The Moon and His Night

10

Camille POV

Another hoot of obnoxious laughter sounded from a few cauldrons away, causing me to jump and nearly double the amount of essence I was adding into this cauldron.

Deep calming breaths, Camille.

What the fuck was so funny over there anyway?

Oh my god, Camille. He is not your boyfriend. Why the hell do you care?

"She's howling over there, I swear to Godric." My potion's partner, Brody Grimes, a Ravenclaw boy that was a genius with Potions and had saved my ass more than once in this class, huffed under his breath. We were both at our wits end with the witch across the room. And we were not the only ones. I know that for certain. 

I chuckled, nodding. "Willing to bet her Patronus is a Hyena or something of that sort. There are definitely some glaring similarities."

Brody snorted a laugh, squeezing the juice of some sort of berry into the cauldron.

And--another howl-laugh from Raquel.

"What's wrong with you?" Mona nudged me, stepping away from her Potions partner and closer to me with her eyebrows raised.

"What?" I rattled my head slightly. "Nothing's wrong with me. Why?"

Mona scooted a bit closer, "Because Raquel has been hooting and hollering over there this entire time and she's Leo Malfoy adjacent."

"Okay..." I paused. "I'm failing to see where I tie into this–"

"I just thought you would've jumped at the opportunity to bust Malfoy's balls about his obnoxious potions partner already, is all." Mona shrugged, stepping back over to her cauldron with no intention to help her partner, but he didn't seem to mind.

I used every ounce of restraint I had not to react to that bust Malfoy's balls comment, and merely shrugged as I began to stir my potion counterclockwise. "Raquel is Gretchen-adjacent, and I'm already on her shit list. I'd rather not get a hit put out on me because I chided her precious Malfoy." I shook my head with a small huff of a laugh.

"What about Malfoy?" a voice sounded by my ear, making me jump--yet again--and my heart skip a couple beats.

"Fuck's sake--" I scolded, shaking my head and not bothering to glance over to see the shit eating grin I knew was plastered on the blonde boy's face. "When did you stoop to the level of eavesdropping?"

"I was returning something to the shelves and just so happened to hear my name." He leaned his hip against the table between Brody and I. "Sue me." He shrugged, crossing his arms.

His chest nearly brushed against my arm, and my entire body began tingling with awareness.

Control yourself, Camille, my God. 

"We were talking about how you're definitely not funny enough to be eliciting such cackles over there." I said with an exhale of annoyance, keeping my eyes on the cauldron and jerking my chin in Raquel's direction.

"I happen to be quite hilarious." Leo replied breezily, his eyes burning into the side of my face. "Are you saying that she's just simply stroking my ego with her extraordinarily loud cackling?" he scoffed sarcastically, putting a hand to his chest.

"Stroking your ego in the pursuit to be stroking something else, clearly." I quipped naturally, not realizing until after the words had left my lips how that could have sounded.

Like jealousy.

Mona and Brody started cracking up.

But then Brody shifted from laughing to quickly clearing his throat and mumbling, "Hyena. Incoming."