Disclaimer: All places, characters, plots and names you recognize aren't mine but property of J.. The OC's, the plot and other invented things are mine.
Special Thanks to those who reviewed this chapter: Poopie woopie (you know whoXD) , Hades'Queen , Whit Black, midnightsprite, slytherin-principessa
Week Four
Monday the 20th of September 1993.
Something was constantly shaking me, the whole world was falling apart in a shake. What had I done to deserve this I don't know, I had merely been practising as a tightrope walker really until this shaking started and I fell from the small tread high above the ground. The ground itself was nearing and I could see it approaching very fast. I was one second away from crashing on it when…
"WAKE UP sleepyhead!!" Rises Melaina's voice through the dark. Wait dark? Right that moment something is lifted up from my eyes and I see Mel's dark eyes glitter in amusement, my cushion in her hand.
"Meuh?" I ask, my eyes hurting as if they were facing the light for the very first time, as if I was a newborn ready to discover the world…that would make Melaina my mom...
"Finally!! It's only almost a quarter past ten really."
"Exactly! So I'd like to know why you're waking me so soon!"
"You have Herbology in fifteen minutes missy."
"But…fifteen minutes is loads of time!" It's crazy how when you're half asleep you lose all track and definition of time and at the end the 'just five more minutes' get you late for class.
One hour and a half later, one class behind, and yet I feel like a zombie. Even with my interest in food I can't seem to eat properly. After merely three bites a nice big red stain decorates my collar, and we're only Monday, so I'll have to make it the entire week with the stained shirt.
"Tssk, no cursing!" The last thing I need right at that moment while I curse for my bad luck has to arrive at that precise time of course bringing its overly merry voice from the other side of the Slytherin table.
"Jeffrey, it's not the right time to…" A second stain blooms on my shirt, this time on my chest and as I silently curse on trying helplessly to get the red away with my napkin, Jeffrey Watters' overly fat arse comes to a rest on the same bench I'm sitting on, making it seem like the entire world is shaking…again.
"I've heard you took Flying Lessons, I have something that might interest you, want to know?" The boy seems oblivious to the fact that all I want right now is for him to leave me alone in my agony, because I like agonizing alone, it's one of my deepest passions. Where's Melaina anyways!! Never there when you need her, she's probably staying with Hagrid to find his 'magical creature', leaving me all alone, what about our tradition of nagging at each other on Monday mornings. See in this: me nagging on for hours and barking questions concerning her mental state and grumbling at any answer she gives, I can't believe she's skipping on our nagging session for Hagger's evil creature, oh wait I remember she had Divination this morning and Creatures only this afternoon while I'll be hurting my pretty arse with a broom. As soon as I think of the Flying lesson I get that familiar tug down my stomach making me almost shake in nervousness as if I've drunken a litre of coffee.
"No, look Jeffrey, all I want right now is to be alone a little, alright?" I try softly, using the same tone I use on kids about four when they don't want to finish their plate, because I'm anti-finish-your-plate-concept and completely understand how kids hate it. The last thing I wish to see happening is for Jeffrey to start an act in front of everyone so all the nice Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs would have the confirmation that Slytherins are discriminating horrible people, but to my astonishment he just ignores me, and takes my sentence for an excited 'Oh please, do tell me!'
"I've heard from a friend of a friend his friend that Ian's taking flying lessons too!"
"Oh crap." I utter as a reflex. I'm sure this friend's friend friend yadda yadda, is somehow related to Rose, must be since she's the only one in the castle apart from Jeffrey and Ian himself to assume I like the boy…alright not Ian anymore since the outburst, although...
"Don't worry, I know that as a girl you'd like to have time to put some make up and all to seduce him but he won't mind, he rather likes natural and wild girls." He tells knowingly taking my bloodshot glaring-daggers eyes and open mouth with food sticking out of it expression as one of utter worry about make up and my own looks in general.
"Crap! I need make up, right now!" Oh no, I just haven't yelled this out at the top of my lungs jumping up from the bench (and almost crashing on the floor in the meantime). Well judging from the silence in the Hall…I have…I'm in so much trouble. Well at least I could always get into literature with 'How to change your reputation in ten steps for dummies'.
I'm utterly depressed. My day started out wrong and is degrading as the hours pass by, I want my bed…and my mummy too! After my little outburst in the Hall (may I mention that almost everyone was present but Melaina, the teachers have eyed me strangely since then, 'luckily' I got dragged out of the Great Hall by no less than Rose herself who took my exclamation too literally I'm afraid) Rose dragged me to the dorm. There I went through half an hour of torture in which she poked my eye with a black pencil, rubbed half of the skin off of my eyelids and almost tore off my lips with utterly dried up lipstick. I managed to scrub off a little of it, but I swear I'll never be the same person again, my face is doomed to be marked forever. And all of this because of Ian…well indirectly, but remember I always need a victim in these very frustrating times and he seems like the right person for this since I'm going to spent the next one and a half hour in his oh so agreeable company.
The minute, no second I step towards the small crowd forming on the grounds, a known feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with love but makes me want to run to the toilets immediately, and I know what kind of class this is going to be. Most students participating are 1) boys 2) playing Quidditch or ex-Quidditch players and 3) rough and sportive. Everything I'll probably never be…unless under very rare and unfortunate circumstances, I learned to be careful sharing a room with nutters like Nerissa, Melaine (yes yes, she can be dangerous too, never to underestimate) and more likely Rose.
We have to start by forming groups, a dreadful thing, I'm mostly the last person to be chosen, sort of 'it's my turn now and I choose…ow er, you're the only one remaining, well I guess I have no other choice then…unless the other group wants you…' There he casts a hopeful glance at the opposite group but finally has to admit me in. I know that too well already from muggle school, it's what I hate about sports in general, the need of teams, I'm a loner, I'm not someone for teamwork! It's in those times also that I wish I could be a Gryffindor, because at least they're all so loyal towards each other so they choose for the person, its house and not really for its capacities. I keep wondering why I'm chosen as a last resort if I really have a talent for quidditch. 'Because all Madame Hooch says is rubbish?' some voice sounding very much like Melaina's echoes through my head. I miss Melaina right now, actually I'd even miss Ian if he wasn't there at this time…staring at me, I knew Jeffrey was lying about the make up! Ah Melaina, she must be on the grounds here somewhere, having Creature lesson. The idea lifts my mood slightly, at least I'll have something to do while waiting in the sky on a broom for the lesson to be over: namely searching for her! I could even spy on her and then try to blackmail with all the info! I could freak her out and oh all the possibilities shining up at me. A grin spreads on my face until I hear Hooch ordering us all to 'mount our brooms', had I been with Mel we could've had a laugh at that.
Most people present I don't even recognize. I do recognize a few of them though, like Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain hunk, also Ian of course. A certain Ruth I-can't-remember-her-last-name Hufflepuff girl is also present. You know the typically nice, charitable and helpful Hufflepuff all Hufflepuffs are, well think again, she's the living proof that even mean Hufflepuffs exist! I can't recognize the other people, but there are quite a lot of Slytherins present. First you have Marcus Flint, he's the one who has to redo his last year, he's also our captain and has a major dentition-problem…he doesn't seem to realize though as he grins a lot the kind of toothy-grin, maybe he even things he's 'charming' like that. Come to think of it, he does have a lot of girlfriends, I realize with a shock, while I've never really had dates, why is the world so unfair! And why am I getting jealous of Marcus Flint and his dentition suddenly?
