It’s not like I’ve ever had O.W.L.S before this year, and even before I came to Hogwarts, there was no such thing as examinations or tests, but it’s like I’m more susceptible to reacting volatilely under pressure, but this year, the first educational based examinations I have ever had, I think my luck changes.
It all started like this…
“Hey Maxi sit down at the table, and I will get your breakfast, just calm down, stop stressing, it’s just the O.W.L.S” Electra advised, while grasping my shoulders and hauling me in the direction of the Gryffindor table. I let her direct me, until about half way, where I was sick of it, and hit her hands off my shoulders, and gave her a sadistic snarl and she ran off to get my breakfast without any hesitance. Things like exams and pressure make me angry and intolerant, and I didn’t mean to snap at Electra, but she was being annoying. I start tapping my fingers on the table, a unique habit I have when I am dangerous to be around, or when I’m about to yell at someone for no reason.
Audrey suddenly, without any warning came bounding towards me, her high jumping denying the fact that she was not the tallest person to exist, her long auburn hair following the motion compliantly, her bright emerald eyes shining with confidence, with an absence of arrogance, but they were also hiding something.
“What are you so happy about?” I growled, slightly envious that I couldn’t show so much placidity as Audrey, she took one glance at me, and where any normal person would react to my words with some form of apprehension, her red lips went back into a broad, earthly encouraging grin, which lightened the load on my tension, a fraction…
“I just have faith that my brain will cooperate with me, and that I am skilled enough to pass” she replied, and she pranced over the legs of the seat of the lengthy wooden Gryffindor table, and took her righteous space next to me, while her green eyes scanned The Great Hall with deep, thorough intrigue, whatever she was interested in, I will never know, and I honestly don’t care.
To make things worse, Maladie was striding up, responding to the languishing, idiotic first and second years with forceful physical abuse, resulting in their falling to the ground with resentful measures. Her negative misty haze was clinging to every corner of the air, and it wasn’t surprising when several people turned their heads to look at Maladie with disdain as she walked past.
“MALADIE! HI! Maxi is stealing your personality” Audrey announced loudly, too loudly and Maladie, who has learned how to naturally scowl at everything nasty, spun her head towards Audrey, her distinct blue eyes swimming with alarm and confusion.
“The hell? You are strange, aren’t you?”
“She’s being all pessimistic, like you are.”
“I’m not being pessimistic!! There is a difference. Maladie is always pessimistic, and bigoted, and generally stubborn and officious. I am nice, it’s just these distressing, repulsive exams that get under my skin, making me squeamish and deadly” I argue, and both Audrey and Maladie whip their heads to me, shocked by my sudden bluntness and not expected outburst.
“Sorry…” I apologize to Maladie, and she glares at me for a few seconds, and then surprises me, inducing a heart-attack and smiles at me with gloating pride.
“I am proud. Who knew that Maxi could be mean, right?”
“Right. Your’e weird” I respond, staring into her blue depths incredulously, how did I get away with that?
Finally, Electra arrives at the table, struggling to juggle two cereal bowls and an extra plate with ten slices of toast on it, which is supposedly hers. You could have sworn that she hasn’t eaten in a week.
She places my cereal bowl down in front of me, and fixes me a hopeful gaze with her hazel eyes, caged with intense black mascara, eyeliner and eye shadow.
“Have you calmed down now?” She queried, taking the unfortunate, avoided seat next to Maladie.
“No, because Maladie arrived, along with her hostility, I can’t forget to mention Audrey and her insanity” I answered, and Electra shrugged with defeat.
“Whatever”
“Electra, where is my spoon?” I inquire, raising my eyebrows, and I can see out of the corner of my eyes that Audrey and Maladie’s eyebrows are also slowly elevating, a new profound apprehension being invited into this awkward, and potentially perilous situation.
“Oh, here” She says, handing me the spoon, and as soon as she gives it to me, I cringe away from it, sending it clattering to the ground. It’s a tablespoon. I figured.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!?!” I scream, and she returns my fit of rage with shock, and sudden realization, that I HATE TABLESPOONS WITH A BLAZING PASSION.
“Uh, stop being an ungrateful arachnid; it’s just a spoon, get over it.” She reasons, and I scowl at her, and pick the spoon up and aim it at the Slytherin table and with my awesome throwing arm, it twirls in the air, and lands with perfect precision on top of Harlequin Black’s dark head. Oh shit. Uhh. Oh well. Ah. HA. HA. HAHAHAHA!!!!
He swears with great brazen, and takes his right arm up to his head and takes his belated time to identify what unruly object had just swung by for a little visit, while managing to injure him, wow my aiming talent is better than I thought, and here I was trying to get Draco Malfoy. So much better target.
I turn back to my friends, and they are all staring in awe at the wonderful thing I just did, especially Maladie.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!! You know what Electra, I forgive you for giving me that spoon in the first place, for calling me a spider, and it turned out it was quite useful” I laughed distortedly, deranged and insane, along with Maladie, who roared maliciously.
“Huh. That was good. Next time, try and get someone who is more obnoxious, like Blaize Zambini” Audrey comments, in a mouthful of Nutella toast.
“Good?, that word isn't descriptive enough at how awesome that was" Maladie reprimands, blatantly disappointed in the lack of impressive vocabulary Audrey has spoken.
