The Magic Scroll

Chapter One: Good News

       Raven’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance as he tried to read a book while a stubborn and snobbish teenage girl with long blonde hair tried to flirt with him. The girl kept on talking, obviously not noticing that the handsome tall boy with raven-black hair sitting next to her was highly annoyed by her non-ending chatter about herself and her wealth. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He shut his book loudly, stood up and walked away. The girl stood up and followed him while still talking non-stop. Raven gritted his teeth and stopped.

        The girl stopped and looked up at Raven with her beautiful deep blue eyes. “Is something the matter?” Without turning around to face her, Raven said, “Anabelle, I would like to have some time alone.”

       “Okay, how about we meet up later to have dinner?” Annabelle asked, winking at him while twirling her finger around her hair. “I’ll save you a seat on my table.”

        Raven silently groaned in his mind. Why couldn’t the girl leave him alone? “I already have plans for the evening,” he replied coldly, hoping the girl would catch his meaning, which was: I don’t want to have dinner with you and if I could, I would stay as far away from you as possible. No offense.

        However, it was not to be. “What about supper or tomorrow’s breakfast?” Annabelle pressed on stubbornly, determined to have a meal with the coolest wizard in school so that she can boast about it to the others later on.

       Raven sighed and it was on that moment when he caught sight of a beautiful girl with dark brown hair carrying a pile of books walking past. “Viola!” he shouted. Viola turned towards his direction and cocked an eyebrow. Slowly, she walked towards them. Annabelle nodded stiffly at her because theoretically Viola was older and her ranking was much higher than hers. However, that doesn’t mean Annabelle likes her. In fact, she could most probably be the person Annabelle hates most.

        Viola looked at Raven and threw a quick glance at Annabelle. She knew what Raven was thinking and why he called out so desperately to her. Viola turned her gaze back to Raven with a look in her eyes that said: ‘This is the last time I’m helping you out of these kinds of situations’ and catching what she meant, Raven nodded.

        “I just came from the library,” Viola said and handed Raven some books. “You’ll probably find these interesting.” Then, turning to Annabelle, with a cold voice along with an expressionless face that came in a set, she said, “Oh, I almost forgot. The stable boy was trying to find you. He said something about detention and mucking out the stables.”

        At the sound of this, Annabelle’s face turned pale. She quickly excused herself and ran off. When she was fully out of sight, Raven let out a sigh. Eying the books that Viola had handed to him earlier on, he asked, “Where were you going with all these books? These aren’t from the library, are they?”

        Viola giggled and took the books from him. “These books were the rare potion books that Professor Slugworm ordered from Orlander’s bookstore. I’m just doing him a favour by getting these from the Owl Room upstairs when the order arrived by owl just now.”

        “So you’re going to take these to him now?” Raven asked. Viola nodded and was about to head off when Raven came up and said, “I’ll follow you.” He took half of the books from Viola to enlighten the heavy weight of the books although she didn’t need help and he knew it.

        It wasn’t long before they came to the staircase that led down to the dungeons where most of the potion classes were held. Carefully, they made their down making sure not to trip because the path was really dark even though there were torches lighting the way. Viola shivered and thought, ‘It’s the middle of autumn! Why would anyone want to have classes down in the dungeons where it is freezing cold at about zero degrees?”