Tuesday 08/10/1995
I feel gross.
It's not only the cold that has seeped through my bones, the stuffy air and my empty stomach are also to blame for it.
The damp rooms' smell isn't helping me with my well-being either. The air feels far too thick to breathe and smells of an overwhelming mixture of various herbs. Like it always does in here. Snape dries them bunched up hanging from the ceiling, where I can watch them dangle in the draught every time I'm here for Potions lessons.
Normally they don't bother me at all. Today, that's different, they do bother me, so much I wish the stares I shoot them could light them on fire and burn them to dust.
For me, it feels like a lot of time has passed, dead-boring ages. But there is something, in midst of all the clutter on Snape's large desk, that insists on proving me wrong.
An hourglass it is, its dark fine greyish sand streaming ever so elegantly and silky as water yet sluggishly through its enclosure. Generously valued, maybe barely a tenth of this detention is over. Realistically, more of a fifteenth.
But I am not the only one, sitting here teeth-gritted and grim-faced in front of their Transfiguration essay. He's there too. He. We're stuck in here together. Stuck in these long two wholly unjustified hours of detention.
McGonagall did this because she doesn't like us, surely not because of our in-class behaviours.
Draco though doesn't look as if he were struggling like me at all.
On the contrary, he looks really concentrated.
My eyes kept flicking over to him, to say 'from time to time' would be an unabashed understatement.
I stalked. Watched him write and write and write down so many words which I still can't understand where he took them from. The longer I looked at him the less thought I devoted to the essay. To be downright honest the less thought I devoted to anything.
I suppose at one point I stopped working, stopped thinking, I just sat there and breathed.
But that's okay because now I'm theoretically more than ready to get it over with, this whole detention situation.
With my quill in my palm's tight grip and a piece of parchment in front of me, waiting for me to fill it with words, there really isn't much stopping me now from finally getting a grip. But there is.
There are incredibly many things that distract me, too many restless factors for my brain to start thinking sense. I simply cannot concentrate.
So my gaze continues to wander my surroundings, from my parchment to the front of the classroom, passing Snape fleetingly, who, just like me, doesn't seem to want to be here. Further on I look, across all the shelves with ingredients for, well, potions, and at some disturbingly huge glass-preserved claws. In the end, once again, I find myself back where I always do.
This time it doesn't go unnoticed by him. He's turned his head out of nowhere and the not-at-all-exhausted cocky smirk that's plastered all across his lips flashes at me. If he were next to me now and not a good 15 feet away at his own table on his chair, I'm sure I'd get to listen to some kind of teasing comment. But under these circumstances, I may well be spared that.
Seeing him return to his writing leaves me more bored than before.
All the more distracted.
. . .
How am I supposed to write an entire essay on a topic I never learned anything about before?
So far, all that smears my parchment is one hideous heading "How to cast a Switching Spell and what to note" The whole thing is underlined with the most crooked least straight-line humankind ever glimpsed.
"Professor!" someone squeals, entering the room unexpectedly.
"The matter is urgent! I must ask you for Veritas-"
Umbridge's loud voice sounds through the room like a clatter, making me wince. I get to watch her expression slip out of her control as fright enters her face. She's startled at the sight of us.
"Oh." Her head tilts in a familiar angle while her eyebrows raise higher and higher transforming her expression into her standard surprised face. "I wasn't aware of students present in your classroom on Saturday noons?"
Her head turns to Snape and mine does to Draco.
We look at each other, exchanging glances filled with the same kind of confusion, sharing the strangeness of this moment. He sure heard how she was about to mention Veritaserum. Though I hope he didn't, I hope I just misheard that. The thought of Umbridge having access to such things gives me nothing but serious unease.
Snape wouldn't play into her favour, would he?
Now all eyes are on him, standing there behind his desk, glowering at Umbridge.
"Have we not already discussed this?"
"If it salves your conscience Professor, take it as a request, not a question. An order from the very top if you want it that way."
