Everything was red.
Caustically crimson.
Boiling.
Audette practically dragged Cosmos to the doorway of the subterranean cellar with such vigor one might think he was up for a hanging and she was his appointed executioner.
"I will remind you Mr. Malfoy, that I require your attendance later," Snape rasped in the background as Audette stormed out with a gulping Guy in tow.
"Then I will attend later," Draco hissed, his designer shoes jumping on the hardscape - a telling indication that he was following Audette regardless of her disinterest.
Halfway up the adjacent stairwell she lost her composure.
"Don't you follow us. If I look at you right now I will forget myself completely," Audette growled backwards without looking, her little pink flower crown now halfway over her left eye in the hast and anger of the moment.
She was stomping in such a crazed manner - her fists tossing her clenched dress train around maddeningly - that it was only on the first floor main corridor that she took heed of the fact that she had gone too far; in fact far past the entrance to the Slytherin common room.
"You tortured me for weeks Audette, and yet you cannot take forty-eight hours of your own bloody medicine," Draco called darkly at least two dozens meters behind, blasting through the hallways like a black infection, "I won't back down simply in lieu of you throwing interspersed tantrums. Do you have any idea who you are speaking to?"
She stopped and spun, her hands full of dress fabric and Cosmos' baggy sweater. She let him go and he covered his face with both hands in absolute dread at her side.
Audette pouted through watery eyes, "Oh I feel very sorry for your besotted mind that you've forgotten your own identity, because I certainly do not know you either. Who are you Draco? My boyfriend, or the people's playboy? You cannot be both."
She had halted next to a huge ladder in which Argus Filch was dangerously balancing on the top, putting to good use a spindly wooden stick to pepper an absurdly towering Christmas tree in preparation for the Yule Ball.
She plucked off a long-hanging, diamond-toned ornament and held it up high threateningly.
Draco stopped dead in his tracks, panting athletically through his nostrils alone, to turn his face sideways and narrow his icy eyes.
He reached slowly into his pocket and produced his jet black wand, twirling it for the time being downwards, "You're out of your psychotic mind if you think I'm going to let you run off and weep to Nott again, and you wouldn't dare toss that globe at me, sweetheart."
"Oh wouldn't I, darling? I could just rip your lip over your head right now," Audette stuck her chin out whilst gripping the decoration with increased vigor, her stunning golden locks bouncing in physical reflection of her rage.
Filch began to gurgle overhead, his yellowed eyes bulging in objection at the impending destruction to his hard work, "Ehhhh what's this 'ere racket now, students out a' bed!"
Draco glanced swiftly first at the subterranean stairwell arch to ensure that no pack of prying Slytherin boys had followed to jeer at him.
When his glare swiveled around it was steaming with confrontation, "Then do provide me a manual on Dating Audette For Dipwits so we may famously avoid every irrational mistake under the sun. Preferably paperback, seeing as it will otherwise be worn out in less than a month."
Audette's thin arm cranked further back with promise to catapult the decoration she was gripping, "Even if I were to develop such an idiotic compendium you'd be a lost cause. You should have known better than to sign her trampy chest!"
"Oh Merlin, don't do it Detty," Guy wallowed behind her. His fingers were wrought in his long hair nervously, his eyes trailing around after the blue ornament about to be obliterated.
Audette could see Draco's jaw grinding in place warningly but she inevitably lost herself to a Mad Max urge.
She flung the gigantic sphere of glass straight at his chest, but he deflected it seamlessly with a sharp cast of his wand. Immediately Filch started to rasp in outrage, but Audette couldn't care less.
She reached for a second, and a third, whipping decorations at the speed of light so that in a matter of minutes the base of the tree was effectively stripped clean of balls as high as her short stature would allow her fingers to pry.
Filch was left clinging to his now wobbling ladder for dear life whilst complaining avidly about the punishments they were both going to endure, the pointy tip of the pine tree swaying wildly to and fro.
Several congregating ghosts shook their moustaches in disapproval as berserk balls went far off target and through their apparitional bodies.
