Cherry Lips // s. black

-OCTOBER. 3.-

Carmilla went to the charm's classroom on her way to the common rooms, where she needed to pick up her things for Astrology and then History of Magic.

Students bustled around at the doors. They were much older than her and didn't spare a glance at her purple splotched face. And, they had quite a few... well, charmed objects.

One girl's hair was tied back with a butterfly clip that flapped its wings slowly. Another's bag was never ending, which was evident by the way she managed to slide three hardcover schoolbooks into the little tasselled bag. She watched them leave. Someone had shoes with untied laces that moved out of the way when they walked.

A boy with glasses had a tattoo of a pocket watch on the inside of his wrist, and when Carmilla squinted at it as she waited for them to clear out, she realised that it was ticking over his freckles.

"Woah," she breathed. She knew the paintings here could move, after one scared the metaphorical life out of her, so magical tattoos should've been assumed as well, but she hadn't.

Then she blinked, and realised she was standing in the middle of the empty corridor with wide eyes.

Carmilla shook her head and moved forwards, knocking on the door to the charms classroom she'd hoped was the right one. Ace had given vague instructions before running off to give a Gryffindor girl a wedgie. They were probably friends.

"Come in!"

The door creaked when she opened it, and her eyes grew even wider when she looked into the classroom. It was set up the same as the transfiguration one, but instead of cages of animals and shelves of objects, the room contained rows of books that organized themselves and a small kitchen bench off to one side with dishes that were washing with no help.

An art easel was covered by a sheet in the corner, and there was the smell of detergent coming from a crate in the other. Wide windows let in the sunlight and wind chimes hung around them. There was no breeze, but they tinkled merrily anyway.

Professor Flitwick stood up from where he was rifling around under his desk for something and smiled at Carmilla. "Ms King!"

"Hello," she said, dragging her eyes away from the typewriter writing by itself on one desk, "I hope you're not busy, I can come back another time."

"Of course not! Come in," Flitwick said, and put on his glasses, tucking away a few handwritten essays. "I'm just marking holiday homework. Just the seniors taking advanced classes, you don't have to worry for a while."

She looked back to where the older teenagers had been, "was that..."

"My students taking advanced charms," he said brightly, the same shine in his eyes that Ace got when she explained Quidditch to her. "There's only a few this year, so they set up the things they wanted to learn. Don't worry it'll be all packed up before your class!"

Carmilla didn't really want all of the cool things to be put away before she got to come into the classroom, but she nodded anyway. "Right. Um... I was wondering if you knew how I could get this off my face?"

Flitwick lent forwards and squinted at her, then his eyes widened comically. "Oh dear, what happened there?"

"Herbology," Carmilla said.

"Of course," he said, and rifled through some things on his desk. She waited for him to pull out his wand, or maybe a potion, but instead he opened a thick dusty book and ripped a page from it. He must've mis understood the confusion on her stained face. "Don't worry, they grow back!"