On a Scale from One to Ten
At their dismissal, Morgana Travers and Regulus Black disappeared into the Malfoy Manor gardens. They tried to appear calm as they exited the room but as soon as they were out of sight, they sprinted. Regulus had always been a faster runner than Ana, but he held her hand and matched her pace as they ran from the Manor, ran from their parents, ran from the Dark Lord.
They only stopped running when they made it to the small lake in the farthest corner from the manor. Without a thought, they ran right off the dock and into the water. Morgana closed her eyes as the water ran up her nose and around her body. It chilled her to the bone and for a moment that was all she could think of. Just the water and her, floating down down down, the lack of air making her lungs burn. Regulus sunk with her till the burn was too much and he was kicking up.
Morgana felt his hand leave hers and followed suit. The pair broke the surface together and gasped for air. They scrambled for the shore and when their feet touched the ground, they collapsed into each other's arms, shaking from the cold and panting from exhaustion, and coughing from the water in their lungs.
Then suddenly they were laughing. Perhaps it was the sheer relief of being away from everyone and everything else, maybe it was the stupidity of jumping into a lake with all their clothes on, but they were laughing in the mud.
"On a scale from one to ten?"
They had moved to a small grassy area, their school robes, sweaters, and socks drying on a tree not 15 feet away. The sun was beating down, creating a beautiful cloud-free afternoon, but thanks to the effect of the events that afternoon, their exhaustion from traveling all morning, and the remaining chill from the lake, it was lost on them. The world seemed to lose its color and display itself in black and white.
"Well..." Morgana started to answer, "on a scale from one to ten I'd say a solid 8."
"So we're fucked?"
"We're fucked."
The pair had a running joke that whenever something bad happened they'd rate it on a scale from one to ten. One was no big deal, two was an oopsie, three was an uh oh, four was time to run, five was oh shit, six was for we might die, seven was we're so screwed, eight was we're fucked, nine was the collapse of space, and 10 was the collapse of time. It wasn't a real scale, but they'd made it back in the first year and it wasn't going anywhere any time soon. Often they'd jokingly say a six for when McGonagall almost caught them or when they almost couldn't intercept a letter home, but it had never gone above that before because everything always seemed to work out for them.
Regulus ran a hand through his hair and sighed, "Well... shit."
Morgana plucked a few strands of grass and braided them together, "What's the plan?"
"You're the master mind here, Ana."
She refused to make eye contact and just kept braiding grass. In the smallest voice he'd ever heard from her came her response, "I don't know what to do, Reggie."