It was a one-way frantic snowball fight, as if a ball pit at the local McDonald's had been invaded by a belligerent drunkard who refused to evacuate.
"You can forget about sleeping with me, tonight, or for the remainder of these next four weeks you insist upon orchestrating!" Audette shouted through childish tears, choking on phlegm in her throat, "Don't even permit yourself the mere concept of coming within a square kilometer of my bed until you set your priorities straight!"
Another Christmas ornament soared violently, this one in the shape of a diapered cherub playing a harp. It blew into oblivion at the command of Draco's cast, producing an ironic sprinkling of snowy dust.
On the contrary he could not appear more militant, his cold eyes devoid of tears and brimming with freezing impatience. "Brilliant! Every time I sleep next to you I wake up in scalding conditions, with one tenth of the mattress in my possession and your hair absolutely everywhere. Spare me the hassle, see if I give a fuck," he snarled in repudiation.
She couldn't help pausing in injury for a second before throwing a golden finial with savage intensity, which carelessly missed Draco by a solid three meters to instead ping-pong off an innocent statue of a grotesque dwarf which had been slumbering in peace by the windows.
Audette had never pitched for baseball, let alone practiced any sort of game which required scoring with an airborne object, resulting in the angle of each toss hinging on complete chance.
From the opposite perspective it must have seemed like the 'practice round' of any mildly difficult dodging game. Draco's eyebrows raising and his lack of effort to block half of her shots was tell-tale enough.
"Very well, I suppose you realize you've ruined our plans for the evening," she gasped in place when there was no more balls to be thrown save for the final one in her hand.
Her stubborn personality wanted to see him on his knees for the upset he'd caused her...but it was obviously not happening.
Draco rolled his eyes and lowered his wand halfway wearily, apparently judging whether or not the so-called "tantrum" had truly concluded, "I've survived this many years without that particular exchange, surely in the time it takes you to come crawling back I won't perish. Our relationship has larger foundations, Audette."
In that moment Audette suddenly realized she might very well be overreacting as usual to what was arguably a mistake, but how she was supposed to backtrack was beyond imagination.
There was pretty glass all over the floor and multiple ghosts were watching and whispering, not to mention the emotional damage done to Filch who would now have to manually redecorate the base of the Christmas tree.
Her hair was all matted to tears on her cheeks as she pointed a scorned finger at him in a crazed manner, her voice suddenly dropping into a dangerously calm tone, "Well I shall declare this now - the next time that I catch you flirting with another floozy think twice, because I shall tell the whole school that you asked me to stick this very finger up your backside for sexual pleasure."
At this Guy broke out into a fit of suppressed laughter through his clenched teeth in the background. "Oh good lord, Audette," he wheezed into his sweater collar hysterically, his colorful eyes peeking out in guilty amusement.
Draco had been gaining ground on her quickly, exploding seasonally themed missiles with precision and grace and leaving a trail of debris at his heels.
Two meters away he paused, his eyebrows driving together fiercely as if he could not believe the outlandish words she'd just uttered at him, a hint of hilarity now clicking on his tongue, "You batty little witch...Shall we play that game? You'd lose your crinoline at the rumors I would come up with for Princess Parasol."
"Princess Parasol, Merlin save us all," Guy pulled his purple hood far over his face and scrunched tight the two drawstrings so that the only evidence of his giggles was the butthole forming in the center of his hoodie and the muffled cackling below the fabric.
"No one will believe a rake like you over an angel like me," Audette fumed back in Draco's face, but on the contrary she was quite certain that the cunning and popular boy would be able to ruin her at the drop of a hat.
He was now close enough to loom over her, his pricey black suit and silky hair freckled with dandruff from the vaporized decorations. As she calmed down rapidly he began to visibly laugh at her alongside Guy, who was absolutely losing himself in the background.
"You're not fooling anyone with that prestigious angel complex, Audette. Just look at the state of this corridor. You'd think Mr. Bubbles got lose in the castle," Draco tsked.
Several times he tried to catch her pink mittens but she rotated her twiggy arms away in deflection, pouting in soggy defeat, "No Draco, I really am quite capsized over this."
