𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
"MISS LESTRANGE, PLEASE SEE ME now."
Gaia was sitting next to Hermione at the start of Potions the next day when Snape's drawling voice caught her in the middle of unpacking her books. She stood up with a suppressed sigh and dragged her feet to the professor's desk.
"Yes sir?" she muttered nonchalantly, the previous day's encounter still fresh in her mind.
"Don't take that tone with me Lestrange, or I'll write your uncle that you're being disrespectful to a superior." Snape's lips curled ever so slightly as he relished in his control. Gaia's hand became a fist that she squeezed tightly at her side to keep from rolling her eyes in the man's face. Still, she noticed that his words indicated he hadn't already written to Lucius for her outburst the day before.
"Yes sir?" she repeated with less attitude.
"It appears you missed our detention yesterday."
Gaia's heart stopped. He was right. She had become so caught up in Hermione's distress, her essay, and Adrian and Ben's quarrel that the detention had slipped her mind completely. She didn't want to give Snape the satisfaction he was looking for, but her expression must have betrayed her and revealed her surprise as the smirk grew wider on his face.
"So I think it'll be six to nine every evening for the rest of the week to make up for your... irresponsibility."
Gaia's blood boiled, but she knew there was nothing she could do. And of course, it was technically her fault to begin with.
She muttered a forced, "Yes sir," through gritted teeth and made her way back to her own seat, where Hermione was waiting for her, books and quills neatly arranged around her.
"What did he want?" she asked as she picked up on her desk partner's dampened mood.
"I missed my detention with him yesterday so the slimy git gave me three hours a night for the next four days," Gaia answered as she roughly opened her textbook and tore through the pages until she landed on 196, as written on the board.
Hermione opened her mouth, ready to ask what she had gotten a detention for, when the answer struck her heart like an arrow. Though the thought of Gaia standing up for her made her immensely happy, she suddenly felt guilty for being the cause of her detentions.
Sensing her guilt, Gaia's mood turned quickly. "Oh, don't worry," she assured, "It's not your fault at all. I'm the one who opened my big mouth."
Still, Hermione averted her eyes and buried her head into her book, reading over the page in preparation for the class, like she always did. Gaia chuckled to herself and returned to work as well.
The period, and the rest of the day, for that matter, passed painfully slowly. Gaia pretended as if she didn't notice Snape's repeated glares in her direction throughout the lesson, even though she didn't open her mouth once. To make matters worse, Potions was immediately followed by Double Herbology with the Slytherins. She loved Professor Sprout, but was dreadfully poor when it came to her class. And Draco and his gang had not gotten rid of their enchanted pins, which they continued to proudly show off on their puffed out chests.
And when her classes were finally over, Gaia couldn't even sit down with her friends to enjoy dinner, since Snape had so conveniently scheduled her detention for that time.
"We'll bring you back a bite for when you get to the common room," Harry assured her as she walked with him and Hermione to the Great Hall about twenty minutes before her detention.
"That's sweet, Harry, but you don't have to," Gaia replied with a sigh. "I'll probably go straight to bed anyway." Harry frowned at her mood - he had never known her to miss dinner.
As the trio reached the Great Hall, they said their quick goodbyes and wished Gaia luck. Seeing as she still had plenty of time to make it to the dungeons, and that she didn't fancy the prospect of having to stay with Snape even a minute longer than she had to, Gaia planned to head up to her dorm and drop off her things. She'd keep her quills and parchment, in case he had her writing lines, but she figured the professor would not be kind enough to let her spend the three hours on assignments and studying for her other subjects.
As she walked to the Gryffindor tower, her thoughts wandered to Moody - who had become a recurring topic of thought for her. She couldn't get her mind off of his insistence upon putting the thought of You Know Who into her mind, as if he was trying to plant ideas rather than gauge where she stood on the issue, as he had said. And if she was honest with herself, it was working. Not in that she was being swayed, (but even so, surely the man was not trying to get her to pursue the dark arts), but more the fact that even on her mundane walk she couldn't get him out of her head.
