Parallel

5. Our Seventh Year Mission

"Are you feeling alright?"

Eve glanced up at Kate, who'd voiced the question. "Yeah, why?"

Kate pointed her chin towards Eve's plate, which was piled up with basically the same amount of food that had been on it since the start of lunch. "You haven't eaten a single thing."

"Oh." Eve poked at some fish and chips with her fork, waving her hand nonchalantly. "I'm just not hungry."

From Kate's right, Sophie leaned over and shot Eve a similar look of concern. "All you did was nibble on a cookie, and lunch is almost over."

"Yeah, well. . . . I actually went to the kitchens earlier with Logan and gorged on a bunch of food, so I'm stuffed."

Both her friends immediately perked up. "The kitchens? You know where the kitchens are?" questioned Kate, looking shocked, while Sophie raised an eyebrow in interest and asked, "Who's Logan?"

"Logan Jean," Eve answered her. "I met him last night." She then turned to Kate, frowning. "Yeah, I know where the kitchens are. You don't?"

"No! I didn't even know students could access them!"

"Huh. From the way Logan was casually talking about it, I thought it was widespread knowledge."

"Wha—it's definitely not!" Kate scooted forward and grasped Eve's hands, a glint of excitement in her eyes. "Can you take me to see them one day? Please?"

"Wow, she has manners," remarked Abraxas offhandedly from across the table, where he'd clearly been eavesdropping. From beside him, Alphard rolled his eyes, no doubt preparing for another squabble match.

Sure enough, Kate's head snapped up at the comment, and Eve saw her eyes narrow dangerously. "What did you just say?"

As Abraxas immediately tried to backpedal on his words, Eve turned back to poke at her chips. They were crispy and hot, perfectly golden—just the way she liked them.

They also didn't appeal to her full stomach at all.

After she and Logan had decided to ditch their plan to go to the library, he'd led her towards the Entrance Hall instead. They'd slipped through a side door and taken a flight of stairs to a lower level of the castle, the path much more familiar to Eve than she'd led on to her Ravenclaw friend. It had brought them to a broad stone basement corridor, which had been brightly lit and littered all over with fruit-themed paintings.

Amongst such paintings had been the gigantic one of a bowl of fruit, which Logan had gestured to with a point and a playful smirk. He'd approached it and stood by its side before turning back around to make eye contact with Eve.

"Would you like to do the honors?"

Eve raised her eyebrows. "Oh—sure." She tentatively stepped forward to stand directly in front of the painting and pasted an expression of uncertainty onto her face. "You said to . . . tickle the pear?"

"Tickle the pear," Logan confirmed, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. He observed her with a wide smile, as though he'd just declared the secret recipe for Hogwarts's chocolate chip muffins.

Eve hesitantly raised her arm, lifting her fingers to float just millimeters away from the dried paint of the green pear. From her close position to it, she could see the texture and bumps of the paint upon the canvas.

The last (and only) time Eve had visited the kitchens, Hermione had been the one at the front who'd tickled the pear. Therefore, with the knowledge but without any prior experience, Eve couldn't help but feel incredibly stupid as she moved her fingers in a tickling motion against the painting, her nails nearly taking off flakes of the paint.