Unintentional Frights
“Thank you for the tea, Professor Trelawney.”
“It was of no problem my dear.” She picked up the kettle and magicked it to float away from the table and onto its proper place. The teacups remained at the table, where she insisted that she would take care of them in a moment’s notice.
You nodded and stood up to leave, however you were a bit clumsy and brought with you your teacup. It tumbled off the edge of the table, you drew out your arm at the same time as the Divinations professor to catch it. At that exact moment, when your fingers grazed hers as you held the ceramic piece — she fell silent. Her hands held yours and tightened slightly. The pressure wasn’t extreme, it wasn’t like a death grip — not like it’d hurt anyway from your own strength resistance, but her reaction worried you.
“Professor?”
You felt her heartbeat rise then slow dramatically once she snapped out of the trance she had fallen into.
She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry dear. It’s just that that’s one of my favorite cups. It would be terribly tragic to lose it.”
You raised an eyebrow unaware if she knew what had just happened. “You just had a vision.”
She didn’t answer, instead, she smiled sadly and excused herself. Deciding not to make her any more uncomfortable, you placed the cup back onto the table. Trelawney looked too distracted to properly say goodbye, so you left. Once down the ladder, you patted yourself down to shake off any dust and extra fragrance you had collected. You enjoyed her company over tea, you truly did, but the herbs she would burn in her classroom sometimes got a little too overwhelming.
You sighed, realizing that you had to go to your next destination. The idea of hitting the library was still at the forefront of your mind.
It was about five months until the O.W.L.s and you were nervous — the entirety of Slytherin was. You could feel the anxiety and stress stinking up the common room with every passing week. Sure, every fifth year and seventh year had their own means to worry, but most Slytherins had an exceeding amount of pressure to do excellent, especially from those whose parents came from high-class, multi-generational Slytherin families.
You hummed a soft tune as Ahira popped her head out of your sweater. “Back to the library?”
“Yeah, everyone’s busy. Might as well put myself to good use and do some research.”
She slithered to your other shoulder, her clouded mahogany eyes judging you. “You know, I knew the life of a student was boring… but not this boring.”
You chuckled. “It’s fifth year. Nothing but studying, studying, and studying.”
“I should have stayed in the chamber if I knew it was going to be just that,” she chittered.
You hadn’t thought of the chamber in a while. Sure it was all the rave last year, but the actual chamber hadn’t been much beside the empty stone room you and Harry had found. Despite occupying the same bathroom where the entrance was, you had never opened it. And there wasn’t a particular reason as to why, you just thought it best for it to remain closed… permanently.
“How’re your eyes?” You asked, dropping your gaze to fall on her dark scales for a second. “It’s been a while since I last did your check-up.”
“If it’s of any assurance, there’s progress being made. My sight is less blurry than before but besides that, I’m afraid that it’s about the same as last time.”
Your hands fumbled for your notebook and a quill within your pocket. Once you drew it out, you opened it to note her symptoms. She lowered her head to look at the scribbles on the pages you flipped through and looked at the marks on your hands. The burns and scars on your fingers were barely visible from proximity alone, but she knew they were there.
“How’s your research going?”
“You don’t have to worry about a relapse.” You didn’t stop writing. “I’ll concoct a potion for your eyes using the base of this recent one since it reduced blurriness.”
“I’m not worried about my eyes. We’ve made more than enough progress this summer.” She poked your cheek with slight annoyance. “I meant your research.”
You stopped scribbling.
“Oh, um. It’s going alright. I won’t be able to test out my hypothesis until the next moon. There’s not much I can do until then.”
You were truthful when you said you wouldn’t know until the full moon. You were busy testing different ingredients on yourself each full moon, breaking down their compositions, and applying them to yourself through several different methods. So far, most of the things you used were null and did not help stop your transformations. The notebook you held had all of your early works. It was a bit tattered from the corners, the spine cracked and well worn. It held years of work, both failures, and successes.
Ahira was about to respond with, what you can only imagine to be, some kind of rebuttal of having to keep yourself safe from self-experimentation. However, she grew quiet once you opened the library’s doors. There were definitely more people than at the start of term. She was still nervous when it came to being seen by people, but after a few months of exposure to them, and the decrease of interest from last year, she eased up on hiding.
Walking through aisles of bookshelves, you found yourself alone in the library once again. Cedric had invited Adrian to watch the Hufflepuffs practice, even after Adrian declined, the Hufflepuff assured him that he could do with some time off of studying. Solaris was busy organizing a meeting for one of her extracurriculars; you weren’t sure if it was for Arithmancy or Wizard’s Chess, but regardless, she was busy. And the twins — well the twins were busy planning their secret potential.
