The Wicked Walk On Every Side

Chapter 6

(tw: anxiety attack. Begins after "The girls once again broke into laughter as they walked to class, arm in arm." and ends after "The idea of being alone tipped the scales, and Wolfbane finally started to cry.")

-.-.-

Belladonna walked the vast corridors of Hogwarts, her gray, calf length skirt swishing with every step. She bobbed and weaved on autopilot between fellow students, lost in thought.

Wolfbane had always inspired some sort of 'mother hen instinct' in her. On one hand, she called bullshit, because she was literally fourteen. On the other hand, it made sense because he was her baby brother.

A scowl twisted at her face as she spiraled down a mental rabbit hole. Of course she's gonna feel protective over him, but maybe she needs to back off a little? This back and forth was making her eye sockets throb with the beginning of a migraine.

Belladonna was about to continue down the rabbit hole when she bumped shoulders with someone.

A soft hand steadied her before she could fall. Belladonna looked up to see a pair of familiar honey-brown eyes looking back at her.

"Solana!" Belladonna said with a small, but genuine, smile. "I've missed you so much! How have you been?"

Solana looked at Belladonna with false irritation and said, "And here I thought that because you were writing back to me over the summer meant that you had actually read my letters!" She said with a joking smile.

Belladonna laughed as she said, "No, I just threw darts at a board to decide what I was going to write to you next," rolling her eyes as she spoke.

This statement launched both girls into an uncontrollable peal of laughter. Nobody else in the corridor gave them weird looks, as they were all conversing with their friends, as well, before they had to get to class.

"Where were you last night at the sorting ceremony?" Belladonna asked once they could both form a sentence without breaking back into laughter.

"Oh! I meant to send you an owl! I was feeling a tad under the weather, so I went up to the dormitory and took a nap," Solana said, adjusting her green and silver tie. "What class do you have first?"

Belladonna nodded, finding Solana's statement truthful. The other girl often took the first evening for herself so that she could sleep off the jet lag.

"History of Magic," Belladonna said, glancing at her wristwatch. The other students who had been talking alongside the two girls were starting to dwindle as they headed to class. The girls would have to wrap this up shortly. "You?"

Solana's face lit up. "Same! Walk to class with me?" She said, extending her elbow for Belladonna with a jaunty smile.

Belladonna wrapped her free arm around Solana's, and said in an exaggerated accent, "Oh, why of course," with a bow.

The girls once again broke into laughter as they walked to class, arm in arm.

By the time lunch rolled around, Wolfbane's vision was going nuts. The underlying anxiety he always felt had ramped up, but he had thought that was normal, considering it was the first day. Apparently not.

Inside of his head, the same thirty seconds of a bass-heavy song played on repeat, getting more aggressive each time it started over.

He needed something for his hands to do. Wolfbane drummed his fingers against his desk, but that wasn't enough. He tried doodling on his paper, but that only made the pit in his chest deepen. He could feel his throat constrict, and he didn't know whether it was a scream or sick that was working its way up his esophagus.