Bitch!
Jessie's POV
“That bitch!” Jessie seethed at seeing Cho Chang and Cedric walk hand in hand through the court yard. Her and her friend, Addi, leaned over the ledge in one of many towers at Hogwarts, like two professional, but brainless stalkers. A credit to them, at least, was the fact that they would never be caught...be Cedric.
“I’m sorry, Jessie.” Addison touched her friend's shoulder. But, Jessie needed no consoling. She was downright pissed.
“I can’t believe she stole him away so fast! It’s like he’s head-over-heels for her!” Her chest ached like she had been punched in the boob, all the way through and to her heart…probably by Cupid; he’s an asshole. “Great, who am I supposed to take to this stupid thing? I have to dance in front of a bunch of people, I can’t show up alone, but I don’t want Cedric to think I like someone else!” Jessie lamented her situation, self-pity very much abound.
“Maybe just pick one of the Weasley twins? I think Fred is still free…or is it George?” Addison pondered.
Jessie made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “I would rather fight another dragon. They’ll probably proposition me for some weird incestuous foursome with the other date. They’re absolute creeps." She sighed in irritation (and heartbreak). “Maybe I can say I forgot about the ball and hide out at Hagrid’s or something until it’s over.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that,” Addi chided her. “Go ask one of the Durmstrung boys. At least they’ll leave eventually, and you can back to batting your eyelashes at Cedric.”
“Aaaddddiiii…!” Jessie whined. “I don’t wanna…! This is so dumb. I hate tradition, I hate this entire Triwizard BS, and I hate dancing more than the both of them combined! I swear, sometimes I wish I were a lesbian so I wouldn’t have to deal with this.”
“Unfortunately, both of us are stuck with the other sex." Addi gave her friend gave her a disapproving look. “Merlin, come on, get it together, Jessie. You fought a Hungarian Horntail. You can deal with one horny boy for an evening. At least, if I'm there, right?" She encouraged, trying her best to get her friend into better spirits.
“Can I? Sure. Do I want to?” Jessie grimaced and shook her head. “Merlin, no. That’s so much work for so little reward! The only reason I fought that dragon was so I could maybe get some Dick-ory, if you know what I mean,” she nudges Addi playfully.
"That's...a horrible joke." Addi snorts in laughter, but turns serious again rather fast. “Okay, but seriously, you are so not going to ditch me. Promise you’ll find a date soon! I already bought a dress and Kenneth asked me out.”
Jessie exaggerated a groan. “Fiiiiine…For you.”
Addi nodded and quickly changed the subject, knowing Jessie would get violently surly if she had to think about the ball another second. “So, the egg, the lake. What's happening with that? Were you told anything?”
“No, but I know I’m going swimming, apparently,” Jessie unenthusiastically answered and leaned against the stone ledge in a dramatic and sleepy way, like the melting mess she is. “I have to search for something in it, something I really care about.”
Perogies, maybe?
Oh, but they'll get soggy.
“The charm work will be easy,” Addi assured her, referencing the Bubble-head spell they learned in Flitwick’s class. “But, how are you going to deal with the sea creatures?”
“Uh…" Jessie vaguely discussed the thought with herself. "Brute force? Creative spells? An obscene amount of luck? The usual…” She trailed off, realizing just how deep in shit she is. Attempting to catch Cedric outside of the dorm had taken up so much of her time and headspace. “I’ll hit the books. Maybe there will be something flashy I can use to reel Cedric back to my boat,” she quipped, an awful pun yet again, but then her good mood sank to the bottom of the Black Lake when Cedric and Cho shared another kiss on the courtyard, right within the girls' vantage point if they leaned over the ledge far enough. Jessie pounded her fist against the stone and growled, “I’m going to curse her if I see her kiss him one more time!”
“Ooh, which curse?” Addi perks up. “No, wait, let me guess…”
“Well, you know what I always say…” Jessie trailed off, giving her a hint.
“Life sucks and then you die?”
“No! The other thing.”
“Snitches get stitches?”
“Close.”
“Bitches get stitches.”
Jessie nodded and grinned. “That’s right.” She hoisted herself even further up onto the ledge to get a better view of her target. She even had half of a mind to pull her wand out right there and curse her from the tower. Her hand inched near it on her boot. "I'm gonna maim that bitch," she threatened the air.
“Don’t you think that could possible damage a relationship with you and Cedric? You know…if he finds out you cursed his date and she ended up in the hospital?” Addi pointed out, concerned with her friend’s current state of mind, which resembled more a Slytherin than a Gryffindor at that particular moment.
“All that matters in a relationship is that you like the same pizza toppings,” Jessie said in a wise tone, even though she was far from such a positive, mature trait. In reality, she took the quote from one of her favorite shows, but she believed in it all the same. “And Cedric and I both like artichoke.”
“Ew,” Addi scrunched up her face. “We would never work as a couple, then.”
Jessie buried her face in her hands, distraught at the fruits of her stalking labor. “Ah, she's kissing him, again! Fucking Merlin’s tits motherfucker! And, I can’t even watch Dirty Dancing a hundred times to get over it, because TVs don’t work at Hogwarts, aaahhhhh!! I'm going to cry!!! This isn't fair!!!”
“What are you two doing leaning over that ledge? Are you trying to speed your way to becoming a Hogwarts ghost?” Snape snuck up on the girls, who were quite literally pushing themselves as far over the stone edge as possible to see 'something' nearer to the castle below them. Snape didn't want to know; in fact, he prayed they were only suicidal. That would be the easiest conclusion to deal with. But, he was sure he wouldn't have such luck.
Jessie and Addi whipped around, the former finding herself staring at Severus’ chest. Her eyes shot up quickly to see his usual glare, framed by shiny, black hair.