They had already confided in you that they were not planning on excelling in any, if not most, of their O.W.L.s. They knew that if they got any more than what they needed, their mother was going to make them get jobs in the Ministry. They couldn’t do that, so that resulted in them not finding solace nor shelter in the library like most students in your year. It wasn’t like they were planning to fail, they were just going to give themselves, and if that wasn’t enough, then they had no problem with that.
And although you found yourself alone most of the time, the library was your next best option to spend your time. Well, you weren’t completely alone, Ahira spent most of her time wrapped around you keeping you sane. She would help you study by randomly asking questions on topics you had already read on and at the same time made sure you didn’t exert yourself dead tired.
As you made your way down a certain part of the library, an icy, salt-air scent tickled your nose as you walked past a bookshelf which made you backtrack a bit. It almost smelled like the coast back at home, but a bit colder and much fresher. You turned your head and saw the same Ravenclaw girl from your Charms class.
Trying your best not to be so loud, so that Madam Pince wouldn’t kick you out, you hissed. “Thea!” You frowned when she didn’t turn around. Odd, you swear that’s her, even her scent was the same.
You tried again, walking a bit closer and raising your voice to a harsh whisper. Maybe she just didn’t hear you. “Hey, Thea!”
She peacefully placed a book back onto the shelf in front of her before pulling out a different one. She looked at it thoughtfully and skimmed a few pages. You continued to approach her until you were a foot away. You placed a hand out to lean against the bookshelf, steadying yourself beside her — that caught her attention.
“Thea, I’ve been calling you for the past minute, you okay?” You said in a low voice, not too quiet but low enough to not catch others’ attention.
She gasped, shocked at your sudden appearance before catching her breath and circling a closed fist to her chest. “Sorry, didn’t hear you.”
You pushed yourself off of the shelf and raised your hands to your chest, a force of habit, and apologized for startling her. That’s when your brain realized it — did she just sign? You decided to test it yourself by signing back “I didn’t mean to scare you, sorry.”
Her eyes twinkled as you signed in response, clearly not expecting it.
“I’m surprised,” she admitted, “not many wizards pick up sign language. They’d rather create a spell that allows them to create visual subtitles, but even then it’s a tricky spell to learn.”
Yeah, you had tried the spell, but it only worked in certain situations, it wasn’t really helpful in your situation. You gave her an understanding smile. “I have a few family members whom I interact with like this, they’re mute and can’t quite cast magic so it was the most logical option.”
Thea’s eyes softened. She placed her book down and turned to give you her full attention.
“So you can hear me perfectly fine if I’m close to you?” You asked, perplexed at how naturally she spoke. Perhaps it was something much more complex than you thought.
She nodded as she placed an old, creased-looking book away. “I’m hard of hearing, not completely deaf since I can hear you if you speak at an adequate level. It’s just soft noises and distance that affects my hearing.”
That explained why you always saw her seated at the front of every class you shared with her. You just thought that because she was a Ravenclaw she wanted to be seated closer to take better notes. In hindsight, you realized why she spoke with her hands a lot whenever she spoke to anyone.
“So mild hearing loss?” You inquired.
She nodded and went on to explain a few other things. You hadn’t expected to meet her in the library, but you enjoyed it and continued chatting a bit more about a few similar topics of interest. You quickly forgot about your loneliness a few minutes prior and spent the rest of your afternoon with the Ravenclaw.
– – – – –
The feeling of wind zipping through your hair motivated you to move faster. You pushed the front of your broom to gain some speed and brought up your club to redirect the bludger from Corry, your chaser. The loud crack rippled through your ears as the impact from the club made the bludger zoom off. Oh, how you missed that sound. You had also lucked out the first time due to the full moon, only playing Hufflepuff before break, but now you were back and feeling better than ever.
Adrian gave you a quick glance and you nodded. With a smack of the bludger, Adrian aimed it towards you and you hit it towards one of Ravenclaw’s chasers, causing them to lose their grip on the quaffle. Quickly, Erin caught it and scored. Lee commented how spectacularly well you had made that move, going on for a minute more before being reprimanded to stay on track of the game. You zipped by again, scouring the field for the bludgers when you spotted two familiar faces. Solaris sat in the Slytherin section, shouting and jumping as she watched the game, but what was peculiar was the person beside her, huddled in blue gear… a Ravenclaw.
You sensed it before it hit. The bludger flew towards you, but you caught it in your hands; the rough iron exterior cushioned by the gloves you wore. The force made you spin with your broom, but you righted yourself rather quickly and threw it towards a Ravenclaw player. You glanced back at the two students before going back to your game.
“An amazing catch by our lovely Lupin!” Lee cheered on, his voice booming. “Snakes may not have arms, but look at those — you know she gives amazing hugs —“
He was cut off by a goal scored from Slytherin and went back to following the game, but not without the jokes and remarks he had on the action. It was another half hour before Madam Hooch blew her whistle and Lee shouted.
