"Okay, let's get down to business."
"What is this business? You labelling my herbology diagram?" June asked, making a sandwich with enough peanut butter to feed an elephant.
Carmilla couldn't blame her, though. Lunch was a very nice meal. There was much more casual food and students could sit wherever they liked, not that Carmilla had anyone else to sit with. It was a bit like a giant picnic. It reminded her of the picnics Mistress Theeny took the girls on in the meadow with the lake and the daisy's just out of town. There were always a lot of dragonfly's.
"Quidditch!"
"I thought the trials were like, ages away?" Carmilla asked Ace through a mouthful of dumplings she had grabbed from further down the table.
They had become her favourite food very quickly. Apart from raspberry tarts. And the bitter lemonade from the end of the Hufflepuff table that Ophelia and Heather brought over sometimes when they had new gossip.
"Actually, my fellow dumpling, they are on Friday." When Ace got no response from either girl, she huffed and repeated herself. "This Friday."
It was Tuesday. Carmilla choked on her dumpling. "Huh?"
"Exactly. Which means you aren't allowed anymore detentions. We have to practise." Ace said seriously. "I am making the team"
Carmilla could see the wideness of her eyes and the set of her mouth when she talked about Quidditch. It was like Flitwick with his students and Angela with boys and statistics and Hagrid with his pets and pumpkins and Sirius with the music he ranted at her about for forty minutes straight in detention. She had checked the clock. It was forty minutes.
June was side eyeing someone behind them.
"I can't make any promises" Carmilla mumbled into her bowl of soy sauce and floating vegetables. She didn't want to agree to anything along those lines, because if she met those Hufflepuff boys again, she knew it would be incredibly hard to restrain herself from punching their noses and breaking that guy's other wrist.
"Carmilla?"
She turned around, putting her dumplings down. Her mood brightened considerably once she realised her possible dumpling eating time was not going to be wasted on some loser.
"Charlie. Hey, how are you?" she asked him.
June and Ace hadn't seemed to be finished sending him not quite unfriendly but not quite friendly looks at the Slytherin boy, so Carmilla grabbed her bag of books from under her seat. "We've got Care of magical creatures together next, right?"
Charlie seemed thankful for the chance to escape the glares, so the two of them left the hall in search of the warm sunshine and easy double period ahead of them, thoughts of dumplings quickly forgotten.
"Have you had this class yet?" the brown-haired boy asked her.
"Nope, it's my first elective ever," Carmilla said. She'd given McGonagall her elective slip a few days ago after ticking off the interesting ones. Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, and Muggle Studies. The latter was mainly so she could learn how to act like a muggle. In the least creepy way possible.
"Well, you picked a good one. It's pretty easy, if animals like you. That's including the teacher."
"Professor Slug likes me, so I should be good." She chuckled quietly. Then she heard a strange whistling behind her, a bit like the sound of the tinfoil snitches she and Ace had practised with.
She turned just in time to see something large flying at her head. She ducked. It skimmed her head anyways, so it obviously it wasn't aimed at her. That was even more obvious when it hit a certain greasy haired boy who was walking in front of them.
Severus turned around with a withering glare, his eyes locking onto Carmilla and Charlie, who were trying and failing to hide their smiles.
He looked a bit like an angry crow. That wasn't an insult. Carmilla looked like a tired crow.
"It wasn't me! It was-" Carmilla turned around to point at whoever had thrown the hardcover book from behind them, but stopped when she saw that no one was there.
Snape looked murderous as Charlie let a giggle slip.
"I swear, I didn't throw it...." She muttered, picking up the book that was now in the still slightly muddy grass. It had a picture of some creepy shadow thing coming out of a cupboard, and big gold lettering that Carmilla couldn't read.
She threw it in the direction it had come from, a muffled shriek came from the empty air the book collided with.
"See!" Carmilla called back at the oily and angry boy while she was being dragged away by a still laughing Charlie.
"You didn't even help me," she sulked, following him to where the Ravenclaw and Slytherin students were gathered on the lawn.
"It was fun to watch."
Carmilla rolled her eyes. After collecting a twig fairy each, which were called bow truckles, they took the creatures to a dry patch of grass. Today they were supposed to be drawing the bow truckle they'd picked out to then label.
The diagrams were the only way Carmilla was doing well at her classes at this point. June and Ace were making their way through the textbooks, so she wasn't behind in class anymore, and June was teaching her the alphabet, but it was slow going.