"Oh well that would explain this mess; I was of the alternative impression you might have a seriously bizarre antipathy towards Christmas ornaments," he mocked her. He eventually caught her hands with fast strikes and practically crushed her fingers, shaking her on the spot to get her to stand still.
Guy watched through his hole on the sidelines as they panted in each other's faces for a solid minute, sweaty and worked up with hammering hearts, and for a split second she experienced the extremely irrational urge to kiss Draco passionately.
Where that chemical desire was coming from was entirely alien to her - likely because until they'd broken up Audette and Theodore had never fought...at all.
A glimmer of the same heated urge was presenting in the way he kept blinking rapidly down at her lips, his breath invading her nose as he thought about his next words, "As cute as you are with your claws out, stop this unhinged insanity at once - before you force me to lose my temper on you."
"Go off then, lose your temper. Punish me if you see fit because I certainly plan to punish you, unless you grow up and apologize," Audette snapped up at him like a vicious hurricane, only for him to snort and smile devilishly in her face.
Draco shook his head, his eyes travelling around the vaulted ceiling before dropping back on her scrunchy expression, "I am the prefect here, not you Audette. And it is well past your curfew, so I'm directing you to go back to your forbidden, underprivileged bunk and think about your ludicrous actions. Don't expect me to show up later either - you wish to be alone, you can be all alone."
But she didn't truly wish to be alone, and surely neither did he, and now she was feeling all sorts of sour.
Audette thought for a second in bitterness that he would not apologize, and even worse felt capable of bossing her around, before pushing up on her tippy toes.
When it came to any power struggle with a boy, Audette knew just how to win her way.
"Oh I'll be thinking of many, many things, all by my lonesome, and the longer that I am left to ponder and fester, the angrier I shall get," she mischievously squeezed his hands in hers and nudged her nose into his chin teasingly, pressing her body flat against his to wait until she sensed his breathing rate change as he was inevitably overcome with physical desire.
"You manipulative, intoxicating little vixen," Draco sighed heavily, his hands breaking off from hers to pinch at her hips and backside. His nose buried in her fluffy golden hair, and she ran her pointy nails up his chest to pull on his collar to entice him in even more.
Yes, when she was certain he was fully immersed in a certain degree of throng she hushed seductively in his ear, gripping the long platinum hair at the base of his neck with sudden ferocious angst, "When you're good and ready to apologize like the gentleman I expect you to be, then we shall talk. Until then, count yourself unforgiven, and count me devoid of your prefect directions."
In a matter of seconds she had disentangled from his hold, twirled around, and grabbed a gaping Guy by the nape of his neck.
Looking back over her shoulder she was surprised that he let them go, instead checking his fancy watch and jamming his hands into his suit pockets, strands of platinum hair hanging far over his pointy nose.
"This isn't over Audette," he made angled eye contact with her just as they rounded the corner.
The castle was full of negative ionic energy, as if a thunderstorm were about to explode from the Great Hall's illusionary ceiling once again.
Guy fought to maintain a steady breath as they barreled off at full speed without a heading or a care, ignoring the many complaining paintings on the wall that disapproved of the midnight calamity, "You realize he followed you out Audette and put up with that fricken ornament tornado. Perhaps cut him some slack - we are talking about Draco Malfoy."
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She bristled like a pine tree in winter conditions, placing a hand over her thumping heart, "Cut him some slack? I aught to cut him some slack? I don't give a Pumpkin Pasty who he is...After he tattooed his signature on some French infidel? Guy c-"
Guy inhaled dramatically when they reached the spinal artery that was comprised of at least two dozen floors of moving staircases, patting her face on the second floor promenade, "Stop, stop you giant caterwaul! Look! It's Theodore Nott, snooping about!"
Quite correct.
Five floors higher and latched onto a stone balustrade mid-air was indeed Theodore Nott. They watched him leap from the edge of the rising platform before it even had the chance to dock, brushing off his pricey suit on the seventh floor landing before disappearing down the hallway.
