Dance of the Knights → 𝘳. 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘺

vii. an unspoken question

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seven

an unspoken question 

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It was the last weekend of September, which meant one more week until the first Hogsmeade trip. Juniper was antsy for it. They were always a much-welcomed respite from the purgatory of weekends confined to the Hogwarts grounds.

Still, as soon as the last lesson ended on Friday, Juniper felt as though she could take a full breath again. Now that Umbridge had taken it upon herself to inspect the other Hogwarts professors, her presence was unavoidable and suffocating.

To Juniper's great annoyance, Blaise was still not taking her seriously. Even when she told him about the wounds she'd seen on Potter's hand, he'd shrugged and reasoned it couldn't have been that bad because Potter had recently gotten another week's worth of detention for declaring that their first Defense teacher had Voldemort living on the back of his head.

(When this happened, Blaise had stifled a laugh into his hand and Juniper glared at him.)

She was in an especially sour mood before her chess lesson with Weasley on Sunday. She hadn't gotten to eat breakfast because Umbridge kicked her and Blaise out of the Great Hall for arriving too late. Not that she'd been terribly hungry, it had just pissed her off to be denied even a single strawberry.

When Weasley sat at their table, in front of the chessboard Juniper had already set up, his eyebrows were high on his forehead. Juniper grimaced at the table, figuring she was most likely doing a poor job of masking her bad mood if Weasley could detect it.

He didn't bring it up, though, smiling a bit as he shuffled through his book bag. Juniper noticed that his hair was particularly wild that afternoon, windblown with sprigs pointing out in all directions. She diverted her gaze before he could notice she'd been looking at him, instead, watching as he placed Think Like a Grandmaster next to the chessboard.

"I read a few chapters," said Weasley. "So, you'll to teach me that charm you did in Potions, yeah?"

Juniper quirked an eyebrow at him. "Are you a puppy, Weasley? Do you always require positive reinforcement to learn something new?"

Instead of looking offended, like Juniper had intended, Weasley grinned. "That's a great idea, actually. Does one chocolate frog per page sound fair to you?"

She scoffed, deciding to move this conversation along to more important matters. "So, you started on the book. Tell me, which was your least favorite chapter?"

He knit his eyebrows, considering. "I don't know about any chapter, but I got really tired with the...what was it?" He flipped through the pages before his eyes returned to Juniper. "Probably all that rubbish about calculation."

"Okay, then." She nodded decisively. "Today's lesson is on calculation."

The amusement in Weasley's eyes was snuffed out. "You're killing me here, Juniper."

At the sound of her first name leaving Weasley's mouth, Juniper nearly flinched. She shook her head, deciding to move on without addressing it. No one really called her by her first name except for Blaise and Oren. It wasn't like it bothered her that Weasley used it, she was just surprised. She only hoped he wasn't expecting her to start calling him Ron.

"Just hear me out," she said, lifting her hand to signal him to pause and listen. "Firstly, I would like to agree with you that Kotov's guide to calculating sort of sucks."