Additionally, she couldn't help but wonder why she had become his focus. Surely he could have probed this topic with any Slytherin student, and yet she was fairly sure that Draco hadn't been interrogated. Sure, her mother was an avid supporter of You Know Who in the wizarding war, but so were Lucius and Narcissa.
The thought which had plagued her since her childhood reentered her mind that if the war were still going on, they would almost certainly be Death Eaters to this day.
Gaia shuttered in relief that this was not the case.
But when it came to Moody singling out her versus Draco, she didn't understand why. It's not as if she had been raised by her mother. She didn't even remember the woman, save for that awful interaction her first night at Hogwarts. And Draco seemed to have been far more susceptible to the pureblood teaching than herself, seeing as it was clear to anyone that her best friends included a muggleborn, a halfblood, and a 'bloodtraitor,' though she hated that term.
So why was the professor so hell bent on learning about her ties to the dark arts.
As if the universe were listening in on her thoughts, she rounded the corner to the corridor of the Fat Lady's painting only to run straight into the chest of yet another character who had developed an interest with her.
"I'm so sorry!" the boy exclaimed, picking up the collection of both of their items that had littered the floor in the collision. She couldn't see the boy's face, given that he was bent over kindly picking up their things, but she noticed the thick Russian-sounding accent that coated his words.
"No, it's okay, I was distracted," she insisted, joining him in a squatting position to clean up the mess. On the grounds, their eyes met and both smiled.
"Gaia," Mikhail said with a twinkle in his eyes. "Well I am especially sorry that it is you with whom I was so clumsy."
"You're fine, I promise," Gaia blushed as she picked up the last quill and stood on her feet. "It was as much my fault as yours."
Mikhail rose as well, leaving her looking up slightly into his eyes, which were a few inches higher than her own. She noticed now how soft they were in color, a light coco with flecks of green around the pupil.
"I thought everyone would have been at dinner by now," she prompted, trying to start a conversation after she caught herself lingering in his eyes for just too long.
"Well, I was on my way there now," he responded.
Gaia nodded, and was about to reply when he kept speaking.
"Gaia, would you... care to join me for dinner? I would love to get to know you a little better."
Her heart jumped. This was the first time, ever, that a boy had shown interest in her.
It was thrilling.
"I'm so sorry, Mikhail," she responded with a deflated sigh. "I would love to, but I've got detention during dinner for the rest of the week."
"Detention?" he asked, a lighthearted smirk on his face. "What did you do to land that?"
"Nothing exciting, I assure you," she replied with a chuckle. "Just blabbed a little too much."
"Well, you do seem like a talkative girl," he said with a chuckle of his own.
You would be surprised.
"Well, I would love to take a raincheck on dinner," she replied with a wide smile.
"Raincheck?" he questioned confusedly. Gaia laughed, it must have not been a common saying in wherever Durmstrang was.
"It means I'll take you up on that offer another time," she answered, and his scrunched brows turned into a smile to match her own.
"I would be delighted," he said with a flirtatious tone. "Well, as much as I enjoy being here with you, I'd hate to make you late to your detention, so I won't keep you any longer."
Before she could reply, he reached out his hand to softly grab her own. His skin was so soft, she noted as the breath caught in her throat. Gently, he lifted her hand to press a kiss to her fingers. Gaia could have fainted. As his lips left her hand, he lifted his eyes to meet hers, and noticed her slightly agape mouth. With a smile, he said "Have a good night, Gaia," before passing her and walking down the corridor from which she had come many minutes prior.
The young Gryffindor stood there, shellshocked. What had she possibly done to warrant the attention of such a charming older boy, and how could she ensure that she didn't lose it?
After close to a minute of standing still and processing, she finally pulled herself together and shook her head, which seemed to be the only way to physically get rid of the thoughts buzzing all around it, as if shaking bugs out of her vicinity.
"Save the swooning for later," she told herself. "Still have three hours of detention to get through."
With the reality check, she pulled one foot in front of the other and finished her walk to the Fat Lady.
Instead of asking for the password however, the older woman in the painting smiled. "Who was that?"
Gaia, smiling, ignored her. "Balderdash," she stated.
"Who?" the Fat Lady replied.