"Quick, the western staircase. It doesn't move!" Audette pelted up the stairs, "Here's hoping he doesn't get too far before we can catch up to him."
"But I want to go to bedddd Bella, this night has been proper screwy," Guy moped in the back. By the time Audette reached the seventh floor he had fallen behind by two levels, dragging his shoes noisily and sniffling in the darkness.
Putting out her lit wand she crept down the gorgeous hallway lined with concrete arches, waving backwards at Guy's wheezing to shut him up. At a fork in the hallway only a mild glow around another corner signified where Nott had gone.
Holding her breath Audette flattened her hair against the bricks before turning her face boldly around the corner where moonlight was spilling in from a long line of depressed apertures. At the far end of the extremely off-limits corridor there was a dark figure in that same moonlight, leaning into a blank expanse of wall.
His forehead to his raised arm, Theodore's slender shoulders were bouncing as he sobbed in a manner that Audette had never seen him do. Slowly, he ran his shaking fingers over the gritty brickwork, his cries of sorrow piercing the evening air.
Shockingly, where stone once was suddenly wood and steel appeared, then sunk inwards from his touch. In the surrounding bricks swirling curvilinear designs etched around the newly forming doorway, which Theodore stepped back from to grab onto one of the handles.
He paused for a second with his head hung in some miserable dread before opening the access and vanishing inside, along with any evidence that the doorway had ever been there.
Audette blinked, her eyes wide as teacup saucers at what she'd just witnessed.
"Where in the blithers do you think-" Guy walked away into a small circle with his hands on his hips in confusion, "Blimey, do you figure that's the entrance to feckin' Excetra?"
Crossing her arms Audette stared down at the raggedy purple carpeting below their shoes, "Can't be, it's located in Monaco as far as I know. I wonder if his cabinet is in there, but we don't exactly have a password. Let's wait until he comes back out and see about grabbing a handle before it disappears."
"You said Malfoy has a bunch of weird notebooks, maybe the code in his bedside drawer. Oh, that's right, the bedside drawer that as of tonight you conveniently refuse to go within a square kilometer of," Guy's voice pinched jabbingly.
It was obvious that he was burnt out and ready for his favorite sloth jammies, but nonetheless he stayed there with her for another ten minutes, pacing around in circles, until the loud patter of shoes approaching from the opposite direction sent them scrambling.
"Run! Run!" Cosmos yell-whispered as they searched frantically for an escape route.
Audette lunged for a random door in the hallway, "No you fool, we're trapped! Just get in the closet."
"Ohhh, why did I risk my rump for this absurd recon. Forget it, I'll transfigure into a teacher and make up the excuse of the century," Guy began to rule break and morph in a panic, in such a panic in fact that it was an extremely disturbing display.
His head alone was reeling at random, between Rubeus Hagrid the groundskeeper, to Pomona Sprout, then on to Snape and then even more uselessly Moaning Myrtle. Each version of the person in question was extremely distorted and blending together atrociously.
"Stop it! Stop that at once, that is so grotesque. Moaning Myrtle is a bloody well ghost you maniac!" Audette pushed her transformative friend into the dank broom closet with both hands covering what was now the ghastly face of Garrick Ollivander, who had been found murdered in his wand shop years prior.
They breathed hoarsely in the pitch black of the cramped room as the person walking through the hall's echoing footsteps increased in volume.
"Does the excuse of the century have something to do with impersonating deceased people, solely from the shoulders up?" Audette heaved through her haggard breath. She tangled her hands in his sweater, "Will you stop morphing, I can hear you popping around over there."
"I'm not a light switch, you know how I get when I'm rattled. Audette! There is someone in here with us!" Guy's yelps were so obnoxious that a rather quiet yet heated slap fight ensued between them as Audette tried to smack some sense into him. Poles from broomsticks started to fling all over the place, and Guy accidentally stepped on her poor slipper.
"It's probably a mop Cosmos! Stop!" she blurted before cupping a hand over the mouth of whatever head he was currently mimicking.
With worry in her heart that surely the chaos had drawn attention to their hiding space she shifted her eye up to a large crack in the wood.
