Well, in any case: I'm moving to Brussels soon for a semester abroad. I have four weeks until then, maybe I'll get some time in to translate this. Maybe I won't. You'll just have to bear with me. I'm sorry.
Enjoy !
Chapter TwoStories Of A Cupboard
As I was sitting in my History of Magic class the next day – it is a Tuesday-; I muse without a break on how to speak to Regulus or to somehow call his attention to myself. Everything is pretty dodgy, because the first point on my list proves to be self-fulfilling anew – I never meet Regulus alone. He's always surrounded by other snakes, by affectedly giggling girls, by dimwitted grinning boys and the rest of his court. At the moment I'm considering the idea of ambuscading him in the boys' toilet but I'm dismissing this idea because of ethnical reasons. Besides he doesn't seem to be able to go to the toilet alone, he can't wipe off his own hindquarters presumably – I don't know - but my mood is on a new low point anyway since I saw Bello walking to lunch while linking arms with Sirius Black. Can you believe it? She had but a few hours to make a pass at him – oh, I'm doomed!
"Miss Marandus."
"Amandus…" I rectify Professor Binns absentmindedly.
"Can you answer my question?"
The ghost is floating in front of me and targets me out of tired eyes whereupon I set myself upright in my chair and dart a help seeking glance at Chester, who is sprawling beside me and rubbing his neck.
"Analustre the troll?" I guess happily and put the best version of my angel face up but Binns only wrinkles his forehead.
"You think, Miss Marandus, that Analustre the troll married Lady Bordeaux in 1647?"
I squirm in my chair and moisten my lips with my tongue – I hate it when a teacher, even a dead one, catches me when I'm not paying attention.
"Well. Analustre passed betimes for being pretty gallant and charming." I smile bravely and Chester is holding his nose to stop himself from laughing out loud – what a companion …
Professor Binns points with a scrawny, half transparent forefinger at me. "You're going to hand an essay about Analustre the troll to me tomorrow. Three rolls."
I squint at his finger and nod faithfully. "Of course. I'm really inconsolable because of my brief inadvertence." The sleepy look of my teacher is focused on me for a short moment longer but I register anyway that I consoled him with my magniloquent words – or he noticed that it's totally out of character for him to use such passionate gestures – for him – like a pointing forefinger.
The rest of the lesson isn't very sensational and rather peaceful. Chester's shining with his multifarious general knowledge of the history of our ancestors again and I fall back into my thoughts only to some extent – I'm not stupid and I learn from my mistakes.
When the bell finally rings and Chester and I are walking slowly to dinner in the Great Hall I'm attacked by an acquaintance. He reaches us from an adjoining corridor from the second floor and is totally hysteric – Rodrick Blevins. You have to know only one thing about him: He's suffering under every existing phobia. Let it be a social phobia, which means he's afraid of every person without a reason, or a more popular arcnophobia (fear of spiders), or the erythrophobia, which is pretty exotic because he's afraid of the color red. I could continue this list into infinity, but since humans are ephemeral my time is too precious for that …
"Emily, Emily, Emily!" he screams panicked and I'm fearing that he might have caught a glimpse of my red panties.
"Yes, Rodrick?"
"It's …. Merlin, it is my ending!" he wheezes and snatches my hand like it's natural. Chester is stopping to lean against a wall, bored. He knows that it could take ages until I've calmed this chicken enough to leave him behind again. You're probably asking yourself why that's my job. Well, the dear Rodrick is my cousin (his mother, my father's sister, changed her name after the wedding) and that's entitling me – unfortunately – to restrain him when's he's trying to jump off the Astronomy Tower after someone put a spider on his pillow again. Relatives are something cauterizing …
"Okay, Rod. What happened?"
"What happened?" he whispers horror-struck and shakes like a leaf. "My death sentence was just signed, Ems! This is my ending, my ending. And I'm only fifteen. My prime of life is still ahead of me and I have to depart this life already. Where is the equity? Just where?"
Chester is stroking his torso with his hand absentmindedly and picks up lint from his pullover – I lose the thread temporarily.
"Errh, Rod." I cough insistent and turn towards my blood relative altogether. "Just tell me why you're going to die. Perhaps because … of a spider?"
Rodrick 's eyes are wide and he looks like he just lost it – okay, he always looks like that - and screams hysterically:
"Where's the spider?!"
