"What's got your wand in a knot?" Esmeralda asked after a while of her awkwardly avoiding Denise's glare, which seemed almost impossible.
"My wand is perfectly okay," said Denise dryly, fishing her wand out of her robe pocket, showing it for Esmeralda for a mere second.
"It's a way of asking something, Denise," Esmeralda explained.
Denise's mouth crunched to the side of her face and after a while, she said, "Of course I knew that."
Esmeralda muttered a quick, "Sure you did." under her breath and looked up at Denise, trying to figure out what really had gotten her wand in a knot.
"Of course I know what it means, but do you do?" Denise asked after a while
"Yes, every witch and wizard at Hogwarts does," said Esmeralda, starting to suspect that Denise was not quite sure about her statement.
"Yeah, but I'm testing you, what does it mean?"
Esmeralda slightly rolled her light eyes and said, "It's another way of saying, 'What's wrong?'."
"Good that you know the definition of it, Esmeralda," Denise said dryly as she returned to her former state of glaring at Esmeralda.
"What's got your wand in a knot then?" Esmeralda asked again.
Denise's facial expression changed from angry to almost sad, but she still looked annoyed. "You are stealing my friend, Colin."
Esmeralda furrowed her eyebrows in disbelief for a mere second before she said, "Crap, I'm exposed; he's most definitely not in my backpack tied by his hands and knees."
Denise sneered and said, "Trying to be funny, eh? Well, guess what? I'm not joking, I'm being extremely serious, and you are stealing my friend."
"I'm sorry, but I literally have no idea of what you're talking about, I wouldn't dream of stealing him from you, I'm always trying to stay as far away from him as possible," Esmeralda said wondering what Denise meant.
"You're not physically stealing him, you're stealing his mind. You are all he ever thinks about and it' has gotten so bad that he never even ask how I've been." Denise said dryly, looking like she would like nothing more than to slap her across the face.
"Sorry, but I can't do anything about it, well, except for turning him into a duck, but if you wanted that, you should have asked an eternity ago, seriously, I could run a business, I'm sure I'd be richer than The Malfoys in a week or so," Esmeralda said, starting to get a bit off topic the longer she talked.
Denise pursed her lips into a straight line, before opening it again, saying, "I don't wish for a duck as a friend, just let him take that bloody picture of you, it's not like it's going to kill you or anything!"
Esmeralda thought back to her week with showering in dog drool and frog breath because of some disease with a long ass name, sure, she was done with the cure now and she had never felt better, but somehow she found herself sort of liking the 'escape the camera game'.
"I can't," Esmeralda said simply with a blank face, as though all of her emotions had been erased with a gigantic eraser.
"Yes, you can, it's just a click of a button and you're done! Please, Esmeralda, I just want my friend back!" Denise begged, on the verge of getting down on her knees in desperation.
Esmeralda had so far not had the chance to know if the cure had actually worked out or not, but she found herself somewhat feeling sorry for Denise and said, "I can't let him take a photo of me for personal reasons, but I'll come up with something, Denise, you have my word for it."
"Promise?" Denise asked, as though she had missed that part where Esmeralda said she had her word for it.
"I promise, but now I have to catch a duck," Esmeralda said and started walking slowly out of the room.
"Please tell me the duck isn't Colin," Denise begged from behind her.
Esmeralda gave a quick smile and said, "Not anymore." then she walked faster and ten minutes later, Esmeralda found herself in the library of Hogwarts, looking for a duck.
The library was almost deserted, pmost likely because it was lunch, but some people still found themselves in the gigantic ancient library. A couple of Ravenclaws sat on tables in a corner. Their noses so deep into their books: one would think their noses were touching the pages. Some Hufflepuffs sat on the floor sitting in quarter lotuses while writing down something together while laughing loudly and happily as though they just invented the dirtiest joke on the planet, which they may or may not have done. A lonely Slytherin was browsing the shelves in the horror section. Two Gryffindor were attempting to enter the Restricted Section and in one of the corners of the library, Esmeralda could see her best friend, reading, laughing, blushing and screaming like a little girl.
Wondering what could possibly be wrong with him, Esmeralda decided to slide in silently and see what was the reason for his laughing, blushing and most importantly: screaming.
When Esmeralda greeted him, Benjamin jumped up and kicked the book away in some kind of instinctive way.
Seeing it was Esmeralda, Benjamin was even more scared and yelped aloud, earning a hush and a glare from Madam Pince.
"What are you doing here?" he whispered.
Esmeralda kept her eyes at the ready. "I'm looking for a very creepy duck, have you seen it?"
