𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐲 | 𝐝.𝐦.

thirty four

It is the middle of September now, when Betty stumbles out of bed, smearing the sleep away from her eyes.

She looks out of the window where she is greeted by the glowering clocktower across the school grounds, as if grinning maliciously at her as the minute hand joins the hour hand at nine.

Springing into action, Betty sticks her head out of the dorm, finds that the entire common room is void of humans - only a pitiful, lonely elf scurrying around to stack up the books on the shelves.

The dorm that Betty once shared with a Giselle Green, still belongs wholly to her, hence the lack of a roommate to scream for her to wake up.

Truthfully, most of the dorms in the common room are empty, or have turned into a sole room for only one person. There hasn't been much first years enrolling into Hogwarts this year, since hearing about the state of devastation that had struck the school last year.

And many parents were unwilling to prioritise their children's education over their safety, thinking it would be unsafe to allow their children to continue attending the school when Death Eaters were wandering the school, under the patent masquerade of being teachers.

They were right of course.

Circumstances in Hogwarts had taken a turn for the worse since Snape's promotion as headmaster. There was barely any joy left in the school.

Every feast is filled with mirthless energy; every class, students are deathly afraid they might make a wrong move and end up punished for something they wouldn't have been before.

It was a chess game roaming around the school, ensuring that you stayed out of harm and trouble's way, or rather, you don't look appealing enough for trouble to stray towards you.

Betty scrambles to wrap her tie around her robe as she hurries down the staircases, knowing she was doomed for the next lesson, with it being Defence Against the Dark Arts, taught by one of the Carrow siblings.

She has considered her chances of escaping if she simply skipped the class entirely, realised that it would be nearly fatal if she didn't attend it at all, so she collected herself, messily, and led herself to the classroom in the dungeon.

To her relief, as she peeks through the tiny slit of the classroom, she sees the familiar row of tables, and not mats being laid out on the ground - this means that there was a less likely chance of her getting all bruised up by the end of the lesson.

"Look who finally decided to totter in," the daunting professor announces loudly, perched on the high teacher's table, as Betty staggers into the classroom.

Betty feels a heavy red mantle her cheeks. Teeth gritting, she forcibly greets the teacher, "Professor - I'm sorry for being late, it won't happen again."

Her eyes are on her feet as the rest of the class' were on her, scared stiff of what might unfold next.

Just like them, she is severely aware of the Carrow siblings notorious aim to not let any students off, make their lives torturous as if they weren't suffering enough. And she knows she's just handed one of them a reason to excruciate her, she doesn't expect him to simply allow her to join the class -

"That's easy for you to say," Amycus Carrow says, raking her up and down, distaste foiling his leer. "You're lucky I'm in a joyous mood today - I'll deal with you later, after this class."

She suppresses a shiver that goes down her spine.

Keeping her head low, she saunters towards the tables, passing meekly by the teacher who towers her intimidatingly.