TW//Nonconsensual Removal of Clothes-Sexual Harassment
At once, half of the older students stand up from their spots and crowd the oblivious muggleborn, causing her and her sister to jump back in surprise. Elizabeth even pulls out her wand as the Slytherins start to pack the entrance, probably bracing for some kind of attack.
Hope watches with barely-concealed jealousy and a whole lot of shock. The only Slytherins that remain sitting down are Rose, Ethan, and the pureblood herself. Even Penelope, someone who has spent the last two months bullying the muggleborn, gets up. Hope shortly wonders what happened to the girl who swore she would die before spending a single knut on muggle clothes.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter, because now every Slytherin and their best mate have decided to become filthy hypocrites.
In fact, pretty quickly, most of the Slytherin table is deserted, save for everyone below fourth-year. One particularly suave fifth-year conjures a bouquet of flowers out of the tip of his wand, and a seventh-year even hexes his friend for a better spot in line.
It doesn't make any sense at all.
How can they so easily turn their backs on Sebastian and then line up to ask out a muggleborn? Do they not care at all? Has all of Hope's hiding been in vain? Has it been for no reason? How can they, how can they-
She sits up with fury raging through her veins, like a cold fire, freezing her blood to ice while somehow setting every inch to flames. The fire rages onward into her mind, catching on to every single thought until all she can hear are shrieks and screams, urging her to move and stop all of them before they can even spare a single word to the muggleborn.
Hope shoves her way through the crowd until she comes to stand in front of it. She grabs the sixth-year blonde trying to talk to Josie by the collar and sends her stumbling back to the group. Her eyes, very quickly, connect to Josie's, before she turns back to the crowd.
"None of you can have her," she snarls, her eyes darkening along with the steel tone of her voice. A sneer pulls at her lips and bares her teeth, and she sends a vicious glare to those who dare to meet her eyes.
The crowd falls silent like a ripple of water, and it rebounds across every single student in the great hall until even the staff's table hushes still. In the quietude, Hope can only hear the sound of her heart beating in her ears and her panting. Why is she breathing so hard? Why do her lungs suddenly feel so starved of air?
"Are you staking your claim, Mikaelson?" Penelope pulls herself to the front of the group, Maya right behind her. Hope shakes her head, her skull hammering against her brain.
Staking her claim? Like Josie Saltzman is property? Hope feels disgusted.
Yet, the truth is: a part of Hope had been this close to murdering all of them and growling, "She's mine."
None of them care about Josie, not like she does. They would only use her as a way to get into the ball, and then ditch her right after. None of them deserve her. Worst of all, Hope doesn't either, and it's for this reason that she can't go to the ball. Josie won't be safe that way.
"No." Hope's voice does not sound very much like her own, and her tongue feels like acid in her throat, but she manages to say the word. Penelope rolls her eyes.
"Get out of the way, then," she tells Hope dismissively, moving to pass the pureblood, who doesn't let her step even a foot forward, her hand a vice against the girl's arm.
"I said," Hope reiterates, the note in her voice final. Deep down, she knows that Penelope won't back down, six years of friendship or not. The two of them have always been far too stubborn for their own good, and together, it makes for a deadly combination. "You can't have her."
The harsh bark to her words shocks the other girl just enough that she takes an entire step back, bumping into Maya behind her. She opens and closes her mouth repeatedly, her eyes flying to the muggleborn behind Hope and then back to the pureblood over and over again. Penelope seems to work something out, because then she starts laughing like crazy.
Shit. Hope swallows uselessly as concrete pools into her mouth and sticks itself along her insides. She knows what's coming, and immediately wants to curse herself. She had been too transparent with her actions, and now Penelope will probably see right through her.
Yes. The miserable girl will see right through her. She was too obvious, she had snapped too suddenly, with too much fire for the situation at hand. After exploding at all of them in such a manner, she must look far too suspicious, far too guilty. Hope needs to save face, especially with Penelope still cackling in front of her.
"Oh, my," Penelope breathes, simmering down. Her eyes glance passed Hope once more, before they return to the pureblood. A shiver crawls Hope's spine and chills every nerves. "Does the Great Evil's daughter have a little crush?"
It takes a second for the crowd to catch on, but the effect is near instantaneous. A gasp murmurs across the group and travels to each house in the great hall. Some students begin to look between Josie and Hope with their mouths wide open, their jaws to the floor.