Terrence Higgs is another one of my year. I actually like him, well used to have a crush on him too, which goes against all of my principles: I do not fall for guys of my year. Why you could ask…well because I think they're immature and stupid. Because I like older guys and because dating a guy in your own year is dangerous if it screws up, you have to be bothered with his company until you finish off school. But Terry…he's different (he has blue eyes and black hair) he's more mature…by the first look of it. Two days of observation proved he was in fact a sissy. He even stopped playing Quidditch in our House Team because 'he needed time for preparing his NEWT's', to which I answered a very intelligent 'huh?'. Because it goes beyond me, take Melaina and I, we only finish off half of our essays properly, I think I only worked seriously on a homework once or twice and it was somewhere in the very beginning of my First Year. I study twenty minutes before the test in question, and I daydream through most of my classes, or talk to Melaina throughout them. NEWT's won't make me suddenly seriously make my homework, will they? And I won't suddenly hush Mel in a class because of NEWT's, that would be alien. Hell just look at me right now, I've just been daydreaming, talking to my own for twenty minutes…and nobody's noticed so far.
"Hope, watch out!" I let out a yelp and glue my breasts against my broom, my nose painfully bumping against the wood, but anything's better than being hit by a Bludger, wouldn't want Ian to artificially bring me back, just the idea makes me shiver.
But hey, wow, that was like a lot of action…now I'm again lonely for another twenty minutes I guess. Twenty minutes spending thinking about all the great things I could be doing weren't it for Flying lessons, I could for example be listening to good old muggle music with my smuggled radio…all that she wants is another baby, she's gone tomorrow boy, I hum testily, then realizing with the wind blowing, being high in the sky, nobody hears me anyway and start singing the song a little louder…until I notice Ian's actually next to me, staring intently, a knowing grin spread on his lips and the first thought getting in my head is that he must be taking the song a bit too literally, I need to distance myself at once!
Another twenty minutes passed! Dear Merlin, how can Quidditch be so boring! Alright there seems to be some activity down there, but being Seeker is so very boring! Being so high up I can see the castle from a clear view…I wonder if I could see inside, maybe I could go and pester people who are studying! While I look from window to window a shape suddenly attracts my attention. I squint my eyes to try and see who it is, to distinguish any feature that would clearly identify the person. Suddenly a cloud travels in front of the sun, its light previously shining right towards the window where the mystery person is standing disappearing and I see, I recognize clearly his thin frame, his evil 'I-know-it-freaks-you-out-the-way-I-look' stare, grinning, yes grinning as if seeing me on a broom is funny…and even though it probably is, that's not a good enough reason…then again I'm looking at him intently, my mouth aghast, my eyes squint, well yes pretty much the dumbest look one could be giving, and I have to be the one wearing it!
Right at that moment, while we're still looking at each other something hits my head, something small but hard, almost like someone shot a walnut. In a reflex, because after all I've been brought up with a big brother and we have a walnut-tree down our small garden, I look at the stadium saying aggressively 'Don't shot your balls at me!' I don't know why, but it just came out that way…the expression of Ian…poor Ian, yes I'll start pitying the boy for knowing me, as he was actually standing, well more like hovering close in front of me.
"B-but I haven't!" He retorts lamely trying to defend his innocent cause.
"Oh you haven't? What about that!" I almost scream at him, attracting attention to me as I try to retrieve the walnut-ball flailing my arms around forgetting I'm ten feet up in the sky and a walnut would be landed on the ground below, had it been a walnut. Of course it isn't, and it attacks once more, this time burying its own down my décolleté.
"YOU PERV!" I gasp trying to reach my hand far enough to hit him across the cheek but instead of this I hit his nose with the tips of my fingers, losing my balance, leaning forward, and making a spectacular forward body spin, luckily managing to grasp the hand that wasn't hitting around my broomstick, the other chasing the Snitch (yes at that stadium I figured out the mysterious walnut case) down my shirt. Finally I grasp it and with much effort manage to extract it from my clothing.
That's when I hit the realization: I've caught the snitch, for the first time in my life! I've caught the snitch…and find myself hanging from a broomstick by only one hand, up about ten feet from the ground.
I shall die from shame tonight. I'll crawl in my bed and die, downright never wake up. My cheeks are still burning, it's horrible. I was about ten feet up screaming…and I scream like a pig, I know that too now. Everyone looking up at me, oh and yes, I was still wearing a skirt, with robes of purple (the colour of my team) above my normal uniform! And Madam Hooch tried to calm me down as I was swaying my legs wildly, making a freaky move with my free arm, as if I was hoping I'd suddenly learn the skill to fly. Couldn't be worse? That's when you're getting it wrong, as I saw him. Lupin. Probably saw me from his classroom and decided it would be more fun to see me embarrass myself more closely.
I think I'll try to see just how high ten feet is and try to figure out if he could've gotten a glimpse of my flashy green underwear, nothing to do with my house colour mind you. But I'd better not though, I know it will finish off in me being even more depressed, coming to the realization that he probably saw them…hard not to notice when I'm desperately spreading my legs as I try to fly, I know.
He didn't seem to laugh though, or grin anymore, he looked scared, and then relieved yet concerned, but I know I made a fool out of myself!
Tuesday the 21st of September 1993.
A good thing about crawling in shame and resignation to your bed in the early hours of the evening and boring yourself waiting in the closed curtained room of your bed until you fall asleep because you have nothing better to do as crawling out and taking the risk of being sighted is completely out of question, is that you wake up early without anyone needing to splash you with icy water or even shake you.
It's barely half past eight when I become conscious of the sudden singing of birds and clattering of water, the first one surprising me more than the latter since our rooms are situated somewhere under the lake. Only a couple of seconds later I hear the bustling of people hurrying to get ready for classes, a nasty grin gracing my face suddenly as I remind myself that I don't have an early morning class today. As I murmur to myself in a sing-song voice about 'no such thing as a free hour ahead while others have to work' I hear Melaina's calling my name in a suspicious voice, making me go quiet at once.
"Liz? Are you awake…I know I heard you." I rumble back something unintelligible, trying to come off as sleeping or as skulking over the previous' day events. "Hm, Liz waking up so soon, must've been a sleepless night or I don't want to believe it…I might even, oh I don't know, offer her a drink at the Three Broomsticks next Hogsmeade weekend if she was up at…wow, half past eight, good Merlin, she'd be breaking records! She doesn't even wake that soon when she has an early morning class-"
"Alright alright, I'm awake! I woke up a minute ago!" I finally admit…after all a drink offer is not something to be refused! A merely three seconds later and I get up to open my curtain slightly and pop my head through the new whole.
"You look horrible my dear." The mirror on my nightstand tells me the second it perceives my reflection on its surface. I grumble a low thank you giving it an evil sideways look telling I will soon not care about seven years of misfortune if it goes on like this.
"Well as much as I don't fight for mirror-rights, he's still true on this one, you look like you've been struggling with the drapery all night…and this not meant in the greater, pervish way." She adds a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of her lips but it is soon replaced by a serious look once more, "Come on, tell me what's on your mind."
I give a long moan before retreating my head inside my peaceful sanctuary. "Don't even dare saying you've not heard about it!"
"Oh I've heard about something…a story about a Slytherin girl who almost slid off her broom while having a Flying lesson in an attempt to catch the snitch, which she did in an utmost spectacular way. I've even heard whispers of Marcus Flint trying to find the girl to ask her whether she'd like to be part of the team." I open my mouth about to tell her to seek for the other rumour about a Slytherin girl making a complete fool out of herself, but before I can even open my mouth she goes on, seemingly in the meantime gathering her material for her next History of Magic lesson. "But knowing you, Madam, I directly thought that it must've been something completely foolish of you that, by some utter lucky fortune, or just the fact that you were so high up nobody could really see the real situation going on, came out another way, am I right, or am I right?"
By the time she asks her question I'm up and striding to the bathroom to grab my toothbrush. "You'w rawth." I finally answer moving the toothbrush over my teeth, finally spitting and rinsing my mouth before allowing myself to talk again. "But Lupin saw."