"Balderdash. That's the password."
"Oh," the Fat Lady responded, deflated. Instead of opening her door, however, she just kept chatting as if the two were old friends catching up. "You know I hear a lot, just sitting here on the wall, but nothing's quite as good as getting the news straight from the source."
Gaia, hiding her blush, replied, "There is no news! He's just a Durmstrang boy. And I'm kind of in a hurry."
"Didn't seem so hurried with Mr. Jawline, over there."
"BALDERDASH!"
"Fine, fine!" she caved, finally swinging open. Gaia stepped in, and as the portrait began to close behind her she heard the woman mutter, "Teenagers."
Gaia rolled her eyes as she stepped into the Common Room. She quickly made her way up the stairs to her dorm, entered the room and dumped the contents of her back onto her bed. They fell out messily, especially after being loosely crammed in after her interaction with Mikhail. She quickly sorted out what she would and would not need for detention, clumped the latter into a somewhat organized piled on her bed, and left the dorm room.
Suddenly anxious as to whether or not she would make it to her detention on time, she skipped down the steps two at a time and made it out of the Common Room quickly. When she made it into the corridor, the Fat Lady was already gone from her portrait. Gaia rolled her eyes as she thought that it was quite likely the woman had gone to spread her own gossip about Gaia and Mikhail to some painted friend of hers.
Gaia walked with a faster pace - in part helped by her much lighter bag - towards the dungeons. Checking her watch, she noticed she had only 8 minutes to reach the Potions classroom, which wouldn't be a problem so long as she didn't run into any interruptions.
Of course, the universe seemed to want to even out her luck for the favor that it did her with the last interruption. And Merlin forbid anything go in her favor.
"Lestrange," she heard a voice bark from behind her. She shuttered; she knew that voice.
Turning at a snail's pace, she faced Moody, who was just leaving his classroom at the opposite end of the corridor when he spotted her. He beckoned to her with his fingers.
She walked towards him as she quickly tried to explain her rush. "Sir, please, I really need to get to-"
"Why aren't you in the Great Hall?" he asked. It took a lot of energy for Gaia to avoid rolling her eyes.
"Well, as I was just saying, Sir, I really have to get to Potions. I have detention with Professor Snape that starts in just a minute so if that's all you wanted to ask then I really should-"
"How'd you wind up in detention?" he asked. Gaia could have screamed. She had already backed up several steps while explaining her predicament and hoping he'd take the hint and let her go. But of course the man would do no such thing if it made her life any easier.
She didn't bother to close the awkwardly large distance between them as she replied, "I told him off for being a bully. Can I go now?"
Instead of answer, Moody just let out a hearty bark of a laugh. "Oh yeah? And what was it Severus did to make you tell him off?"
"He was an arse to Hermione, can I go now?" She spoke at a rapid pace. She hadn't even thought before replying, and subsequently cursing to a professor, much less about another professor. But after a moment, even when it had sunk in, she couldn't have cared less. She just wanted to leave.
"Oh, your friend the muggleborn? Hm... Well, go ahead Lestrange. But let this be a lesson of what happens when you talk back to a person like Severus."
Gaia couldn't even have tried to muster up the energy to care about what his encrypted message meant this time, she just heard the invitation to leave and booked it out of the corridor. She checked her watch as she was running towards the dungeons to find that she had lost two minutes to her interaction with Moody.
Finally, she made it to the dungeons and immediately knocked on the door, out of breath. It was six on the dot. Her anger had boosted her speed as it fueled her endurance in running there.
After several seconds, Gaia grumbled with how long it was taking the professor to answer his door. She knocked again, harder this time. She lifted her wrist and watched for twenty seconds as the thinnest hand slowly closed in on the twelve at the top of the face. 6:01. It wasn't until the six o'clock was well and gone that she heard footsteps within the classroom. They approached the door, which finally swung open.
"Lestrange," Snape sneered down at her. "You're late."
Gaia couldn't muster the willpower to show respect anymore, not that she thought he deserved any. "I was here on time. I knocked at six o'clock."
"You should have arrived with enough time to be inside of the classroom before six o'clock," the man replied, his face deadpanned.