"Josie, what's she talking about?" Elizabeth asks, something in her voice very scared. Hope is scared, too. She's so fucking scared, so scared that everyone will find out that she's a bloodtraitor, that she's betrayed her family.
Josie once asked her what she's afraid of, and it's this-
This, with every single person at the school looking at Hope like they don't recognize her. This, with her best friends staring at her with expressions she can't interpret. This, with the image of her father's murderous rage. This, with her mother's inevitable disappointment. This, with Josie standing near frozen behind her. This, with Penelope standing near frozen in front of her.
So, Hope pretends to act surprised. She pretends that she's just heard the most shocking thing of her life. Like the most vile, disgusting words have just reached her ears. She scrunches her face up with false confusion. In a single moment, Hope makes the worst decision of her life-and she hopes dearly that Josie will understand.
"Saltzman?" She sticks a hand out to gesture behind her, turning around so briefly that she locks eyes with Josie for a split-second. It's almost enough for her resolve to crumble. Almost. "What would I want with a fucking mudblood?"
It's not the first time she's said the word, but it might as well be with the unfamiliarity it touches her tongue with. After a long time of not using it, the word has only grown sour and dreadful in her head. Out of her mouth, it's much worse. It bounces off the walls and echoes painfully in her ears, and she almost clamps her hands over them in fear of going deaf.
Mudblood.
The word travels back down her lips and leaves her with a bitter taste at the back of her throat like acid. It stings between gritted teeth, refusing to be taken back, refusing to be forgotten. The entirety of Hogwarts will most definitely remember for weeks to come.
A small, quiet sniffling sound floats behind Hope's ear, and she shifts her body just to catch sight of Josie running off, her sister chasing after her hot on her heels. Hope watches, knowing this time she can't follow the other girl and fix everything she's messed up.
Why did she do that? The pureblood wonders. How could she have hurt Josie again? Why can't she just keep her mouth shut? Why can't she have just been a little more brave? Hope doesn't want any of this. She had never asked for any of this. She had never wanted to utter such a nasty word, she had never meant to upset Josie at all.
Hope lets out a yearning whimper, just an exhale parting two aching lips, before she forces herself to face the crowd again.
"Just making sure," Penelope smirks, that same-old, cruel smirk that begs for Hope to wipe it off her face. Of course, the girl can still find a way to be a blood purist despite her intention of asking the muggleborn out. Of course. Of fucking course-
"Twenty points from Slytherin!" Professor McGonagall appears in the crowd, picking up her robes as she separates the students with her mere presence. Hope hadn't even noticed her coming down from the staff's table. It reminds Hope that everyone heard her, that everyone had been listening. "Hogwarts does not, and will never, tolerate that kind of vulgar language."
She pins Hope with a sharp gaze, who only then remembers that McGonagall is a muggleborn herself. The older woman turns to the group after a moment of staring the pureblood down. Hope swallows the misery confined to the strings of her vocal cords.
"Let that be a lesson to all of you," McGonagall says sternly, "that such despicable slurs will be punished accordingly. I want everyone to go back to their rooms straightaway. Breakfast is over."
With a swoosh of her hand, every single plate in the great hall vanishes. A boy at the Hufflepuff table squeals as a piece of fruit disappears from his grasp, and Hope stares intently at the space where her stack of pancakes used to be.
If only she could go back to a couple of minutes ago, where everything had been fine, where she hadn't ruined the one good thing going for her.
-
Rose Nicot sits on her bed, a Muggle Studies book open in front of her. She turns the pages absentmindedly, her thoughts far away from what she's reading.
She isn't sure what she had seen during breakfast, or what she thought she had seen. It's now several hours into the evening, and she still can't completely process the morning's events.
All she's sure of, is that something is very, very wrong with her friend Hope Mikaelson. Rose can't remember the last time she had heard Hope say that derogatory term for a muggleborn, but now she can't quite forget it.
Although Hope had appeared as though she hadn't cared when she said it, Rose knows her better. She had seen the flicker of regret as the pureblood watched Josette Saltzman run away, and sure, Hope hadn't been facing Rose, but it had been too transparent in the rigid set to her spine, too telling in her hardened shoulders.
What does it mean?
She can only hope that it means-
No. She mustn't allow herself to hope. Not for Josette Saltzman, and certainly not for herself.
