanded
"Jared?" Orla exclaimed at the same time as Alexis screeched "Samuel!"
Samuel-Jared glared at Alexis, brushing badly dyed hair out of his eyes.
"I just saved your life," he said. "The least you could do is call me Jared."
Alexis looked like she was going to argue, then glanced again at le Puff and nodded.
"Fine. Thank you for saving my life, Jared."
"You're welcome," he said, sticking his nose in the air.
Further conversation and witty repartee (well, witty by an eleven-year old's standards) was averted as Huff le Puff moaned and began to stir, causing them all to jump and skitter away nervously.
"Can we get out of here now?" Alexis asked, her voice squeaking.
They hurried off, casting nervous glances over their shoulder.
A few minutes later, Huff le Puff regained her feet and tottered off, clutching her head. Her thoughts buzzed yellow and black like angry wasps, centering around the urge to kill and rend and tear. She collapsed in a heap by the tree she'd fallen on Orla and Alexis from, and that was where the badger found her when it came looking an hour later.