Viper

Chapter 10: Rumours

End of the School Year, 1992. 11 Years old.

As the school year approached to an end, Lexie and her friends noticed an odd change in Professor Quirrell. He began to grow more paranoid and frightened each day and as a result, would often experience periods of blacking out during class.

Lexie's orders to befriend Harry Potter had not gone according to plan. Harry avoided her and Draco at all cost and whenever Draco saw Harry, Lexie was nowhere near him. Perhaps this was for the best though, because Draco's methods of interacting with Harry were quite brutal, and it wouldn't have won any points where Lexie was concerned.

"What's wrong with him?" Pansy Parkinson whispered in Lexie's ear. The tone of disgust did not go unnoticed, nor did the look on her face that was currently mimicking her tone.

Lexie looked up from her theory parchment to see Quirrell staring at his desk with hands wrapped around his turban. There was a bizarre look of anguish displayed on his facial features. "Honestly, Pans, I haven't a clue."

Pansy looked between Quirrell and Lexie and pushed aside her work. "No, but seriously Lex. There is something severely odd about him."

"Don't start with that rubbish again, Parkinson." Blaise, who was sitting at the table next to them overheard the conversation and butted in.

"Shut it, Zabini." Pansy retorted as she turned her head. Draco was sitting next to Blaise, quietly doing his work. Crabbe and Goyle were sitting behind him trying to peep his answers to the prompt. Blaises' parchment remained blank as he stared back at Pansy, unaware her eyes were not on him.

As Pansy continued her banter with Blaise, Lexie turned to Theo who was sitting patiently on her left side. They began to converse with each other about the prompt and whether he mentioned all the possible side effects of the Knockback Jinx. Suddenly, Lexie remembered the attack that happened on Halloween night.

She turned and said, "Oi, Pansy!" to get her attention. Pansy turned her attention back to Lexie. "You don't reckon it's from the troll attack do you?"

Pansy remained silent for a few seconds before lightly shaking her head. "No, it's not that. It must be something else."

Blaise, who still couldn't bring himself to focus, turned to Pansy once again. "Pansy, your theories make no sense."

"Shut it, Zabini."
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The days passed and the students were reaching the end of the term, however, Quirrell's strange behaviour was getting harder to not notice. Especially when he didn't show up to his lessons one day.

"See, Lex, he's nowhere to be found!" Pansy exclaimed.

"Hate to admit you were right, Parkinson. But he's gone." Blaise said.

"Where d'you think he ought to have gone?" Theodore asked.

"Probably talking to Dumbledore." Draco said coolly. He was the most unphased about Quirrell's disappearance. And caught multiple times muttering to Merlin to give Hogwarts a proper Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

"You don't think he got sacked do you?" Lexie butted in.

"Nah." Draco replied. "Probably just getting told off for his behaviour. I'm sure he will be back and boring us in no time."

"I'm tired of this school year. We learned nothing from him!" Pansy screeched.

"Well maybe if you had paid attention to our previous lessons," Draco paused to lower his voice and arched a blonde eyebrow. "You wouldn't have relied on old Quirrell to teach you."