"Lupin? How could he have seen, out of all people?" She asks clearly wondering.
"I…I was looking at the castle out of curiosity," I pause at this, trying to make my statement clear because I don't want her to pair me up with yet another teacher, "when I noticed him, and he noticed me, and then the Snitch flew up against my head." At this moment she cracks with laughter. "-it isn't funny, I'm bearing a bruise!" I say indignantly trying to point at the side of my head, but knowing all too well there's no bruise anywhere, even thought the impact did hurt pretty much.
"Aww, maybe you should've been brought to Pomfrey so she could mend it." She retorts testing the ground for a second, probably scared to have made me mad, but laughing along with me when I burst out laughing soon after giving her a deadly glare.
"Oh and my knickers, Mel, my knickers!!" I moan suddenly thinking about it all once more, pressing both my hands against my face as if I can't face the reality. "I'm sure he saw them! He actually came down, left his class to come and make sure I was fine as I'd slipped off of my broom trying to slap Ian across the face, because I thought he was the one playing with a walnut, trying to bother me." At that second her expression is something between an 'oh-how-cute' and an amused one, which all in all gives a rather funny result. We stare at each other both grinning ridiculously when another head pops out of the bed curtains and I shriek both in surprise and shock at the sight of the monster, a witch with wild hair of snakes and blood-shot eyes and-
"Could you keep down the commotion? For once I've got a free hour!" Rosheen barks at us angrily, leaving me in shock for a moment, taken aback by her ugliness at such an early hour, she surely doesn't lie when she says she needs her beauty sleep.
"Well your bad if you took too many classes, don't put the blame on the others!" I reply, getting back to my senses. This makes a low grumble emanate from Rose's throat before she goes back to sleeping.
"Wow, I'm proud of you, had it been last year you would have cowered and whimpered every time I'd speak a little too loud, scared out of your wits she would wake up."
"I think she's worked me up too much," I grin malevolently and then bring my voice to a whisper, not scared to bother her, but frightened she would hear the words that are coming, "with the whole Ian thing, I don't think I'll ever forgive her."
"And you're completely right not doing so, ever thought of revenge?" Mel grins back lifting her seemingly very heavy schoolbag strap to her shoulder. I know at once she means by this she'd be up to help me with a possible revenge. I shrug though, I'm not sure whether she should help me with it, she's already gotten in trouble enough with the girls of our dorm because of me and maybe also because of her daring, always working in secrecy though, the other girls found out about some of our pranks and as I'm more accepted than Mel I've directly been scrapped from the list of accused people. "Well I'm going down for breakfast, you back to sleep, knowing you." She says retreating to the door, her grin broader.
"Don't underestimate my willing power to stay up! You would be surprised." I answer back at her. As the door closes I'm sure I heard a small 'Well surprise me then' making me smirk mischievously because that's exactly what I'm up to.
By the time I've washed up and had breakfast, first classes are already halfway gone and I decide to take an early trip outside. I actually enjoy having a walk on the Hogwarts ground when I don't have to drag a ton of books behind me but just a few quills, parchment and empty and filled inkpots, I never go anywhere without at least that bit. After visiting a few great spots I decide to go back to the place of yesterdays 'accident', once there I can't help myself from looking up at the grandiose building which brings me an idea. Mel's 'well surprise me then' sounds through my head and I remember a couple of weeks ago when I shot a rock at her window, but throwing a rock again would be so cliché, I have to surprise her. That's when I get that stupid idea and take a bit of parchment out of my bag together with a quill and inkwell, the note is written in only a few seconds, the little sticky-figure motioning to wave took me a little more time to draw and charm. The message looks like this though:
BOO!!! YEA, I JUST SURPRISED YOU, I'M SURE YOU PEED YOUR PANTS!
P.S.: How can you like such a class, drool's actually dripping from the windows, drool from all the sleeping heads, I bet three sickles you're the only awake…only but Eliza, but she's a nerd. Or wait, I'm sure you two are the only students present, you're the only nutcase who would take this as an advanced class, and yes, you may take this as a compliment, after all it's a beautiful morning and I feel in a good mood!
After I feet I ranted enough I start folding the tick parchment to a little airplane and, restraining myself from playing with it like a six-year-old I use a levitating charm to slowly make it fly higher and higher and squeeze through a little broken window. I wait a couple of second, wearing a big smile, ready to wave at Melaina when I actually see her, sitting at her usual seat, taking notes and looking attentively at what I suppose must be Binns as if he were a naked hot man in a muggle magazine…one window next to the one I squeezed the note through…and she sits at the back of the class… Eyes wide, I slowly turn them to the left and seeing him I could just curse myself into oblivion. Not just anybody else caught my note, no out of all people at Hogwarts, it had to be, no not Ian, WORSE, Lupin.
"Oh no why." I mutter thinking quickly of what I could do to disappear out of the way as soon as possible. Then I get that brilliant idea and run as fast as I can to the castle wall, almost smashing into it head first, to then press my body against it hoping he wouldn't try to look too thoroughly through the grounds.
Whether he did it or not, I could never tell, I waited for another ten minutes before slowly, keeping close to the castle wall, retreating to the big oak front doors of the building just in time as the bell echoes off the walls telling us it's time for a Charms class.
It's halfway to the classroom, as I was about to climb another flight of stairs leading to the second floor that Melaina bustles out of the First Floor corridor looking thoughtfully through her freshly written notes, not noticing me. A mischievous grin sprawls onto my face as I quietly try to hide in the crowd and slow down my pace to get right behind her. I wait for a few seconds before hitting my foot square against her arse, making her jump about three feet high before staring around her wide eyes until she sees me doubled over in laughter.
"You- you, dirty sissy!" Melaina exclaims, making people turn their head at us, but she barely realises she's attracting their attention upon her.
"Ah you know what Melly pelly," I can't help but smile even though I manage to keep my tone even and serious, sighing dramatically as I walk towards her and put an arm around her shoulder, which I have to go on tiptoes for to achieve, "only to hear the great names you found out for me I'd keep kicking your arse or scaring you to death…well almost-death since you're still alive, or downright irritate you by 'borrowing' your stuff or-"
"-enough, you made you point, shut it, parrot!" She smiles back as if she just used the cutest of pet-names for a best-friend. We walk on like this, I almost tripping over my own feet as I try to keep up with her pace, an arm still over her tall shoulders.
"You know, I had like a super-good reason to punish you!" I start pouting slightly.
"Oh really?" She answers absent-mindedly.
"Yea, I made a fool out of myself, because you didn't catch the cool paper, which took me about half an hour to make," If I'm going to lie about it, let the lie be big at least, "and that I had sent through a creak in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, and now because of you Lupin will have read it and know my deepest of secret!" She gives me a fake gasp at this.
"You mean, the one about your secret child with Albus."
"No luckily not this one!"
"Then, then, you mean the one about your intimate love-ritual with Hagrid?"
"No!" I choke out, laughing, mental images of Hagrid dancing around a clearing in the forest filling my mind…slowly his clothes disappearing and being replaced by prehistoric ones.
"Oh no, not the one about your hidden kinky experiences with Kimberley (the most shallow guy living on the face of this planet, who's as dumb as a fly flying against a wall), Filch and Kettleburn?"
