Cast yourself (you are the spell)

Chapter 25

"Hey, what are you doing here by yourself?" she hears Rafael say, only barely over the sound of her heart beating loudly in her ears.

"I...I needed some fresh air," Josette tells him, and Hope, for the life of her, could not understand how she did not recognize that voice. Now that she was hearing it herself, however, she could tell right away that it was the muggleborn.

Still, Hope did not know why it had taken so long to figure out who the girl was. Had the girl used a spell to alter her voice? Or her features? Then again, Josette had not frowned or threw a single insult the entire night, and that was more than enough to trick Hope into thinking she was an entirely different person altogether.

A large part of Hope remains dubious, though. Perhaps it was all a figment of her imagination, yes, that had to be it! Yet, she knew she could not pretend that she had not wanted to kiss the brunette badly, and she could not forget the way she had put her hands all over her.

Merlin, she was utterly humiliated. The muggleborn had set her up the entire night to play with her. She had danced with her, had flirted with her, all to mess with Hope. All to knock the almighty Hope Andrea Mikaelson off of her high horse-and it had worked.

And she had deserved every single moment.

"Where have you been?" Rose asks her, when she approaches the table they're all sitting at, her fingers still shaking. She feels dirty; Hope thinks she needs to take a shower, needs to wash her hands, needs to-

"Uh," Hope responds, still in shock. It seems that Felix Felicis could not help her any longer. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" The girl asks, giving her friend a weird look.

"No." Her thoughts were still on what had happened moments ago. Dark chocolate wafts into her nose unbidden.

"Merlin, did someone place a confundus charm on you or something?"

"I..."

Rose stands up from her seat, concern etched into her face. "H, I swear, if you don't speak more than three words in the next second, I will slap you out of it."

"Uh."

A hand slaps her red across the face, and Hope blinks before snapping out of her daze completely.

"Rose, listen to me very carefully," she lowers her voice, her eyes meeting Rose's dangerously. "Did anyone see me dancing with that girl earlier?"

It was Rose's turn to become confused.

"What?" she asks, her lips parted. Hope shakes her slightly. "No. No. Sebastian mentioned something about it to me but he didn't tell anyone else, no, he didn't-I'm sure."

"Alright." Hope nods shakily. "Good."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you later."

Hope would, indeed, not be telling her later, but Rose did not need to know that.

A server passes by Hope and she grabs a flute of champagne from him, sipping it quickly.

Screw not getting drunk, and screw the Felix Felicis potion-it had not helped her at all this night.

Hope quickly realizes that the champagne is not, in fact, champagne. She sneers. "What is this? Apple cider?"

She beckons the server back, who was actually a student that Slughorn had coerced to tend the party.

"You can't just give it back," the boy mumbles when Hope tries to hand the champagne flute to him, and she notices that he's a couple years younger than herself.

"Do you want me to hand it to you or shove it down your pants?" she asks, not kindly, and he grabs it and leaves in a hurry. Rose watches her with worried eyes.

Sebastian comes back to the table an hour before the party ends, his shirt untucked from his dress robes and his hair a mess. Hope has the thought that he reeks of sex.

"You couldn't have waited until after?" she asks, looking him up and down, a look of disdain on her face.

"Sorry," he smiles, not really sorry at all. "What about you?"

He wiggles his eyebrows, and Rose perks up. "Did you get lucky?"

"No." She almost laughs in his face.

She had not gotten lucky at all.

Sebastian sits down next to her, staring at her as if trying to figure something out. Hope pretends she doesn't feel his gaze on her and looks away. Why had Hope even approached Josette to begin with?

She would not even be in this mess if it wasn't for that stupid potion, telling her to be confident and do things she wouldn't normally-and now she was absolutely hating the consequences.

Hope looks around for the girl terrorizing her mind in particular, finding her at a distant table with a glass flute in her hand, which was yet another reason Hope should despise the muggleborn-she liked apple cider!

Next to Josette was her date, Rafael, and next to him was Milton, who had probably been brought along by Elizabeth. They were all wearing wolf masks of different colors-it appeared that they had all gone as a pack of some sort.

It also appeared to Hope that they were leaving early, as Josette and her sister had begun to stand up and head for the door.

"I'm going back to my room," Hope tells Rose distractedly, standing up as well. She would ambush Josette, she decides. She would embarrass her like Josette had done to her.

And her plan had nothing to do with the gold liquid still running through her veins, of course.

"Wait!" Rose stands up, too. " I'll come with you."

"No," she calls back, her eyes trained on Josette's back. "Enjoy yourself."

She follows the small group as they leave the party, several steps behind them but close enough that she could keep track as they walk through corridor after corridor.

She becomes relieved to find that they're dropping off Josette first, as she quickly notices that the four of them are walking in the direction of the East tower.

They all say their sickly sweet goodbyes in front of the Slytherin common room door, and a gag escapes Hope that has Elizabeth glancing in her direction. She jumps behind a suit of armor and hides for a long minute.

She then watches Josette kiss Rafael on the cheek-why did her chest feel so tight suddenly?-before muttering the common room password and walking in. She follows directly after, glad to see that the common room was completely empty.

She allows Josette to take off her heels and walk up four steps to her room before she opens her mouth.

"Would you like to dance?"

Josette freezes and slowly turns around like she had done so familiarly hours before.

Except, the wolf mask was gone now-

Josette Saltzman could hide no longer.