The door of her room flings itself open and Rose startles, shutting her book closed quickly and pulling her bed covers up to her neck in an attempt to hide it. She probably looks much too guilty, and the person across from her is definitely not stupid.
Penelope raises her eyebrows at her, a lewd smirk stretching along her lips. "Oh, did I interrupt you?"
Rose pinks, realizing the position she's in. Does Penelope think she was...touching herself? "Ew, Pen. Shut up."
"No, carry on," Penelope tells her, sitting down on her own bed. "Can I watch, though?"
Rose almost hits her with her book, but for obvious reasons, she can't do that. "You're disgusting."
Penelope only laughs, laying down from her previous sitting position and putting her hands underneath her head leisurely. "I'm hilarious."
"You're disgusting," Rose repeats.
"Fine," Penelope chuckles out, yawning. Her eyes shut once she becomes relaxed. "Have you been in here all night?"
"No, just the past hour or so," Rose says, carefully sitting up and placing the Muggle Studies book underneath her pillow. It's not like Penelope can see her, with her eyes closed. "Have you seen Hope? I've got to talk to her."
"Ooh," Penelope coos, her eyes snapping open. "Finally going to confess your undying love for her?"
Rose blushes, wishing her face could stop betraying her for once in her life. "For the last time, I'm not in love with her."
"Right," Penelope agrees sarcastically. "And I'm a die-hard Gryffindor!"
Rose rolls her eyes. "Have you seen her or not?"
"I think she mentioned something about going to the Astronomy Tower." Penelope shrugs the best she can while laying down. Rose stands up immediately, adjusting her pillows with the pretense of organizing her bed.
"Thank you," she murmurs, already half-out the door.
"Good luck!" Penelope calls after her, and Rose sighs. She does not fancy Hope. Why does everyone think that? Annoyingly enough, even Ethan is starting to believe it, which is the exact opposite of what she wants.
Speaking of Ethan...
She finds him by the fireplace, a plate of food in his hand. He lights up when he sees her, smiling in that adorable way she can't help but smile back at. Has he been...waiting...all this time, for her?
"Hey, R," he says softly, offering the plate nervously. "I didn't see you at dinner, so I saved you your favorite."
Her eyes sparkle as they fall upon the slice of apple pie, and her face swiftly becomes the color of the honey crisp apples used in it. "Thank you. You're so sweet."
"I, uh, haha," he stammers over his words, holding it out to her with a small hint of reluctance. She reaches out, her fingers wrapping around his own on the plate.
"I need to talk to Hope really quick" she tells him, squeezing his fingers apologetically. "When I get back, maybe we can split it?"
He nods with gentle understanding, and Rose hesitates before leaning up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek sweetly. They both separate with small grins on their faces, and Rose forces herself not to glance back at him for one last look as she exits the common room.
When she finally comes near the Astronomy Tower, she instantly hears the quiet sounds of someone trying very hard not to cry, or at least trying very hard not to let anyone hear it. Rose climbs up the stairs slowly, not wanting to scare the other girl away.
"Hope?"
The Mikaelson heir jumps slightly at her name, turning around so fast that Rose briefly thinks she might fall off the tower. She's too close to the edge, even dangling her feet off of it. Rose's curious expression softens into one of sadness as she sees eyes rimmed with red and wet, pale cheeks.
"Come to see the show?" Hope jokes, laughing quite miserably through tears. She wipes angrily at them, causing Rose to knit her eyebrows together. She approaching the other girl in a careful manner. "The best part is coming."
"And what would that be?" she asks, lowering herself to the floor, sidling up beside the pureblood. Rose tries to make herself appear as nonthreatening as possible as she sits down. Hope only continues to laugh, like she's gone completely mad in the span of a couple of hours.
"When the pathetic sixteen-year-old starts crying like a newborn child," she says, her voice breaking in the middle. Rose can barely hear her next words over the pouring rain outside. "Over a..."
Rose purses her lips when Hope only trails off, choosing not to complete her sentence.
"Over a...?" she implores, grabbing her friend's hand loosely. Hope's eyes snap up to hers at once, before she looks away and says nothing. Somehow, Rose thinks she knows the answer.
She's not the most observant person, but Rose Nicot prides herself on being able to read her friends, at the very least. Hope Mikaelson has always been a mystery, someone closed-off and leaning towards isolation, but Rose likes to think that she can penetrate the pureblood's seemingly hard exterior at times.