Whoosh.
In a blur the person passed by outside of the closet, but in that second a flash of platinum hair and the smell of his cologne implied that it was the dreamy and demonic Draco Malfoy.
She let go of Guy and flattened herself against an even larger crack, trying to catch a better glimpse.
"There is someone in here, Audette, I felt a breath on my neck," Guy insisted on being annoying and filling her ears with more whining anyways.
"Well then breathe back, Merlin knows they aught to drop dead from your lack of flossing," Audette disregarded his concerns.
Draco stopped at the wall and checked his watch again, his eyes appearing especially sharp and cruel in the moonlight.
"It's Draco, he's waiting outside of the wall," Audette explained curtly. Guy then mushed his cheek up against hers, both of their eyeballs aligned in front of the crack.
As flawlessly as it had materialized the first time, the secret doorway was back, and Theodore Nott stepped out reluctantly. He barely acknowledged Draco at first, slamming a rather stylish maroon notebook onto the carpet before shifting a murderous gaze to him, "You've tampered with it, again. Don't think I am unaware of your meddling, Malfoy."
Draco's expression was downright heartless and subzero, his silvery eyes taking in the leather journal which had fallen open to a page covered in ancient runes and odd mathematics, reminding Audette of what she had seen in his own writings, "What's the matter Nott? You said it yourself; you're more capable than I am of repairing it."
"I did not accuse you of repairing it. I accused you of disrepairing it, which is an action preluded by none other than that asinine ghost," Theodore pointed his wand at Draco's nose. His eyes were noticeably pink from his teary state, looking in the pale tendrils of celestial light as if he was cracking in half and preparing to end it all.
Not a blink was provided by Draco, who simply stared at Theodore with hooded judgement, "Seeing as I'm not considered by you to be any wiser than the likes of Peeves, I'm quite surprised you've assigned me the honor of delicately interloping your work, but I shall welcome the challenge."
Theodore gasped through his worked up state, "So you wish to take everything from me, first Audette, and now my family? You are well aware of what will happen to them should I fail this task. He will have them all eliminated, and leave myself to suffer with that revised reality."
Guy made a disgruntled noise in his throat, "I've never seen Nott in such shambles."
"I don't understand, who would murder his family?" Audette covered her mouth, but not because she didn't understand, but because she was beginning to...
The two boys took careful steps at an identical pace around each other, Draco using words as weapons to further drive a stake into Theodore's evident anguish, "Maybe your family should have thought about that when they decided to abandon Excetra the first time. A complete lack of loyalty comes with a price. Regardless you won't fail Nott, you've just been more distracted than usual, isn't that right?"
Nott blinked several times in contemplation before his expression really did collapse, and Draco directed his eyes upwards so he could avoid the tear jerking display, "You've been tampering with my progress in order to wear me thin until you can finalize your standing with the Bellarose's, haven't you? Haven't you?"
"Possibly," Draco crinkled his nose with a snort, resting his unapologetic glare on the broken boy across from him, "Let's just say I have been enjoying a lack of your irksome presence around my relationship. She'll be wholly mine before this holiday is up, you can bank on that."
He smiled coyly, purposefully tossing fuel on the fire.
Theo turned around with his wand out and proceeded to viciously explode several bobbing Asian lanterns, which had been glowing in the rafters above for the exclusive Slug Club Christmas Party, of which he himself had attended only days earlier being one of Slughorn's personal favorite genius'.
"Busy night for that halfwit squib," Draco tsked quietly under his breath, his bright blue eyes lit up with the red glowing embers of dropping damaged tissue from the ruined display.
Theodore leaned on the wall against his back, trembling from obvious physical and emotional exhaustion and appearing on the verge of hurling, "No. No you cannot protect her - you've already placed her directly in danger to appease your selfish infatuation. Audette is not cut out for the life we lead, nor for what goes on behind closed doors at that foul mansion. She is sensitive, and intractable, and will attract unwanted attention immediately. You're too close to that snake living in your home - don't expose her to this nightmare."