"Ugh, we said we'd stop about Kettleburn." Kettleburn was our ex-Care of Magical Creatures teacher, and partly the reason why I gave up on the subject the second I could, not very much because of the fact that he was a nightmare to most people, because he was rather nice to me, but just because he was downright odd. I've always known him as a tall wizard. He was bald at the top of his head, but had thick white and grey fluffy hair at the sides of his head, making it look as if he'd torn out chunks of his hair in anger, which would sadly not surprise me at all. He was a nutter, mental nervous person, and the key-word here is nervous. It looked like he was having sugar-highs all time, but not in the 'Happy tree friends' funny way. He couldn't even breathe normally because of it, inhaling went fine, but then it was like he swallowed the air before breathing out heavily. There wasn't one lesson without a spat shooting from his lips, mostly it went everywhere and stayed partly at the corner of his lips. I can tell you that out of experience: I stood on the first row for a week, after that my notes were unreadable. Everything that went against his lesson, he tried to ignore. One day as he was walking, he stepped with his left foot into an open schoolbag, instead of stopping his walk and releasing his foot, he walked on as if nothing was the matter, dragging the schoolbag with him for a good five minutes until the schoolbag irritated him so much that he shook it off his leg (not interrupting his speech).
"I had to avenge for last time when you brought these horrible bad mental images about Kettleburn into my head…they've traumatized me you know."
"Which ones?" I reply honestly not remembering which she was talking about since we'd given each other so many of them over the past years. Before Melaina can give me an answer, Flitwick assign us some practical exercises which are bound to keep us busy until halfway the class but unfortunately, by that time, we've already forgotten about our previous conversation and decide instead to engage ourselves into a battle of lightning laser sabres making scary noises which annoys our neighbours highly but are not loud enough to be caught by tiny professor Flitwick.
"-and as you know, I want this essay to be as elaborate as possible, about a good ten inches would be a basic-"
'Ouch' I curse as suddenly Mel's wand stabs me in my thumb rather hard in that moment of inattention, making me drop my own, sparks erupting from its tip. Groaning inwardly as I see I won't manage to make it roll back with my foot, I slowly let myself sink into my seat and finally crawl closer to it, extending my arm, hand and fingers as much as I can in a hope to reach it but instead pushing it further until it reaches the alley between two rows of seats, now clearly in view of the teacher. I, not realizing this latter detail crawl further towards the object revealing myself.
"M-Miss Finry?? What are you doing crawling onto the floor like this?" My head jerks up so hurriedly that it hits the desk near me where I had been sitting only seconds before. I slump further, finally laying onto the floor completely, wincing in pain.
"She has stomach cramps sir!" Melaina 'saves' me from the rather uneasy situation.
"Stomach cramps! Again!! Oh dear, I will have a chat with professor Dumbledore later, probably there's something wrong with the house-elves down the kitchen, could you bring Miss Finry to the infirmary at once?" I suppose Melaina nods at this before I hear the feet of her wooden chair scrape against the stone floor and the tinkling of quills against inkwells as she's probably putting away both our material. I stand upright, retrieving my wand in the process as subtly as I can and still feigning stomach cramps as I hurry to get out of the classroom.
Break is welcomed with open arms, certainly by me, I was starving…starving out of shame, yea that seems like a good way of describing it. I feel like my stomach is full of lead though when I remark Flitwick double checking his bread before taking it in, we shouldn't be playing with him like that! He's too nice, so on one side it's a bit his fault, and yet, I can't help but feel bad about it all. I also notice Remus smiling nicely at him and talking in that gentle way of his to his small college, the sight of him for some odd reason making me feel more relaxed. Just a second later though his eyes dart from Flitwick towards the Slytherin table and up until they meet mine and I have look down at my plate, feeling a sense of warmth spread all over me and concentrating on my normally pale cheeks. After a few seconds I wonder whether he's still gazing at me, though I feel a little prickling I can't really be sure about it. Little time is given for me though to elaborate on the question as I feel a slight tap on my right shoulder making me look up wide eyed, mouth aghast to see Marcus Flint's bad dentition grinning at me.
"Marcus?" I ask almost on a disbelieving tone I'm sure he caught as his grin grows.
"Hello, would you mind to have a word?" My eyes, already wide, I'm sure almost pop out of my head, if it is about dating I'll have to tell I've got no interest, oh no. I know I'm a hypocrite, but believe it or not it's got nothing to do with the dentition (well not only) but Marcus Flint is just the sort of guy I'd never go out with. I manage through all my weird thoughts to nod at him and he plops down on the seat next to mine, making Melaina look up from the Daily Prophet where she is reading the astronomical previsions for hers and my sign, and frown slightly, questioningly. "Well, I've seen you play Monday, and really what you did is a move we need for our team, so after much thinking, I thought that maybe we could just for once, accept someone on the team that has so far shown no talent in Quidditch whatsoever. I suppose you've heard about Malfoy's little accident." With that he shots the blond boy a dark look across the table of our house before resuming his speech, "So we need another seeker, if you accept, we will meet each other next week's Tuesday after classes, just to discuss the upcoming Quidditch season. Meet us all in our common room then."
Without leaving me the time to retort, he is off to his friends leaving me still staring open-mouthed at him, watching his retreating back in pure amazement as if it was the most wonderful thing on earth I'd ever gotten to see in my life.
"Stop looking like that, you look like Longbottom, I can't stand the guy!" I close my mouth at once and look at Melaina as she talks on, again looking down at the journal, though her eyes aren't moving so she's most certainly not reading. "Will you accept?" She asks.
"Well…should I?" I ask gloomily picking at my food with my fork, all appetite lost once more, I think I'm going to start believing these house-elves put something abnormal in our food!
"I don't know." Comes the very helpful phrase out of Melaina's mouth before being replaced by some pumpkin juice. I feel bad for a second having to make a choice in my life, I hate making choices like that! Luckily some divertissement makes its way in the Great Hall under the form of a little group of Hufflepuff boys, one of them being Kimberley Brewer, his long blond hair swaying from left to right because of his mannequin-alike demarche. My old choco-cactus crush used to be part of the group before he left Hogwarts last year. Now there remains Kimberley, a redhead called Marcel who I suspect to be part of Neville's famille, and Lovegood's too. He has that way of watching like…like a cow who's just felt a carrot go up its arse, yea that's not the best way to describe but it's the only way. There's also a certain James they all call Jim or Jimmy whose hair is downright…funny. His parents keep a diaper-shop in Diagon Alley, yea indeed a shop only selling all kinds of diapers and in the holidays you can see Jimmy disassemble cardboard boxes in front of the shop. The three of them are just the funniest group to watch. A sissy, a weird carrot-eating cow (because I do believe you get red hair from eating carrots) and a tough diaper seller.
Soon after their entrance the bell rings and I stand up facing Potions and Defence with a very bad feeling growing inside myself. And to crown everything, I have prefect duties tonight.
Wednesday the 22nd of September 1993.
Why is Transfiguration so boring? And if it is, just suppose it just is, then why has it been put in the morning, as a double class??
"As homework, I want you to look up the proprieties that stones have in common with goblins and how it is about to influence their transformation into one another." Oh please even I who hasn't even listened intently for more than one minutes knows the answer, it's something we saw back in first year.
"Transformation will be easier because goblins look like stones so they have something in common, how am I supposed to write a three foot long essay about that?"
"Loads of filling I suppose." Melaina groans back as she's copying some notes from the blackboard in the last ten seconds of the class.
"I can read through your notes right? For inspiration, eh?" I say subtly not wanting to admit that I downright haven't given the class a listen. She shrugs in response and I know she won't stop me from doing it.
Just slightly revived with the lunch I've just had, I walk like a living dead towards the greenhouses in the amiable company of my dear lovely dormmates. And now I still haven't caught on my lack of sleep from yesterday.
"I can't wait for my birthday, I wonder if my mom will get me the dress I've tried to hint I liked." Eve exclaims happily, and had she been a little smaller she'd have been skipping, but a tall person skipping looks just weird, well to me that is.
"Why try to hint, I'd just tell her I do." I reply, yawning at the end of my statement.
"Because if you just tell her it isn't a surprise anymore!" She answers in a matter-of-fact tone to which I just shrug. This is going to be one long Herbology lesson, I think to myself grimly, until I hear her fake-sweet voice dripping with amusement.