I'm forcing myself to inhale deeply and grab my cousin by his shoulder. "Here-is-no-spider! I just want to know why you're beside yourself. Otherwise I can't help you." Well, technically help's already too late for him, but I don't have to tell him that right now.
"Beth- … Bethany." he presses with gridded teeth and throws a hectic glance over his shoulder – ah, there's the paranoia.
"Bethany Tubill? The one who's in your year?"
He just nods but his whole body is shaking.
"Great, and what did she do?"
"Shewants cupboard wymee."
Oh well, the only thing I understood was 'cupboard', but that is a beginning, right?
"And what does she want with a cupboard, Rod?"
"Broom."
That wasn't the answer I had hoped for. "Broom? Okay and where do you come in?" I ask objectively.
"Bethany wants to go into a broom cupboard with him, Ems." Interferes Chester sighing and Rodrick screams hysterically again – he hadn't noticed Chester yet, probably.
"Okay, but that's great, right?"
"Claus- …" he presses with effort and my patience is coming to an end. "Darn it – Rodrick! Just tell me what's going on. Who the heck is Claus?"
"Ems." Chester interferes again. "He's talking about Claustrophobia. Bethany wants to go into a broom cupboard with him, the cupboard is pretty small which means he has a problem with his agoraphobia."
My cousin stares at Mr. Know-It-All like he's some sort of hero whereon I let my shoulders slump. But then Rod looks back to me.
"So, tell me Emily, what should I do?"
"Just tell her that you'll have to meet in a bigger room et viola – nothing's in the way of uncontrolled sex." The chicken stares at me flabbergasted – did I say something wrong?
"Bethany told me that she just wanted to learn herbology!"
I raise an eyebrow doubtfully and Chester chuckles. "Why would she want to do that in a dark broom cupboard? Please, Rod. I think the girl's a deep one – she wants to seduce you, dearest cousin."
"But …. But…" stammers the curly head in front of me and has turned considerably pale.
"Don't tell me you suffer from esodophobia too?!" asks Chester with a lopsided grin and I crinkle my forehead. "That's fear of the first act of sex."
"Why do you know things like that?" I want to know amused.
"I have the technical literature, babe." He whispers very sexy (and very loudly) in my ear which unsettles Rodrick even more.
"I'm refusing to tolerate you talking like that to my cousin, Chester! And you, Emily, I have very bustling contact to your parents so don't march to a different drummer, young Lady, or you're going to be in a lot of trouble!"
I chuckle amused because Rodrick had sounded like my respectable Grandfather Charley Vincent Amandus – a veteran from the war against Grindelwald 1945 – and that's just ridiculous in consideration of my strange cousin. But of course I'm not taking this blackmailing because of this boloney – that would be even better!
"Rodrick, tell me to who you run when you've discovered another personal apocalypse?" I ask with a voice as sweet as sugar and my opposite wrinkles his forehead.
"Well, to you but what has that got to do with my statement?"
"Very easy." My voice becomes more creaky and first of all quite a few degrees cooler.
"Your dear cousin Emily is going to give a shit about all of your problems from now on, got that?" I turn around with a lot of grace and want to strut away, but the little one is backpedalling pretty fast.
"Ems. Emily, I didn't mean it, okay? We're friends, right? And friends help each other."
I turn around with an innocent look on my face. Chester is still leaning against the wall and is following the trajectory of a housefly with his eyes.
"Well, Rod we're only true friends if you promise me that nothing that you're going to find out about me is going to transpire to my parents, okay? What happens in Hogwarts stays in Hogwarts."
"I … okay, but then you have to promise me that you're not going to engage yourself with misbegotten sexual intercourses." The look in his eyes is strangely determined and single-minded.
"Oops." Comments Chester in buoyant spirits his plea whereon I dart a destructive glance at him.
"What's that supposed to mean, Emily?" asks Rod disgusted.
"Nothing, Rod. You know that Chester talks the whole blessed day long. But we have to eat now. And I advise you to talk to Bethany about your problem. Have a nice evening." I say that in about five seconds and grab Chester by his arm and drag him into the Great Hall without fuss or quibble. Rodrick seems to be taken too much by surprise to say anything.
"You exorbitant idiot! Do you have to push my luck like that?!" I spit at my sometimes mentally disabled friend.