"Malfoy has a pet snake?" Cosmos asked Audette, misreading the circumstances entirely.
"As if I would know such a thing. Besides, I'm quite certain it was a metaphor," Audette swallowed through the knives beginning to grow like metal thorns in her throat.
Draco raised an eyebrow at Theodore, patient, but nearing close to a predictably nasty outburst, "Being close to him is better for her than being at the bottom rank and fighting for approval by a wart's width. He will have his reign, and my family will protect her properly with our hierarchy, unlike someone who risked her security by abdicating her."
"Quite the opposite - I relinquished her so that she might find a match less involved in this atrocious uprising," Theo swung forward and with a meticulous flick of his wrist cast an injurious spell at Draco's face, missing his suit shoulder by a mere millimeter. He stood there with loose chocolate hair swirling wildly in the evening wind, his oceanic eyes pained and burning, "Let her go, or I shall ensure you are forced to live through an agony you perceive to be historic."
The spell had been purposefully directed to hardly miss, but regardless Draco took several steps back in revolt of the extremely risky threat, his eyes large and outraged. Surprisingly he still had yet to remove his own wand from his pocket.
He straightened his suit in a haughty huff, mimicking a creepy, high-pitched version of Theo's voice, "Let her go, let her go...Relax you rambling freak. Take responsibility for your gamble. If you lay a spell on me in this castle my father will ensure you are charged criminally. Your record for assault is at it's maximum."
"Cosmos, stop stepping on my heel," Audette rasped in objection, as it had now occurred three times in the itsy closet and was veritably irritating.
"I am not stepping on jack shite," Guy reacted defiantly, nudging her aside so he could take a higher percentage of the viewport. His candy breath filled her nose rancidly.
Theodore stepped back from Draco as well with his teeth barred, his eyes wild with a hatred that was undeniably irreversible by that stage.
His entire demeanor converted into black ice, "You visualize yourself as a villain, but I will show you the true meaning of evil if you marry Bellarose. I've been watching you closely, and I know now the precise role you played in disintegrating my life. Just imagine how compelling my desire to return the favor is."
He reached into the panel of his navy suit and retrieved a shockingly rare item which hung from his neck on an ivory chain of Elven design; a time turner pendant.
The time turner they had discovered together in an abandoned office, years ago as children, at back then broken and considered beyond salvage.
It had been modified from it's original primeval format; now the central hourglass was glowing with a blue hum, rotating gyroscopically in the middle of several dainty metal rings.
As if an integral wall had cracked open on a space ship, all of the air in the hallway actively dispersed.
At the sight of the dangerous and illegal object Draco's mouth dropped open, and suddenly his polished vibrations went straight out the windowless apertures as if his soul had just departed from his body. It was visible then in his glittery gaze as he watched the hourglass spin beautifully with the deadly poison of time manipulation, that he feared an obvious reset.
Theodore locked his brooding beryl eyes on Draco's stunned orbs which raised gradually in understanding from the pendant. His voice was nearly unrecognizable, as dark as the sea against the rocks on a stormy day, "Surprised? Where has all of your witty banter run off to? I've been distracted repairing more than one object, Malfoy."
The glow of the magical apparatus reflected off of the walls for an excruciatingly silent pause.
Draco found his words, although his tone was tight and terse with worry, "Tell me, how do you plan to produce a ripple in history so magnitudinal? It's a farce, utterly insane - even you are not that desperate. You could destabilize the very fabric of the spacetime continuum."
Theodore shrugged one shoulder bluntly, "The technomancy is being gauged, and conclusivity is limited only by my persistence. I will solve this problem eventually, then you can forget about ever knowing Audette Bellarose."
Audette could see the Adam's apple in Draco's slender throat bob repeatedly despite his efforts to appear unaffected by the possibility that his newly formed relationship would become a figment of his dreams once again, never to establish beyond an adverse acquaintance, and never for him to experience her love in return.
He was six feet in stature, but now that she was familiar with his mannerisms Audette could see he was shrinking into a helpless boy, doing everything in his power not to cry.