“Malfoy caught the snitch! That’s 340-185 — Slytherin wins!”
The Slytherin team quickly joined everyone else on the field and huddled together, chanting in victory as Draco flew towards the few of you, snitch in hand. After the quick celebration, your team walked over to the Ravenclaws, who had just landed, and shook their hands to thank them for an enthralling game.
As you joined your team over to the tent, two individuals caught your attention. Solaris walked over, arms raised high in excitement, and accompanied by none other than Thea.
“That was such a good game!” Solaris exclaimed, bringing you and Adrian into a bone-crushing hug. You patted her shoulder, used to the force, but poor Adrian was gasping from her hold. She let go and quickly apologized as she stepped back.
“Some bludgers got the best of me,” he groaned. “I’m sure I’m gonna bruise.”
As the two continued their conversation, you turned to greet Thea who had approached your side.
“Those were some good hits there, Lupin,” Thea said, not quite looking you in the eye. Something about the way she said it, however, made the hairs on the back of your neck stand. The feeling quickly subsided once she shook your hand and smiled softly. “Sad to see my own house get demolished, but it was a good game.”
“Thanks…” you eyed the way she gripped your hand then looked up at Solaris. “So, I take it the two of you know each other?”
Solaris, who overheard you talking to Thea, darted her eyes between you and Thea. “Yeah, I met her in Flitwick’s office hours and kept bumping into her in Arithmancy club.”
You didn’t miss the way her heartbeat picked up and you had to quickly suppress a teasing grin.
Thea nodded. “Turns out she’s been following me ever since.”
“Hey!” Solaris playfully punched her shoulder. “Not true.”
You glanced at Adrian, who had picked up on your friend’s behavior.
Oh, Merlin. Solaris crushing on someone was always a whirlpool of emotions. It seemed that the two of you shared the same idea. Solaris wasn’t one to be discreet when it came to feelings. She wore her emotions on her sleeve and made sure others knew how she felt at the moment. Whether it was debatable if it were a good or bad thing, it was a Solaris thing.
As the four of you made your way out of the field, you heard your name behind you. You turned to catch sight of two redheads and a brunette.
“That was such a good throw!” Lee ran to where you stood and pulled you into a hug. “We all thought for sure that that bludger was going to hit you!”
You hugged him back before pulling away. “You know me better than that. I’m not going to let a bludger get the best of me.”
Fred coughed. “Last year.”
“You good there, Fred?” You smacked his back as if he were choking, but hit him a little too hard, nearly causing him to topple over. “Sounds like you’ve got something stuck there.”
Before he could retort, George spoke up. “How’d you even throw it that far? Poor Cho nearly fell off her broom.”
Your face reddened. Ah, so that’s who you had thrown it to, you hadn’t really paid much attention.
“Are you superhuman? Like that one comic book person. What was his name, Georgie?”
“Arachnid-Man?”
You giggled. “Spider-Man?”
He snapped his fingers, giving you a small wink. “Yes.”
“No, I’m not superhuman. Just super aware of my surroundings.”
“Sounds like something a superhero would say to throw someone off their track.”
“Hardy har har,” you drolled as you followed Adrian to the changing tents.
You went into a curtained section of the tent, one where your bag was situated, and began to change into your clean lounge robes. It was Saturday after all and you were feeling lazy.
Once out of your sweaty uniform, you conjured a towel to wipe away some dirt from your hands and face. You picked up your bag and headed outside. The twins were still there waiting with Solaris and Thea, their small talk muffled from behind the curtain. You had to calm yourself before you stepped back out, it was all fun and games when they made jokes about your superstrength, but it never failed to make you worry. You took in one last breath before stepping through the curtain.
You noticed, once outside with Adrian, that a certain Gryffindor was missing. Your expression must’ve alerted George of your confused state because he explained how he had left for some business. Apparently, there was a review session he had signed up for later that afternoon and he didn’t want to be late.
Your group made its way towards the castle, teasing each other and sharing their favorite parts of the match. Adrian and Solaris were looking forward to the celebration back in the common room. It wasn’t going to be anything grand, your house still had the final match to look forward to — but any win was enough to celebrate if it meant food and music. And hey, it might finally bring some academic tension down to a simmer.
“Of course, that only means one thing,” George teased, slinging an arm over your shoulders. Your head rested comfortably in the nook of his elbow, sighing contentedly as you leaned into him.
You held his hand, a smile gracing your lips as he fell into step with you. “And that is?”
Fred, who was by your other side, smirked as his devious brown eyes studied you from behind his eyelashes. “We’ll be seeing you on the field soon.”
A chuckle escaped from your lips and he stepped closer.
“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little faces. You have until May to accept the fact that you’ll lose.”