A Snake's Crutch Book 1

Part 8: Midnight Mischief

Upon returning to her friends at the Great Lake, she told them all about her meeting. Sarah was excited for her, as were the rest of her friends, and she got lots of hugs from her dorm mates. 

That night, y/n sneaked out of bed to meet Draco by the fire as she did every night. Tonight she had beat him and had to wait about five minutes for him to join her in his armchair. 

"Sorry. Goyle wouldn't go to sleep. Said he felt spiders in his bed or something."

Y/N waved him off. "How was your day?" she said, leaning back in her chair, still blissful.

"Not as good as yours I suppose, but watching Snape drain Gryffindor's points was brilliant. His class is the only one that isn't bloody boring." Draco, as y/n knew, didn't like any of the teachers unless they had gone and humiliated Harry Potter in some way, which few of them had. Or, at least, not in front of Slytherin, as they didn't have any classes with Gryffindor House other than Double Potions. 

"Well, we could make them fun..." y/n grinned mischievously.

Draco sat forward, a grin splitting his face. "What do you propose?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe we just learn some spells..." Draco sighed and sat back again. "What? You didn't let me finish!"

"Just that your idea of fun is learning."

"Well what do you suggest we do then." Y/N also sat back, crossing her arms.

"I don't know!" Draco threw his hands in the air dramatically. "How do you make every boring class you have fun? Especially with spells?"

"You just have to know the right spells. I've read about a few spells we could use. Practiced a few of them too. There's a spell that will stick anyone's shoes to the floor, and a spell that makes its victim burst into uncontrollable song and--" 

Suddenly, there was the loud noise of stone against stone, as the passage from the corridor was opened. Again, Draco reacted first, pulling them behind the same couch. Right before Professor Snape walked in, y/n whispered, "Cave inimicum!" earning a strange look from Draco.

When Professor Snape entered the room, he had a prefect behind him. The one that had almost caught them on the first night they sneaked out. 

"I swear, Professor, I've heard them every night since the very first day. I've even seen them some nights. They come out and just talk or do homework! I can't sleep half the time because they're out here, laughing up a storm, but when I go to catch them, they aren't there."

The prefect kept talking while Snape silently circled the room, stopping right next to the couch y/n and Draco were hiding behind. For a moment, he seemed to be looking y/n right in the eyes, and y/n knew they'd been caught. She was about to stand up when Snape turned away to speak to the prefect. 

"There is clearly no one here, Mr. Blante. Now return to your dorm before I take points from Slytherin for your roaming the corridors at night to interrupt my brewing because you can't sleep."

Blante just stood there for a moment, staring at Professor Snape, before he decided it best not to argue and returned to his dorm. Snape glanced once more at y/n, not quite meeting her eyes through the cloaking spell she had cast, before he retired to the corridor.

"What did you do? How did they not see us?" Draco said, after the passage had closed. He seemed shocked by the whole ordeal, but he didn't know the half of it.

"I cast a cloaking charm so they wouldn't see us. I knew Professor Snape was not even half as thick as the prefect and would check behind the furniture. He somehow knew we were there anyway though. He looked right at me."

"Then why aren't we in trouble for being out of bed?" Draco looked doubtful, not believing the professor kind enough to let them off the hook. 

"I don't know. Maybe he just didn't want to get mad at us tonight."

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe we should go to bed. You can tell me about those spells tomorrow. Maybe teach me a few," Draco said with a small grin.

"Good idea. How about we do that after breakfast, by the lake. I can teach all of you."

"No," Draco said a bit too quickly, blushing. "If you teach the others, they'll overuse them and everyone will know it was us."

Y/N giggled. "Fine then. We'll start tomorrow. See you in the morning."

"See you."

When y/n went to bed, she sat up for a while reading her books by the light of her wand, trying to find the perfect charms and jinxes to teach Draco. After making a list she thought Draco would like, she reemerged from under her covers. "Knox," she said, and right before the light went out, she noticed the parchment she had sitting on her side table, waiting to be used for a letter to her parents. 

Y/N was up until right before dawn, telling her parents all about her first week at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, telling them all about her classes and new friends, and her House common room. 

As y/n read through her finished letter, trying to find anything she missed, she realized that she had mentioned her time with Draco more than anything else that week. Slightly surprised, she put the letter in its envelope, and went to sleep, to tired to think about what that meant.