Gaia could have punched him. And she almost did say something she'd later regret, but he turned on his heel and glided into his classroom, muttering a simple, "Come in," behind him.
The girl seriously considered turning tail and running, but thought better of it. This was the consequence for missing one detention on accident. She could only imagine the punishment of missing multiple on purpose.
So she sucked up every ounce of her pride and entered the room, shutting the door behind her.
"For your scheduled detention yesterday," the man began, "I was planning on having you clean out all of my shelves. But since you missed that one and we'll be spending a little more time together, I want to do something that might have a bit more of an impact on your attitude."
Gaia contained a sigh as she stood with her arms folded over her chest. It's only four days, she thought to herself.
"Please take out a quill and several sheets of parchment while I write the message that you are to repeat on the board."
Gaia took a seat and pulled out the instructed items. When she had five sheets, a quill and two jars of ink, she looked at the board where the professor was just finishing his writing and stepping aside for her to read.
Gaia read the words. The only reason she remained deadpan was because she was well aware of Snape's eyes boring into her and she did not plan on giving him the satisfaction of a reaction or an outburst. Instead, she picked up a quill, dipped it in the ink and scratched out the first line onto her parchment.
I must remember my place.
She thought writing lines was one of the most humiliating punishments, just being forced to concede. The best way to get through it was just to stay silent and write, which took biting back a good chuck of one's pride.
So, line after line, she wrote. I must remember my place. I must remember my place. I must remember my place. I must remember my place.
By the end of the three hours, she was halfway down her second jar of ink and had been forced to pull out a sixth sheet of parchment. She glanced at the clock to find that it was tree minutes past nine. Thinking that Snape must have been satisfied, she laid the pieces of parchment in a stack atop one another and stood up. Her legs were in need of the stretch as she walked to the professor's desk and extended the stack to him, wordlessly. He didn't even glance up from the essay he was grading, (the words, 'A troll could have written this, see me after class' were printed in red ink and large letters). He took the stack from her hand before he finally set down his own quill and looked up at her.
"I apologize Miss Lestrange, I forgot to tell you when you arrived," his face remained stony as he spoke, making direct eye contact with the girl.
"What?" Gaia shot out. She hadn't done anything wrong. She wrote the lines, she sat quietly, and she didn't try to turn them in early.
"I've established a new policy this year regarding my detentions. Any student who is late will serve one more hour than originally planned."
Gaia couldn't even stop her mouth from falling open at the sheer audacity of the man sitting in front of her. He couldn't be serious.
"I got here on time," she spoke very slowly through gritted teeth.
"You should have come with enough spare time to be inside the classroom no matter what unexpected interruptions may occur. Surely I do not have to explain to you what a first year should know."
"But you were the one who made me late!"
"Would you like it to become two extra hours, Miss Lestrange?"
She didn't hesitate before going back to her seat and pulling out several more supplies. She couldn't let her anger get the better of her any more than it already had. She just wanted to get back to the common room and sleep. And this was the quickest way to do that.
I must remember my place. I must remember my place. I must remember my place. I must remember my place.
Her fingers cramped. The was ink smudged on her hand. Her head was pounding from sheer anger. She was exhausted. She was so hungry. She wished she hadn't told Harry not to bring her any food.
Finally, after checking the clock nearly every two minutes, it was 10:01. She forcefully pushed herself and her stool back from the desk and roughly piled her two remaining papers together before all but stomping to Snape's desk for the second time that night and thrusting her papers to him. He looked up, sluggishly, and took them, stacking them below the previous six. She didn't waste a minute before stomping quickly back to her seat and throwing her stuff back into her bag.
"Not so fast, Miss Lestrange," Snape's voice drawled from the front of the room.
"What now?" she nearly yelled, throwing her hands up in the air.
"Tone," he reprimanded. She didn't say anything, nor did she change her expression. "I'm required to look through all of your lines and approve them before you may leave."
"I've never heard of that," she challenged, closing her eyes and clenching her fists at her side to prevent another outburst.
"Well, many of my colleagues skip the finer details of protocols but I believe in thoroughly following the rules of the establishment. So, if you please." He gestured to the stool that her butt had become quite familiar with.
