Her friends weren't back from their own classes yet, so Carmilla took a very thick slice of banana bread and headed back up the unpredictable staircases to find her discarded book bag.
She stuck her tongue out at a few older Slytherins who jeered at her from a dark corner before finding the witch statue again. Thankfully her bag was still there, but apparently, she had wedged it in too tightly in the first place. As she tugged violently at the bag, she elbowed the stone.
It moved, and she fell back with a shriek.
Carmilla was on the floor, daring it to move again, when she realised that the mechanics, or magic, for a trapdoor behind it must have been triggered. A thick smell wafted through. Thankfully it was not of blood, but sweets.
She sighed in delight, sniffing the delicious air. One perk of having a weirdly amazing sense of smell was when she was in front of the dark dirt tunnel that must lead to a lolly shop of some sort. Dust crumbled from the hole in the wall, and Carmilla had a deep regret that she couldn't investigate the amazing scent.
She made yet another mental note to come back later in the week and shoved the stone statue back into place.
Carmilla made her way down a few floors and back to the charms classroom she was itching to see again. The Ravenclaws had the charms lesson to themselves, as Professor Flitwick was their head of house, so Carmilla could look forward to it without having to put up with nagging Gryffindors and their need to launch bacon at her head.
The short teacher was standing on a stack of books that wobbled on top of his chair. He was writing instructions on the blackboard behind him while students trickled into the classroom, lunch in their hands.
People were already pulling their wands out and one boy went to sleep in the back. Third years were expected to have read the assigned books and retained some of what they'd learnt last year, so there were no explanations for what Carmilla was to do.
"Welcome back to another year everyone! We won't start off the year with anything too hard, so we're learning the Supernatet charm. Can anyone tell me what it is?" Professor Flitwick asked, finishing his diagram and turning around. The smell of raspberry donuts filled the room, and Carmilla turned to see a group to her right sharing a plate they must've taken from the great hall.
Angela put her hand up.
"Angela?"
"The Supernatet charm causes the object to float in the air for at least five minutes, depending on how long the user concentrates on it, Supernatet means float in Latin." Angela took a donut that was offered to her.
Carmilla zoned out as their teacher went over the safety rules of the lesson, choosing to draw a little bat on the corner of her desk with her quill instead. She was still getting used to using the small metal part at the end of the feather that tended to get in her way instead of the ballpoint pens everyone normally used.
A few girls came in late, with soaked hair dripping down their backs. It wasn't raining outside, even though it looked like it might.
"How did it go?" Flitwick asked, peering at them.
"Badly," one girl said, ringing out her robes, which had a faint glittery pattern on the black fabric. A small tentacle fell from the folds of her clothes. "We completely miscalculated everything."
He nodded with a sigh and went back to the essays he was marking. Carmilla was drawing the little claws on the end of the wings carefully when everyone started pulling out their books. She turned to June. "I thought we were doing the charm?"
"We are. On the books." June chuckled, placing hers in front of her. Carmilla huffed, before taking out the green hardcover charms book once she found it under the pile in her bag.
"I thought we would get to do it on each other, or something."
June raised a thin eyebrow. She was wearing leaf shaped earrings today. "Can you imagine all the ways that could go wrong?"
A loud crash startled everyone.
The girls turned to see that someone's book had flown the wrong way and out of a nearby window, shattering the stained glass that used to depict a unicorn. Flitwick just repaired the glass with a flick of his own wand.
Ace smiled guiltily from her seat next to Angela, and Carmilla passed her the book with the dark winged horse on it she had taken from that little disappearing room. She went back to her own book and waved her wand at it. "Supernatet."
"The diagram on the board says to flick it, not wave it around."
"Oh, right," Carmilla said, glancing around to see everyone flicking their wands, except for that kid sleeping in the back. "Thanks."
It took her a few more tries, and then an extended interval in which Ace spoke in an American accent until everyone had to try the charm in different voices as well.
One of the girls that had gone for a swim, or something along those lines, managed to hover the book after yodelling the charm.