"Unequivocally equivocal, sugar pearl." Chester chuckles whereon I push him ungraciously into a group of first-years and continue to strut away.
"Aw, Ems! Roddybaby is not going to run to your parents because I dropped some hints." He tries to appease me after he rescued himself from the first-years – who seemed strangely happy he had thrown them all to the ground – and caught up to me again.
I snort scornfully at that. "You can rely on Rod in that case and if my words didn't cut a figure with him, well then my parents are going to send me a Howler and then are going to come here personally. Damn it! – I don't need this shit right now."
"Your folks deify you and they always thought of me as their future son-in-law. "
"The former could actually be true." I knock him back again and muddle along. "But I can't risk it anyway to soil my reputation in the family because of such a chicken-feed, understood?!"
"What kind of reputation?" asks Chester with an aggressive voice – he is really sensitive, that poor boy …
"I'm a model pupil, the ready witted that always wins out over everybody, the upholder of moral standards, and the … I'm just everything positive and respectable, okay?"
"Of course, Miss Haughtiness."
"That wasn't meant to be haughty but factual. That's just how it is. Dear me, why am I justifying myself?! – You're annoying!"
"Yeah, you, too!" defies Chester and looks straight ahead. I'm silent for a moment and then I ask a bit impeaching: "Why are we fighting so much lately because of unimportant things?"
"Because we're both annoying."
"You're not funny."
"Thanks neither are you!"
"Great."
"Great."
"Great!" I groan unnerved. We're turning around a corner and I got the perfect view of a phenomenon I didn't think existed – Regulus Black, completely alone. He leans against the wall in a corridor that is opposite of the Great Hall, which means he is on the right side of the corridor out of which I'm coming at the moment. Merlin, that's complicated. Let's just say he's nearer to the Slytherin common room than the Great Hall and I saw him only because I had been deliberately looking the exact opposite way that Chester does.
I'm parting ways with my friend rather abrupt which he notices with careful lack of interest and continues his way to the Great Hall and I'm roaming towards the enemy … err, sorry … towards one of the honorary students. My knees are doddering somehow which makes me angry. I mean, who was that guy anyway? Just an inferior Slytherin! Right, I can't do anything wrong. They are accustomed to anything after all: chadbands, schmucks, dumb-asses, liars and much more. And if I offered him a mixture of everything he's supposed to feel homey, right?
Regulus is leaning – like I saw from afar – against the cold stonewall and holds a book in his hands with which he is pretty preoccupied as it seems because he has a crease between his eyes. The night black hair is falling into his face with a casual elegance and frames his face rather handsome. His lips are sensual and gently pink whereon his nose can be taken as manly - it isn't hooked or somehow inordinate but it isn't the pure innocence either. It looks like the nose of a Greek athlete: I visited a Greek exhibition in the summer for antique artifacts and the statue of Hercules – the naked Hercules, that goes without saying – and that burned abiding memories into my brain. I can't grumble over Regulus' physique either. He has the perfect proportions – slim legs, slim hips, a muscled belly, broad shoulders, marvelously formed upper arms and adorable hands.
"Can I help you somehow or do you want to continue starring at me free and easy, hm?" asks the owner of the mentioned above body absolutely factual. I mean, there is no mockery, scorn or odium in his voice which is probably what irritates me more than the fact a Slytherin caught me while eyeing his appearance a bit closer than usual.
"I am –"
"Emily Amandus, I know." He scoops me again without even looking at me – and I'm really perplex which is pretty rare with me.
"Shoe size?"
Now he lifts his head up with a wrinkled forehead. "What?"
"That was a joke. I was just surprised you knew my name."
He raises his eyebrows and I ask myself how many muscles he can move simultaneously.
"We've been going to the same school for six years."
"Wow – that totally slipped my mind up until now!" I say sarcastically whereon my opposite closes his book without a sound and gives me a very close and checking look.
"What can I do for you, Emily?" he asks and it sounds darned sober.
"I … well …."
"Did they ask you to do a test of courage? I know that you're not here out of your own prompting – so what is it?"
Good grief – when was I taken aback like that the last time? I can't remember.
"It's not a test of courage." What retaliation, really remarkable. I'm surpassing myself here.
"What is it then? Blackmailing, stress analysis, a jovial act? Come on, just tell me!"
And then – I don't know what's getting me – I tell him the stupidest thing I've ever said in my entire life.