secret santa (tapsanta) wrote in unraveled, @ 2016-12-31 12:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | secret santa |
FOR: Alicia
WHO: Bellatrix
WHAT: School Days
She feels hundreds of eyes staring wordlessly at her as she strides into the Great Hall that morning, hears the nearly silent whispers as she passes to take her spot at the table. Even several of her housemates stiffen as she sits, their knees turning away as they obviously change the tone of their conversation to one of rehearsed joviality. All she can do is smile, reaching into her bag to pull out a crisp sheet of parchment. A fourth year tries to see what she is writing, and his juice goblet clatters in a panic when he turns away after her eyes glance over to him. He may describe it as an evil eye, a warning or a deliberate gesture. Bellatrix gets a strange satisfaction in knowing even the most innocent and innocuous of glances can spark fear now. Horace Slughorn laughs from his seat at the front of the room, at the long table of professors and faculty. It is the only sound to break the tension, before students start to fall out of the spell, venturing back into the mundane and mindless conversation Bellatrix is so used to enduring now. Little do the children know of what rages outside the halls, what she is ready to do, though they may have some idea now of the power she is ready to wield. It’s a heady feeling, and one that makes her smile. She’s slow to characterize it as hope, but it's a step in a right direction. Slughorn shakes his head and tuts at Professor McGonagall, waving his hand in the air and dismissing the idea completely. She rolls her eyes and needs to keep herself from turning to Headmaster Dumbledore, though her fist is firmly clenched around the handle of her fork. “Miss Black is a young woman who understands her actions perfectly. Any accomplished duelist will not and should not apologize for their own power, Minerva, you know that.” “A sixth year is hardly an accomplished duelist, Horace,” she responds in a hushed tone, eyes never leaving the dark-haired girl primly setting her own malignant hand to parchment at the table below. “She is a gifted student, professor, and if she wishes to not apologise, that is her choice completely.” “With all due respect, Horace. . .” “And may I remind you, she is not under your house jurisdiction.” “May I remind you, Professor Slughorn,” Minerva shakily responds, her Scottish brogue bubbling up in a simmering anger, “that Mr. Diggory is still recovering after the attack on Wednesday night, one in which your very own house’s student so cruelly. . .” “Dueling club is hardly an attack, it is that very alarmist talk that our society hardly needs now, Minerva,” he laughs again, bitterly this time, and busies himself with more important matters - namely, the half-dozen breakfast sausages crowded to the side of his plate. Minerva’s thin-lipped grimace lets out a sigh of stubborn resignation, and she finally glances over at Dumbledore sitting next to her. But his neutrality speaks volumes to her. Still, even Bellatrix notices him looking at her as she stands to leave, after finishing her letter and starting off for the owlery. She doesn't know it's the same distant, empty sort of expression that he will later have as he scans the never-ending stories in the Prophet of more successful attacks. He’ll wonder if he should have seen this all coming, if they could have stopped a war in its earliest stages. If intervention was a possibility. At that moment, Bellatrix feels the hush settle in again, and once her back is turned on the group, she will grin. She hardly needs dueling club, and an apology would be untruthful. She is not sorry in the slightest, and she doesn't need dueling club. She still has her pride, and that is chiefly more important than anyone’s safety or life. |