She can tell something is bothering her, and not just from the obvious tears running down the girl's face. Yes. Rose is certain now. She is completely sure that it's a girl eating her friend from the inside out. And she knows exactly who that girl is. She should have noticed quicker, perhaps-not that any of their other friends had even tried to bother.
"It's okay, you know," Rose says, very slowly as to catch the other girl's attention. Hope's shoulders shake minutely, her head turned away, staring off into the rain. "If she makes you happy..."
Hope twists her body so suddenly that Rose fears she might get whiplash, and her eyes are bloodshot but hard steel when they meet Rose's. She notices that the pureblood's hand is trembling in her own.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Hope bites out, her lips nearly blue. Rose has the distant thought that she looks very cold. How long has she been out here?
"There's nothing wrong-" Rose tries, attempting to convey that they don't need to talk about it, but that Hope needs to know that it's okay.
"Nicot," Hope interrupts, looking at her with great puzzlement. Rose narrows her eyes. "I haven't a clue what you mean. Seriously."
"Alright," Rose mutters, rubbing her thumb against Hope's knuckles gently. Her voice turns sickly sweet. "You've been a ghost all day. Let me catch you up on what you've missed. Hmm..."
"Slytherin has gone absolutely mental. Someone started a rumor that Josette Saltzman was hiding away in the Gryffindor tower," she says, much like narrating a story. She watches Hope for any kind of reaction at all. "For this reason, half of our house has been waiting outside their common room for the past couple of hours or so. As I've heard, she has yet to make an appearance-"
"Why are you telling me this?" Hope cuts her off, blinking wetly. A frown snaps at the corner of her mouth for just a second, but the tightness remains there for several long moments. Rose recognizes the small flicker of emotion as jealousy.
She just stands and unlaces her fingers from Hope's, fixing her with a disappointed look. Ethan is waiting for her. She mustn't keep him so.
"You should ask her to the ball," she tells the pureblood, very simply. "Before someone else does."
-
Hope throws herself onto her bed, tears already running down her face for the second time that evening. She murmurs a silencing charm on her part of the room so her dorm mates can't hear her-at least, it's past midnight and they're all asleep. In her horrid state, the charm won't last long, but she doesn't need long.
She just needs to feel something. She needs to hurt, she needs to feel regret biting into her bones and she needs to feel the ache in her chest. A couple of hours of crying in the Astronomy Tower had not been enough. It hadn't been nearly enough pain for her.
To make everything worse, now Rose knows all about her little dilemma. She knows all about her sinful feelings, and Hope hadn't even told her! How is that? How can she just tell the pureblood that it's okay? It's not okay. Nothing is okay. She wants to scream! She wants to claw her own eyes out! She wants to pull out her own teeth one by one, she wants to rip her tongue out so she won't ever talk again!
And, despite all her conflicting thoughts, her housemates are all still attacking Josie like she's a piece of meat. For some reason, they were all very quick to turn on her once believing Hope to be a bloodtraitor-so quick to turn on Sebastian weeks before, for Merlin's sake-yet, they're still chasing after the muggleborn!
And Josie might just say yes to one of them. She might agree to actually go to the ball with one of them, and she would be absolutely free to do so. She has nothing holding her back, now that Hope has messed everything up. She can allow any pureblood to take her, and it won't ever be Hope. This thought scares her much more than anything she would have thought possible. Over the last couple of hours, she had come to learn that her blood status fears were absolutely irrelevant, and Josie mattered more than all of them.
And now, she had lost her.
No.
No.
If Hope is going to spend her entire night thinking about the muggleborn getting seduced by all of Slytherin, she's going to do it completely drunk.
She quickly swings out of her bed and begins searching around in her trunk for something.
Finally, after about a solid minute, she finds what she's looking for-a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey she keeps hidden in her trunk. Passed that bottle are several more under a few piles of robes. She snaps the cap off the first one and chugs it down, basking in the warmth of fire in her stomach and the sting of whiskey down her throat.
Sometime later, following two empty bottles on the ground and another half-empty one on her bedside table, the Mikaelson heir passes out. Not many minutes after, she wakes up to the sound of her four-poster bed's curtains opening.
Previously, Hope was not very afraid of the prank war. In all reality, she should have been. She should have known something big was coming, considering that Gryffindor had not yet retaliated.
The pureblood mumbles and turns in her sleep, tugging the sheets higher up against her shoulders. She feels terribly nauseous, and she keeps her eyes and mouth closed in fear of throwing everything in her stomach up. Hope shivers with the intensity of it, her teeth chattering.
