The Houses Competition
Ravenclaw
History of Magic
Drabble
Prompt: [Spell] Orchideous
588 Words
"Orchiderous!" the redhead declared brightly, waving her wand with the flourish she was known for. Except…it didn't bloom. The tip of her wand issued only smoke and acrid singed straw, instead of the pleasant bouquet she had hoped for. She'd been at it all day, too. Her back was getting tired of sitting at the straight-backed desk of the study-hall room. How Lily longed to do something, anything else, but she had to perfect this spell for the test tomorrow.
She sighed, burying her face in her hands with exasperation. She rested her willow wand on the desk before her. Perhaps a nap wouldn't hurt?
"Oy, Evans!" A voice called.
"I said I can't hang out now, Sev. This spell's bonkers. I've gotta study!"
"But I just figured out the coolest potion ever–"
She sighed exasperatedly and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Show me then. I'm starting to doubt if any amount of practice can help me with this anyway." She flicked away an errant bit of smouldering straw that had stuck to the tip of her wand.
The dark-haired boy practically towed her out of the study room and down the hallways and moving staircases to the dungeons, where he said dramatically, "Close your eyes."
"Okay." She did as he had asked, wondering what on earth he had come up with now. He was always at it, playing around with experiments in the potions chambers. Half the time they ended badly—well, more than half, if she was being honest. She started to worry as it was taking him a bit to produce whatever this surprise was.
"Sev? What's going on? It can't be another case of the wibbledy-whackitys-sack potions–"
"Just a tick now…" She heard him move forward, so close to her now she could feel the warmth of his body in the cold ambiance of the dungeons.
"Go on, what do you smell?"
She tilted her head as she sniffed the air. It smelled like… flowers? But then as she sniffed, something tickled her nose–
"Ta-da!" Sev declared as she opened her eyes, just in time to sneeze as she inhaled the pollen from an orange flower he held a bit too close to her face.
"Merlin bless," Sev said, blinking. "I thought I had the potion right–just a drop suspended in the air creates a tiger lily. Apparently two drops, and it goes a bit mad..."
"Aye, it does."
"But then so much pollen…Sorry to make you sneeze like that."
"I suppose it could be called a sneeze-o-lily," she said.
"Sneeze-o-lily, hmm…"
"It's alright, Sev, a lily by any other name is still as sweet." She gave him a peck on the cheek. Severus blushed mightily, hand flying to the spot her lips had touched him. She took off up the halls again, calling out over her shoulder, "I still have to perfect that spell! Catch you tomorrow, Sev!"
"Oh, Evans," he said to himself, using a spell to blow the pollen that was caught in his hair from the flower he'd made her. The luminous golden powder was all over him now, just like the light, powdery feelings that had inspired his little escapade with the flower potion.
Someday, he would find himself hoping his feelings would prove as evanescent as the pollen, which over the next hour faded from materiality, but this was a problem that, at thirteen, he had yet to conceive of. For now, he was moored in longing and unrealized dreams which would sour his countenance in the decades to come.