Smoke and Mirrors: [ Tracey | Lavender ]
Though Lavender was known to have her head in the clouds – because how else can someone be fooled by Ron Weasley’s intentions the year prior? – it was new for her to be this clumsy. If only she had heeded Draco Malfoy’s words to watch where she was going; her bag hooked onto an oddly angled sword of a statue, snapping the strap and letting all of her things inside clatter. The bag opened, revealing a storm of scribbled notes on tea leaf readings, a small tablecloth, and a crystal ball that tipped ever so slightly in the wrong direction.
Lavender was frantically shoving her school supplies back into her bag; if she wasn’t quick enough, Crabbe or Goyle would be just around the corner looking for an easy target. She cursed herself for not avoiding the statue, since it’s been nearly seven years and everyone had always known to stay at least half a meter from anything that had a point or looked like it could move.
The crystal ball rolled off in the opposite direction from where she was going, and Lavender hissed. Everything else was in order enough that she was sure she could dig out her notes and sketches for Divination later that day, even if most of it was crumpled and smudged back into her bag with the now-useless strap. Her wand was somewhere at the bottom of the bag, but she’d rather deal with just carrying everything across the castle for now instead of actually repairing anything haphazardly.
Since when had it been a good idea to carry that crystal ball around? Lavender didn’t use it as often as she was really supposed to; all of her effort had been put into projecting anyway and it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen anything in a while except her own reflection against the smoke. She quickly lifted herself back on her feet, dragging the bag with her as she chased the crystal ball along the wide passageway.
@muddysnakedavis
Tracey had never understood why so many of her housemates had such a fondness for Potions. Oh, she understood why they enjoyed going to the class, because Professor Snape was generally entertaining and prone to favoring his own students, in contrast to so many of the other teachers -- like the late and, in Tracey’s mind, overly-lamented Professor Dumbledore -- but even that had to be weighed against the fact that their potions lessons had always been shared with the Gryffindor students, and watching Snape put them in their place didn’t make up for the fact that they had to share the lessons. Tracey had been delighted to finally have the chance to drop the class after O.W.L.s -- so why had she let herself get roped into helping two fourth years with their potioneering?
Her protest that she had barely scraped an A on her Potions O.W.L. didn’t deter them, since she was the only post-O.W.L.s student they could bribe to help them with whatever scheme they were cooking up (Tracey hadn’t asked; had been very careful not to ask because then she couldn’t be blamed) and they needed someone who’d made it to the next level of lessons -- and the fact that she had made it through Professor Snape’s fifth year classes, rather than Professor Slughorn’s, certainly had something to do with the regard they held her talents in: while Slughorn wasn’t a slouch as a teacher, he played favorites worse than Snape ever had, and his style of playing favorites didn’t entail snarky commentary and overly-critical judgement of those he disliked; when he played favorites, he ignored the other students, and their academic progress suffered accordingly.
Tracey had a feeling that Slughorn himself was going to be the recipient of the noxious brew the two fourth years were cooking-up. Given how dismissive her new Head of House had been toward Tracey the few times their paths had crossed, she couldn’t be upset with that.
What she was upset about was having to talk Professor Carrow into giving her a note to access the Restricted Section of the library for the book the fourth years who’d bribed her needed -- and the fact that she was the one who was meant to analyze the potions recipe that they were going to be working off of, and translating its instructions down to a pre-O.W.L.s level. It was tedious, and difficult enough to give her a headache, and she had enough work to be getting on with already. But a deal was a deal -- so Tracey trudged down the hallway with her head bent over the messy sheaf of notes she’d made so far, trying to puzzle-out whether she’d finally gotten it right. So she wasn’t paying as much attention as she should have been and, consequently, the sudden arrival of a large crystal ball rolling down the hallway went completely unnoticed until she tripped over the heavy thing and almost plowed face-first into the flagstones.
Swearing, Tracey braced herself against the wall and wobbled back to her feet. She planted one foot roughly on the crystal ball to stop it rolling farther, and looked around the hallway with a furious glare on her face. “Who the hell is responsible for this bloody hazard?” she demanded of the world at large. “You’re lucky nobody’s broken their neck!”