Benjamin thought for a while before he seemed to have found out what was going on. "Is it a weird thing, wearing a duck suit that is thinking it's a dog?"
Esmeralda wrinkled her nose. "Probably, he sure is weird enough to do that, even as a duck." Esmeralda continued. "Do you know where he is?"
Benjamin looked intensely at a lock of hair in front of his eyes, like if it gave him superpowers or something. "He's with Madam Pince, I think she'll be happy to not be needed to having to hush it all the time and picking up poop from the floor."
"Esmeralda and Benjamin to the rescue!" Esmeralda said and posed like Superman before dragging Benjamin with her to the kind of scary Madam Pince.
After three unsuccessful attempts at escaping Esmeralda's grip and avoiding Madam Pince, the two friends found themselves waiting for Madam Pince to hook off some delivered books in a form.
Benjamin cleared his throat; Madam Pince looked up from the parchment and gave Benjamin a not-so-friendly look. Benjamin gave a fake smile back and said, "We would ... um ... like to get our duck back," Benjamin said shyly, but after seeing Madam Pince's even colder look, he quickly added a word to his statement, "please."
Madam Pince's facial expression softened slightly and the old woman found a cardboard box where Esmeralda and Benjamin could both swear they heard a quack.
"The duck has been very quiet for a duck, but knowing today's teenagers, it's probably not even a duck." Madam Pince said dully as if she could not have cared less about what students were doing outside of her precious library.
Benjamin picked up the duck and held it in a tight grip, marching silently out of the gigantic yet silent library that was very empty at the time.
Esmeralda muttered a quick, "Bye," and silently jogged behind Benjamin so she would reach up to him before they left the room.
Only when they exited the library did they realise the awkwardness of their non-existent conversation, they had nothing important to talk about at the time.
"So ..." Benjamin began. "Did you find out anything interesting about ... what's it called again?" Benjamin thought hard before he brightened and said, "Pigfarts!"
Esmeralda sighed. "I still firmly believe that it's real, but Hermione wouldn't believe that pigs could fly even if a pig was dancing samba in the air in front of her nose."
Benjamin turned left in the corridors, opened up an old wooden door that looked highly dilapidated and stepped inside a vacant classroom that the two of them had never set foot in before.
Esmeralda's mouth turned up to a smile, she almost laughed, she probably had but didn't know the reason as to why she had even started to smile or a slight laugh, then she remembered that Benjamin was still in the room and their conversation hadn't ended.
"What were you reading in the library?" Esmeralda asked after calming down from an uncontrollable random fit of laughter and a certain person had started laughing with her and then of her.
Benjamin froze and looked from his left to his right faster than you could say 'Quidditch', after a while, he seemed to have gathered an idea of some kind and said, "The bloodiest, scariest, most action filled book, of course."
Esmeralda's eyes narrowed and she crunched her mouth together; Benjamin had never seemed like the type of person to read that kind of books, he seemed more like the person that would stay up all night reading sappy romantic books. "Are you sure about that?"
Benjamin nodded before he placed the duck on a desk decorated with drawings in some Japanese style called mango or something; Esmeralda was not really an expert in that area of art.
Esmeralda looked straight into Benjamin's eyes, startling Benjamin to the point where he admitted his lie, "FINE, I was reading the sappiest romantic novel known to history! Happy?"
Esmeralda chuckled lightly and said, "Never been happier."
Benjamin ruffled his hair in awkwardness. It was not quite something that suited him, not only was it weird to see Benjamin without perfect hair, but he was also a freak when it came to his hair. It had to be perfect for him to exit the Ravenclaw common, or he would feel as if he brought shame onto his house, so him breaking his own set of rules, just enlarged his frown. "What book?"
"Romeo and Juliet ..." Benjamin cowered slightly, expecting a great loud roar of laughter, but instead, he heard a quack of silence.
"Wasn't that a tragedy and a play? I don't think it is a novel."
Benjamin raised his eyebrow at that question, not only was she not laughing, but she was also correcting him. "I suppose, but it's pretty sappy for people to kill themselves just because they can't end up with each other and then the other person just wakes up seeing the love of her life dead."
"It's first and foremost a tragedy though."
Benjamin rolled his eyes and said, "Aren't we supposed to transfigure a duck back to its human form?"
Esmeralda lit up like a light bulb and brightly said, "Yes! Of course, we are!"
"Why so happy about it? I thought you hated him."
Esmeralda fished her wand out of her pockets and pointed it at the duck. "That sure is true, Benji, but I've got a plan for this little bastard once he's back to his human form."
With a cunning flash in her eyes, she waved her wand and said, "Reparifarge!"