Chapter Six: In Which Everyone Gets Trapped

I finally fell asleep at about five in the morning. When the girls from my dorm got up about two and a half hours later, I decided not to join them. I didn't have the strength to get out of bed and face Felicia. And not only Felicia, but also James and Scorpius. I decided to not even open my eyes.

Before they left, I heard Jane stop by my bed and say softly, "Rose? Don't you want to go down to breakfast?" But I pretended not to hear her, and eventually all four of them left. I promptly fell asleep again.

The second time I woke up was because something was tickling my neck. Groggily, I reached up and tried to swat it away.

"Oh, good, you're alive," someone said. The shock caused my eyes to fly open. Demetria was sitting on my bed, smiling down at me with her pointed teeth, and her long hair was touching my neck.

"What're you doing here?" I mumbled.

"Al let me in," she said. "We began to get worried when you didn't show up for lunch. It just wasn't the same when Scorpius and I couldn't watch your half – hearted attempts to sneak tiny pieces of meat in secret."

I groaned and pulled a pillow over my head, trying to block out her loud voice. "I care about animals," I told her, behind the pillow. "I never eat meat."

"Yes, and I'm Medusa," said Demetria.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you were Medusa," I grumbled, and removed the pillow once again. "What time is it?"

"Just after two," Demetria said. Her eyes perused my face skeptically. "Well. You're not paler than usual, you seem to have just as many spots on your face as always, and you understand human speech. Why are you in bed?"

"They're called freckles," I informed her. "And I'm in bed because I hate my life. I'm never getting out."

Demetria raised one delicately plucked eyebrow. "I thought that you were going home for the holidays tomorrow?"

"Oh, yeah," I realized. "Well, I might get out of bed for that, but once I get home, I'm going right back to sleep."

"And why do you hate your life?" asked Demetria. "I'm not sure that I care, but apparently you insist on getting bedsores and becoming obese and living a life in seclusion, so I suppose you need my help."

I hope Demetria never becomes one of those Muggle therapists that Mum is always trying to get Hugo to see for his dinosaur addiction (he's thirteen; he should be over it by now!). Demetria really isn't the best at empathy.

I decided to ignore her last comment and to answer her question instead. "Because my oldest cousin is intent on breaking the law, my former best friend hates me and my boyfriend cheated off of me on a test. So, yeah, I'm staying in bed."

Demetria's eyes widened. "James Potter is doing something illegal? What's he doing?"

I rolled my eyes. "Really, that's what you care about? I'm not supposed to say, anyway."

"Okay, so Scorpius cheated off of you on a test," Demetria said. "What did he say when you asked him about it?"

"I haven't."

Demetria threw her hands up in the air and glared at me. "Well, why not? How do you even know it's true?"

"Ophi told me."

Demetria's hands flopped down again. "Oh. Well, he couldn't tell a lie to save his life. Why that little wimp is in Slytherin I'll never know. Still, you're going home tomorrow. Don't you think that you should talk to Scorpius about it? Maybe you misunderstood."

"So you don't know anything about it?" I asked. "I thought maybe all of Slytherin was in on it."

"Oh, sweetheart," said Demetria, shaking her head. "We are not nearly as cunning and secretive as you think."

"Alright, I'll ask him about it," I said, sitting up in bed.

"By the way," Demetria said, giving me a sly glance through her lashes. "I've decided to tell him."

"Tell Scorpius what?" I asked, feeling ridiculously confused. "That I know about the test? I thought I was going to-"

"Oh, stop being so self- absorbed!" Demetria exclaimed. "I said tell him." She ended this sentence with a very significant glare at me.

I stared at her for a few seconds before realization dawned on me. "Oooh. You mean, tell Al that you're-"

Demetria clamped a hand over my mouth. "What did I tell you?" she hissed.

"There's no one here!" I tried to say against her hand. She removed it from my face in disgust, wiping my spit off on my pillow.

"You never know," she told me darkly. "And believe me, when I said that I would kill you, I meant that I will. Kill. You. If you ever mention -" her eyes narrowed and she cast a glance around, "- you know."

"Alright, alright, I get it," I said, beginning to clamber out of bed. Being friends with Demetria, I suppose that you eventually get used to the insults and the death threats. "I'll remember not to mention your crush on my cousin unless I want to die a premature death."

"What is your problem?" Demetria shrieked at me.

Oops.

"I swear," I told her, "I will never say it again. I promise."

