Love Potion

Tea-smoked Potatoes with Garlic Chockles

He was standing to the right of the room, Tatiana and Kenzie on either side of him, sharing glowers. He wore a waistcoat, pointed shoes and a foul look. His purple tie was slung loosely and his hands were in the pockets of his pleated trousers: both deliberate moves. He tried to look cool, but tried not to make it look like he was. It was all a part of his delicate façade of cool aloofness, to kid himself of his fatal insecurity. Not that that excused his constant ill temper; right now, he looked like he wanted to convict murder in seventy-two countries. He still looked good.

My face hopelessly flamed. It was inevitable that he would notice me as we walked across the commonroom - I still tried to hide myself behind Persephone in a futile attempt to avoid it. It was in one of my jittery glances at him that our eyes met. 

My heart wrenched. Thin, poisonous eyes, with pinprick pupils and white eyelashes like frosting. How are his lashes longer than mine?! I spited.

Viper's eyes held no emotion for mine, which was in many ways was worse than if they were angry. It was like he was still in his conversation, I wasn't the object of his attention, he was just glancing from afar. He held my gaze for a few aching seconds before turning back to Kenzie (he probably didn't miss a word he said), and tilted his head to whisper something to him. Kenzie immediately sniggered - and he looked right at me. My blood went cold. Tatiana and Tamsin, who were with Viper too, were standing on their tiptoes, wanting in on the comment, and when they heard it they giggled with enough exaggeration to please and added their bulleting gazes to me. 

It was probably my very least favourite feeling, to know someone is talking about me behind my back - and to watch them, too. And that you're desperately attracted to the person talking, and have to share a bedchamber with two of the others. I knew Tatiana was mean, but I had hope for Tamsin.

I anguished to know what dirty words they had snickered about of me. Were they laughing at my hand-me-down uniform, my shabby appearance? Did they know about my unfortunate landing in Viper's bed? Had he lied about it? Made me seem worse? Presented me as a desperate slut? Probably all of the above.

I wouldn't have it.

It was a very childish move, I know, but I pulled down one of my eyes with my middle finger, and stuck my tongue out at them - just to let them know that I knew, and I didn't care.

Though, of course, I did.

Tatiana looked offended, Kenzie actually somewhat impressed, and Tamsin, squirmy. I couldn't quite relish the look of hateful confusion on Viper's face that was him realising that people could actually stand up for themselves.

I was soon coerced away by the girls, and we left the commonroom with me slightly regretful. As we made our way to the Great Hall, the girls babbled amongst themselves, me difficultly tailing along with the conversation as they gabbed about the price of Beast Collective clothes and a band called Westward's Wicked Witches and the latest game of Equipool - a vastly popular sport that's played underwater. (There are eight players aside, and every player has two tags, which you try to remove from the opposing players; if both of your tags are removed then you teleport to the enemy prison, and each tag is worth five points. There are also four 'champers', which are four random water creatures, which bite and bug the players through the game. Each team has a flag which they hide, and if you capture, are awarded twenty-one points and the game ends. The teams are made up of two Guards, who guard the prison, three Knights, who try to get as many enemy tags as possible and ward off champers, two Sneaksters, who sneak to the enemy prison to release their teammates, and one Scout, who is invisible the entire match, has no tags and searches for the enemy flag. It's pretty epic.)

We came to the Great Hall after coming from a corridor where different stones shifted under your feet.

The Great Hall was a massive room of intricate beauty and adornment, with gold sculpted edges and gargoyles and a domed ceiling that was a massive Renaissance painting, of a sky with clouds and cupids and men with winged sandals and women draped in cloth, all animated, like video game characters in standby, and with a moon painted in the middle. The whole painting faintly glowed, dusting the room with mellow light, however most of the lighting came from stone pillars where fire crackled atop. Apparently the painted sky turned to day, and the moon to a sun, in turn with the real sky.