Vermilion (SCOROSE)

10. Thursday, November 2nd, 2022: In which I'm caught in a shitsorm: Part 1

Thursday, November 2nd, 2022, Late.

I'm very claustrophobic. Once, we went to one of those muggle shopping centers--me, Granny, Grandpa, Mum, Dad, Hugo--and we got trapped in an elevator. I was just under three, and Hugo was a wee ant, but I was petrified. Every nerve and fiber in my body was screaming, shaking in fear. The walls were closing in on me, beads of cold sweat raced down my face. My throat had sewed itself shut, I could hardly breath. I was paralysed. We were trapped for about ten minutes before the elevator just started slowly going back down on its own, as if it had sensed my panic attack. I now know the effect closed spaces have on me.

I wasn't even in a closed space. I was in a library back then. 

But, I felt like everyone was closing in on me, about to crush and squeeze me till I suffocated. 

What had I done wrong? 

"He was right," said Scorpius. 

What is that even supposed to mean?! Who was? 

When people are angry at you, why don't they just outright say, "Hey, twat, I'm angry at you because of this, this, and that," instead of dropping obscure references you're not too sure what to make of? 

And, as for Ellie: "You're a hypocrite, Rose."

How? When? Why? 

Oh and Laura being weird for these past few days. Her encounter with Daniel? 

NOTHING MADE SENSE. 

It was infuriating me, I needed  to get things right with everyone. Even Scorpius. I couldn't afford having my tutor to be angry with me, he'd teach me badly on purpose. Also, well, I think when Scorpius said we were mates, I might not have seemed completely in agreement to the idea, but I honestly can't think of Scorpius as anything else. I don't want to disappoint him, and when he gets mad at me, like he did just then, I think about it again and again, reeling what happened in my mind to decipher what could have gone wrong. If he was just some random bloke, I hate to admit, or even a sworn nemesis, I wouldn't give a flying fiddlestick whether he was happy, sad, or in an emotional crisis on a particular day. 

Well, at least during that moment I reached the conclusion that he was indeed my mate. After tonight--sitting here in Neville's daughter's bed while Lily sleeps, unaware that I'm even here at five in the morning--I'm not sure what he is.

I started gathering my things. I did finish my Herbology essay. I mean, I had to skip dinner for it, but I figured that if I wanted free time tomorrow and during the weekend, I needed to get rid of something as lengthy as three thousand words by hand about self-fertlising shrubs. Besides, Uncle Neville could always tell when I did essays last minute. After class, he'd say he could feel the sleep deprivation shouting from in between my words as loudly as he could hear a teenaged mandrake. Last year, he told my mum how late I stayed up to finish all my work, and she immediately asked him to fail me if he could sniff a late assignment. 

Mum of the year. 

I guess she's just trying to save my sleep schedule from becoming mental, but still, fail me? Well, I'm glad she asked him to do that. I now get seven to eight hours of sleep per night, which, if you ask anyone above third year, is rare, if not, impossible. 

Besides, Neville's really cool. He treats me and all my cousins like his children. 

"Not to worry, Rosie, I wouldn't fail you even if you turned in a big question mark on blank parchment," he had told me. 

I smiled to myself, then was about to stuff my Herbology textbook, when a slip of paper inside my rucksack caught my eye. In small, spaced out, pointy letters, a note awaited me: