━━━━━━ CHAPTER EIGHT.
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classes were beginning to get harder and harder throughout november and more homework was being piled up in dormitories. evelyn spent most of her free time in the library, but homework wasn't the only reason to that. she wanted to learn more about the special book in her bag and by dragging her friends to the library that day to tell them everything, she felt a million emotions at once.
"i dunno, ev," carina sighed. "we should leave it to the 'protectors' or whatever..."
"well maybe," benjamin gave her a look. "evelyn is suggesting we are the protectors."
lani shut her book quickly. "us?! who said?"
"oh, come on," evelyn rolled her eyes in annoyance. "why else would rory find it? coincidence? i doubt it."
"well..." benjamin thought for a moment.
"sounds like a bunch of rubbish," lani shrugged as carina looked at their friends with a blank expression.
"fine," evelyn sighed. "i'll figure out on my own because you're all blind."
rory shut her book too, but slower. "no. we'll help, but there's only one way to confirm all this, isn't there?"
the others looked at her, waiting for her to talk. rory sighed.
"isn't ev is supposed to be the smart one?"
evelyn grinned at her comment. "i just like reading, but i do take in information well..."
"isn't that the definition of smart?" lani narrowed her eyes.
"i don't thi—"
"shut up you two!" carina looked over at rory, who's eyes were fixed on something.
she was looking over at a spot in the library, one that they had never payed much attention to. evelyn understood and she let out a small "oh!"
"the restricted section." she said softly. "perfect."
***
"the game plan is simple," lani said during dinner, in a low voice. "evelyn will take harry's invisibility cloak from the boys dormitories. ginny will let the rest of us into the gryffindor common room, where we'll wait for ev. then, we'll all get under the cloak and go into the restricted section, then find a book on weird books that don't make sense!"
"huh?" ginny looked up from her shepherd's pie.
evelyn noticed how ginny didn't look like herself lately, and it seemed that rory noticed did too. she was no longer going out to see the quidditch team play, no longer bugging them to do their homework, no longer waiting to come down to breakfast with them, and no longer having the familiar glow in her eyes. she was constantly disassociating and her eyes were now filled of fear, confusion, and worry. evelyn and rory exchanged looks.
"the plan, ginny, the plan!" lani groaned and took a sip of her pumpkin juice, then looked at the five of them. "we do this tonight, alright?"
rory started. "um..."
"alright," benjamin gave her a thumbs up.
"i suppose," carina shrugged.
"okay," evelyn turned to ginny. "gin?"
"what?" she looked up again quickly. "oh—yeah. right."
"what's up with her?" lani muttered to evelyn.
"no idea," evelyn sighed as she watched ginny get up and go to the gryffindor common room. she followed her after taking the last bite of her own pie and waved to her friends.
"see you later?"
"mhm."
***
evelyn got up at around one in the morning to get the invisibility cloak. she looked over at ginny's bed and found it empty. she must be getting the others, evelyn thought. she left her dorm and headed for the boys ones, climbing up the stairs as slow and quiet as possible. evelyn opened the door to her brother's dormitory and looked around.
she saw harry, ron, neville, seamus, and dean sleeping soundlessly—except for ron, who was snoring quite a bit. harry's bag caught her eye and evelyn edged towards it, looking at the boys every two seconds. she rummaged through harry's bag, breathing heavily. it's not here, she sighed as she looked around. where else could it be? after nearly ten minutes of searching and three times where evelyn's heart jumped out of her chest thanks to ron's loud snores, she got up and left, accepting defeat.
she was surprised to see that her friends weren't in the common room.
"weird," she mumbled, opening the fat lady's portrait to see what was up. they weren't there either. being a curious eleven-year-old who had constantly forgot to turn her brain back on, evelyn decided that the best thing to do was go out looking for them. so, she closed the portrait hole behind her and went off into the dark halls of hogwarts. she barely turned the second corner when someone screamed at her.
"aha!"
it was filtch, and behind him was none other than evelyn's four friends. benjamin and lani were sending angry glances at each other while carina was keeping them apart. rory gave evelyn an apologetic look as filtch led the five of them into his office and pulled out some kind of paper.
"names," he spat bitterly while writing on the paper. "potter, black, caddel, malfoy, lawrence. crime—"
"come on now, filch, crime?" lani smirked. "we aren't going to be sent to azkaban now, are we?" evelyn snorted at this while rory gave her a look that would've killed her.
filtch gave the girl a disgusted look and continued. "crime, wandering around after curfew. punishment—"
evelyn felt a soft nudge beside her and moved her eyes ever-so-slightly to see it was benjamin. his eyes moved to something on filch's desk, it was an envelope. evelyn managed to read it despite it being upside-down:
"kwikspell—a correspondence in beginners magic"
evelyn closed her mouth tighter to restrain her laugh. kwikspell was a programme that people that had trouble with magic would use—but why would filtch need it? filtch must have noticed evelyn's unusual facial expression because he stopped talking.
"what are you—?"
he followed her eyes to the kwikspell envelope and immediately snatched it from the desk and shoved it into a drawer.
"you—you didn't—did you read—?"
"no," evelyn and benjamin quickly said together.
filch was twisting his hands together, nervously, and was staring and the two of them with an expression they had never seen on him before.
"if i thought you'd read my private... not that it's mine... for a friend—be that as it may... however..."
evelyn and benjamin were glaring at him, not daring to even breathe. rory looked alarmed, lani amused, and carina uninterested. filtch had never looked madder, his eyes were popping and a tic was going in one of his pouchy cheeks.
"very well... go... and don't breathe a word... not that—however, if you didn't read—go, now..."
the five of them sped out of the office. as they turned the corner that was leading towards the stairs, they were stopped in their tracks by a low voice.
"where do you all think you're going?"
evelyn turned, glaring into the face of severus snape himself.
snape was a tall figure dressed in black robes from his neck down. he had extremely greasy hair and a hooked nose. he constantly spoke in a flat, boring voice and looked down at the group with mere loathing.
"evening, professor," carina said, dully.
snape glared at her, then the others, and repeated his queston. "i don't think you heard me correctly, where are you going?"
"gryffindor common room, sir," evelyn answered.
his eyes fell on evelyn's scowling face. she watched his face slightly fall at the sight of her. she awkwardly looked at lani, who mirrored her expression.
"can we go now?"
snape studied the group of friends, his eyes now resting on lani.
"very well," he said, stiffly. "but don't let me catch you out of your dormitories after hours again, or we will have problems."
the group all nodded and rushed upstairs, lani muttering an "alright, snivellus," as they turned away. they headed for the gryffindor common room without saying a word.
"escaping filch's office and snape without punishment must be a record, don't you think?" benjamin said as evelyn closed the portrait hole.
"probably," lani said, while falling onto a couch in front of the fireplace.
"now that's over," carina said, folding her arms. "let's get some things straight about our original plans for tonight, yeah?"
"oh yeah!" lani sat up.
"oh merlin," evelyn muttered to herself.
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b's notes
had to include some cos events ofcofc❤️❤️