An Unpredicted Exception @Hogwarts

11

"Please, Celine. This is important to me." He says nervously. She tenses and then tells him softly. "Okay." Horace keeps her gaze when he takes a deep breath. "Have you told people that I knew that muggle song?" Celine blinks confused. "What?" she breaths. She totally didn't expect that. Horace looks at her anxiously. Suddenly she understands. "You are a muggleborn, aren't you?" she whispers. The boy freezes, his face pales. That response tells Celine enough. He grips her arm to prevent her from walking away. "Who told you that?" The Slytherin grits through his teeth. His demeanor chances and his expression turns from shock to anger. "Who else did you told this?" Celine looks scared at the boy now, her arm begins to hurt where he holds her. "I didn't." She says firmly. "And no one told me, I just figured it out by myself." she can feel her heart beating fast, but for a whole different reason this time. The boy squints at her, searching for a hint of a lie. "You didn't tell anyone, not even about the muggle song?" he asks, the doubt clear in his voice. Celine looks at him, and with an earnest face she repeats. "I didn't. The only ones that know about the song are Julie and Theodore, but Julie already covered it up for you by making the wrong conclusion." After a few heartbeats, Horace loosens his grip on Celine's arm. Celine pulls it back and looks at the skin that already starts to bruise. The Sytherin follows her gaze and sees what he has done. The sock is written on his face when he stammers.  "I'm sorry." He takes a step back. "Really, sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I.." Celine takes a deep breath and looks at the boy. This doesn't go as she thought it would go at all. Tears starting to sting in her eyes. Not that her arm hurts that much, but she just can't handle it when people are angry. And this boy isn't just somebody. Not wanting to cry in front of the boy she stated to like, Celine steps back. She holds her arm against herself in a defensive way. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone, I promise." She says with a shaky voice. Then just as the first tear escapes her eyes, she turns around and sprints away. "Celine, wait-" Horace calls after her. But the Ravenclaw didn't look back. Therefore she couldn't see the deep regret forming on the Slytherin's face. He hits the wall with his fist out of frustration. For a few seconds he debates to run after her, but then decides against it. He already ruined it by making her cry. No way that she wants to listen to him now.

Celine doesn't know where she is heading to. All she knows is that she doesn't want people seeing her cry. Finally she heads into a girls toilet. It is luckily empty. Standing before the mirror she looks at her face. She hates her face when she cries. She is so ugly now. Celine opens the tap and let cold water flow over her hands. Looking in her grey eyes she scolds herself. She knew that she shouldn't had to let her hopes get high. "Snap out of this, Celine" she tells herself, her voice breaking on the end. But her thoughts keep going back to the boy. He looked so angry at her. For the first time she really felt scared for a Slytherin. Maybe if she shouldn't had pried that much in his privacy, he wouldn't be that mad now. Her curiousness got the overhand in this. She will stop that. Leave the boy alone. She can do that, right? An other tear falls down from her face. Who was she kidding. Celine washes her face with the cold water, some of it falls on her robe, but she couldn't find the energy to care. She takes a few deep breaths. The cold water helps against the red in her face, so she washes it another few times.

When she finally calmed down enough and looked decent enough to walk through the castle without getting stared at, she got her stuff and leaves the toilet. She can't talk to Julie now, she would ask her questions about how it went. She probably also thought it would be something like a confession, or an invitation to go somewhere together or something. And Celine promised Horace that she wouldn't tell anyone about his secret, so she needs to find a reason why he could have asked her to talk to him alone. Without assumptions about his feelings of course. She needs to find a convincing lie for her friend, because Julie can read her like a book. Right now Celine can't think of anything, so all that she can do is avoiding her friend.