Harry Potter AU: In the Library
Chewing slightly at the tip of her quill, Carla contimpalated her History of Magic homework a little bit longer and decided it was high time for a break. Slyly, she jabbed the tip of the quill into her brother’s side so as not to draw Madame Pince’s attention to them. Carl winced a little as he turned to glare at her. “What was that for?!” He hissed. “You just made me spatter ink over my last paragraph!”
"I’m bored."
Frowing, he snuck a peek at the essay she was working on “You’re doing history! You love history!”
Carla shrugged. “Normally. But wizard history is boring. Or at least the stuff Binns teaches. Who cares who first invented couldrens?”
"Binns obviously. So? Why not work on something else? Like the Potions essay?"
"I don’t wanna do homework Carl, I want to talk. You know, for longer than a minute before or after class? Don’t you?"
"I do but…" Carl’s gaze drifted towards the books and parchment he’d brought with him to the library before pushing them away a little. "Yeah. So how’s Hufflepuff?"
"Great! Well the first night not so much. A handful of girls-fourth years I think-were acting like you’d died or something. ‘Sorry for your loss’ ‘Remember him as he used to be’ ‘Were there any telling signs fortelling this would happen?’" Carla rolled her eyes. "The way that one girl was going on, you’d think you’d grown scales or something. I was this close to leaving the Hufflepuff table and joining yours."
"So why didn’t you?"
"A seventh year told them to can it and eat their dinner. She then told me that you’d be fine, Slytherin isn’t as bad as everyone says but Hufflepuff is better and then turned back to her own conversation.
And the other girls in my year are pretty nice. Jessica and Nancy are muggle-born too, you should meet them sometime. How are you getting along with the kids in your year?”
"They’re stuck up. I don’t like them. What else about your house?"
"Weeeeeeell nothing really….." Carla’s eyes lit up as a new topic came to mind. "What do you know about The Prank from the first day of school? There were pink snakes all over the group of Gryffindors so it HAD to be someone from your house. Anyone talking or or bragging about it?" Carla’s voice dropped below a whisper "Or using dark magic? I heard Michelle Bennet swearing there was dark magic used, she said…she thought she was never going to see again! And that whoever did it should be expelled!"
At that, Carl knocked over his inkwell. A second later he was furiously at work wiping it up with his sleeve. “N-Nope! I haven’t heard a thing. Maybe whoever did the dark magic did it when whoever pranked the Gryffindors left? Ya know, to to to frame them! Or figured the rest of the school would blame Slytherin anyway and did the whole thing themselves or-“
"CARL!"
Her brother froze and stared at her wide eyed. Which was a relief, any longer and his voice would have reached a frequency only dogs could hear. Pointing her wand at the mess of ink he hadn’t managed to clean up, she recited a nifty little spell a third year had taught her to clean up such messes.
"I’m not saying you did it so chill k?"
"Yeah….thanks….I erm think I’ll do the rest of my homework in the Slytherin common room."
Weird, he wasn’t meeting her gaze. It was just spilt ink. “Uh sure. Same time tomorrow then?”
"Erm yeah. I guess. See you tomorrow Carla."
Shoving the rest of his items in his bag, Carl offered her a weak smile and left the library. Carla took a little longer as she thought over what exactly had just happened. Carl’s voice only squeaked like that when he was lying or was under stress and panicking. Spilling ink was a little…..much to freak out over like that….but the alternative, that he would LIE to her…..no. That wasn’t even an option. Carl would never lie to her. Spilling ink just had to be a bigger issue to him than it was to her. That’s all.
Still…..she couldn’t quite shake the uneasy feeling that he knew more than he was letting on.