His chest began to heave in the same way it had when she previously considered breaking up with him, and any vision of his pride and arrogance whiskered away. He dropped his face and batting eyes, pulling his black tie loose from his throat.
Guy sighed in overwhelm, turning around with his back flat against the door's interior, "I can't look anymore Audette, and I don't want to hear another bloody word."
In the darkness his hands came up to muffle his ears, and in the process he elbowed Audette so hard in the temple that it set off an instant, ruinous headache.
Before she could complain they both slithered away from the doorway when a third set of heated footsteps reverberated from the stairwell direction, only to find that someone had strangely hung a fuzzy carpet in the back of the ambry.
No. Wait.
It was no carpet.
Audette's mind and body froze when she came to the realization that someone was in the closet with them, and that person was hiding below a blanket of sorts. She could feel body heat and muscles shifting against her hands, but moving was not on the docket.
Severus Snape's snarling voice was bellowing outside, and if he sniffed them out packed into a broom closet like sardines they would be eaten up like the fishy snacks just as well.
"-Mr. Nott, in anticipation of these antics perhaps I should have taken your wand instead. Mr. Malfoy, returned as promised."
Quiet, then Snape continued, "Report. Now Nott. And do not waste another moment of my time this evening. You may award my tardiness to several students who were discovered to be missing from dormitories, two of which belong in Slytherin. Any chance...either of you would happen to know the whereabouts of Bellarose and Cosmos?"
Audette could just picture the eye narrowing occurring in the wrecked hallway.
Draco's voice was hoarse and short, "No."
"How...disappointing. You label yourself the captain of the dueling club, yet you cannot handle a five foot ballerina and a whimpering moppet."
"They slipped off."
"Strange. Argus Filch communicated to me a very different story, one involving projectile decorations. You had better practice control over that girl sooner than later if you expect her to survive at your side in the coming months. She requires discipline, and her father has astoundingly agreed to transfer this responsibility to you," Snape hissed.
There was a shuffling of clothing and footwear, a groan of the vanishing door, and then ear piercing quietude.
"Can we go now?" Cosmos wailed at half-volume, obviously as aware of the mystery person under the cloak as her.
Audette was paralyzed by the horror of the situation, before the individual decided to take control for themselves without warning.
In an explosive blast they shoved their way out of the closet, directly between Guy and Audette without even removing the cloak.
Exactly why became apparent once the door was open and Audette and Cosmos witnessed an entirely invisible person trip on the carpeting with a soap bucket stuck to one foot, before scampering off anonymously.
"I ate too many mushrooms for this codswallop evening," Guy exclaimed, a palm to his forehead in the opening. He shifted it to her shoulder to shake her, but Audette only registered muffled words after that point.
Somewhere in the distance the ding-dong midnight menace of the Clock Tower was going off as Guy held up a very weak Audette from fainting.
Her head was spinning and ringing, thinking back to Harry Potter's words in the second trial,
They've infiltrated the tournament a second time. The Simulation Architect, the Event Beast Master...Mr. Malfoy's generous donations - they have total control, and I'm convinced they need Draco to place first.
Visions of the past few months flashed out of order.
Theodore in his infirmary bed, frowning up at the vaulted ceiling,
The world is demonstrably changing Audette, waken your deft senses to the current state of wizarding politics and you won't need me to explain anything to you. It's right in front of your nose, even in your own home - it has been for years.
Draco holding her in his bed, telling her he prayed she never found out what he'd been shaped into.
Nott scratching his left arm as if bugs were crawling below his tanned skin.
Montgomery's monocle glinting in the torch lighting in the first trial spectators ring,
Audette is naturally a highly coveted prize - even moreso once the new world is established.
Mr. Malfoy's icy grin in Befana as he evaluated the news of Theodore enrolling in Excetra,
As if it would save them from disfavor at this closing stage. Although, one cannot referee them for the desperate survival effort.
"I think..." she wheezed breathlessly, turning her face into Guy's sweater, choking on a sentence that did not feel real leaving her lips, "I think...my father, Draco, Theodore...everyone I care about...is a Death Eater."