Demetria continued to glare at me. She pulled her upper lip back a little, revealing her creepily sharp and vampire – like teeth.

"I don't want to die, please?" I squeaked.

Demetria shrugged. "I'll let this time slide by. Next time though…"

Leaving that warning hanging in the air, Demetria suddenly smiled, which was somehow even more disturbing. "Well then. Let's go find Scorpius, shall we?"

After getting dressed, I allowed Demetria to pull me down the stairs to the dungeons. "I'm sure he's here somewhere," she told me. "Last time I saw him, he was still packing his stuff for tomorrow."

Just as the words were out of the mouth, we turned a corner and saw Scorpius and Ophi walking straight towards us, their heads bent in conversation. The stopped suddenly as they saw us coming. Scorpius frowned at me, and locked mock – angry.

"Did you hear anything?" he asked me. "We were just discussing Quidditch tactics. We wouldn't want you to steal them."

I rolled my eyes. Right then, I was far too annoyed with Scorpius to find any of his comments amusing. "Trust me, Malfoy," I spat at him, "our tactics are way too sophisticated for your little slimy brains to understand. We would rather steal Hufflepuff's tactics than yours."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Ouch," he said simply, clearly not taking my snappish remarks very insulting. Ophi's eyes darted nervously between the two of us. Obviously he hadn't told Scorpius about our little rendezvous the previous night.

"Listen, Scorpius," said Demetria. "We need to talk to you."

Her use of "we" took me aback a little – it was my fight with Scorpius, after all, not hers. But having Demetria on your side in an argument is always a plus, so I decided not to disagree.

"We can go in here," Scorpius said, and opened a door next to him. I suddenly realized that it was the unused Potions classroom which James and I had visited the night before. Silently, Demetria, Ophi and I followed Scorpius into the classroom. The lemony smell from James' potion still lingered, and I decided not to inhale too deeply, in case I could get high off of any residue fumes. The door slammed with a resounding click behind us. Immediately, Ophi turned around and tried the doorknob. "It's locked," he told us.

"Oh, honestly," snapped Demetria. "Are you a wizard or not? Alohamora."

Nothing happened though, which caused Demetria to frown and grab the doorknob again. "This lock has been implemented recently," she said, examining it. "Something's wrong with it. It looks like we're locked in."

Scorpius gave a small snort of laughter. Ophi, meanwhile, had grown very pale. "Locked in?" he shrieked, in a very girly voice. "Are you serious?"

"Well," began Demetria, but she stopped as Ophi took hold of the doorknob and started pulling and pushing at it.

"This is my nightmare!" he cried, suddenly very unreserved, and not very Ophi – like at all. "This is my –" Ophi slowly backed away from the door, holding the doorknob in his hand, staring at it with wide eyes. "Oh, Merlin," he whispered. "Oh, Merlin we're trapped."

I had to stifle a giggle at the look on Ophi's face. Scorpius wasn't quite as polite, and began to laugh outright, which reminded me of the fact that we were actually there to talk to him about something.

"Scorpius, there's something I need to ask you," I told him. Scorpius seemed to attempt to pull himself together.

"Of course, Rosie," he said, still looking at Ophi, who was now desperately trying to fit the doorknob into the door again. "What is it?"

"We want to know why you cheated off of Rosie on the Defense Against the Dark Arts test," Demetria said, not one to beat around the bush.

"What?" asked Scorpius, shocked. Then, "Honestly, Demetria, let Rose speak." He turned and looked at me, a very innocent expression on his face.

"I want to know why you cheated off of my on the Defense Against the Dark Arts test," I said.

"Like I said!" cried Demetria, throwing her hands into the air.

"Demetria, let her talk!" growled Scorpius.

"Like I said," I echoed lamely. "Why did you cheat?"

"Did you guys know that I am very claustrophobic?" Ophi interjected.

"We do now," snarled Demetria.

"I start hyperventilating when I'm entrapped in little spaces," Ophi said. "Am I sweating? Do I look pale? I feel like I would look pale. Oh, Merlin. You know, I can't be in small tunnels, for example."

"This is hardly what I would call a small tunnel," said Scorpius. "This classroom is bigger than our dormitory!"

"Why did you cheat?" I asked again.

"Yes, why?" resounded Demetria.

Scorpius frowned. "I'll admit that I cheated. How did you find out?"

"This genius over here decided to tell your girlfriend," said Demetria, gesturing towards Ophi, who was pulling his shirt over his face and breathing into it. "He seemed to think that you and Rose would have made some sort of deal."

