WHO: Hannah Abbott and Vincent Crabbe (guest appearance by Bem!) WHEN: A bit before dinner WHERE: A corridor SUMMARY: A duel over biscuits RATING: PG-13 STATUS:Complete
Hannah had a basket of goodies. Today she was going to pass them out. Yesterday she'd spent most of the day in front of Wellington the oven baking all sorts of biscuits, running out the last of her butter and eggs, flour and sugar. She'd done this last year with her dear little oven, and now she was prepared to spread Christmas cheer once again.
But as she saw a hulking shadow coming around the corner, Hannah froze. She really should have turned and ran away. But no, she froze.
Crabbe was surely on his way somewhere important when he was distracted by the smell of biscuits, and whatever that important thing was he had to do immediately left his mind. These were definitely not house elf, school-made biscuits. Somebody had put time and care into these biscuits.
He should've guessed he'd see Abbott once the smell of newly baked desserts reached him. She always smelled like baking; it was about the only thing he liked about her. He lumbered her way, making note of the fact that nobody else seemed to be in the corridor--at least, not for the moment.
"Aww, sweetcheeks, you bake those just for me?"
She didn't know what was more horrifying. The fact that it was Crabbe or the fact that he had just called her sweetcheeks. She stood her ground, though. She wasn't going to be cowed this time.
"No," Hannah said. She held the basket close to her chest, glaring up at Crabbe in case he decided to try and grab it. But instead of holding it with both hands, she reached into her pocket to be sure that she had her wand in hand. "These aren't for you."
Crabbe took a step even closer, not quite touching her but only a hair's breadth away. "See, I think they are." He used every inch of the height difference between them to his advantage, puffing himself up as much as he could. "I think they're just for me."
He made a quick move to grab for the basket with his left hand, wand ready in his right in case she tried to keep a hold.
They were wrapped in bits of plastic, tied with little bows. Only that made Hannah willing to let the basket fly into his arms. Because she had something more at stake than her biscuits at the moment. It was a matter of pride and she wasn't going to go down petrified this time. She was going to make this duel end with her standing over Crabbe, not the other way around.
"Expelliarmus!" she shouted, wand pointed at his.
Crabbe raised his wand a fraction of a second too late, and it shot out of his hand, clattering to the floor further up the corridor. "Bitch," he said through clenched teeth. Now without a wand but with the basket (minus a few sets of biscuits that flew out when he took it with such force), he was rather out of his duelling element.
He threw a set of cookies at Abbott's head, his aim to distract her long enough to regain his wand. He moved faster than one might expect of him, hurling a simple leek-growing hex her way as soon as he regained the wand.
She ignored his insult. It meant nothing to her. What really mattered was that she had managed to disarm him. Of course, it wasn't as though it did that much good considering he was able to regain it. But it was something, and she was going to take every victory she had on him and relish it.
But now was not the time to enjoy anything. In fact, it was the time to be unable to hear, as the leeks were growing out of her ears. But Hannah didn't bother trying to get rid of them at the moment. She didn't trust that she could counter-curse them without being hit by another one of his spells.
"Stupefy!"
This time, Vincent was prepared. He was able counter easily. This was escalating quickly, and he was sorely tempted to use some of those Dark spells they'd been learning in class--he wanted to see what they did to real people instead of stupid bears--but, unusually, he thought better of it. He had plenty of other jinxes at his disposal anyway. He sent a snake her way, serpentsortia being one of his favourites ever since Draco used it against Potter way back their second year.
Thankfully Hannah had no trouble with scaly creatures, helped in part by her adoration of her tortoise. Instead of losing her head at the sight of the snake, she cast a hurling hex, driving it back to Crabbe and hoping that her aim was true--she wanted it to wrap around Crabbe's thick skull.
Cradling the basket of biscuits in his left arm while casting with his right, there wasn't much Crabbe could do to stop the snake flying back to him and landing next to his ear. He left it for the moment, crawling around his shoulders. He figured it looked badass enough to make up for the biscuit basket.
The engorgio spell he shot next was aimed at the ear leeks, but with so much to keep track of with his upper body his aim may have faltered.
It was an odd sight, but Hannah was too focused to take it in much. She would have forgotten about the biscuit basket if he hadn't been carrying it. The biscuits were probably a complete loss now, but she didn't feel that this duel was necessarily a complete loss. She was holding up her own for now. But she needed to get rid of these stupid leeks. She cast a severing charm on them, because they were getting in the way of her eyes now. As soon as she'd done it she tried casting a protego, although she knew that there was a chance he'd cast a spell too quickly.
With no spell cast his way to counter, Crabbe sent a nasty boil hex toward Hannah. This was starting to be a lot of work for some biscuits.
Her skin started erupting in boils. This was not looking so great at the moment. But before her armpits could be full of them and make it impossible to move her wand, she cast a spell at him that she'd practiced with Neville, the one from her sister's book. If it landed properly, it would cause Crabbe's feet to burn like he was on the hottest sand.
Crabbe didn't recognize the spell Hannah sent at him and, with the snake winding its way around his elbow, couldn't counter it in time. He began jumping around from foot to foot as though it were the ground itself and not his feet that burned, shouting expletives all the while. He shuffled the snake off his arm awkwardly, vanishing it as it writhed on the ground before relieving his feet with a cooling charm.
Darnit, it didn't stop him long enough for her to get another good spell in. So she shot off a hex to hurl him back against the wall. Maybe it'd knock his stupid head against the wall and drive some sense into it. But just as she was doing that, she heard out a slow, deep voice call out--
"Stop!"
Crabbe whirled at the sound of a voice, lowering his wand when he saw the prefect badge. He didn't care about some little Gryffindor prefect catching them; he might not even have stopped under other circumstances, but he was really hungry and just wanted to enjoy the fruits of his labours.
"She's crazy. You've got to get her to the Carrows. All I did was ask for a biscuit and she starts throwing hexes at me!" he exclaimed quickly, smirking back at Abbott when he got the chance.
"Did not!" Hannah said. "Bem," as she knew all the prefects by name. "Look at that hulking idiot. Are you really going to believe him?" She was earnest, even as more boils popped on her skin leaking green puss.
Bem seemed to not want to get in trouble with Crabbe, really, as he shot Hannah a sympathetic look but then turned toward Vincent. "You should have just come to find one of us," he said, but not in much of a scolding sort of tone.
"I wanted to but it was all too quick. I had to defend myself." He could barely keep a smirking tone out of his voice. "She was going to blast me into the wall! You saw it." Now take her and leave, Crabbe willed. I want to eat.
Bem swallowed. He knew that Hannah had likely been attacked. And it didn't seem that Crabbe was about to go with just one biscuit. It looked as though he was going to take all of them. But there was no way that the Carrows were going to side with Hannah, not with the trouble she'd give them.
"Come on, Hannah," said Bem. "We need to go see the Carrows."
That was no the way Hannah wanted to end this day that had been going so well, but she was covered in boils and she knew there was no way that she was going to get out of it.
"Just you wait, Crabbe," she said. "This isn't over."