Restricted

Chapter 31. Truth

Madeline froze.

Standing across from her, Jolie's brown eyes were narrowed into a scowl.

If looks could indeed kill, Madeline would be eviscerated upon first sight.

Beneath the scorching glare of her roommate's brown eyes, shadows rested above her cheeks, a tell from her lack of sleep.

Jolie's pinstriped blue and white pyjamas that she'd changed into for the evening stood out starkly against the dark corridor.

How long had she been waiting here?

How much had she heard?

Madeline didn't know why the questions even arose. The expression on her friend's face told her enough.

Stilled, vengeful, and downright calculating.

Furious.

Madeline had only seen an expression like this in her nightmares. When, in one of her dreams, her friends and father watched on whilst she thrashed against the binds of the Durmstrang ship.

As if she were there, the sensation of being pulled under the inky waters of the Black Lake once again crept in.

As if this moment itself was a living nightmare.

She tried to find the words to begin an explanation, a plea for forgiveness before plunging to the ground. Her words tried and failed.

So Jolie spoke first.

"Are you mad?"

Madeline couldn't help but flinch, the sound of Jolie's voice ringing loudly in her ears in the silent corridor.

She tried again to speak. "Please—it's not—"

"He is a professor, Madeline—"

"Shh! I know that!" Madeline hissed, clinging to the hope that her father was not able to hear them on the other side of his door. "Keep your voice down, will you? I'm—"

"No!" Jolie continued anyway. "You slink away in the middle of the night and come here? What the hell are you—?"

"I had a nightmare! Okay?" A pitiful excuse. She should not have come. "I get them sometimes. So I came here to—"

"For Snape to comfort you?" Jolie spat. "Do you even hear yourself? He is a professor—!"

"You already said that! I am well aware!" Madeline whispered sharply. "Anyway, what does that even have to do with—?"

"Our Head of House!"

"I know!"

"So you really are just mad, then," Jolie huffed. She stepped forwards, grabbing at Madeline's wrist. "Come on. He's fucked with your head somehow. Just follow me—"

"What? Where?" she breathed, trying to wrench herself from Jolie's grasp. "Don't drag me—I'm not following until you tell me—"

"To Dumbledore's office!"

"Why?"

Why the hell would she want the headmaster to know about this?

Her closest friend had discovered that their Head of House was secretly Madeline's father and immediately wished to call for her expulsion, perhaps?

Merlin, she was going to be sick.

"Because he needs to know about this! This shouldn't be happening! It is illegal. Snape should lose his bloody job—"