"And you have no sense of subtlety anyways." Rose bites at me, making me wish for one thing and it is to claw her lips off of her face…and tongue out of her mouth, well just anything that has a responsibility in letting her talk actually.
"W-What do you mean!" I sputter in rage, scandalized by her sudden break-in into a conversation she had nothing to do in (not that I had something to do in the initial one…but that reminder will be pushed to the back of my mind for now)
"Just kidding." She answers in a nagging voice pushing me side ways 'playfully' (I fly about five feet away because of it, and almost land on my backside), "you know you're the 'mistress of subtlety'" She says mimicking the brackets with her fore and middle fingers.
"Right," I mutter darkly, "as long as you know and realize it to the fullest I'll let you worship me secretively."
"What's it you're saying?"
"Nothing suitable for your dear ears honey." I reply vulgarly on purpose hoping to shock her.
And it indeed was a very long Herbology lesson.
As soon as the bell echoes I sit up bolt right as if the seat had been burning my bottom and collect my stuff in a hurry, glad to leave the dangerous place of Greenhouse number five, just the name sounds like an old creepy haunted laboratory! I'm so early off that I can still see the students next to Hagrid's hut kneeling at some boxes, most certainly inspecting some flobberworms, and knowing Melaina has to be one of them I pursuit my way down the slope towards the half-giant's habitation. When the girl notices me she seems rather glad to have a reason to escape sooner than expected from the evil flobberworms. With the excuse that she has to get to her next lesson she rushes off towards me and we walk back to the castle side by side heading to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom to meet Lupin.
"If only I had known I wouldn't have shown up…ugh…flobberworms."
"I thought Haggers was into bigger stuff than that?" I grin back at her exasperated comment.
"Yea, but since the accident with Malfoy he's been fetching some great worms for us to work with, because yea, worms don't bite or scratch, but sincerely, I think I'll skive off the next one." At that moment we take a turn and arrive close to the classroom door before entering it. Lupin's already present in front of the class. He wipes the blackboard with a flick of his wand before walking around his desk and leaning against it, smiling at the arriving pupils…one of which has to be me of course. I smile back hesitantly, I'm not good with smiles, they always make me look as if I pity the one I'm offering the smile to, therefore I once more look down my feet, tripping is the last thing I'd want to happen at that precise moment, so I'd much rather watch were I'm going. I almost heave a sigh when I reach my comfy wooden seat.
"You may sit down." Lupin says clearly as the last person entering has closed the door and is making his way to his own desk, I'm already sitting though and wonder briefly if he minds my misbehaviour, I look up again to see him staring straight at me, his amber eyes alight. I hurry to give him an apologetic look (remember, not smile, I'm not good at smiles).
As Lupin starts his explanation, addressed to his loving class (see in this Rebecca, his best pupil, yes the Rebecca 'spiders-are-more-scared-than-thou' Scott) I find the sound is off, I only see his lips move and sometimes realize the class is laughing at one of his witty remarks.
Lupin is one of those dangerous teachers, because he could easily be popular, and popularity of teachers amongst pupils is never good. No, I'm not a party-pooper, I like having a good laugh once in a while, even when the teacher's the one bringing up the source of fun, but you see, if a teacher is popular amongst most of his students, he can get away with a lot of things, even including picking on one of them. It's sad to say but students, humans in general, are easily blinded. See look at me, I've manage to blind most of the people I know to think I'm a sweet angel, only my very close friends (read: Melaina) know me the way I really am. The other way around, people can be blinded by a teacher to see that one of their fellow students are actually suffering of being bullied by the teacher in question. A bit far-fetched? Maybe, but I lost another ten minutes without being too bored!
As a conclusion, yes Lupin is scary. Just thinking about his scary chocolate addiction brings up a scene of some man hidden underneath a long cape out of which sticks his pale long-fingered hand holding chocolate. 'Do you want a chocolate bar my child?' Sounds in my head the second I think of this and I shudder inwardly at the thought of some scary high-pitched voice pronouncing the phrase. The second Lupin's voice saying the very same words resounds in my head though, it doesn't feel overly perverted anymore just…funny and something else, something I rather not write in the same sentence in which 'Lupin' is written. Alright I take another sentence to say the scary word: sexy, there you got it, yes.
Why is everyone making scratching noises…oh wait they're taking notes, maybe, without wanting to be a follower, I should take some too…you know some unique ones. Yea, I'm going to do just that. Slowly and carefully I dip my quill into my inkwell, the care unneeded because I'm going to spill anyway, I know I'm about to. Looking up to the blackboard I find myself captivated into a sea of amber and blue, I try to look away, but I can't, I rather would prefer his eyes to leave mine, that would mean I have a point, that I'm stronger, that I have nothing to hide from anyone. How a single thing can change so much eh!
Finally, I can't tell who broke the contact first, I just know that suddenly I find myself scribbling from the blackboard (I know, very 'unique' note-taking) and he is back to his explanation in front of the class.
"What's up with you?" Melaina asks me at dinner.
"What?" I sincerely have no idea what could be wrong, I was just looking up at the head's table to see that Lupin was about to take a bite from treacle tart, totally normal!
"You've been acting weirdly since…since Defence, and STOP staring at Nipul." I sight at the use of name and yet can't repress a laugh, which, put together, give a weird sounding 'I'm going to wretch' snort, I'm so horribly sexy. Oh no…sexy…the word makes me think back of when I thought of Lupin and his chocolate bar.
"Oh no…oh no I'm DOOMED, so so doomed, I said…" No wait, I thought of Lupin and sexy in the same sentence. Waah, and again. Maybe, maybe I think Lupin's sexy.
"Why are you doomed? What did you say?" Melaina asks wildly, seemingly scared.
"I…I mean, you said ehm, you said nipul right, so I'm doomed because you've really decided to re-baptize him nipul, am I right?" Is she going to fall for it? She could take it as my usual badly acted jokes…oh please let it be this.
Melaina watches me wearily for a second while I grin hoping on. After some time she grins back and I sigh out of relief inwardly. "Yes of course, but don't you dare changing subjects! Sooo, what's wrong with you."
"Nothing's wrong. No really, I swear, I'm just…evasive, that's all…must be a toxic plant in Herbology." She swallows the excuse wholly, I couldn't be more thankful…but now I start wondering for myself…what's wrong with me? It's just that there's something different about Lupin. He's not like he always is, it's hard to explain. You see a normal teacher doesn't look people in the eye like he does. I've never had real eye-contact for a long time like I did today with any of my teachers so far…and admit…amber eyes are just weird! So amber and blue, totally bound to attract the eye!
It's no use, I'm doomed (it seems like I say that a lot these days…maybe I really am doomed...). The thing is that I can't sleep, it's the horror! I've been wrestling with my drapery for two hours now, I've been trying to get to sleep, I've tried everything, EVERYTHING, I counted till sixty nine, then I got distracted by my stupid thoughts, then I tried to think of happy stuff, and fell asleep and dreamt that my now dead grandpa was still alive and owned a theme park, and I wanted to go on one of the attractions, but tripped over my own feet and I woke up with a jerk.
"Melaina……are you sleeping?" I whisper through the snores but hearing nothing but a slight creaking which has to be one of the other girls who hasn't caught sleep so far…but I'm not in a mood to deal with anyone but Mel. "Mel?" I try again, now a little more hesitation in my voice. I'm about to give up, just going to try once more and then I'll stop. I open my mouth to whisper out her name when all of a sudden the curtains of my bed at my right open up with a jerk 'silencio' is spoken out followed by a soundless cry 'finite'.
"Are you mad! You almost gave me a heart-attack!!"
"O my, you should've seen your face! You're really so easy to scare!"