To add, the room is awfully cold, evident by the frost covering the window near her bed. Hope has no idea how the weather had changed so drastically within a couple of hours, but she lets herself suffer in it. After breakfast, it had started raining hard like never before, and Hope had decided to let herself get soaked to the bone up in the Astronomy Tower.
She believes that she deserves to be freezing and miserable, especially with the stunt she had just pulled during dinner. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have called Josie that? How could she have fucked up the single thing good in her life, again?
That same rustling sound reaches her ears and she shoves her pillow away with a shudder, sitting up. When she rubs at her eyes, she finds herself regretting drinking so much. Merlin, half of her is still plastered, and when she glances at a clock, she realizes that she hasn't been asleep for a very long time. Yup, she's still drunk as hell, and to make it worse, her head is pounding. Had her stupid body really not metabolized the alcohol yet?
When Hope manages to blink her eyes open, her mouth goes slack. In front of her stands Josie Saltzman, her wand pointed directly at Hope's chest. The pureblood's mind swarms, and she coughs slightly as she tries to sit up more.
"Jos-" she begins to slur, her voice rough from barely half an hour of sleep and the sting of Firewhiskey. Thank Salazar! She can apologize, she can beg for forgiveness the best she can, she can-
Hope then notices that there are about three other wands pointed at her. By the skin of her teeth, she recovers from her slip-up. "S-Saltzman."
Her eyes search wildly around the room. The other three wands pointed at her belong to Elizabeth Saltzman, Anna Lowly, and Emma Wilford. Hope recognizes the last one as Maya's partner in DADA.
"What the fuck-"
"Silencio," Elizabeth murmurs, and Hope's mouth becomes sewn shut. She instantly recognizes this for what it is-an ambush, a kidnapping, a product of the prank war.
The pureblood's hand shoots out for her wand underneath her pillow, but it doesn't reach its mark. Instead, Hope's arms snap to her sides and her legs collide together with a body-binding curse. She finds that she can't even lift a single finger, but her eyes work just fine. She looks around the room for help, but of course, all her dorm mates are sound asleep.
Hope rolls her eyes as the noise of Maya snoring fills the near silent room. Great. She's getting kidnapped, and in her own bed, no less. They really couldn't have done this any other night?
"Hey, do you think we could get Machado, too?" Emma whispers, glancing at the sleeping girl with her curtains wide open and her head stuffed between two pillows. "She's been really annoying during Defense."
Hearing that, Hope tries her best to move her body to warn the other girl, but she stays limp against her own sheets. Josie's face hovers over her, but the muggleborn won't even look her in the fucking eye. Hope's chest becomes suspiciously tight and she forces her eyes to the ceiling. No. It would not do well to start crying again right now. The lump in her throat is only due to her being paralyzed, and she only feels emotional because she's drunk as hell. The headache hammering behind her eyes is only due to the amount of alcohol she's consumed.
"No," Anna decides. "She's already seen our faces, that's enough trouble as is. On her own, she can't prove we did anything, but with Machado, they'd have a solid case. Besides, Mikaelson stands for all of those snakes. We get her, we get everyone."
What a clever girl, Hope thinks. Does she know that her friend Josie is in Slytherin as well?
"Let's hurry. The boys are waiting for us outside, and we don't want to wake anyone else up," Elizabeth tells them, but Hope doesn't hear a single thing. Her eyes are still trained on Josie, who has yet to even glance at her. It's only confirmation that Hope has ruined their budding relationship. Can one grieve something that never even begun? Hope thinks that maybe one can, if the feeling in her stomach is anything to go by. Or maybe that's just the Firewhiskey.
With a wave of Elizabeth's hand, Hope begins to levitate from her bed. Her wandless magic seems to be shaky, or perhaps the Gryffindor just doesn't mind to be careful with her, and knocks Hope's neck into the headboard. Her hand collides with the Firewhiskey bottle on her bedside table and it falls to the floor.
Anna saves it before it hits the ground. "I knew I smelled Firewhiskey. Even better, she's drunk!"
They all start giggling like the school girls they are except for Josie. Hope continues to glare into the side of the brunette's head almost pleadingly. Josie only stares at the bottle in Anna's hand with knitted eyebrows and something that looks a lot like concern.
