The Clown and The Grim

Chapter 27

A/N: Happy Halloween!
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The sun was just beginning to set on Friday as Claire maneuvered the corridors of the dungeons to Snape's classroom for detention. She pushed open the door to the potions classroom and sat down in her usual seat. The room was quiet, the only sound being the small dripping of water that echoed the dungeons eerily.

"Miss Fienley." Snape's voice filled the classroom as he entered.

"Where's Fred?"

"Mr. Weasley's whereabouts are none of your concern." The Professor cupped his hands together and put them behind his back. "Mind you, since he is not here you will be fulfilling both tasks this evening."

"You can't seriously be making me do detention for the both of us when he clearly started it?"

"Maybe this will teach you to keep your lovers' quarrels out of my classroom."

Claire had to use every muscle in her body to refrain from rolling her eyes, she expected her own Head of House to treat her like everyone else. "Fine. What will I be doing?"

"This evening you will be helping me restock my inventory, as well as scrubbing cauldrons."

"Well, I guess it could be worse." Claire pulled her wand from her robe pocket.

"Ah, you won't be needing that. You will be doing this all without magic."

"What?!" Claire yelled. "But I'll be here for hours."

Snape swooped to where Claire sat and placed his hands on the table. "You should have thought about that before you disrupted my class." His eyes narrowed. "Now, if you do not wish to be here for hours you should bite your tongue and begin, shouldn't you?"

Claire huffed as she took her outer house robe off and laid it over her bag and rolled the sleeves of her school shirt up to her elbow. She walked over to the cauldron storage and grabbed two in each hand before going to the kitchens and dropping them in the sink. She repeated this action until all of the cauldrons were in the kitchen sink.

She filled one of the cauldrons with soap and water and began to scrub away the contents of old and failed potions. She wondered where Fred was, she thought back and tried to recall if she had seen him in the Great Hall for breakfast as she had not had classes with Gryffindor's that day.

She moved onto her second cauldron once she was done and treated it the same as the first along with the third and fourth. By the time she made it to the fifth cauldron she was frustrated even more. Frustrated that Snape was forcing her to do double the detention, frustrated that Fred was still mad at her and throwing a tantrum.

"Fred and his stupid, perfect red hair. And his stupidly cute laugh." Claire mumbled to herself as she viciously scrubbed the cauldron in front of her.

"Miss Fienley is wondering about Mr. Weazey?" There was a small squeaky voice that came from behind her.

"Wha-?" Claire turned around quickly to see Dobby standing on the countertop. "Oh uh, hello there Dobby." Her cheeks began to flush as she wondered just how much the elf had heard of her angry mumbles about Fred. She dropped the scrub brush and shook the water off her hands before moving closer to the house elf who in turn stepped away from her.

"Dobby know's bout Miss Fienley's family."

Claire sighed. "Dobby, I promise I'm not going to hurt you. I need to know where Fred is though."

"Dobby does not know."

"Are you sure?" Claire pushed him.

"Dobby-"