There was only so many times you could deal with Ace jumping out from behind something and quizzing you on which letter is which before you went insane.
"Stay still you little prick! ...Wait no I didn't mean it like that, come back, I love you!"
Carmilla mourned her escaped bow truckle, who was now running at full pelt towards a welcoming Charlie. Animals didn't like her. Taking into account that she was half vampire; it was to be expected. They probably smelt the fangs and the goth float off her from a mile away, but since she couldn't tell anyone about that, she just looked dumb.
"You just have to be careful and kind." Charlie lectured her. He was now holding both of their green twig animals in each hand.
"I am being careful." She huffed, drawing the little leaf on 'her' bow truckles legs. It was currently sitting on top of Charlies head, bending a little in the breeze. She hoped it wouldn't snap.
"Are you though?" he asked.
Carmilla shot him a glare and went back to her drawing. She was thankful it was something she could do, but she would still much rather be finishing the painting of Hagrid's hut. She only had the ivy growing up the walls and the funny little magical plants growing out of old teapots by the door to do.
Students ran from the greenhouse on the other side of the ground, and the Care of Magical Creatures class all turned to watch an explosion destroy the fragile building. They went back to their drawings.
They sat in silence, save the occasional groan from Charlie when he screwed up his diagram and started again. Carmilla traced the outline of the beady eyes. It was nice with Charlie; she didn't feel like she had to be faking and hiding the whole time.
She wasn't making sure she didn't let anything slip about her illiteracy or absent parents or orphanage upbringing or bloodsucking urges.
She pulled out a bag of fizzing whizzbees from her cloak pocket and ate one, setting the bag on the ground between them. It was from Honeydukes. She didn't tell anyone that, except for Ace and June of course. She couldn't not spill the beans about how she may have followed a dirt tunnel out of Hogwarts and into the basement of a lolly shop in the town a snowy walk away.
Ace had become very excited, even though June insisted if she took anymore sweets, she should probably leave some knuts behind. Carmilla went back on Monday and took liquorice wands and pepper imps.
That silenced the moral protests.
Charlie ate a fizzing whizzbee. "What was your friend saying about quidditch? The pretty one with the pink hair?"
"Ace?" Carmilla asked, picking a chunk of popping candy like stuff from between her tooth and her fang. "We're going to try out for the team on Friday, she said I should go for seeker."
Charlie grinned, sugar on his chin. "Me too. Well, for the Slytherin team, obviously. And I'm trying out for beater, but I made it last year, so I should get in. We have to attend tryouts each year though."
"Hopefully, I'll see you in the air soon then."
"I rise!"
"Thanks for that, A." June muttered, slowly shuffling out of her bed. Sass was dragged across the dark floorboards, his teeth embedded in one of her fluffy slippers while she walked.
Carmilla stayed beneath her puffy duvet for a few more minutes until both girls were done in the bathroom, showering with neon shampoo and putting on mascara that glittered, until she could quickly slip into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. June and Ace seemed to be used to Carmilla's habits. Habits meaning the way she had to not talk much after it got dark and hide until she had her cherry-coloured lipstick on and her fangs hidden every morning.
Carmilla was enjoying Hogwarts and would actually rather not get kicked out in her second week.
Once she had her skirt [she had hoped wizards and witches might be a bit more progressive, but if anything, they were going backwards. She wasn't allowed to wear pants] and white button up on, Carmilla went in search of her navy blue and bronze tie. Which Sass stole every night to chew on, meaning it was hide and seek with her school uniform as she looked under pillows and plant pots.
"Junebug... the fern underneath my bed is kind of in the way." Carmilla said, looking down at the plant poking out largely from both sides of Carmilla's bed like a fluffy rug.
It was kind of in the way, considering Carmilla had to leap over it from her bed every morning and night.
"I'll prune it in the afternoon. Speaking of, you have divination last, after me and Ace." June said, picking out her books for the day from one of the multiple shelves.
Ace was underneath June's bed looking for odd socks, but they could hear her muffled voice all the same. "With the loony teacher! Hecate Trelawney or something like that. Anyway, she's batshit crazy."
Hecate Trelawney was in fact the divination teacher's name.
And she was in fact a bit... batshit crazy. She had on a long dark purple robe, with light purple drapery hanging off her back and arms, giving it all a ghostly effect.