What are they going to do with her? Are they trying to kill her? Yes. That must be it. They've taken her in the middle of the night to slaughter her!
"Wait." At last, Josie speaks. Hope's gaze lessens in its severity as she looks at her. At the same time, her eyes keep fluttering closed. She finds herself having a very hard time keeping them open, and her mind is too groggy to think passed a common stream of: Josie, Josie, Josie. Merlin, she really needs to throw up. "Maybe we should just leave and make her think this was all a dream or something. I don't know if-"
Elizabeth interrupts her rather quickly with crossed arms. "Are you seriously having second thoughts? She called you a blood purist slur in front of everyone. Revenge is the next step."
"Please," Anna laughs quietly. "Don't act like you haven't planned this prank since last week."
"Whatever." Elizabeth simply shrugs. "Let's just get out of here."
The next thing the pureblood knows, a black sack is thrown over her head and she loses her vision. Her body begins to float in the air once again and panic shoots down her limbs like ice.
"Is that really necessary?" she hears Josie ask. "She already knows who we are."
"No, it's not," Elizabeth says, sounding awfully happy. "I just want to make her nervous."
They know that she can hear them, right?
"What took so long?" a deep voice says after a minute-the pureblood counts in her head-of Hope feeling weightless. Hope thinks it might be Rafael Waithe, but she's not completely sure. All she has to go on is a couple of words he said in detention and a scoff he had directed at her when she sat with Josie at the Gryffindor table.
"Nothing. Do you guys have all the stuff?" Elizabeth asks, sounding almost vexed. Hope wonders why.
"Yes!" another boyish voice answers excitedly, which the pureblood recognizes immediately as Milton Greasley. "We even brought the-"
"Shhh!" Anna hisses. "She can hear us. We want to keep the suspense."
Hope tries to talk before remembering that she's paralyzed and that there's an actual sack over her head. She continues to levitate in the air for a long enough time that she stops counting, trying to open her mouth every now and then to see if her body has returned to her.
No one talks for a while, which makes Hope think that they're probably in the hallways or somewhere where any amount of noise can get them into trouble. The pureblood quickly becomes exhausted from trying to remain focused, her head spinning too much and a terrible pressure making itself known behind her eyes that she can't ignore.
She doesn't know exactly when, but she falls asleep in the darkness, and when she wakes up, there is no longer a sack over her head. Her cheek stings painfully, though, so she guesses that someone probably used physical force to wake her up.
She grunts and brings a hand up to her face, amazed that her limbs seem to be in control once again. She opens her mouth to yell for help but a hand clamps over it.
"Scream and we'll curse your sorry ass again," Elizabeth tells her, and Hope nods like she agrees before biting down on her hand with as much strength as she can, throwing her body forward violently. She doesn't go anywhere, however; her hands are binded behind her back with invisible magical restraints.
Elizabeth releases her hand with a groan and backs up. Hope braces herself to speak, "HELP-"
Soft, warm fingers clamp around her lips once again, except they belong to the other sister of the twin pair this time. Hope makes a sound at the back of her throat-she's that touch-starved for the brunette-and Hope absolutely hates it.
The pureblood glares up at the muggleborn, who most likely knows that Hope won't bite her or try to hurt her like she had done to Elizabeth. She frowns as Josie leans forward, her lips finding Hope's ear and whispering, "I'm sorry."
The soft puff of air against the shell of her ear sends a shock down Hope's spine, and she springs up slightly, tugging at the magical binds.
Then Josie backs away, her hand still tightly wound against Hope's mouth. No one notices a thing, mostly due to Elizabeth distracting everyone by acting like she's in the worst pain of her life. Hope rolls her eyes. She hadn't even bitten her that hard.
"Are you going to talk?" Josie raises her voice so the others in the room can hear her. It's all an act. It's an act when the muggleborn injects a threatening tone to her words, and it's an act when Hope shakes her head.
Josie releases her and steps back again, allowing Hope to look around. They're in the great hall, right at the entrance, to be exact. The pureblood discovers that she is surrounded by Josie, Elizabeth, Anna, Emma, Milton, Rafael, and a Ravenclaw Hope thinks is named Kaleb. Great. Seven to one.
She tugs at her restraints needlessly, glancing behind her to see what's holding her up-a broomstick. A very familiar broomstick.
She nearly screams. Why had they kidnapped her broom? Was she not enough?
