The Raven and the Snake (Sebastian Sallow x Ravenclaw MC)

The Restricted Section

When Clora awoke, the first person she sought out was Professor Fig.

Lying in bed last night and recounting the troll attack over and over again in her restless thoughts, she'd realized that the armor the trolls had been wearing was the very same metal she'd seen collared on the dragon that had attacked them on the carriage to Hogwarts.

She'd been too distracted to notice it right at the moment, but once it had snapped into place as she was tossing and turning in her bed, Clora had nearly jumped up and out from under the covers in the dead of night to tell Fig, curfew be damned.

But alas, her common sense won out in the end (as well as the adrenaline crash and subsequent exhaustion that followed) and so instead she was out of the common rooms before anyone else the very next morning, hunting Fig down bright and early before any of her classes were set to begin.

It didn't take her and the Professor long to come to the conclusion that Rookwood and Ranrok were after her due to the locket they'd found in the vault—which, Professor Fig discovered on his own time, had been enchanted and contained a map. Of Hogwarts, no less.

Although the Professor wasn't able to, Clora could see the traces of that same ancient magic from before, lingering just above the map, as if to guide them.

And it seemed to be guiding them specifically to the Restricted Section of the Library, to be precise.

Clora almost laughed when she saw it. After her talks with Sebastian and the way he'd bragged about getting into that elusive area and the knowledge that was to be found there, she'd inwardly resolved that she, too, would eventually find her way in as well, one way or another.

And now here she was, only her second full day at the school, about to be all but ushered into the so-called Restricted Section by a professor as though she were a V.I.P.

A Ravenclaw, through and through! She could practically hear Sebastian's exasperated disbelief at their two very different methods of access to the same location.

Unfortunately, Clora didn't get to enjoy basking in her smugness for very long. Only moments after her and Professor Fig had planned to leave for the Library did the rather infamous headmaster of Hogwarts then all but strut in, summoning Fig for whatever it was someone like him might deem important, leaving Clora with no other recourse but to watch them be off, the journey to the Restricted Section put off until a later date and time.

But then again...no time like the present.

As Clora walked into her morning Herbology class, she was relieved to find that a certain familiar Slytherin indeed shared this class with her like she'd hoped.

Sebastian leaned against one of the various waist-high tables covered in pots, plants, and other gardening essentials as he talked to a blonde Slytherin boy at his side, though he looked up upon hearing her enter.

He straightened up and leaned forward from his relaxed posture the moment his eyes found hers, poised as if to make a beeline towards her. That is until Professor Garlick unknowingly cut Sebastian off and trotted in front of him to Clora's side instead.

"Ah, hello!" the green-garbed teacher exclaimed airily, holding up her basket as she approached and turning to address the other students. "Class, please welcome the newest rose in our garden!"

Clora nodded stiffly beside the eccentric teacher, her mouth pressed into a tight, polite smile as she fiddled with whatever was in her hands—cotton?—that she'd mindlessly grabbed from the basket when Professor Garlick had held it up to her moments prior.