THE LOVE WITCH * GW

Chapter Eleven.

The previous day was so pathetically intense, and yet Rosemary cannot find herself to be any other way.

She tried to forget about it all—- she laughed with her friends at breakfast, and doodled small pictures on the corners of her books during class—- but it did little to cease her strong memory.

She remembered every ounce of what it felt like. The evil, the panic, and the calming voice of a most unlikely friend.

How was she supposed to feel after the vicious shadows invaded her thoughts? She never knew the appropriate emotion. No less did she know how to approach the one person who sat beside her despite it.

Between trying to express gratitude or forgetting about it all together—- it seemed she wasn't the only one who carried the heavy thoughts of what happened in the library.

More than once had she caught the eye of the red-headed boy who helped banish the evil of yesterday. She wasn't sure what he was trying to say with his careful gaze; she wasn't even sure he was aware of how often he caught her eye with his. Only that he had. And her heart stopped dead in her chest each time.

Lunch seemed to drag slower than it had on any other normal day. Maybe it was her distracted gaze, or every thought in her mind willing her to stare at the food before her—- anything to stop the hitching of her breath anytime she looked up and saw that George was still looking at her.

Her friends had noticed her absence from the conversation eventually, Cassius saying— "Rosemary? Are you even listening? Tell Graham that he's wrong!"

She only hummed, still preoccupied with attempting not to look up. "Hellooo. Earth to Rosemary. Have you gone deaf, or something?" Cassius continues.

"Leave her alone, will you?" Angel speaks up from beside her. "Just because you have to listen to your own voice, doesn't mean everyone else wants to as well!"

By this time, Rosemary had finally tuned into the conversation, confused on what had gotten them so worked up. "What?" She asks.

"What, she says! What," Cassius jeers.

"Leave her alone!" Again, Angel exclaims. She looks far too stressed for Rosemary to assume the defence has been solely for her— perhaps they had been shouting their wild opinions for some time now. But Rosemary hadn't noticed.

It was only when Angel and Cassius continued their bickering back and forth that she had done the very thing she had been dreading all of lunch. She met his eye again. George and his cursed stare.

It was almost taunting. The way he was trying to breach her mind and determine whether or not she was okay. And she hated it. She couldn't forget about the outburst for as long as he was still looking at her as though she might shatter.

And as Cassius and Angel keep throwing insults at each other, and Miles booms in laughter each time, and Graham darts his eyes wildly between them all—- Rosemary escapes out the double doors ten minutes before lunch had even ended.

Had anyone been observant enough to see that she left, she would have merely excused it with getting to the dungeons early for potions. But no one asked. Save for one batty Professor who had a personal vendetta.

"Leaving lunch early, are we, Miss Malfoy?" Professor Moody catches her in the corridor, hunched over in the dark corner like some kind of villain. "Where might you be off to?"

"Inquiring about the instructions of my potions essay, sir," she responds as kindly as she can in the predicament. "Professor Snape holds his office hours during lunch."

"Potions, huh?" Moody thinks out loud. "Heard you were quiet skilled in that class. Though I suppose your good grades could be excused by the mere fact that the teacher is your God-father, is that right?"

Before she could answer, he continues anyway—- "your father and Severus Snape are well acquainted then?"

"I—- I'm sorry, what are you asking?" Rosemary is nearly shaking at this point from the unexpected interrogation. She would like to believe it was silly, and Moody was strictly inquiring about his students, but the adrenaline dump was loudly staring otherwise.

"Just thinking out loud, Miss Malfoy," his smile was something sinister. And Rosemary had a hunch that his thoughts of her were nothing good. "Your father, he was a follower, correct?"

"A follower?" Rosemary asks.

"Of he who shall not be named of course. Yes, said he was under the effects of the imperious curse?"

"That is what he says."

"Oh," Professor Moody is interested in her response. "And you do not believe this to be true?"

"I never said that," Rosemary defends.

"Right. But that is what he says."

"Yes."

"And do you know, what the punishment would be for someone who had lied about their actions during the Wizarding War? Who stated they were under the imperious curse when they were indeed not?"

"Azkaban, sir——"

"You've misunderstood me," Moody grins. "Not the punishment by the ministry. But the punishment by the Dark Lord. Do you know what happens to those who deny him?"

Suddenly, Rosemary is sick. The only people she knew who referred to him as the Dark Lord were the same people who devoted their life to him. Whether it were the contextual clues coming together—- the targeted attacks during class, the furious swigs of his flask, the inquires about her father's denial of you-know who—- or just a plain gut feeling, something told Rosemary this was indeed not Alastar Moody.

"No, I do not know what happens," she dares to answer.

"A fate worse than death, young girl," he all but whispers.

She needs to tell someone of her discovery, anyone. Rosemary should rush straight to Snape's office and tell him all of it. But instead, the most nagging part of her curiosity allows her to stay. Allows her to ask—- "who are you really?"

But before he can answer, the school bell loudly chimes, and students file out of the Great Hall from lunch. The said Professor Moody slips away in all the commotion, and Rosemary finds her head swarming just as her peers around her.

That was not Alastar Moody. She knew it. And she felt sick with the burden of this information.