I know this one is super short but I wanted to get it out in time for the holidays (let's just say that I'm running WAY behind in that department and I feel like a failure!) So this one doesn't have our date with George (booo! Stone the writer! Set her computer on fire) HOWEVER I promise that I'll get it to you next chapter which WILL come out this week. Or else I'll cry and you can burn my computer.
Please REVIEW! I would love to get a little note from you guys as a Christmas gift for your humble, starving writer. Please?
Chapter Seventeen: Silver-tongued and Sadistic
"You look absolutely awful." Clara blinked groggily across the common area, her sneakers crunching through the fresh grass to the roaring campfire. Molly and Archie were squabbling over a perfectly cooked s'more, fresh from the fire while Keela, Callum and Cedric all fumbled through every worn textbook that they could.
The O.W.L.S. were only a month away and each student was feeling the pressure of the upcoming deadline. Suddenly, dreams were on the line and the future was unnervingly foggy.
"Teatree oil will clear that up," Cedric muttered, his brows furrowing for a moment as he stared dubiously down at an intricate list of ingredients involved in the brewing of Genevieve's Envy. Tired eyes flicked up to scan over her face and the resulting jolt of shock made her stomach drop. "Merlin's beard."
Clara felt something like a knot start to grow in her throat, her hands instinctively coming up to pat down the frizzy madness that her hair had become. Dark circles ringed her tawny eyes, her skin holding a greyish hue that made her freckles seem almost freakishly apparent. Her robes hung limply from her shoulders, her nails uneven and jagged where she had nibbled at them nervously.
Keela's lips pulled slowly up. "Fun lesson with Snape?"
Distractedly, Clara riffled through Cedric's bags, tossing out a comb and some Merlin's Miraculous Oil Slick to finally come across the mirror that she knew that he kept in his bag. "I blew up his Wolfsbane."
"He grows wolfsbane in his office?" Archie muttered, holding his twin at arm's length with a palm to her forehead as he munched happily away at a s'more as she flung insults at him. One happened to be that he was a virgin which he took relatively well, kicking her in the shins.
"No," Clara muttered, trying desperately to flatten her hair as she saw that it had created an odd kind of afro around her head. Unintentional tears pricked her eyes. She needed to look good tonight. Not because George had given her any reason… Well, not that she thought that… She just needed to, dammit! "His potion."
"Weren't you supposed to be in there for learning to master your magic?" Keela hedged, flicking her wand lazily like the tail of a cat. "Ya know? Control?"
"He's the one that didn't put a bloody protection spell around the damn thing," Clara hissed, her cheeks reddening as she whirled to face her group of friends, her hands clenched. Slowly, something like panic and exhaustion hit her all at once and she turned to Cedric, tears blurring her vision as she clenched the mirror tightly in her hand. "Cedric, you have to help. I look atrocious."
"Only a full night's sleep and some serious hair products will get you past this," Cedric replied solemnly, picking at the wild mass of her icy curls as the French witch moaned, her head crashing into his shoulder. "What in the devil's made you want to look so good tonight, anyway? It's just a regular Thursday-"
"Except it's not," Keela cut in slyly, her mismatched eyes gleaming in the firelight. "You have a date."
"Oh, dear," Molly breathed, perking up from her dejected slump beside her brother, who was currently devouring another s'more. Her eyes rounded. "George."
"George Weasley?" Archie choked out, a glob of melted marshmallow jamming somewhere down his throat. Retching, eyes watering, he pounded wildly at his own chest until Callum sighed, giving him a hard enough whack to send s'more chunks flying into the fire.
Fumbling, Clara checked her watch, blinking down owlishly at it. Only 7. But she had a quiz tomorrow in Dark Arts and if she didn't get a few hours of sleep before she went to meet George, she would be utterly useless. But if those hours would make her any less of a monster than maybe…
"You need to go to sleep," Keela said adamantly, shutting her textbook with a loud thunk. "You can't fail that test without failing the class. You're barely holding on as it is."
"I've studied…" Clara defended weakly, earning a few raised brows from her friends.
"I'll send George to wake you up at midnight." Keela's smirk grew mischievous. "Not the human one."
Clara's cheeks flamed, her eyes searching for Cedric almost desperately. Looking slightly guilty, he shook his head. "A good night's sleep is the only thing that'll make you look like a normal witch again."
"But-" Molly took her shoulder, leading her over to the girl's dormitory door, where their dorm guard witch was currently baking a dozen snickerdoodles.
"Should we have told her?" Archie murmured, his stomach beginning to ache from the ten s'mores that he had just shoved down his throat. At seven he had been at a decent level of fullness but then Molly had wanted the one that he just made and he couldn't let that stand.
"About that horrid little rumor her cousin's spreading-" Callum muttered grimly.
"Ssshh," Keela hissed, her eyes murderous.
The flickering light of the campfire made their faces seem hard and shadowy as more Hufflepuffs folded up their blankets and headed off to bed around them.
Cedric's eyes held a sad tilt. "Ah, the whole school already knows about it, Keela." His fingers worked nervously at the corners of his book. "To say that she's a squib-"
"She's not," Keela snarled, her teeth flashing. "Molly and I saw her perform magic at the quidditch game along with the whole Hufflepuff team-"
"I - I actually didn't, Keela," Cedric cut in, his shoulder's slumping miserably. "Maybe one of the other members but most of us were trying to figure out the rest of the game plans-"
"She's not a squib," Keela snapped. "And even if she was, would that really matter-"
"She would get kicked out of Hogwarts," Callum said softly. "And coming from such a family, she would be made an outcast."
"People are already jumping on the train with this one, Keela," Archie whispered urgently, his eyes flicking to where Clara had vanished. "She refuses to use her wand. No one's even seen her perform cleaning spells."
Keela suddenly felt something like a stone lodge in the back of her throat. It was true that Clara had blatantly refused to use her wand for any classes. Frankly, the red-headed witch didn't fully understand why the teachers were accommodating her or how she was even passing. But she knew that Clara at least had the magical capacity to preform small spells.
And she also knew that Delphine Couture was a vile, horrendous creature that could barely shove food down her throat from all the bullshit that was being forced out of her mouth at any given moment.
"Clara isn't a squib," she said with such finality that all of the boys beside her shifted in discomfort.
Archie was the only one to break the silence, his eyes searching out Keela's. "We know that but right now the rest of the school is about to get some pitchforks and torches and start asking for magical proof."
Keela stayed quiet. Even though she didn't want to admit it, she knew that he was right. And if Delphine wasn't such a vindictive little viper than she might have been impressed by the amount of support that this rumor had garnered.
Far from any of their imaginations, across the school, Delphine Couture was currently talking in vivid detail about her cousin, a sadistic sort of joy squeezing at her heart as the gathered hog-podge of witches gave outraged gasps.
Because in fact, there were far worse things than being called useless or a squib. Things that had muddied the waters of Clara's family for generations. And currently one of those things happened to be her father's recent job change or her startling appearance at Hogwarts.
"Odd, isn't it?" Delphine muttered, nonchalantly pushing a chunk of wavy hair behind her ear. "Especially with our cousin's recent escape from Azkaban..."
A pale boy named Kenneth Towler's eyes narrowed, his lips slackening. "Do you mean that she's related to the Blacks?"
Delphine's lips curled, the glee almost pushing her over into a fit of giggles. Discreetly, she turned, placing a dainty hand over her lips. "I shouldn't have said that."
I hope from the bottom of my heart that you guys have had a wonderful Christmas and that your New Year is even better.
Til next time~