A Shallow Grave

Chapter 6

A month or so passed quickly enough.

I had been attending my classes and being tutored outside of class hours by my professors had allowed me to learn more spells and hone my magic. I finally felt as if I was catching up with the rest of my year. Professors Sharp and Hecat had been especially helpful, taking the time to really educate me on specific defensive spells. My magic was growing stronger, I felt it. But at the same time, I started feeling uneasy about my ability.

Julian had stayed true to his promise of keeping my secret to himself, and with our free time we would spend hours in the library, reading and researching any known forms of ancient magic that could relate to my own. I never knew until then how boring I found studying centuries old rune symbols. I did spend some time with Sebastian and Ominis, but did not tell them about my times with Julian. If there was some family feud between the Sallows and Harringtons then I didn't want to add further fuel to that fire by mentioning Julian around Sebastian and vice versa.

We also had the Room of Requirement to research for our cause. Julian had explained the premise behind it, and I supposed the writing on that note he had slipped underneath my door all those nights ago actually did make sense.

"You will find what you need if you truly require it."

I also met a Gryffindor student whilst reading about the Eradication charm, Deletrius, in Professor Ronen's lesson. I was sat next to Gareth, practising the charm when he started to nit pick my wand movement.

"You're not doing it circular enough." he laughed and tried to reposition my wand with him hand.

I snatched it away and poked him in the ribs.

"Don't lecture me. You can teach me spells the day you stop blowing up potions in Sharp's classes." I said, still poking at Gareth.

He began laughing with me as I kept repeating the charms movement. I admit, I did attempt Gareth's suggestion of making the movement more circular. It did not work.

"Stick to perfecting your potions." I turned my head to look at him with a sarcastic smile.

Gareth rolled his eyes dramatically and stuck his head down into his textbook. I returned my eyesight to my own book on my desk. But I caught eyes with Sebastian, sat directly opposite Gareth and I, with Ominis at his side who was scribbling notes onto a piece of parchment, moving his index finger alongside his quill to assist in his writing. Sebastian however was not studying or writing or doing anything really. Instead he was staring in my direction. I couldn't tell if he was looking at Gareth or me. But when I caught sight of him, he quickly looked down, acting as if he was confused at a diagram in his schoolbook.

I turned back to Gareth, who was still over exaggeratingly focusing on his own book. I leant closer to him and whispered, "Gareth. Sebastian was staring at us."

"Huh?" he mumbled and slowly raised his head and looked at me. Then he looked over to Sebastian. His head was positioned downwards but both Gareth and I could tell that his eyes were fixed on us. He was quick to divert them once he saw Gareth looking back at him.

"Oh god, everyone's been talking about this." Gareth finally whispered back to me. He cupped the side of his book in his hands and went back to reading it.

Everyone's been talking about this?

I looked at him, confused and intrigued. I smacked the book down onto the desk, forcing it out of his hands and he turned slowly with his eyebrows raised comically.

"What was that?" he said, looking to me and then back at the book. And then once again, back to me.

"You can't just say something cryptic like that and then not elaborate." I replied, closing his book so that he wouldn't go back to reading it. Deletrius could wait. This was much more interesting.