"I'll stand."
"Suit yourself," he replied, before he started slowly dragging his eyes across her papers, checking every single word. Gaia was glad that when the thought had popped into her head to write 'You must remember to kiss my arse,' she had ignored it.
At 10:20, Gaia finally left the Potions classroom. She hadn't bothered to ask Snape for a detention pass, since he had officially kept her past curfew. She was too heated up to even care if she ran into Filch.
She stormed off towards the nearest bathroom and dropped her bag on the tile floor. She faced herself in the mirror. She didn't look angry anymore. She just looked tired.
She turned on the faucet and cupped her hands under the stream of water. She splashed the cold liquid in her face several times before turning it off and facing herself once again.
She didn't look anymore lively. All it had done was make her mascara run and cloud around her eyes.
But she always felt better after using that trick, whether it helped her physical appearance anymore or not.
She picked up her bag and finished her trek to the Gryffindor Tower.
When she arrived at the Fat Lady's portrait, she was seemingly tired as well, as she didn't try to pester anymore on Gaia's interaction with Mikhail. She just accepted the password and went back to sleep. When Gaia entered the Common Room at half past ten, she wasn't expecting to see anyone in there. Most students migrated to their dorm rooms by this point in the night.
So one could imagine her surprise when she saw Harry Potter sitting on the couch.
Gaia's plan had been to walk into an empty Common Room, trudge up the stairs, enter her dorm, and not speak to a single person before dropping her bag and falling on her bed for sleep. But when she saw Harry lightly asleep, resting his head on his fist which was supported by the arm of the couch, a transfiguration book laying open and discarded on the floor, she couldn't help but push aside her sleepiness for her friend.
She walked over to the sitting area of the common room. She didn't want to wake him, so she avoided sitting on the couch for fear of shifting his weight. Instead, she opted for the large, comfortable armchair to his right. As she sat, however, the chair betrayed her and let out a low creaking under her weight, just enough to wake the boy from his light sleep.
Harry lifted his head, looking around the room in a disheveled manner. His hair was a mess and his glasses laid diagonally across his face. He reached up to lay them straight across his nose, and as he blinked the sleep from his eyes he recognized the previously blurry outline sitting in the chair as his friend.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," Gaia apologized at the same moment that Harry exclaimed, albeit sleepily, "You're back!"
The two shared a light laugh and a pause of silence before the boy spoke again.
"I was worried when you weren't back on time," he confessed. "Hermione and I were down here studying and she said she was sure you'd be back soon and she was gonna go take a shower. I think she may have fallen asleep though. I wanted to stay and make sure you got back, but I guess I fell asleep too."
Gaia couldn't fight the tingling feeling in her chest that he cared to stay down for her. "Thank you, Harry," she stated genuinely. "I had the worst detention."
She then explained to him the events of the night, starting from when she arrived at Snape's door. She didn't feel like telling him more about the situation with Moody, and she didn't think he'd be too interested in anything going on with her and Mikhail.
"And then after almost twenty minutes of reading my lines, the git just says, 'Approved,' and throws them away. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, and the whole time I was just so tired and wanted to go to bed." By the end, her tone had become almost whiny, as if she was on the verge of letting tears spill, which she hated the thought of.
"Merlin, he's the worst," Harry stated. "I'm sorry, Gaia. We don't have to stay and talk, I know you want to get to bed."
She felt better just from being able to get it all out to someone who really listened and validated her.
"Are you going to be up much longer?" she asked him curiously.
Harry thought for a moment. "I don't really know. I mean, I was tired, but I'm not as much after my power nap."
She smiled, and stood from her chair. As she stretched her limbs, Harry assumed she was getting ready to walk upstairs and fall asleep, but instead, she came over and squeezed herself between the couch and the coffee table and sat down next to him. Pretty close, next to him, he noticed.
He wasn't sure what to say to her because he didn't know what she wanted. Just then, he remembered something.
"Oh!" the boy exclaimed, leaning forward and peaking under the many books spread across the table which neither he nor Hermione had cleaned up. "I almost forgot."
