Sinners and Serpents {g.w.}

Chapter 14

As you picked up your quill to begin writing your essay, you fought to hide a grimace as pain pulsed through your hand and lanced up your arm. It had only been a few days since your detention with Umbridge, meaning your hand was still red and swollen. If you flexed it too hard, the flimsy scabbing beginning to grow over the wound would crack and break, letting bright drops of blood well up.

After you'd finished your lines and went back to your dorm, you were gritting your teeth so hard your jaw ached. It hurt, in a way that alarmed you. You'd suffered your fair share of injuries and small scrapes, but this was unlike anything you'd ever felt. The wounds burned, and every gust of cold air or brush of your robe sleeve had you holding back a yelp of pain. It had taken nearly two hours for your hand to stop leaking blood, meaning that you had missed dinner, which didn't help with how horrid you felt.

Each time your heart beat, your hand pulsed with renewed pain, making sleep almost impossible that night. You'd had to sleep with your hand carefully balanced on your chest, praying that you wouldn't toss and turn in your sleep and disturb the swelling words etched into your skin.

You hadn't let any of your friends glimpse your hand so far, much to your surprise. It was harder to hide than you had thought. Hiding it wasn't you trying to keep a secret from your friends; quite the opposite. You didn't want to make them worry, and you knew that Ron would be especially angry if he found out. There was nothing to be done about the situation except let your hand heal and hope that there wouldn't be a scar.

The healing process had been odd, though. It was like something inside the cuts were fighting off your body as it tried to repair the damaged skin, leaving it tender and fragile. You had cast a couple of cooling charms over it to reduce the inflammation and dim the pain, but the simple spell could only do so much.

Ron, Harry, and George were sitting in the Gryffindor common room with you, trying to piece together an essay for Care of Magical Creatures about some wretched animal Hagrid had shown them the day before. The thing had been slimy, but armed with a wicked sharp set of yellowing teeth, and if it was startled, stingers tipped with poison would explode from its tail.

A nightmare of a thing, really, and Hagrid had been practically bursting with excitement when he'd shown it to your class.

You were by the fire, angled so that the arm that you wrote with was closest to the crackling flames. Easier to hide your hand using your body than to pull your sleeve up over it. The heat didn't feel wonderful against the throbbing skin, but it was better than the scratching, stinging sensation of cloth rubbing against it.

Writing your essay had proved to be exceptionally difficult, because you had walked into the common room and seen George in his stupid gray sweatpants slung low on his hips and his slightly mussed hair and eyes that were still a bit puffy from sleep, because it was a Saturday, and of course he had just woken up a few minutes before you arrived. He'd even greeted you with a gruff "Mornin'", a word that, combined with his tired eyes and the strip of skin that appeared as he stretched his arms above his head, made an ache pulse in your hips. Focusing on anything when he looked like that was apparently impossible, making you frustrated in more ways than one. You weren't even sure why you were still noticing him like that in the first place; you hadn't really done anything more with him than kiss for a few minutes, but thoughts of George seemed impossible to get rid of.

Stupid fucking git couldn't give you a damn break and let you study, could he?

"Oh," Ron began, setting his quill down and turning towards you. "I completely forgot to ask because classes have been kicking my ass lately. How'd detention with Professor Toadface go?"

Shit.

You shrugged, continuing to write. "Fine, I guess. It was just lines, really. Scrubbing cauldrons with Snape was definitely worse."