𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐲 | 𝐝.𝐦.

sixty six

The basement is lustreless now. Above, the bulbs sway fragilely, blinking as the grounds over the ceiling rumbles with the storming of students escaping the hall and some, the school.

She has been tailing the gang of Slytherin students striding into the dungeon glumly, their murmurs are clearly stemming from the disfavour of the professor's orders to lock them in the dungeon while the rest of the students got a hand in fighting.

While the retreating figures of the robe-wearing students disappear down the hall, Betty halts at a gate near the stairwell. She whips out her wand again, nerves frittering away at her courage.

"Alohomora!" she speaks, once the shadows of the students have completely evaporated and she is the sole person around.

The lock hanging around the rusty old gate plummets to the ground with a resounding clank and the door opens with a creak.

Betty allows herself a brief moment of gladness that the spell had worked before pushing her way in, wincing as the heavy gate's metal peels scrape her skin. She swears internally at the teacher who had chosen such a shabby place to carry out his classes.

The room is desolate of people, as Betty had hoped for, and her wand flickers with feeble light, illuminating her surroundings.

Quickly sweeping past the tables where cauldrons and books are strewn messily around, she makes her way to the front of the classroom, where the teacher's desk is placed.

With another flick of her wand, all the cabinets and drawers are pulled out, revealing a whole array of vials of different shapes and sizes, containing scarce amount of potions.

A little overwhelmed, and especially lightheaded, she makes her way to the cabinet closest to her, rummaging through the glass and scanning through all the labels.

There are readily-made potions familiar to the girl as well as ingredients like fluxweed, leeches, as well as, rose thorns but she cannot seem to find what she is searching for.

"Where the fuck is it?!" she screams to herself, fully aggravated now, and dropping the small vial she has hit with her hand.

The glass breaks into splinters and the lacewing flies suffocated in the container fly past her, escaping through the gates but she doesn't pay them any heed.

Standing on her tiptoes, she continues on her search. Now very disgruntled by her futile effort, and no longer minding the number of glasses she has broken.

She has made it all the way to the cabinets scattered at the end of the classroom, before she finally gives up, letting out an aggravated loud sigh.

Her eyes catches the bookshelves, and a temporary feeling of relief strikes her as she rushes to it, flipping through dozens at a time, letting her foggy vision scan the heading on the pages one at a time.

Some of them are familiar, she recognises them as books she had already memorised back in sixth-year when they used to be her eager companion. But again, like the potions, they are completely unhelpful.

Her heart sinks when she has reached the last of the books and realises that it is equally pointless as the rest. She tosses it aside, grasping at pieces of her hair with fury.

She supposes she might be able to sneak into the library, since it would obviously be void of students at this timing, but she highly doubts the things she would find there would be anything more accommodating than the books this classroom has provided her with.

Her thoughts now erratic with fear and irritation, she trudges past the books and fragments of glass flooding the cobblestone tiles of the floor and makes her way back to the gate.