A Wizard's Misgivings

CHAPTER FOUR

It already hadn't been a very good day for Phil, and his mood only continued to sour. Not only had stupid Dan Howell messed up their assignment in Herbology, he'd even gone as far as to steal his glasses and then break them. Phil liked to consider himself intimidating and scary, as already many of his fellow first years were wary of him and careful not to annoy him, and even Howell looked like he had to brace himself before daring to insult him, but he honestly hadn't thought that Howell would have had the nerve. The nerve to commit such a crime. Stealing and breaking his glasses.

And it wasn't a walk in the park afterwards, either, stumbling back up to the castle, one half of his glasses in each hand, held precariously in front of his face so he could see. He certainly wasn't looking forward to finding a teacher and getting them to fix his glasses. What was he supposed to tell them? He couldn't rat out Howell, as then they probably wouldn't be able to get away with their duel later, and Phil wanted nothing more than to get Howell expelled. He knew that Howell was a nerd, constantly holed up in the library, doubtlessly because he didn't have any friends. But still, Phil knew plenty of spells too, and he was taller, which meant he could probably intimidate Howell with his height alone. Plus, Howell wasn't the only one who knew where the library was, Phil could just as easily study up before their duel.

No, he would have to lie, to think of an excuse about why his glasses were broken. Lying wasn't something foreign to him, he'd grown up doing it his whole life, but that didn't necessarily mean he was good at it. He could be, at times, but this was probably his least Slytherin-like attribute. Most Slytherins could lie much easier than him, and he still found himself stuttering when he told an untruth. What was going to make it even more difficult was that he'd be lying to save Howell from trouble. Now that truly was a foreign concept.

Phil stumbled over yet another rock, swearing under his breath as his toe throbbed. There were fingerprints all over his lenses, likely from Howell's grubby little fingers. He debated pausing to wipe them on his cloak, but decided not to. He would forge on, ignoring the stupid prints of Howell's stupid hands.

When he finally made it back to the castle, the long stretch of grounds thankfully behind him, he debated which teacher he should go to. He could always go to Flitwick, who was good at charms, seeing as he was the professor for it. But still, there was something about Flitwick that Phil didn't quite trust... possibly his height. His short stature.

He then debated going to Snape, before pushing that far out of question. Snape would no doubt pry to see which brat had broken a precious Slytherin's glasses, and even if Phil refused to tell, he sometimes got the weird inclination that Snape could read minds. And so that left the Head of Slytherin out of the question as well.

Eventually Phil settled on Professor McGonagall. Sure, she was the Head of Gryffindor House, but she was always really strict, even with them. Phil felt something close to trust when he thought of Professor McGonagall, whom he'd always felt a good amount of respect for, and who didn't look at him like she looked at most Slytherins. Admittedly, she looked at most Slytherins like they were her students, but she looked at him like he was her student that she liked just a little bit more. And he liked that. And so McGonagall it was.

Phil had to make up a story as he ventured through the corridors towards the transfiguration classroom. It was hard refusing the initial urge to just blame everything that happened on Howell, as he usually did. And this time it actually was Howell's fault. Okay, so maybe he had tripped Howell first, but that was nothing. Howell had stolen his glasses. And broken them!

It was as he came level with Professor McGonagall's classroom that he realized he'd forgotten to fabricate a lie about his glasses, that he'd instead spent his entire walk fuming about Dan Howell. Pushing thoughts of a dumb, annoying, short, posh-sounding boy out of his head, he knocked, deciding to come up with a story on the spot. He just needed his glasses fixed, preferably by a responsible adult, one who wouldn't ask too many questions and would fix his glasses properly.