“We were trying to get over our mutual fear of heights, sir,” Jessie lied, even successfully keeping a straight face, but an angry tear escaped her right eyelid. She wiped it away in a flash.
“Miss Blair is a Gryffindor chaser, is she not? Hardly the type to fear heights, unless Professor McGonagall lost her 'touch' in choosing players,” Snape pointed out, baring down on the girls like the giant, intimidating bat that he was. Jessie pressed herself to the ledge. The stone poked her spine and hurt her, even through the robes. Being anywhere near the teacher's personal space was a huge, blaring DANGER sign in her head. Snape made her distinctly uncomfortable, queazy, and nervous. No one else could unsettle Jessie like that, not even Moody, anymore.
“Did I say mutual? I meant just mine,” Jessie quaked through her lie. “She’s here for moral support.”
Snape glowered at each of the girls for a few seconds, heightening the suspense. His dark gaze tended to linger on Jessie, and she got the twisted sense, just as Harry had admitted to, that Snape was pulling thoughts from her mind and tacking them up on a board in perfect order for his private observation. Eventually, with a roll of his eyes at witnessing whatever it is he saw in Jessie's (love-)sick brain, Snape declared, “Five points from Gryffindor, Miss Potter, for contemplating a severely disappointing waste of your...meager talents." It was as if he almost complimented her, realized he was about to do so, and added the modifier at the last second. "And another five, Miss Blair, for letting your friend do such an idiotic thing. Now, I suggest you move on before I feel tempted to take more.”
Jessie and Addi scrambled away and down the hall in a flurry of robes, holding onto each other's arms as they did so in an odd, codependent trot.
“He’s an absolute git!” Addi whispered furiously, once they were far enough away from the tower haunted by the Great Bat. “10 whole points for looking over an edge?!”
“Well, we were leaning pretty far…” Jessie shrugged, still too disturbed or dazed to come up with anything other than a weak rehash of events. “Not the smartest thing. But 10 points is seriously overdoing it.”
Bewildered by Jessie's response and their odd switcheroo of personalities in that moment, Addi skidded them both to a stop in the middle of an often abandoned hall. “I can’t believe you’re defending him even slightly. Do you have a crush on teacher?” Addi teased, her keen eyes narrowing.
“No, of course not,” Jessie exclaimed, going so far as to make an exaggerated mime of throwing up in disgust. “It’s just that…I would have gotten a Troll on my Potions finals without his help, you know? He’s a total ass, but at least he took the time to teach me. That takes major patience.” And, that patience came in the form of constant, disparaging remarks and exasperated glares, which drove Jessie to potions greatness, all out of spite, her real talent.
“I bet.” Addi, dry and disbelieving, got an elbow from Jessie again, and the tamer of the two suddenly lost her sense of calm, motherly maturity. “What?! You’re the worst at following directions! It’s like you freeform everything!” Addi laughed at Jessie's expense.
“Well…it’s not just potions class. I mean, he took a fucking werewolf claw for me. The guy nearly died, so…” Jessie looked down, feeling guilty about jinxing him so many times in one, crazy, time-altering night. The memory made her jittery and uncomfortable, so she grabbed Addi's arms and the girls went running down the hall again.
“To be honest, I forgot he did that. The jerk is lucky he didn’t become a werewolf! All it takes is one bite,” Addi thought out loud, comprehending everyone's worst choices, including her own, but Jessie's were far more entertaining at playful discussions such as these. “Really, how do you get yourself in so much trouble?”
“It isn’t me! It’s my brother! I swear, it’s like he actively tries to get himself killed.”
“Oh, right, you just happened to stumble into where the Philosopher’s Stone was, and you just happened to stumble upon a werewolf during the full moon,” Addi sarcastically recalled.
“Okay, that last one was true. Lupin didn’t come into the picture until we were already in the shack,” Jessie weakly defended herself as they reached Trelawney’s office. She rummaged through her satchel. “One sec, I have to turn in a paper for Xylomancy...” Jessie, after having painstakingly found her mound of papers and ripped them out of the mess of her bag, went to knock on the office door, but before she could touch it, the lock snapped and the door swung open.
“OH-Oh, Helloooo, child! The Great Beyond told me you were here!” Sybill shakily yelled for no reason at her student. Jessie was a mere two feet away from her.
“Ah, I see. How nice of…it,” Jessie flatly praised the supposed Great Beyond, which she believed was readily accessible to whomever smoked the right herb from the Greenhouse; hardly a 'gift'. “Here’s my paper. Thanks for giving me an extra day.” Jessie handed her the stack of wrinkled parchment.
“Oh, it’s no problem, dear,” Trelawney sang, judging the papers between her trembling hands, with an arm cradling a bottle of Sherry. “Would you like your fortune read? I have my cards set up,” the loony professor offered.
Jessie sucked in air between her teeth. “No. I'm good. The present has been bad enough.”
Her professor's eyes comically swelled in the magnifying glasses. "Oh, well, if you change you mind--!"
"--Okay, thanks!"
The girls, twice today, fled from a professor, and, again, talked shit as soon as they were far enough away, their somewhat cowardly and devious routine. Addi whispered-hissed into Jessie’s ear, “Why do you even take that class with her?! She’s a total fake!”
“Exactly,” Jessie replied, her voice jostling with every step as they half-jog-walked to their dorm. “All I have to do is make some shit up about dying next week and she gives me an O. It’s great!”
“Considering how much befalls you, I’m thinking you might actually be clairvoyant.”
Jessie elbowed her in the ribs for the third time, and Addi got her back with a slap to the tit.
"OW! HEY, THEY'RE FOR CEDRIC ONLY!"