"It could've been Sirius Black!" I whisper back furiously defending myself. We finally both calm down and settle to really sleep but this time again is no different than the first one and I finish by giving up all hopes on sleeping and retrieving energy.
"Liz?" I hear Melaina's whisper through the darkness.
"Mm?" I reply trying to act as if I'm half-asleep, half-conscious.
"Can you sleep? because I can't." I stop mimicking a peaceful sleeper to let a grin appear on my face.
"You know what this means don't you?" I whisper slightly, my amusement resounding through in my voice as automatically a painful smile stretches over my lips.
"That the evil monster of doom will come to eat me?"
"No," I respond drawing my curtains back slightly and poking my head out, feeling the coldness of the night stinging the skin of my face. Through the darkness I can see Melaina doing the same. "It means Pyjama Party." I wish I could've cried it out, but it could be too risky. I slip out of my bed and on my naked feet skip to Melaina's bed, the one closest to the door and also the one to my own bed's right side. Once there I hop onto her bed and I can hear her drawing closed her own thick green curtains and whisper a silencing spell onto them.
"Alright, I think it's time for the 'who would you rather shag'-game." Funnily the name we gave to our invention isn't exactly descriptive of the game itself, it's not all about who you'd prefer shagging, but moreso about in which situation you'd rather be finding yourself, having to choose between mostly two but sometimes more rather uneasy situations.
"I couldn't agree more to that my dear Melaina, I give you the honour to start the first round." I grin madly, sincerely it's been such a long time since we've played the game, and playing it through floopowder at night is so not the same because you can hardly laugh. Or maybe that just adds up to the cool feeling the game has.
"Alright here goes: would you prefer walking on Flitwick all naked under the shower just washing, or on Snape naked in his office wanking."
"Ewww, both are evil, but ehm…I'd rather the first one, at least I have a bigger chance of getting away unnoticed. Now my turn: would you rather see Hagrid doing stuff with Fang his dog or ehm, Dumbledore and McGonagall shagging suggestively."
"Ehm…both seem the same to me, but alright, Hagrid and Fang sounds funny, I suppose. Would you rather walk on Lupin sleeping naked somewhere and very horny, so supposedly you'll have to shag him, or ehm, watching Kimberley shag his girlfriend."
"Lupin." I answer at once, really for no reason at all, only that it seems more fun. By the very dangerously smug look on her face I know I should've answered differently.
"I knew you liked Lupin." She grins, but I understand she says it playfully, duh, because she'd be really insane meaning the sentence.
"What? No! It's just that Sydney really disgusts me a lot more than Lupin. Wouldn't want to hear his high-pitched screaming!"
"Yea right, go on lie to me even more!"
"It's no lie, Lupin is evil but admit he's cute and rather sexy for a teacher!" Oh no, now I not only thought of Lupin and sexy in the same sentence, I said it aloud too, what the heck is wrong with me, I must've been fed a potion, or maybe, yea that's it, one of the plants is having a sort of allergic effect on me!
"Hmpf, ok, your turn anyways."
Thursday the 23rd of September 1993.
After a couple of more rounds we finally decided to call it a night, it was about four in the morning. I managed to catch something like two hours of sleep before I woke up for some yet to discover reason at about six in the morning, I know, such an ungodly hour. Me being the naughty girl I am, I just have to wake up Melaina, because friends have to share time together, no? Even if that time is at six in the morning. But Melaina won't mind being woken up so early by me, I would mind being woken up by her, it would probably be the last thing she'd do in her life, but as the expression says: never wake a sleeping dragon. Yes Hogwarts was made to my image, hum.
Only about half an hour later I and Melaina (yes I had to drag her and she's sending me zombie-like killer-looks, but I don't mind) are making our way towards the Great Hall. The normally crowded corridors are empty, dead, so it looks like it's somewhere past curfew. This makes me wonder if there's a morning curfew. It gives me ideas, just in case I'd want to wander around somewhere around four in the morning not finding sleep, would it work if I said to Filch that I woke up to study early? Probably not.
I actually like waking up early, certainly on weekends, only trouble is that it rarely happens (read: never unless there's an emergency like fire or cookies). It gives me a feeling like I'm a goddess of this world, like I'm alone, well alright, alone with Melaina, but you get the main idea: no being bumped by little munchkins of first-years, not being mocked by pimpled Gryffindors, not running the risk of having to say hello to a fellow prefect, the Ravenclaw ones are the most horrible ones to me, they can get into a complicated theory you just can't get away from, although the Hufflepuffs are evil too.
One Hufflepuff girl once asked me if it didn't hurt to be friendless. I answered with the question whether it didn't hurt to be brainless. At this she gawked at me and I could walk away easily. The thing that bothers me is that she never got angry. That's what I hate about the so sweet and lovely Hufflepuffs: they never get angry, they never want revenge, they never hate. That's just plain evil. I'm one to think that anger is healthy! And I really mean it, it's my motto actually. I wouldn't want to discuss the theory with a Ravenclaw, BUT, I believe in it through and through.
Well actually I do like discussing, only not with Ravenclaws, because I can't win, what's the great thing about arguing if you can't win, I don't see the point of it.
Finally we reach the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, which is empty, really completely empty. I've never seen this before. Oh wait, error, there are some midget first years, they're so small I didn't see them at once. I and Melaina sit across each other, still not uttering a word.
"Boo." I say grinning. As a response she looks at me, her green-brown eyes half-closed and for a second her expression makes me anticipate her future action of falling in her plate and snoring. I sigh deeply. "You're no fun in the morning, how do you expect to ever be the queen of the world if you can't enjoy the morning wakes." She rolls her eyes at me. "Have you forgotten your tongue in your bed?"
"No." She retorts almost angrily not looking at me. Melaina's like that, she doesn't look people in the eye. I'm actually the only person she does look straight towards, because I'm her best friend. As she hates to be angry at me, she feels like she's in fault for being angry, she feels guilty before even showing the anger and doesn't dare looking me in the eye.
"Melly, let's be cheery today, I want a cheery day and I-" I start my speech but soon get cut off mid-sentence.
"Wow, what the heck, I never knew they served peanuts!" Mel exclaims reaching further on the table and dragging the recipient of peanuts against the hard wood towards her straightening bit by bit in the process. "Did you?" She asks grabbing a fist-full of the good.
I shake my head copying her actions and starting to munch on the nuts happily.
"Did you know that peanuts are good for the brain?" I smile munching some more when I feel one pumping against my nose and bouncing back to land on the table.
"Poke!" I hear Mel's voice, amusement in it.
"No fun!" I answer rubbing my noise in 'pain'. "I want to do that too!" I exclaim after a couple of seconds taking a peanut between my thumb and forefinger and starting to move my hand back and forth, tongue sticking out of my mouth in concentration as I aim for her noise. "POKE!" I giggle but stop soon as I hear a pained groan. Melaina is pressing her fist on her eye.
"That was my eeeeeyyyeeeuuugh!"
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry Mel, I forgot my aim was so bad! I'm so sorry!"
"Ugh, you should've known! Even I aimed for your mouth to get your nose!"
"Right." I sigh, not only by defeat at our argument (which is very weird for me) but also because the holy threesome (Rosa, Eliza and Eva) have just entered the room and are walking over to us. "Let's go for a walk, would Hagrid be up?"
For the next hour we walk and walk around the ground trying to find Hagrid, in the meanwhile joking about walking in on a not so attractive scene implying Hagrid himself and just very few clothes. I know I know, no need to even think it, we both know we're pervs and proud to be. I actually am thinking about making a badge of that, we could make a group from it and it would become our motto. But a horrible tinkling sound invades my thoughts, clearing them from my precious ideas about future possibilities for groups and gatherings.
"We have Defence first." Melaina groans dragging her feet towards the castle.