"Supernatet." Carmilla flicked her wand slightly and realised the grubby man with two moustaches who sold it to her was right. It was good at charms.
A little too good.
Her book floated and wobbled in the air for a minute, before dipping, doing a spin that nearly took someone eye out, and then shooting across the classroom. It hit a windchime and kept going.
Carmilla waved her wand at the book hopefully, but it continued barrelling towards Flitwick.
Professor Flitwick was knocked off his stack of books onto the ground, and her book hit the wall and then fell to the ground with a pathetic little thump.
The class hardly even looked up, probably used to the chaos, but Carmilla sped over to the teacher, who was sitting on the ground looking a bit dazed. She was eager not to get her second detention in the first week of class. "I'm so sorry, that was an accident."
"Accidents happen!" He chortled, standing back up on his tower of books.
The potions classroom sucked. It utterly sucked.
Gross steam wafted everywhere, moss grew on the stone wall, and the teacher wouldn't stop making terrible jokes. Other than that, the class itself was fine. The Ravenclaws were with the Hufflepuffs, so Angela and Carmilla were seated at the tables of four with Ophelia and one of her friends.
Vials of colourful bubbling potions lined the shelves behind Professor Slughorn's desk and cauldron, and every time he bumped into something, they would shake in their holders.
She had her potions book open and was drawing a picture of a slug with spiked horns in the margin of a page with an illustration of a frothy pink potion in a heart shaped vial. It looked far more interesting than the brewing of Sternutatio, a potion that made you sneeze.
While Ophelia and her friend went to get the ingredients for the sneezing potion, which was supposed to turn clear and popping, Angela turned to her conspiringly, her brown hair falling over her shoulder. It was very hot in the steamy dungeon. She had her sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
Carmilla stared at her for a moment, and then rolled her eyes. "Just tell me."
Angela battered her eyelashes cheekily. Carmilla noticed that her eyelids had a golden lining. "The defence teacher is so hot, isn't he?"
Carmilla made a choking sound that attracted a few concerned glances from other students. Her knee jerked up, nearly knocking the cauldron over. "What are talking about?"
"He's just so young and handsome...." Angela gazed into the distance dreamily as Ophelia and her friend came over, arms full of vials and sprigs of herbs. "He can't be over, what? Twenty-five? And his cheekbones!"
"Whatever you say," Carmilla muttered, and took the tray of dried newt's tails. She picked up one of the little slicing tools and began cutting the tails into thin strips.
Angela was grinding down the lavender onto the chopping board in front of her, when she decided the conversation was actually not over. She turned to Ophelia, "don't you think the new defence teacher is hot?"
"I mean, he has a nice ass, but he's way older than you. And he gives out far too many detentions," Ophelia's friend replied casually. Carmilla only gagged and stirred in the milky looking water they were tipping in so that the newt tails wouldn't burn and shrivel up like onions in a pan.
The conversation made her shudder. Not just because she had a newfound deep hatred for the defence teacher, but because it was just... wrong. He was their teacher, to start with, and obviously [hopefully] Angela wasn't about to go do anything about her crush, but it was still pretty gross.
It wasn't an unusual topic for a group of fourteen-year girls, though, Carmilla was an expert on boy talk and gossip.
She'd grown up buck wild with her sisters in a town just a train ride out of London's filthiest corners, but it was always about whichever boy Rose had given an extra stick of gum to when she was working at the corner store. She wanted to go dancing in nice shoes with flirty boys from the private school up the road. Dawn's obsession with marrying a rich man was a common one in the underfunded catholic girls home. She wanted pearls and tea cakes and trips to the fanciest parts of Europe.
Carmilla wasn't as interested in boys. Mainly because she was one of the oldest girls, and she'd been there the longest. She was sick of bandaging up scrapes and washing stains out of her skirts and putting the twins in time out. Everyone knows that a husband means children, and she'd had her share of them by age fourteen already.
