QLFC Season 7, Round 3
Chaser 2 for Appleby Arrows
Prompt: The Choliya of Uttarakhand; write about a character who is superstitious. The superstition must be a key element of the story and influential in the character's life.
Optional prompts: (word) robust, (object) snow, (quote) "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies." - Aristotle
Word count: 1239
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"Blaise wake up!" Draco's voice has me jerking awake.
"What?"
'You have ten minutes to get to breakfast. I thought you woke up already!" he exclaims, already going through my trunk. I curse, swinging my legs off the bed and standing. I freeze immediately.
"Blaise, what's wrong? Let's go!" he shoves the clothes at me and steers me to the bathroom.
Left side. I stood on the left side. I have to go back. I have to sleep again, reset the cycle-
"Blaise! Food!" he pushes me again.
"Draco, I got up on the I left side. My day is ruined!"
"This crap again? Your mother is the superstitious one, not you. Let's go!"
Of course, I was superstitious. I was raised with the superstitions. I had to be, mother felt like she was cursed and was doing anything she could to extend her life. I followed along of course, but some of them stick with me even when I'm in school. I get dressed quickly, hoping that luck was on my side for the day.
"Okay, food!" Draco drags me down to the great hall and I follow him reluctantly, just wanting to go back and reset my mistake. Before I can pull my arm away, He's piling a napkin with bacon and sausage and toast.
"IT's Friday, we've got Herbology first. Let's go!" he pushes the napkin in my hands and spins me. My bag catches the table, and the salt shakers rattle and fall over.
Oh no. no no no no no.
I'm shoved out the door before I can throw some over my shoulder and I want to cry. Already my day was shot, and now I was just adding to the bad luck.
"Quit it, we're going to be late because of you," Draco tells me before I can even open my mouth.
"Draco, I spilled the salt. And you didn't let me throw it over my shoulder!"
"What's going to happen? Some demon is going to come up and possess you? Just get through today and you can go to bed early." he tells me uncaringly. He throws the doors to the outdoors open and the gust of wind that hits me has me freezing immediately, even though I was still in the warm building.
"It snowed last night?" Draco whines, but he's already out the door. Neither one of us had any kind of warm clothing on, just our uniforms. My pant legs get soaked immediately and my good shoes are ruined by the time we get to the greenhouse. At least with some heating charms, we weren't freezing, and the greenhouse itself was warm once we fell into the doorway.
"Alright class, we're having a quiz today. Name and date on the top, and take your time, once you're done you can leave." Ms. Sprout says as she enters the classroom. She looks under the weather, and I realize she's probably only giving us the quiz to say we had class on her records. I shrug and take the paper passed to me, getting to work on it quickly. At the end, I scrawl my name at the top and then pause at the date. November 13th? Could my day get any worse? The left side of the bed, spilled salt, and the cursed day. Friday the Thirteenth. I just want to crawl back in bed and hide from the world now, but I have defense next. Did I even want to go to classes today? Maybe I could go to Pomfrey and fake an illness.
The rest of the day I'm on edge. It seems like everything that could go wrong, did. In the bathroom between classes, I caught my reflection in a broken mirror. That one I don't believe as much- how a soul can get caught once a mirror is broken was always baffling to me- but since I was already having bad luck, it still made my mood worsen. I had a black cat cross my path outside after Herbology. I Spilt ink all over my finished homework in defense as I was handing it in. I was in a rush and accidentally walked under the Filch was using in the charms hallway.
Strangely enough, I wasn't having the bad luck though. Draco was. He tripped on the stairs every time we had to use them. He dropped his school supplies twice. He broke a library book in half. His bag ripped open in the middle of a busy hallway, and he lost his cloak somewhere through the day. He had a whole jug of pumpkin juice dumped on him at lunch, someone slammed his hand in the portrait leading to the dorm room, and he forgot the password to the common room until I caught up with him. I was genuinely getting worried for him because it was getting worse and worse.
"Why is it happening to me though? You're the one with the spooky shit happening," he whines as we trudge around outside. We were still looking for his cloak, and the only place we hadn't searched is outside. We were dressed for the snow now at least, which I was thankful for.
"Do you read Aristotle?"
"He's one of your muggle philosophers, right? You've told me to, but I haven't, no."
"He has a saying. 'What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.' Maybe it's all happening to you because anything and everything superstitious is happening to me."
"So this is your fault!" he cries dramatically, flinging his arms out to encompass the castle in general.
"That's not what I mean," I tell him, laughing when he makes a rude gesture and continues walking back to the greenhouse. Thirty minutes later we still don't have his cloak, but it's time for dinner.
"It will turn up, relax. It's not like anyone can steal it, it has your crest on it." I tell him, trying to cut off his whining.
"I know. Mother's going to be furious if I don't bring it home at Yule."
"That's over a month from now, relax!" I steer him to our seats at the Slytherin table and force him to sit. For whatever reason, on Fridays, our food is always a little more…. Robust. It tastes better, the texture is better, the presentation is better. Everything about it is just better than every other day. I don't pay attention to other tables, but that's the way it's been at the Slytherin one since the first year.
And today wasn't any different. The ham smelt better then it did on Monday, the glaze was shinier, the mashed potatoes whipped more. At least one thing was right today.
"This was a good way to end a crappy day." Draco murmurs from next to me, half asleep he was full. I laugh at his expression, he was blissed out on food.
"Go back to bed, reset the cycle. Everything will be better in the morning." I agree, steering him out of the great hall and to the common room. He disappears to bed as soon as we get there, and I spend time working on my homework. I make sure to get into bed on my left side so that I can truly reset the cycle before going to sleep.
When I wake up, an elf had found Draco's cloak and draped it over the end of his bed.