"Which we didn't," I said.

Scorpius looked rather shy. He wrung his hands. "Well, you know how it is, Rosie, I had Quidditch…"

"I had Quidditch!" I exclaimed. "And yet, I found the time to study for a very important test. You know that the Professor might think that I cheated off of you?"

"If he thinks that, I'll set him straight," Scorpius cried. "But, listen, I hadn't studied, and I had forgotten all about the stupid test, until he started telling us how important it was. I panicked, so I copied a couple of answers. I didn't cheat during the entire test."

"I can't breathe!" gasped Ophi from the door. "I can't breathe! How do we get Madame Pomfrey down here?"

"Silencio!" Demetria shouted, pointing her wand at Ophi, who opened and closed his mouth rather like a fish before grasping at his throat and making choking noises, as though trying to coax out his voice.

"That's hardly going to help his claustrophobia," I pointed out.

"I don't give a rat's ass about his so called claus – whatever," Demetria snapped. "I do care about his whiny little voice giving me a headache."

"I can't believe that you would completely disrespect me like that," I said, turning back to Scorpius.

"Honestly, Rosie, take it as a compliment!" Scorpius said, sounding exasperated. "Imitation is the truest form of flattery. Isn't that the saying?"

I decided to ignore this, though he did sort of have a point. I sighed. "Listen, Scorpius, an apology would be sufficient."

Scorpius huffed. "Fine. I'm sorry that I didn't have the time to study for the test and had to resort to desperate measures."

"That's hardly an apology," I said.

"I'm sorry that you're self – esteem is so low that you can't accept a compliment when you get one," Scorpius said, sounding haughtier than ever.

"Scorpius!" barked Demetria.

"I'm sorry that the professor didn't give proper warning for the test?" Scorpius tried again, sounding like he was asking a question.

I was about to retort that this was hardly what I meant by a proper apology, when the door suddenly burst open. It was James. His eyes widened to their usual bulging state once he saw that I was in the room with three Slytherins, one of which was desperately trying to tell James to let him out in sign language; one of which looked annoyed and exasperated and one of which looked particularly murderous and was showing off her pointed teeth.

"What's going on here?" James roared. "What are you doing to Rosie? And what's wrong with you?" he asked Ophi, who was frantically trying to crawl between James' legs to get out the door.

"He's claustrophobic," I explained. "And I'm fine, James."

James appeared to seriously doubt this. "How can you be fine surrounded by these slimy little monsters? How have they hurt you? Have any of them touched you?"

"Oh, I've touched her," said Scorpius slyly, in an obvious attempt to provoke my cousin. It worked.

James' eyes began bulging to the point where I thought that they just might fall out of his head. His face grew steadily redder and redder with little purple blotches appearing on his forehead. I wondered if he might one day give himself a stroke.

"Scorpius, honestly," I hissed. Scorpius, however, didn't seem to be listening to me, as he was too busy snickering at James. Ophi finally made his escape between James' legs and ran for it. I could hear him gasping loudly for breath all the way down the corridor.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" snarled Demetria. "We're having a private conversation, in case you don't have the brains to notice."

James suddenly looked very shifty and stared at his feet. "I'm here to… collect something of mine," he said.

Oh, Merlin. Of course he would have to come back to get his illegal potion. I rolled my eyes. "Go on, you guys," I told Demetria and Scorpius. "I'll take care of this."

Demetria looked mildly curious and Scorpius appeared to be rather confused as I waved them out of the room. Scorpius looked like he was trying to say something when Demetria yanked him out of the door.

"Look, Rosie," James said, bending down and opening a cupboard, "I left something here last night. I need you to take it for me."

"What? No, I will not take your stupid potion for you!" I exclaimed. "What are you thinking?"

James took a small bottle out the cupboard and frowned at me. "I am thinking, Rosie, that my little cousin, whom I would sacrifice my own life to protect – especially from Slytherins – might be so kind as to do one little favor for me. Or she might lose her spot on the Quidditch team for the game against Ravenclaw in February."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, fine, James, just give me the stupid potion," I said, and held out my hand.

James gleefully dropped the potion in my hand. "Thanks Rosie!" he said, beaming at me. "I won't forget this!"

Oh, but how I wish that I could.

A/N: Thanks for reading! PLEASE remember to review, everyone! Even if it's just one line, it really means the world to me. Your reviews keep me writing, and every one of them makes me SO happy! So – REVIEW!