A/N: Whee, okay! Tis the 13th chapter, it is. My hands smell like dog food for some reason, and summer's almost over. YAY SCHOOL.
The following Tuesday at breakfast found Cassie with her cheek sitting on her toast and pancakes, snoring softly and drooling all over the unfortunate tasty-looking food items. Her black hair was at its natural frizzy curl, sprawled wildly all over her head like some odd dead creature. Her school uniform was crinkly and loose, hanging off her body in a half-hearted attempt to make her appear presentable.
The unlucky second year girl that was being forced to sit beside her cringed disgustedly, trying to eat her bacon without retching it up as she watched the older girl beside her slobber all over her food, coating it with goopy, sticky saliva. Finally, the girl gave up and walked away, looking slightly green and trying with all her might not to look back.
It was like an extremely grotesque horror movie; it was so gross that you desperately wanted to look away but somehow couldn't.
The loud ringing of a bell sounded and Cassie jumped up in fright, falling backwards in a disoriented heap on the floor, her breath coming quick into her lungs as though she'd been almost murdered.
After a moment, she calmed and noticed the wet spittle spread all over her cheek, wiping it with her sleeve and grimacing at the lovely pile of food she'd managed to ruin. She feverishly grabbed her books, her mind still far off in some parallel pane of consciousness that hasn't been discovered yet.
Thank God I've got History of Magic first..., she thought ruefully. She'd be able to continue sleeping.
The day before, the sixth years had experienced a wave of Defence homework from Professor Merrythought. The assignments were so gruelling that she (and others, mostly boys, she noticed) had stayed up nearly all night to finish it. Apparently Merrythought wanted to show them what "Work in the real world" was all about, and had (naturally) set the due date for the next day.
Since Cassie had been falling behind on Defence against the Dark Arts assignments for nearly her whole life, she doubted she had room for any more failures, and so she grudgingly went to complete the giant mountain called Essay.
She'd finally finished and fallen to sleep at five-forty-six AM, her papers and books strewn about her and her uniform still on. When she heard the other girls begin to get up (they'd done most of theirs at lunch, the little sods), she opened her protesting eyes, stood, ignored the comments on her appearance, grabbed books randomly and stumbled down to breakfast in a daze. Then she'd fallen asleep on her toast.
She wasn't the only one who'd fallen into a wonderful nap by the time she sat down in History. Nearly all the boys were instantly asleep, and a handful of girls. Before she drifted off, she noted how Tom was
perfectly fine and didn't even look phased by the horridly long essays they were assigned.
Nerd, she thought lightly, then her eyelids closed and sleep ran off with her once again.
A sense of foreboding washed over Cassie's nervous mind when the time finally came to pass over her written Defence essay. With a quick, decisive flick of her wand the severe Professor summoned their work. Pieces of parchment flew from every corner of the classroom, landing in a neat pile atop her thick wooden desk. The Professor took a moment to glare around the classroom before she slapped her wrinkled hand to the table.
"So!" she barked out impatiently, "I hope you all wrote a half decent essay..."
She trailed off as if to say "Or else" then launched into a speech about Centaurs and other double-being creatures, occasionally thrusting her wand at the board, enchanting a piece of chalk to write down notes in cramped, tiny handwriting. Cassie squinted and leaned forwards, trying to decipher the first sentence before sighing softly and giving up. She was too tired for this.
Her thoughts drifted to her essay and her stomach clenched painfully. She really did hope she marked well. She really did try her very hardest, more than she ever had done in her life. She normally did alright in school, 'A's and 'E's being her norm, but for some reason she had wanted to pick up her grades in Defence Against the Dark Arts.
I wonder if it's from disarming him..., she thought vaguely, her gaze drifting to the long, black cloaked back of Tom Riddle. Funny that is was he who inspired her to do better. Usually they were at each other's throats...
But that's not true at all this year, is it?, sniggered a voice at the back of her mind.
Cassie's face coloured rapidly.
Ugh, shut up! We still hate each other...she thought hotly, trailing off pathetically.
The voice didn't respond.
Damn, now youre talking to yourself... she muttered very quietly into the sleeve of her school robes.
For some reason, the words her own mind had shot back at her plagued her the rest of the day. At the most inopportune moments the words repeated themselves.
Thats not at all true...
Whether she was eating, talking or sitting in class, they repeated themselves.
And for some reason, it bothered her.
The fact that she and her sworn enemy had put aside their differences, maybe even been nice and friendly to one another, bothered her. It certainly shouldn't have bothered her, considering that usually when people became friendly instead of nasty is was a good thing, but for some unknown reason it ate her on the inside.
Was it because she missed their petty pranks they used to play on each other?
No, that couldn't have been it; he'd usually win and it had infuriated her.
Was it because she missed having someone to yell at?
No...His place was taken by the numerous amounts of people she yelled at anyway.
Was it because she was afraid of him?
She paused, her quill poised in the air, in the middle of writing down a little assignment given by Slughorn.
Was she afraid of him? She swallowed uncertainly.
She was.
That feeling of unease, that feeling that bothered her...It was fear.
She licked her lips, her brow furrowing.
Why was she afraid?
She again swallowed the lump in her throat.
She didn't want to answer that question right now...
After much debating she managed to convince herself to skive off dinner and complete the assignment
for Slughorn properly. Her grades in Potions certainly were nothing to brag about, and after her mother's berating voice vibrated in her head for the last time, she chose employment and money over unemployment and living in her Basement for the rest of her life.
There were a few parts of her work she wished to fix, so she went straight to the potions section, found a useful book and went looking for a sunny seat. Nothing was better than reading by a window in the sunlight. She looked round and then someone caught her eye. At the very back sitting in her favourite seat by one of the large cathedral-like windows letting the wintry sun pour down on him was Tom. It was the exact window that, months before, had fallen her father's figurine.
She smiled a little, and squashing the nagging voice in the back of her mind, she made her way over to him. She lazily pulled up a chair and plopped her work down on the table, her bottom falling into the comfy seat.
"Can I sit here?" she asked him as he flicked his dark eyes towards her.
He gave a little shrug of his shoulders and continued reading.
She grinned and busied herself with getting cozy in her chair before she began skimming through the book and scratching out and correcting things with her quill. The scritch-scratch of the quill on the parchment caused his eyes to flick once more from his literature to gaze down at her work.
"Correcting?" he asked her quietly.
"Yeah... My mom says that if I don't pick up my grades in Potions that I'll end up unemployed and living in our basement for the rest of my life, possibly spending my time knitting scarves for the homeless people and living off the occasional can of soup she'd chuck down the stairs at me."
She nodded, willing her face to look solemn.
He raised an eyebrow, smirking.
For some reason, she got the feeling he was smirking in agreement, not humour.
With an angry jolt, she recognized that condescending smirk.
She furrowed her brow, looking into his eyes.
"What? It was a joke you know..."
"I know..." he said, seemingly catching himself and a tiny, but quite fake smile replacing the smirk.
She paused and looked at him for a little while longer before sighing and continuing on with her work.
She must've imagined it.
A/N: Oooh, someone who's named Mot Olovram Elddir is jealous. Tut tut, GET OVER IT TOMMY. She SORT OF beat you at ONE tiny thing. What a spazz. shakes head
Review. Do it. I have all your chocolate and candy and I'm holding them for ransom.
Review and you may get to see your sweets again someday...Muahahahaha! (cough splutter)