The newt tail strips hissed, and she stirred them clockwise. She was destined to become a teacher, the most respectable job a woman could have if they weren't married. Because women can't be smart and have a husband.
The teacher who lived just out of town with no family and a sheepdog was her destiny. Or the crooning singer in the corner of a pub who did things no one talked about in front of Mistress Theeny.
She didn't say that to Angela and the Hufflepuff girls. She hadn't even told Dawn and Rose that, but there was no need to. They knew too.
Women's futures were very bleak, and that of a poor women's was even bleaker.
Carmilla wondered if she was allergic to sheepdogs while she sprinkled in some of the ground herbs and let Angela take over stirring. She went back to the little drawings in the book she couldn't read.
A poor woman who was also the devil incarnate didn't have many options.
That being said, Carmilla was still human. Well... sort of. In the poetic sense. And she was great at boy talk.
Carmilla wanted one that didn't wear a cross necklace and would let her draw on his hands when she ran out of space on her own. She wanted good music and a pretty boy that wouldn't chase her with a pitchfork or scoff when she said she wanted to learn everything there was to learn. She wanted real feelings and maybe someone with cool shoes she could borrow so she didn't have to wear these stupid little ones the school assigned.
She blinked, and then realised through the sickly haze of the potions dungeon that she had to add the Fluxweed.
After Slughorn had finished cleaning up a Hufflepuff boy's potion that had exploded everywhere, he strolled over the girl's table. Angela, Ophelia, and her friend packed up the little card game they'd pulled out.
The potion had to simmer for a few minutes before Carmilla could bottle it and then hand it in, but it was as translucent and glassy as water, and it didn't smell like burnt vinegar and the fancy cheeses sold at the cornerstone.
"Ah! Girls, this looks perfect, five points to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff each! Oh, and Ms King, could I speak to you after class?"
Carmilla nodded quickly, silently hoping he hadn't seen the slug drawing on her potions book. He left, whistling merrily, and Carmilla turned to her friends in confusion. "What did-"
"Slug club," the three girls managed to say in perfect unison.
"He's going to invite you to the slug club, he picks out the best students of each year, either the really smart ones or people with famous relatives or students he just thinks are gonna do great things," Ophelia explained, putting her book into her bag. It had yellow and black tassels. She shrugged. "He hosts parties and such, kind of boring, but the foods brilliant. I'm in it because my auntie plays as beater for the Kenmar Kestrels."
Carmilla secretly hoped that she wasn't invited, or if she was, it was because she was good at potions. Or running later to classes with the strictest teachers. She knew if she was though, there was only one reason Slughorn could see something great, or exciting about her.
Angela patted her on the shoulder as she went up to give him the finished sneezing potion, which had all of their names on it. They left the classroom with the last few students, and Carmilla walked up to the rack on the teacher's desk. She put their vial next to all the others, wrinkling her nose as the overpowering smell of, well, an explosion, came from someone else's.
"Ms King, oh don't worry, you're not in trouble!" Professor Slughorn chortled. "Quite the opposite, I'm inviting you to my exclusive club!"
He began sorting through the potions, even tipping a few of the less clear and bubbling ones into the bin. He pulled out a marking sheet and Carmilla glanced towards the door. Was that all he had to say?
He looked up, quill etching letters as he spoke, "the next meeting will be a few days after the first Hogsmeade trip. I'll send a student to tell you the date once I've got one. Quidditch practises throws everyone's schedule off. It's a nightmare, believe me."
"Right... and what's the club for?"
"Well, you best be off, don't want to miss dinner!" he chuckled, ignoring her question, and turning back to the failed grade he was giving someone.
Carmilla grabbed her bag off the table and shut the book with the slug drawing on the side. It only confirmed the suspicion of his not subtle and feeble grabs at fame if he couldn't think of a reasonable excuse.
Also, dinner was in two hours.
okay so I know that there isn't a lot of marauder content happening right now but its coming don't worry. i have to set out the characters and plot lines first too. but...
...forced proximity is out best friend!
<3