laconic • t.nott ✓

11 ➺ half-giants, werewolves, centaurs, and ... death eaters

「HALF-GIANTS, WEREWOLVES, CENTAURS, AND ... DEATH EATERS」

THE NEXT DAY DAWNED BRIGHT and lively. The wind has stopped beating ferociously against the castle walls and even the sun attempted, rather futilely, to cast its warmth over the dreadful world below it. The calming of the weather exactly the day after the dementors were forced out of the castle grounds couldn't be just a coincidence and several students were left speculating whether it was those creatures who had brought upon the onset of such terrible colds and storms.

Blaise wasn't in the dorm, nor in the common room when Theo had woken up. He had waited for him for five minutes before deciding to head into the Great Hall himself.

A ripple of excited conversation reached his ears as he neared the Great Hall. He paid no mind to it, thinking it was because of the lack of dementors in the castle grounds but when he sat down at the Slytherin table, he realised that the students from the other tables, especially from Gryffindor, were speaking in hushed voices and pointing toward the teachers' table or the large doors of the Great Hall. Theo glanced at the teachers' table. All the usual teachers, except for the Carrows were present. The Headmaster's chair at the middle of the table was deserted, although it wasn't surprising, for Snape rarely ate here.

Blaise was nowhere in sight.

Confusion gripped him hard, but hunger overcame any other emotion, and Theo began to pile up his plate with food, deciding that Blaise was okay. He couldn't help thinking that Ginny and Luna, who had been out of their common room last night, had something to do with this shift in mood.

Halfway through breakfast, Blaise appeared along with Draco Malfoy, and Crabbe and Goyle. His eyes flitted over the Slytherin table before they fell upon Theo and he crossed the Hall to sit beside him. Without any word, he grabbed a tray of pancakes and began to eat them directly from there. Theo raised an eyebrow, nudging his arm.

Blaise glanced at him briefly before returning to shovelling the pancakes into his mouth. "I'm starving," he said through a mouthful of pancakes. "I woke up early and went out for a walk, and the Carrows came out of nowhere and dragged me away."

Theo snorted but managed to turn it into a cough. Blaise wouldn't like him laughing at him right now, not when he was clearly in such a bad mood. "Dragged you where?"

"Well, first they made me go back to the dorms to fetch more Inquisitorial Squad members," explained Blaise. "I went back and got Malfoy. Then they made us scrub paint off the walls."

"Paint? What paint?" Theo asked in confusion. He was still on his first pancake, but Blaise has already finished three and picking up his fourth. He paused and looked meaningfully at him, lowering his voice.

"Your friend did it," he said. "Painted Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting on the wall. Remember when they did it the first time? The Carrows removed it easily with Scourgify. But now they must have used some sort of spell or special ink. It took us hours to even make a scratch on it. It's still visible. Snape is furious."

Theo glanced over at the Ravenclaw table. Luna was talking to a girl and didn't look in his direction. He turned away.

"Stop smiling. I can't feel my hands anymore."

"I'm - I'm not smiling," Theo stammered, taking a large bite of his pancake. "So, did they catch anyone?" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "You didn't tell them, did you?"

"I didn't. But everyone knows obviously that Longbottom is behind it. They took him in for questioning. Malfoy said he cursed him with the Leg Locker jinx last night while he was patrolling."