Umbridge's voice sounds too sweet for what she's saying. Her threatening undertone is not to be missed.
Snape's reaction reflects great annoyance that no one could blame him for.
"To disobey me is to disobey the Ministry, Professor, it falls upon your duty to provide me with absolutely necessary resources that I need for my teaching. May we discuss this in private, please? I suggest you dismiss your students now."
As abrasive as Umbridge's viewpoints and manner of enforcing them make me feel, I do like her idea of dismissing us. Bloody detention could be over early. I'd definitely be able to think of at least a hundred better uses for my regained time.
"Go," Snape commands, hissing, this time following her instructions without further resistance. Without hesitation, I collect my things and stuff them into my bag rather hastily. Umbridge though doesn't even wait for us to leave to start her persuasion anew.
"If you aren't willing to follow the general rules I will have no other choice than to get Cornelius involved," she murmurs, quietly as if she intends to whisper but somehow also for everyone in the room to hear.
Such an attention seeker, this woman. Unbelievable.
Does she want us to witness her begging for Veritaserum that bad?
Veritaserum, about which I am positive of one thing: she assuredly won't be needing it in Defense Against the Dark Arts.
. . .
"She's strange," I comment, it's the first thing I say after we slip out into the corridor, into us awaiting silence.
The atmosphere out here feels so different, so much better. The air is cold, freezing even. With its roughly 32°F it sucks through my lungs and cools me from the inside, a much-needed refreshment.
"Why should we care?"
"Why? Because." Exhausted I rest my back against the wall, enjoying the coolness of the cold stones against my back. With a little luck, my whole brain will freeze rock-solid ice. I feel that would be nice. No more Umbridge worries, no more worries at all.
"Because she's obviously not to be trusted? I know Y/n."
"Not to be trusted, right."
"I'm always right." Draco smiles. Smug and as usual pretty. Taking a few steps into the corridor he moves away from me.
"Idiot." Yes, idiot, impudent idiot. I don't think there's another idiot in the whole world that could make me smile as I do now. It's bad, a very specific kind of smile.
No stop-being-so-unbearably-self-absorbed-I-can't-with-your-attitude smile, no. It's more of an I-can't-help-but-find-your-totally-unfunny-antics-funny-and-by-the-way-feel-your-voice-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach-every-time-you're-talking-to-me smile.
And I don't even want to start thinking about the magnitude of how embarrassing that is.
So I stand there and smile. Smile my silly in-love smile like a brainless pile of wobble.
"It's literally freezing. Let's leave." His eyes dart up and down the corridor before he steps closer to me again. "If you're planning on staying just know I won't be the one thawing you off the wall once you freeze to it."
"Hmm, fine," I nod in comprehension standing still as he braces his arms left and right next to my head against the wall, "would you still like me if I was frozen to a wall?"
His answer doesn't come immediately. In silence he's busy brushing hair out of my face that fell into it, tugging a few unruly strands back behind my ear.
"Who says I like you now?"
"Take that back," I demand, confidently.
I don't know what I expected him to answer, probably primarily because the question was more of a rhetorical one.
"Want me to? Why?"
The smile his lips shift into is more of a daring smirk and it lets me quite incidentally notice anew that he's so gorgeous it's upsetting.
"Why?! Isn't it obvious?" Now he just wants to embarrass me.
"It is indeed obvious," his smile grows, broader and broader, exposing his teeth. This sight imposes the next transmission pause in my head. Handsome smile, handsome smile, handsome smile, it echoes through the blank space behind my forehead. All that's missing is an alarm siren.
Merlin, I'm sick. Suffering love. And I'm pretty sure it's chronic.
"What's obvious?" I ask, completely thrown out of my concept.
"That you like me Y/n, it's so obvious."
"I don't."
He shakes his head, "now take that back, liar."
"Want me to? Why?"
"I only fall for people who like me back. What would be the point otherwise? I wouldn't make that much of a fool of myself."