Blank Sheet

Cheating

"Medea! - Medea, wake up!" a harsh voice interrupted her pleasant sleep. She groaned.

"Ugh, it's too early, what's wrong?" she turned to her other side, ignoring the intruder in her dormitory and pulling the pillow over her head to avoid the sun's intrusive rays.

"Oh, come on Medea! We don't have much time!"

"What the -? Hermione? How did you get in here?" she asked, baffled. The confusion woke her up a bit, she walked to her wardrobe in Slytherin-style, with ornaments in skull and snake design, and dressed.

"Doesn't matter, just come!" she punted and dragged Medea out of the room, up to the stairs and finally to the Library.

"Look, I'm happy you decide to spend time with me, but I intended to have breakfast," she said with sarcasm, a rarely found thing if you spent time with her.

"How can you think of eating? You collapsed yesterday, because of a pain in your forehead! We need to find out what is going on, this can't be normal," Hermione replied, genuine worry swinging in her voice.

By now, they had entered the dark corner of the library, where Madam Pince never came to. The table was old and unstable and half of the lamps weren't working, but at least you could work calmly.

The floor was crowded with books, old and heavy ones, tiny ones, ones in a new and gold jacket, others had been held that often, the pages were thin and the jacket nearly ripped off. A few of the piles were as tall as Medea.

The two girls carved to the chairs, which were standing in the middle of the chaos, Medea was a bit afraid hers wouldn't hold her weight, especially because it creaked loudly when she sat down.

"Okay, Hermione, what have you done?" Medea asked in disbelief of all the books around.

"Doesn't matter," she replied inpatient, "why did you collapse? Did something weird happen to you? I tried my reviving charms, but they didn't help and there was no visible wound. It must be a magical injury. What has happened to you?" she asked and Medea could hear the concern in her voice.

"I don't know, I don't! - It's just...My head started hurting sometime ago and it's getting worse and worse. And - I don't know what to do," she replied and got it off her chest. Her lip trembled, she fought to hold her tears back.

"What - What if I'm dying?"

Hermione looked shocked and frowned.

"Look, I'm sure you're not dying, I mean, the pain stopped again, didn't it? I'm sure we'll figure out what's going on, it's going to be alright," she said. But her voice was faint.

Time went by and the two girls had been through dozens of books. Medea's wrist hurt from turning all those pages, her fingers were abrasive from the old paper, her nose was itching from the dust and her head hurt from all the work and the exhaustion.

Hermione next to her looked better but she was close to falling asleep, too.

"Ugh, we're never gonna find anything," Medea groaned, her heart beating faster from despair.

"No, it's just...Maybe we're not tackling the problem right. - When did your head start hurting?" Hermione replied.

"I don't know? - A few weeks after the beginning of the school year?"

"Um...okay. And...did anything weird happen to you?"

"No. - Oh, wait, yeah! I once found a weird book and quill and it was all pretty creepy. I felt sick after that," she said, hope growing in her, that maybe, they had found a lead.

"A book and a quill...," Hermione murmured, wrinkling her brow and tapping on the table with her right hand, "I think I heard of something like that once..."

The brunette remained silent for ages, at least that's how Medea felt. She sat there and waited for the other one to say something because the silence felt very awkward to her. Also, every muscle in her body hurt from sitting bent over a book the whole day, and she was barely able to keep her eyes open.

After some time, she decided that there was no sense in staying there. She stood up and asked if Hermione wanted to come, but she just silently shook her head. Then Medea left, walking to the Great Hall, every step tiny torture.

The time went by and Medea thought of the bookworm in the library with increasing frequency. Curfew was soon to come and she still hadn't heard from her, nor seen her, even though Madam Pince had drummed off all the kids some time ago.

She pulled herself together and walked upstairs, the warm dinner in her stomach making her slow and tired. 

Going through Hogwarts, she once again noticed how magical the place was, even compared to the other magical schools. The steps you had to skip because they were fake, the talking paintings, who felt like a real person, or the shimmering ghosts, that, every once in a while, passed by and sent you a smile (well, except for the Bloody Baron and Peeves).

The dimly lit corridors made her even more tired and she nearly missed the noises from one of the classrooms.

"Come on, she's not going to know!" a boy's voice said. It sounded familiar to Medea.

"Hihi, well, I guess, one time-," a girl giggled half of a sentence. Then there was silence in the room, and Medea wondered what was going on. She stepped forward and was about to knock on the door when the boy talked again.

"You're beautiful, you know?" This time, Medea recognized the voice. It was Blaise's. She grew angry, suddenly, all the tiredness was gone from her body, she felt warm and in rage, the blood racing in her ears. She clenched her fists and tried to breathe normally to calm herself down. It didn't work.

"What the hell are you doing Blaise?" she asked, stepping into the room. She found Blaise and Daphne Greengrass, she was sitting on a desk, her shirt laying next to her, while he was standing right in front of her, his lips at her neck and his hands around her hip.

The couple let up on each other and Daphne quickly reached for her shirt, trying to cover her torso with it. The surprise was written over their faces, but it faded from the boy's expressions soon.

"Oh, Medea! This wasn't...We weren't...You're getting it all wrong," he stuttered. He didn't seem intimidated though, instead, he right away jumped to accusing her.

"Blaise, you can not treat me like a puppet you can pick up if you want to!" she said in rage, so angry, she felt like all the tiredness was blown out of her and replaced by rage and heat, "I may have been blind to your mistakes before, but this ends now. Just because I've been nice, doesn't mean you can ignore me."

He approached her, reaching for her arm.

"It's not what you think it is. I would never cheat on you, she's just a little disport."

Now he was in trouble. Medea shoved his arm away, and Daphne gasped behind them. She got up and turned Blaise at his shoulder. When he looked at her, there were tears in her eyes. Then she slapped him right in the face.

He stood there, perplexed and rubbing his cheek. A big, red handprint was forming on it.

"I won't slap you, but trust me: You've hurt girls -many girls- and one day, that hurt is going to come back to you. And then, you're going to regret it," she said in disgust and turned to follow Daphne out the door. Her shoulders were still shaking in anger.

She ran through the corridors, unsure where to go. Then she decided on Hermione. Even though the girls weren't the closest, she wanted to talk to somebody and the prefect always had good advice.

Also, Ron would be around in the Gryffindor common room and Medea was sure he'd have some sweets.

***

So, I know, Blaise is being mean, but still, if you liked the writing in this chapter (not the action) consider giving it a vote or leaving a comment, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

xoxo