the trial ; d.m

29

Geneva immediately hastens to the lobby, finding him barely upright, feet dragging across the floor with a bottle of mead thrashing about in his hand.

"MY PRETTY, LITTLE WITCH!"

She just stares at him as he spits the lyrics, clearly taking hardly any acknowledgement of her presence.

"YOU MAKE MY WAND TWITCH!"

"Theodore, what are you doing?"

She anticipates the next line, biting down on her tongue in irritation. He turns to her, but lurches his body back and raises his head to the ceiling as if howling like a wolf to a full moon.

"YOU DIRTY, SLUTTY BITCH!"

That line was an addition that the Slytherin boys added as they seemed to have found possessing feelings for any girl a curse at that age. The thought of having a girlfriend at the time was a complete distraction.

Theodore locks his eyes on her, grinning ecstatically. She's hit with the pungent odour of alcohol drenched on him as he nears.

"Oh darling! I'm sorry! Did I disturb you?" he guffaws in her face.

"What are you doing?" she repeats, her expression neutral and relatively bored. "I thought you were at work."

"I was!" he jolts both arms up into the air, some of the mead liquid shooting out the top of the bottle from the abrupt force of his movement. "Until I wasn't."

She's never seen him like this before. Not even in school when he had been very similar any time he was drunk. He's acting like a reckless, trashy schoolboy and it sets her teeth on edge.

He carries on singing, repeating the same tiresome tune. Out of the corner of her eye, emerging from the shadows of the corridor to her right, she sees Draco hovering. He's watching the scene unfold as if on guard.

She doesn't let herself look at him directly.

"MY PRETTY LITTLE WITCH!"

"Come on, that's enough now!" Geneva raises her voice, stepping toward him.

Theodore raises the bottle to his mouth again but Geneva attempts to grab the bottle from his hand. When she does, his face becomes angered with purple and he shoves her away. A full blown shove, causing her to stumble backwards, tripping over the long hem of her gown.

Her hands save her fall and she lands on her backside, winded by the severity. Her chest feels stunned and she can hardly summon a breath.

Immediately, Draco's figure from the shadows rushes forwards and he instinctively places a hand on Geneva's shoulder. He looks down at her a split moment and asks immediately, "You okay?"

She just nods, too in shock to function properly. She glances to Theodore, worried he has bear witness to this small interaction, but he's too busy necking more of the strong substance down. Draco detaches his hand and steps past her towards Theodore.

He peers back at her and whispers, "Go upstairs. I'll take care of it."

Usually she would object, and her stubbornness would say that she's perfectly fine dealing with it herself. But with what just happened, she sees absolutely no reason to object. That's never happened before— not even when he's been absolutely beside himself with anger. Though Theodore was never one to get furious about things. Neither extremely drunk for that matter.