She struggles forward, trying to twist her body to check her broom for any marks or injuries. She doesn't find any, and almost sighs in relief. She loves her broom more than her own life, if she's being honest.
"Okay, boys, turn around," Elizabeth makes a spinning gesture with her finger as the boys hand over a couple of bags of supplies. Hope tilts her head at an attempt to look at the contents of the bags, and then furrows her eyebrows in confusion.
Why do the boys need to turn around?
Then, Elizabeth marches right up to her and determinedly reaches for the button on the pureblood's pants. Hope swallows thickly. Are they going to undress her?
"Wow, Saltzman," Hope says as calmly as she can, but her voice comes out higher than she wants it to. She resists the urge to squirm away, trying to appear cool and collected. She succeeds somewhat. "I didn't know you swung that way."
"Yuck," Elizabeth gags, but her fingers don't still. It seems that the thought has diverted her attention enough that she doesn't curse Hope again for talking. "As if I would ever want to sleep with you."
"Yet, you slept with Pyre. Not so different, isn't it-" Hope flares her nose, pushing her hips back as Elizabeth angrily undos the last button. Fuck. Fuck.
In one swift movement, the blonde pulls her pants down to her knees. Hope's breath catches as the cold hits her naked legs.
"Hmm," the Gryffindor hums with no small amount of amusement, with no small amount of snark. It seems that Hope hit a nerve with that Sebastian comment. "Slytherin until the end, huh?"
The pureblood probably would have found it much funnier if her underwear wasn't on show. She probably would have found it much funnier if she hadn't chosen to wear green boy shorts with a silver band. Hope curses herself.
She knew that she should have worn something a bit...sexier, but she had been too tired to search through her drawers for anything better. Whatever. It's not the most embarrassing pair of underwear she could have worn.
"You're going to strip me and leave me here naked?" Hope laughs sarcastically as Elizabeth transfigures the point of her wand into a sharp blade and cuts down the middle of her shirt. In all actuality, the thought of hanging from her broom until the early hours of the morning terrifies her. She can't even meet Josie's eyes as the girl continues to stare at her legs. "So funny."
"Leave you naked?" Elisabeth sounds incredibly disgusted once again, even going so far as to make another gagging noise. "I would never subject anyone to seeing that."
Behind her, Josie blushes bright red, turning her head away. Next to her, Anna watches the muggleborn strangely.
Hope only sneers. Lots of people want to see her naked. How dare she even suggest that! Yet, Hope acknowledges that she would find the blonde's words almost funny if one threw out the context of the situation.
"You know, Saltzman," she says, because she wants to irritate the other girl more. She smiles kindly. Falsely. "In another life, we probably could have been friends."
"Rot in hell."
"I don't even know what that is."
Elizabeth ignores that and proceeds to dress Hope up in the most ridiculous outfit her eyes have ever born witness to:
A rainbow shirt cropped right below her chest with the word "Unicorn" splattered on it, the short length allowing her toned stomach to be on full display.
A pair of red and gold velvet short-shorts with "Gryffindor Slut" spelled in glitter font right across her crotch, the shorts so tiny that they barely reach her ass.
Two red, stiletto high heels strapped onto her feet that are nearly six inches in length, coupled with a pair of white stockings.
To summarize, Hope Mikaelson looks like a fucking idiot. Anna and Emma even tie her hair up into two high pigtails, so not only does she look like an idiot, but she also looks like a small child.
The boys turn around once the girls are done, immediately sniggering and laughing like crazy. Milton throws himself on the ground and even begins to roll around. The only one that hasn't laughed yet is Josie, who seems to force a small chuckle out when her sister sends her a pointed look.
They all step back some to examine their work, to which Elizabeth suddenly remembers something.
"Oh, I almost forgot." She digs into her pocket, pulling out a red-and-gold striped tie. She wraps and ties it around Hope's hair before patting her twice roughly on the forehead-correction: slapping her twice roughly on the forehead. Hope growls at her, struggling to move.
"See you in the morning, Mikaelson," she waves, beginning to walk away at last. Her friends follow her, their laughter boisterous and annoying. It appears that they no longer care about catching a teacher's attention.
Hope opens her mouth to scream for help for maybe the twentieth time that night, when she finds her lips sewn together and her entire body becomes slumped forward, paralyzed once more. This time-at this angle-she can't lift her head up to see who casted the silencing charm and body-binding spell on her, but she's pretty sure it was Josie.
The thought hurts her more than it should.