Miss Slytherin

Book 6: Chapter 13

"Shouldn't you be at the game?" Nicholas asked as he stepped into the farther back corner of the library. The castle should've been empty for the game, most of the students were already looking forward to the first game between Gryffindor and Slytherin. And from what he had heard, Finley was the one who hosted the tryouts. To see her here instead of the game was odd, but it wasn't for random cause as it appeared to be, she was holding the book on Felix Felicis. "When do you plan on brewing that?"

"Tonight," she tells him as she flipped through the book and later on scribbling down on a book-sized journal on her side. "The ingredients arrive after the game, I want to revise a good understanding of these instructions the best I can."

"And how much sleep have you gotten?"

"Enough," she briefly replies not caring if the bags under her eyes were near as dark as the robes she wore, her hair that normally laid softly on her back was an unbrushed mess. Her lips dry as well as her already pale skin looked deathly white, she looked more dead than she had been when she was struck by the killing curse.

"Have you had breakfast at least?"

"No," she replied as she continued to scribble away on her journal, growing more irritated the more Nicholas spoke to her.

"Have you had any breakfast yet?" Nicholas asked again causing Finley to snap up from her journal presumably to yell at him, realizing that he had pulled up a compact mirror. Her reflection looked grumpy as she too looked like a corpse, though her pupils were red.

"I have not and I would appreciate it if you could feed us," her reflection replied.

"Can you shut up?" Finley glared at her reflection, "we already ate pumpkin pasties last night—"

"Oh don't you dare call 'pumpkin pasties' as good sustenance."

"You weren't complaining!"

"Because you closed off the vanity mirror you bitch!" Finley's reflection seethed, angry at how poorly her body has been treated. With candy wrappers and only a tin of water, Finley lived like she was in Azkaban.

"Did your reflection just call you bitch?" Nicholas mused, finding the banter between the Slytherin girl and her reflection amusing.

"She's the one to talk, she's me," Finley scoffed before looking back down on her book, just before she could flip onto another page, Nicholas closed it.

"What is wrong with you?" She snaps at him.

"Nothing is wrong with me," he replied. "But it's clear to me that something is wrong with you."

"Nothing is wrong with me."

"Keep telling yourself that," he says as he gestures at the mirror he was holding showing her reflection glaring at her in frustration.

"Sure, and if you could just kindly fuck off?"

"When I said fuck off, I meant leave me alone," Finley scowled as she sat on one of the long tables in the kitchens. Even with the ongoing quidditch game, students were sneaking in for some snacks, others held books with cups on their grips studying. "And I don't even like tofu, how did you even get these?" She scrunched her nose pushing around the golden-brown squares on her plate.

"Don't disrespect my grandmother's recipe like that," Nicholas scolds her as he continued to eat something he had made himself. It surprised Finley how Nicholas had a talent for cooking, even went as far as making her meal himself.