A Woman Of Ice

CVIII- Tremors

Diana Black was lying in her dormitory bed, paralyzed and shaking almost uncontrollably. The night before, the world had gone completely blank, as if it didn't even exist to her at all. Diana was always good at making things disappear that way. Her mind was adamant in shielding her from emotional responsibilities, if nothing else.
  "Oh, God, what did you do?!" Draco Malfoy cried. "Agh!"
  "Relax Draco," Diana groaned. "That's how the benders start."
  "You were going on a bender?! Now?!"
  "It's fine," Diana sighed. "It was only a five-day one."
  "The second Task is in six!" Draco argued.
  "Like I said; five-day bender," Diana pointed out. "Not six. You never were good at math, were you?"
"Damn you, not everything is a joke, Diana!" Draco Malfoy roared in anger. "This is your life we're talking about!"
  "We're not talking about shit. You are; I'm done talking," Diana Black insisted stubbornly, turning over in her bed to avoid her friend's face.

Going back to the Slytherin dorms, and to Draco, was not easy for Diana, because of all the secrets she harbored, and so she had since spent all of her time either contemplating the golden egg clues from the Triwizard Tournament, which somehow had five contestants this year, or just completely wasting her time away. Diana Black had smartly bribed Crabbe and Goyle to bribe one of the Ravenclaws to complete all of her schoolwork for her. By now, she had become an expert at throwing things away with both hands.
"Whatever," he rolled his eyes.

Her moral withdrawal and lack of willpower was beginning to remind him a frightening amount of his old and demoralized mother. He didn't like that at all.
"What did you even take, anyways?" he questioned her.
"Some cool herbs George showed me," Diana murmured. "They even work on demigods, obviously."
"Well, I cant believe I'm the one telling you this, but you need to sober up, now," Draco insisted. "I looked at your Tournament notes, you've got only half of what you need!"
"I'll figure it out!" Diana snapped, throwing her pillow at him.
"Stop acting like a child, and get to work! I seriously don't feel like getting kicked out of the girls' dorm, and losing points."

While girls were always allowed in the boys' dormitories, it was a double standard for the boys at Hogwarts, seeing as girls were inherently more trustworthy than boys. So far, Diana had found that to be just barely true, at least among teenagers.
"Go away, Mom!" she groaned, facedown on her bed to avoid reality.
"That's it," Draco muttered to himself, standing up impatiently, "I'll give you fifty Galleons to get up right now, and drink some of those silly Weasleys' hangover cure."

Although completely absent-minded, Diana was still able to navigate financial negotiations just fine.
"Seventy-five."
"Deal," Draco Malfoy said without hesitation, seeing her jump up excitedly at the prospect of some new pocket change.
"Alright, sobering tonic, where are you?!" Diana yelled at the entire room of non-responsive, inanimate objects.

****

"I figured out the egg!" Diana shouted over to Draco in the Slytherin common room.

The ambient green lighting washed over her face serenely as she lit up with excitement.
"Go on," her friend encouraged her impatiently, "Do tell, we haven't got all day."

Crabbe, Goyle, and Blaise Zabini all awaited her profound revelation with boredom; for the past hour or so, they had been forced to endure Draco's ramblings about insignificant things, such as Dumbledore, or Muggles. Diana and Blaise had been secretly repeating whatever Draco said in a Donald Trump impersonation behind his back, snickering amongst themselves the entire time. Diana had been trying to decipher the egg's clues on a pad of parchment sitting on her lap.
"They're going to keep something that we want at the bottom of the lake, and force us to go and get it within a certain frame of time, I think," she explained to only half of the room.