I sometimes have the feeling that school is just so easy for me. I don't know why, maybe because the teachers are explaining step by step what we're supposed to do and henceforth practically doing all work for us.
Yes, Lupin assigned us our very first homework (from his point of view) and is about to explain what he desires to see (insert some kinky thoughts here) written on our papers, duh! What did you go imagining there, tss. That's one of the only cases where I actually take the best notes from the whole class, because it means less trouble later on, and I'm always in for less work after school hours! Hey I'm not pro-extra hours! Let go pro extra unpaid hours. As I try to stay tuned to every word he says I realize the subjects is slightly deriving from our task to downright his Defence class in general and other assignments he's planning to give us throughout the year (and as I like surprises, coughcough, I decide to selectively play deaf for now) I just realize just how soft his voice is, no not his voice, his voice is actually raspy, not soft at all, but the tone he uses. Oh what I would give to hear my name whispered in this tone…and voice, the harsh voice with the soft tone, sexyness. But wait…I have the impression that my wish is coming true, so there is a god above! Mmm, so soft….Misssss Fiiinryyy, hihihi, why formalities sir, you can just call me Liz, or Love, yea, My love.
Suddenly though my name isn't called out in that soft dreamy way anymore, it's like someone has tuned the volume button to the maximum at once and I hear his still soft mannered tone only much much louder.
"Miss Finry?" I focus again on what is happening, everyone's watching me for some unknown reason, or wait it must be my slight paranoia working again, no Liz, nobody is watching you, calm down now. "Miss Finry?!"
"Wha…Yes?" I ask suddenly aware of two amber and blue flecked eyes watching me.
"Ah, well now we have you back I think I can go on with the lesson, may I?" He smiles at me, that un-sexy smile, yet veeeery cute. He's so sweet to ask whether I want to hear his lesson or not!
"Why of course." I answer smiling back gently, completely not understanding why everybody laughs at that, I don't get the joke, what's funny about these three words? I ask just that in a whisper to Melaina who scrunches her nose whispering back her explanation.
"I had no time to shake you awake from your daydreaming, seeing as I was daydreaming myself." Bleh, why does it always have to be me? Not that I would wish for him to have chosen Melaina to ground, but why me? Oliver Wood doesn't seem attentive either, but nobody cares about that eh! No it has to be a Slytherin, and since Eliza is always attentive, it was a draw between me and Melaina, and out of the two it had to be me!
For a moment I smile to myself, because hey, I eluded the whole mystery but it soon fell with the same question again: but why me?
Some small voice inside my head started whispering in a very high-pitched voice: Maybe he's in looooooooove, but I shoved it off soon after. I'm almost shocked when a second later the bell rings and brings me back to earth in a rather brutal way. Somehow a soft-toned voice shocks me even more brutally right after: "Miss Finry, may I have a word with you?" Had this been one of my little fantasies I would be replying 'Oh, are we into rhetorical questions.' But this is reality, and I'm Hope Elizabeth Finry, mistress of ugly natural blush and un-cute stammering.
"Y-yes, of course." I then turn to Melaina to summon her to leave and wait outside with some little signs of my head and hand, which, miraculously, she does understand I assume by the nod of her head. I then turn back to Lupin who's already busy wiping the blackboard clean with a small wave of his wand before walking to his old and tatty suitcase and starting to neatly stuff his books in it. I wonder what makes him that poor. To be honest he's a more than average as a teacher, then why oh why would he be poor. That's the moment I realize there is more to him than meets the eye. Professor R. has a secret, and I'm about to find out what it is.
"-I hope you understand that." Fuck, why do I even nod? I DO NOT understand, then why do I nod and try to hide the dumb look of misunderstanding. "Very well then, I'm sure professor Sprout is waiting for you, would you prefer me to write a pass for your tardiness?" Hm, can't he just write a pass for Sprout and McGonagall for my absence? That would be much appreciated. I nod though, once more, yes when I told you about miss Shy and Red Light being me eh?
He opens his suitcase and takes out a piece of parchment, pen and inkwell and starts writing an excuse in his thin neat handwriting. A light feeling drops all the way down towards my stomach and I'm about to certify the fact that I'm getting a sudden diarrhoea attack if it wasn't for the light-headed feeling adding to it. Him writing a letter for me, it just brings ideas that are everything but appropriate involving love-letters.
"Here you go." He smiles as he hands over the paper after having signed it rather wildly and yet smoothly.
"And about our discussion…" I say, hoping he might get too much into his teaching job and actually repeat it all once more.
"An E would be great for this essay, it would prove you still have the ability to manage at Defence Against the Dark Arts without paying attention, but please try to focus next time."
"Focus." I repeat in a whisper, yes, focus is what I must do…but I don't think he meant by this focussing on the colour of his right eye, it's funny how I don't manage to watch someone in both eyes but have to choose between one of them…I think I should leave, I don't really like his questioning look.
Friday the 24th of September.
Is having the wish to run away with Lupin's signature a bad sign of maybe-fangirlism? I'm starting to ask myself the fatal question: am I getting fangirlish? I feel like I am, maybe I should talk to Melaina about it, if I'm a real fangirl she should find out soon enough though. After all, from what I can recall I barely managed to shut up about Choco-freaked crush from last years, Charles was his name, and now I'm still prone on having sudden fantasies about being his girlfriend/fiancée/wife/mother of his kids. I'm such a dreamer I swear. But I got my new motto, scrap the 'anger is healthy' one and replace it all by: 'Focus'. On itself it's not really a great motto, I admit with all modesty that I'm much more creative, then again I don't think Lupin knew his word(s) were to be used on a daily motto-basis, he might've put more thought behind it if he had known…or simply freak out. The latter being the most natural and close handed one actually…I'm screwed.
Potions this morning, double one, and I still can't 'focus' on anything else but the rage bubbling inside because Sprout took Lupin's note, it was mine! I've been silent for most of the time to Melaina afterwards, because I'm utterly confused about everything associating with Lupin. I mean we're only the twentieth something of September, I've never met the man before, and yet I wouldn't mind being snogged shitless by him, a ten years or more older man with a dirty secret (I just know it and I'm about to find out what it is!)
"Today we're about to see how-". Let me guess Snape, another potion…the contrary would surprise me, since the class's called potions it's kind of…logic.
"Miss Carter, you want to be careful with this ingredient, only two days ago your younger sister spilt a rather big amount of it. Not only has it a strongly aphrodisiac effect on human organism but it is also very expensive." I smirk, for once agreeing with Snape's comment for 100. You see, as I said before, when you think of a Hufflepuff most people (well I do) get the image of a nice, sweet and innocent girl, always at the ready to morally support the people around her or him. Well Ruth Carter is the living proof of the wrongness of this image. She's one of the meanest things I've ever met in my entire life to be honest. She must be really hard working to have gotten herself landed into Hufflepuff. It's only a little while later that Snape's words and moreso the meaning they behold sink down to my mind. Strongly aphrodisiac. And it has happened two days ago, on Wednesday that is. Wednesday, the day I daydreamt about Lupin… Since that very day my feelings have gone crazy to the point where I admitted I thought Lupin to be very sexy indeed.
"Wouldn't you better concentrate on the colour of your potion rather than drift off to some outer world, Finry?" Snape snarls from next to my cauldron, cold beetle black eyes staring hard down on me. I gawp down the way of my cauldron too, our heads getting closer but none of us realizes. It's blue, and in the book it's written that it's meant to be blue, seems like Snape's having a little eye problem.
"I think the colour of my potion is rather nice and fits with the potions book's description." I frown replying, not meaning to cause havoc by my response but rather trying to understand my mistake. Snape luckily has still some fairness in him seemingly as he doesn't scowl at me but simply lifts some up in a dipper making the liquid twirl slightly in the dim dungeonesque light.
"This colour," Snape angles the spoon slightly so the contents of it fall with some splashes into the rest of the potion resting in the bottom of the cauldron, "is not as described in the book: teal blue, Finry, I'd rather qualify it of aquamarine." He looks up at me once the spoon is emptied, raising an eyebrow in question as my frown is still apparent.
"I thought it looked more like Robin egg blue sir." I mutter fixing the potion before looking up at him, a look of pure sarcasm on his face.
"Eden, what colour would you call this?" Snape summons Nerissa, she's been drawing and painting for almost ten years now, knowing the colours by heart, she's boasted enough about it for everyone to have caught on that bit of information. Happy to be needed for once, Nerissa almost skips towards the cauldron, I and Snape not breaking eye contact as if this was some sort of glaring competition. Even as Nerissa inspects meticulously the colour of my potion we still ignore her and look straight into each other's eye.
"No that's definitely cyan." Nerissa answers finally, a happy smile on her face: she looks more like an insane house-elf who's just executed an order than a human being.
The second Nerissa's words leave her mouth Snape and I lose eye-contact to glare at the girl, because instead of making one of us happy, she disappointed us both.
"Very well, but cyan is not teal blue, start over again." He grumpily swishes his wand and clears my cauldron of all blue liquid (to make everyone happy). I have to rush through making the potion once more to finally get the result: deep purple.
"Melaina!" I whisper forcefully trying to attract the girl's attention, but to no avail she seems very busy, her spoon in mid air, mouth slightly opened as she stares at… As I follow her gaze I can barely believe what I see, I thought it'd be a boy, or maybe something shocking like Snape bending to retrieve something and in the process showing some of his undergarment (not that this ever happened before, neither is likely to happen, I hope not! Wouldn't want my eyes to bleed!) But there's nothing of the sort welcoming me as I reach her object of interest: Snape himself. Not Snape lap dancing, neither Snape crawling and mimicking a toddler, but purely and simply the man himself in all his glory…wait don't get me wrong there, he's not even naked, but watching her expression closely I have that vague idea that she wishes Snape would be naked.
"Melaina!!" I try again, this time managing to get her attention successfully but it's too late as Snape stands up from his desk and calls it a close, we have to let our potions brew for five minutes and then the lesson will be over. I decide to give it a rest, Melaina's attention has derived once more anyways: she's now staring avidly and dreamily at Snape walking around his robes bellowing behind him.
"What was that about?" I ask her once we're a little away from the potion's classroom, heading to the great hall for lunch.
"I'd like to know that too!" She answers giving an accusing look my way. I stop dead in my tracks, the gap between both of us growing as she doesn't care to stop and wait for me. It's as if she's too stubborn to give away any sign of appreciation or liking towards me and I can't stop wondering what that was all about. We eat in silence, from my part out of pride because she ignored me twice! And from her part…well I don't know. I still have to, and will, find out. Let's analyze the situation. Part one: Melaina stares at Snape, ignoring whatever happens around her. Part two: she's angry at me since Potions. Now let's think about this eventually, what happened in potions that might have gotten Mel mad at me. Apart from the fact that Snape and I had a colour and staring competition.
I always found it weird how I always discovered the most horrible secrets while having a happy thought just by having it spoiled by said secret. The secret in this situation being that Melaina likes him, she likes Snape! I dare a look over at the girl who's being busy eating some bread glancing side wards at the head's table. Yes she likes him. Before I can even ask her anything about it (read: push the matter on and on until she breaks down out of irritation and tells me everything) she gets up and announces solemnly that she has to go to Divination right away because it's a long way walking. And with these words she leaves the room to let me think deeply of her crush on Snape, could it be another after effect of the evil potion spilling of doom?
Saturday the 25th of September.
Another groan escapes from Melaina's mouth, but I don't reply to it. We haven't talked since yesterday's discussion, not that she hasn't tried any form of approach, on the contrary, she's tried to talk to me more than once, but somewhere in my pride I got hurt by her accusations and evil secrets of crushes (my crush is because of the potion spilling of couuurse so completely normal and innocent and not to be talked about).
"I'm going to kill that stupid nipul next time I see him, how dares he giving that sort of impossible task, I hate him!" She starts, more talking to herself than to me. But being the stupid person I am in the morning (3 PM) I just have to retort a very witty remark.
"Lupin's just doing his job, and so far he's managing it quite well!!" If that's not the most nerdish thing that has left my mouth I don't know about it anymore.
"You like him!" She says on an accusing tone, only the pointing finger is missing to make me feel completely bad about my blunder.
"What, who?" I ask, hoping that somehow by some abnormal miracle she might just be accusing me of liking somebody else.
"Lupin, the choco-freak, you LIKE him! You have a crush on him! I just know!" Alright, now is the time to freak out. Of course a normal person would use her newly discovered crush on Snape as blackmail, only one detail missing here: I'm not a normal person.
"Oh please, you've been pairing me up with almost all teachers I approved since…since you dared speaking to me." I retort instead, trying a tactic with no future: the subtle change of conversation.
"Well you look quite evil from the outside." She admits, softening at once.
"Why thank you." I retort giving her the coldest of looks, the ones I manage very well.
"No but seriously, since when? Can I be godmother?" I visibly sink back in my chair at her exclamation looking around the room hoping nobody's eavesdropping.
"Ugh! ..him, alright? And besides it would just be completely wrong!" I finally respond feeling slightly irritated, though I can't stop from noticing myself that I added the last sentence in a hopeless afterthought, as if asking her to contradict me and give me hope for any future relationship between the teacher and I…alright…what if I like him? Oh no I'm mad!
"Why that?" She asks, looking wide-eyed and dumbfounded as if nobody would ever find the slightest of objection against such a relation.
"One: he's a teacher, two: he's older." I tick off on my fingers but before I can finish my complete argumentation she stops me.
"Oh please, teacher teacher, since when has that stopped you, and age, age is just a number!" She retorts leaving me silent for a moment now.
"You're speaking as if I've had a bunch of obsessive relationships with my teachers!" I finally reply rather outraged.
"You haven't?" I give her a horrified look as a response which only makes her laugh. "But sincerely, this is not about having sex, it's just about a crush…which-could-eventually-lead-to-sex…but it's innocent, it's…healthy! Yea that's the word: healthy." She repeats slowly as if talking to a mental person, asking him for the way to some place…which would make no sense come to think of it, you don't ask a mental the road to anywhere! Must keep that in mind, certainly at Hogwarts, lots of mental cases walking around, think of Rose.
"Right…healthy…" I repeat, not so sure about it all myself anymore.
Sunday the 26th of September.
Had prefect duties yesterday evening and it went like almost all prefect duties I've had so far: I march down the sector I have to keep an eye on once, then go to the prefect bathrooms for half an hour reading a book on the loos. This is just in case someone would ask me where I was (Percy) I can always use the excuse that I was on the loos. Then I do another round, and so forth until it's over.
Today is a special day, as I'm already exclaiming for a good ten minutes to Melaina (all grudges have seemingly gone by, read in this that I've finally decided to let go the accusation she made and finally talk to her again.)
"In one month it's my birthday!" I repeat once more in a sing song voice, as if asking for everyone to actually congratulate me and start thinking of a surprise party.
"Good for you, I can't wait till we're then, I'm already planning something for your 18th birthday!" I give the big puppy smile at Melaina's more than appreciated remark.
"Since it's almost my birthday, you can help me with Lupin's essay, eh? I still need an ending to it!" I smile even broader shoving the parchment to her every so slightly.
"Ehm…I'll see what I can do." She grins back meaning she's still got to start her own and will probably need more my help than me hers. Ah friends reading minds through a simple smile, it's so great how this completely freaks non-friends out!
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