Gaia lifted her head from her leaned back position to watch him move aside some loose sheets of parchment and pick up the bowl that was sitting underneath them. Leaning back, he handed the dish to Gaia.
"I know you told me not to bring anything back for you, but I figured you wouldn't have wanted to miss your favorite."
Gaia looked down at the bowl of macaroni and cheese sitting in her lap and smiled. Harry was right, it was her favorite thing that the Hogwarts kitchens served, and she'd have been quite upset if she found out she had unknowingly turned it down.
"I mean it's kind of cold now-" Harry started to say sheepishly.
"I love it," Gaia declared immediately, a tired smile across her face. "I love it. You're amazing, seriously."
She brought her gaze back to the delicious-looking bowl in her lap and grabbed the spoon. As the first bite entered her mouth, she didn't care at all about the temperature, it felt comforting.
She groaned happily at the taste, making the boy next to her laugh. "Good?" he asked jokingly.
"It's like drugs," she replied as she stuffed an extra large bite in her mouth. He laughed again at her blissful state.
They didn't say much as the older girl finished the entire bowl happily and set it back down on the table.
"You seriously know me so well," she stated as she leaned against the back of the couch. Harry gave her a look that said he didn't understand what she meant. "Staying up for me. Listening to me rant. The mac and cheese even though I didn't ask. You know me better than I do." Her eyes landed on the ceiling above her and she melted further into the comfort of the cushions.
The boy couldn't think of how to reply to that. He set his eyes straight ahead and let his mind drift, though most of his thoughts stayed on the girl next to him. After a moment, he leaned back too.
As Gaia closed her eyes and began to feel sleep overcoming her, she leaned her head to rest on Harry's shoulder. The boy froze, unsure of what to do. Had she passed out?
But as a waft of her coconut-scented shampoo drifted up to his nose, he felt himself relax.
Soon enough, they both fell asleep side by side, leaning on each other.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
a/n: guys oh my god i'm fighting my melatonin writing this right now and i'm passing out as soon as i finish this note but so much happened in this chapter and i really wanted to finish it all before going to sleep. because i am so tired right now i apologize because there's probably some typos in here, oh well. but on a slightly more serious note i do want to address something about this series and that's gaia and mikhail and their age gap. of course there's no relationship between them right now, just some flirting but it's clear that even at this stage in their dynamic there are somewhat romantic feelings involved on at least one side right. and i just want to say that while this is a plot point of this book, in no way do i endorse a relationship between a 14yo and a 17yo. i really want to address that because of course fandom talks about how hermione's age gap with viktor was never really addressed in the book, and neither will gaia and mikhail's, so i'd like to explain the reason why that is here. a lot of people talk about how hermione and viktor didn't start having a relationship until she was 15 since her birthday is in september. at this point in this book, gaia is 14 because if you remember her birthday is in december. but either way, these are not relationships to be endorsed, fictional or real. i am writing mikhail with the sort of pretext that he is mysterious, and gaia doesn't know a lot about him or his intentions, but she is a teenage girl who's never had interest in her shown before and he is really a kind and charming guy to her. i'm not saying that mikhail is a good or bad character because i don't want to say where i'm planning on taking him of course, but i did just want everyone to be aware that while gaia and mikhail flirt, and while hermione and viktor have a sort of relationship, things are a bit different in a magical wizarding school in which many students are planned to enter arranged marriages at early ages in the 90's that they are by the standards we are used to now. and similarly to how we don't really see anyone in the canon harry potter books raise concern over hermione and viktor's relationship, we won't really see much concern raised over gaia and mikhail's thing that they've got going on, because in the wizarding world it was more common for teenagers of several years apart to be in relationships, especially within strict pureblood families.
anyway, i hope all that helps to clear some things up! i love you all so so much! please, if you can, keep voting and please consider commenting and letting me know your thoughts, i would seriously love to hear them!! okay now it's 3:24am so i am off to let my melatonin win because i have work in the morning so have a beautiful morning/afternoon/evening/night/super-late-night-like-12am-to-5:30am-to-all-of-you-who-are-insomniacs-like-me!!
muah! <3