"I was actually trying for Draco, or Delirium, who is probably the closest person to Blaize who I can get but you know. I guess my luck swept in the right direction at the last moment, anyway, it was only a spoon” I beamed, smirking at my brilliance. I turned back to Harlequin, and he was silently death threatening me and so was Sequin, from the Hufflepuff table. Ha. Take that, pathetic loser…
“Who cares? That was amazing!!!” Maladie chorused, she was way too excited about this.
“I would have preferred if I had a couple of Seraph Blades, instead of a lousy spoon” I responded, my initial happiness diming, but still hanging in there.
“No, sorry but that’s my job, you can help with the maiming, but I will be the ultimate killer of Harlequin Black” Maladie protested malevolently, and of course Electra reacted to that morbid thought with admiration, Audrey with a gasp, and me with a swallow of the throat, worried for Maladie’s sanity, or should I say, what’s left of it, which doesn’t account for much.
“OK... For further reference, so Harlequin doesn’t get entangled in collateral damage again, not that I care, Electra, I will tell you all the things I despise: Tablespoons, The colour green, White Chocolate, Oh and most importantly, is ducks. They are monstrous creatures that stalk the daylight, not taking into consideration anything else but themselves” I state, and Electra just sits there ignorantly, while Maladie and Audrey roll their eyes.
At my recount, Sabbedoria stumbles over to our table, and looks harassed, or annoyed one or the other, I’m not sure.
“You know, Maxi , Ducks are actually nocturnal, so I think that you should correct yourself, because you are WRONG, but of course it depends on the particular type of duck, some are nocturnal, some are no-“
“SHUT UP, SABBY I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR SMART ASS-ERY PHILOSIPHICAL RANTS, AND ESPESSCIALLY NOT ABOUT DUCKS!!!!! Just because you are prepared for the O.W.L.S, does not mean everyone is!!!!!” I blurted out, and Sabbedoria looked completely taken-aback and started backing away from me. Can my life get any worse? Just as Sabbedoria starts walking away in an obsequious manner, guess who decided to join our little scuffle?
Anthony Goldstein glided up to the five of us pretentiously, glared at me with those compelling green eyes, and golden eyelashes that I am somehow jealous of. How wrong is that? It has to be impossible… How can I feel envy for a guy’s eyelashes? It’s so obscure. What a way to ruin my high spirits.
“Don’t yell at my girlfriend” He said simply, but firmly, and I was using all of my efforts to ignore him, but it was difficult, he was just so…. definite, but aggravating.
What I did next was totally out of my control, it was like my hands took over from my conscience, I brandished my cereal bowl full of ring-shaped oat thingos and tipped all of the contents all over his head, and everyone, and I mean everyone in my friend group stood there, frozen, not knowing what to do next.
“Oh God… Anthony…I’m uhh… I’m so sorry…” I muttered, instantly regretting what I had done, I could tell he was silently fuming.
Anthony just stood there like a statue, milk dripping off his golden hair, all the students that bore witness to this unfortunate event stared at him, and then at me. Some were snickering, some were giving me dirty looks, Sabbedoria especially looked like she was ready to slaughter me.
“Well, someone is going to die, aren’t they?” Sequin stirred, she had somehow appeared in her loop of opportunity while we were gawking blankly at the scene in front of us.
“Be quiet, Sequin” I hissed, she was only acting like this because of what I accidently did to Harlequin, also, she shouldn’t care if Harlequin got hurt by a tablespoon, and he’s the jerk who dumped her at the Winter Ball…
“Why did you apologize? I think you scored epically today. Killed two birds with one stone, that’s the saying right? I don’t know what he’s whining about, it’s only cereal, but of course he doesn’t want to screw his angelic golden hair up” Maladie put in, a leer still twisting at her lips.
That was when I leaned towards my chance to walk towards the exit of the Great Hall, my head bowed down in shame, as I left I could hear the continued conversations my friends were having.
“That, technically is numerally inaccurate, in our case, that is.” Sabbedoria comments, probably making Maladie manipulate her black eyebrows into a frown with great distaste.
“She had a viable excuse; it’s not her fault she gets stressed out before exams and crap…” Audrey piped up, defending me, I hide an appreciative smile, but don’t dare look back.
“What’s really annoying is that I had to walk a mile to get that for Maxi, and just to waste it on someone’s head, and not just someone's head, but GOLDstein's worthless head. I don’t like that…. If you ask me, it was a stupid ten minutes of my life, gone. I think she should repay me with ten minutes of her life…”
"That is ahh...very creepy, even for you, or me for that matter" Maladie confided,laced with snark, I inclined my head just the slightest to witness Electra's response and her face transformed into a fatal sneer.
I kept walking out of the Great Hall, my head already back to the opposite direction in which my friends and Goldstein's faces were positioned with passive deviation, not something I'm used to.
“Shut up, Electra. Just shut up, no one cares” Was the last thing I heard, and it was with no doubt, Anthony’s voice and that gave me the boost I needed to sprint out of the Great Hall with rigid hastiness, ignorant of the exact destination I was actually going, all I knew was that I needed to go somewhere, because within half an hour, I will be experiencing whatever hell is again, and from what Iv'e learnt from The Mortal Instruments, it's not nice.