The Ravenclaw Malfoy

Chapter 12 - Ephemeral

TRIGGER WARNING: Huge talks of abuse in this chapter so please be careful! If this triggers you, read until the "*********", then stop.

Our first lesson of the day turned out to be Defence Against The Dark Arts. With Snape.

Joy, oh joy.

This would be the first time I had seen him since the Unbreakable Vow incident over the summer. I just hoped to Merlin that he wouldn't treat me, or Draco after I thought about it a bit more, any differently now he knew about Draco's task. Although this was Snape we were talking about so it could easily go either way.

The queue outside the classroom fell deadly silent as soon as he stepped into the corridor, the customary look of dismay permanently etched onto his face like a mask. Once we were allowed in, I scanned over the room that I had been in hundreds if not thousands of times before. Except I could barely recognise the place. The once bright and almost vibrant room was now as dark and dingy as Death's eye. The only light source was from the candles scattered around the room which made me envision Snape's lesson plan involving a Satanic ritual of some kind. I could associate myself with some of the new portraits almost too much - they were all of people in varying degrees of pain.

I reached into my bag under my seat, only for Snape to turn to face us sharply and say in his usual monotone voice, "I have not asked you to take out your books." I quickly retracted my arm and laid it on the desk, making it look as if I hadn't done exactly what he didn't want us to do. Amongst other things. He droned on about the Dark Arts and what we might have to face in a tone that was bordering on admiring. He also explained the meaning behind the portraits: each of them representing a different kind of pain from a different threat. One of them being the Cruciatus Curse which explained a lot. I did wonder, however, who on Earth would choose to create pieces of art about torture and distress who wasn't Snape himself.

He set us our task for the lesson, which was to try to conjure a non-verbal spell. Sounds straightforward enough, right? Absolutely fucking not. Two minutes in and I was already considering taping my mouth shut to resist the temptation of simply saying the damn spell. The eerie quiet that had fallen over our class like a mist meant you could hear any comment Snape made - something you would otherwise be struggling to understand. I instantly stopped what I was doing to turn and stare when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Snape approach Harry and a particularly purple-faced Ron. For a reason I couldn't hear from where my spot was in the classroom, Snape took Ron's place and Harry suddenly cast a spell at the teacher, making me visibly flinch. I hesitantly approached the scene, mainly wanting to see how Harry was going to get himself out of this one but also to distract myself from my racing heart.

"You do realise that you can't speak during non-verbal spells, Potter," Snape said curtly, dusting off his robes from what must have been a rather powerful spell on Harry's part.

"Yes," Harry replied shortly, clearly not willing to back down.

"Yes, sir," Snape narrowed his eyes at the last word.

"There's no need to call me sir, professor," Harry sassed back and I tried immensely hard to contain my laughter, which proved to be an unnecessarily difficult task. I covered my mouth with my hand, snorting unintentionally and playing it off as a cough. If I was being honest, the look on Snape's face was worth the detention Harry received and the latter seemed to think the same.

**************

"Did you hear the way he was talking abou' the Dark Arts, though? He made it sound like he was in love with 'em," Fiadh said incredulously.

"Snape has a dark magic kink confirmed!" I stated, causing us to erupt into fits of giggles, not unlike our behaviour just a few hours earlier at breakfast. Dawn left the table to go to the bathroom, claiming she was about to piss herself laughing. Honestly, I wouldn't be all that shocked.