Her dark skin made her yellow eyes pop, and her frazzled hair stuck up around her head in springs and coils. Currently, she was standing with her back to the class, facing the large window at the front of her room dramatically.
There was a bored silence throughout the classroom as they waited for her to finish 'gazing into the future.'
The classroom was strange enough in itself, Carmilla had had to trek up multiple flights of stairs and then climb up a ladder and through a trap door to get up to it. She made a mental note to add it to her map, which was nearly finished.
The students were gathered around, seated on faded green cushions and pouffes, stools with crystal balls and packs of cards between every few groupings. The large round window was the only source of natural light, the rest coming from glowing crystals and candles that smelt of peppermint and dust. The roof was very high up, canary cages with things Teqi couldn't see from where she was, attached to it.
Carmilla picked up the crystal ball in front of her, looking into its misty pink swirls. She didn't see anything about her future. Unless her future involved cotton candy or sunset clouds.
She put it back onto the little wooden stand and drummed her fingers on her knee.
The trap door creaked and a few students climbed up into the classroom. Their teacher didn't even turn as they filled the last few seats, popping gum and tying their hair up. Carmilla looked up when a black girl she'd never seen before stopped in front of her.
"Sorry," she said, pushing her braids over her shoulder. They had silver bands threaded through them. "Some fucker took my seat; can I sit here?"
"Sure," Carmilla said, and the girl sat on the cushion next to her with a yawn.
She took a plastic Tupperware container out of her bag and opened it. Next she brought out a fork and a bottle of chocolate sauce, as well as some napkins, setting them all on the low table in front of both girls.
She tipped chocolate sauce onto the waffles she had brought to class, and began eating them while Professor Trelawney swept the curtains across the large window dramatically, a large waft of dust expelling from them as she did so.
Carmilla flinched with everyone else in the class when the teacher's headlamp eyes widened and she rushed forwards.
"My darlings! We will be doing Ceromancy today! I sense a prophecy among us!" She called out, then pointed wildly to a shelf full of rose patterned China bowls, many chips and cracks covering them like they were the answer to everything.
Once everyone was seated with their broken bowls full of water, the teacher came around with a tray full of lit candles.
Carmilla stared at the obvious fire hazard, considering the multitude of torn fabrics hanging off the teacher at the moment. The theory was that once the wax hit the water, it would spread through it in shapes and symbols.
There was a whole chapter on it actually, but Carmilla had just looked at the few pictures and then got the gist of the thing. How hard could it be?
The girl next to her just kept eating her waffles. Carmilla held her own candle over the bowl of water. She waited a moment, and then watched as a few drops of hot wax rolled down the candle and into the flat water, causing ripples. They sunk to the bottom and formed a little pebble of candle, but as more dropped into it, at a quickening pace, it spread through the water and swirled around. It was quite pretty actually, and if it were a coloured candle it might look like marble.
The shapes didn't form into anything Carmilla recognised, just cloud shapes you could say were dragons or sheep if you squinted and tilted your head.
Then, if Carmilla closed one eye, it looked like a dog. One with big ears. A rabbit, maybe, or it could be a deer if the ears were antlers. Its tail grew out too much to be either animal in the end though and squished into a blob with a tail against the side of the bowl. Or it was a sperm cell. She really couldn't tell.
When the wax spread out completely and turned into a pair of wing shapes, Carmilla's eyes widened.
It totally wasn't a bat.
She stuck her fingers into the wax water and swirled it around quickly, trying to get rid of the shape. It just drifted into a squashed circle, a crescent, and then hardened at the bottom of her bowl. She left it there.
Professor Trelawny left Lily Evans, who was sitting at the back of the classroom with a frown, alone, and swayed her way over to Carmilla.
"My darling! I am seeing you!" The teacher bent over the table and stared into Carmilla's eyes a bit aggressively. Her yellow irises glowed from the candles behind her large bug like glasses, and Carmilla saw her own reflection in them.
"I'm glad your glasses are working..." She said awkwardly.
"Your future! Oh, the things you will do, a great opportunity!" Professor Trelawney said, her crooked teeth showing in her huge smile.
"Thanks."
"But, no! Betrayal! In paradise! It will hit you, where it hurts the most...." The teacher wailed, finally kneeling in front of the confused half vampire, her bony hands pressed to her heart.
"I'm... looking forward to it?"