Cast yourself (you are the spell)

Chapter 22

Hope goes to sleep late on Wednesday night and wakes up late on Thursday morning, too. She glances at her clock and startles out of bed fast enough that she makes it to breakfast on time.

As she walks through the great hall's entrance, she feels a tug at the back of her head. She raises a hand to her hair but ignores the weird feeling when she doesn't feel a bump, finding her friends all sitting together and eating. Ethan spits out his pumpkin juice when he sees her.

"Whoa, what's with the new hairstyle?" Penelope asks, her eyebrows raising to her hairline. Ethan nods as if to emphasize her point. Hope frowns, not knowing what they're getting at.

"What new hairstyle?"

Maya nearly swoons when she sees Hope, her eyes becoming heavy-lidded.

"Mikaelson, is this for me?" she gasps, attracting the attention of some students around them, who look up at Hope and stare wildly in shock. The pureblood sits down, wondering if she's still talking weird or if everyone else is just acting like it. "You know how much I love blondes."

"I'm not blonde," Hope tells her with a scowl, grabbing a polished plate and holding it up like a mirror. What she finds staring back at her almost causes her to scream.

Her hair was light yellow, so pristinely blonde it was nearly white. It was such a unique type of hair color that it automatically reminds her exactly of-

She swivels her head in the direction of the Gryffindor table, finding Elizabeth Saltzman staring back with a victorious smirk on her face. As she and her friends notice the panicked look on Hope's face, they erupt into boisterous sniggering.

Satisfied with herself, Elizabeth brings her cup of water up to her lips, as if saluting Hope. Thinking quickly, Hope's hand moves underneath the table, transfiguring the water into mud. It's one of the easiest Transfiguration spells she knows, and it was so easy that she's able to perform it nonverbally and without a wand.

For a hot second, Hope thinks that she messed up the spell, but a second later Elizabeth is choking and spluttering mud. She makes such a mess of herself that even her beloved Milton Greasley looks away in disgust.

Josette next to Elizabeth holds up her book bag for protection as her sister continues to cough. Hope chuckles out loud, causing her friends to look away from her hair and to what she's laughing at.

"Was that you?" Penelope asks, hiding a laugh behind a fork of food. Hope nods almost imperceptibly. "Fitting. Mud for a mudblood."

She laughs again at the little joke she's created, and Hope tries to smile, but her face feels much too hot. A grimace splits her lips instead, and she looks down at her plate, suddenly not feeling well. She wants to tell Penelope that that was not how she meant it, but cowardice is a monster that knows her far too well.

To make her feel worse, Rose pins her with a inquisitive look, almost disappointed. But that can't be right. Shouldn't she have been proud of her?

After breakfast, Hope skips her first period and goes to the school's infirmary. She pettily insists that Madame Pomfrey fixes her hair at once.

"Out of my hospital wing now!" Pomfrey shoos her away. "There is nothing wrong with you."

"My hair is blonde." Hope stands firmly. "Surely that must imply some level of illness."

Pomfrey huffs and runs a diagnostic charm on her just to get her to leave. "It appears that you've been bewitched with a glamor spell. They usually last for a couple of hours. You should be fine. Now, out!"

"Can't you fix it now?" Hope whines, glowering. Was Pomfrey really so useless?

"No, and, if you would excuse me, I must attend to other patrons," Pomfrey says, and leaves to her room.

"There's no one else here!" Hope calls after her, to no answer. She mutters underneath her breath, irritated. "Good for nothing witch..."

During second period, she can feel the entire class' eyes on her. When she turns around to glare at all of them, they quickly look away and back to McGonagall's lecture as if they hadn't been staring to begin with.

"Must you be so awful?" Josette tells her at one point, when Hope threatens the Ravenclaw behind her for whispering to his friend while glancing at the pureblood. "You only did this to yourself."

"I...it's not my fault your sister's a lunatic," she says, feeling a strange lump in her throat. Although it had only really been a day, she felt as though she hadn't talked to Josette in ages. Like she's almost forgotten how to. At least, it seems so hard now. She could never figure out whether they hated each other or merely tolerated one another. It was a fine line.

"My sister?" Josette hisses on a whisper, nearly directly into her ear. Hope shivers, goosebumps erupting across her neck. She tries not to flinch away, feeling like her nerves were on fire. "My sister has been coughing up mud all morning. I had to spend the last hour cleaning up after her because of your foolish antics."

"She started it!" She shuts her mouth as McGonagall sternly peers in their direction before resuming her lesson. Hope reminds herself to be quiet. It won't do any good to lose her temper and embarrass herself any more than she already has.

Josette doesn't reply for a long enough time that Hope thinks they're done talking. Until-

"No," the muggleborn whispers, like she's almost...ashamed? "I did."

Hope furrows her eyebrows. "What-" She swallows thickly. "What do you mean?"

"I cast that first spell on you. I used Lizzie's wand so you couldn't trace it back to me," she confesses, slowly, like she can't believe it herself. Hope stammers in awe. The other girl had seemed so surprised the other day; how was it possible? It would explain how the tribrid didn't notice sooner, however.

"That, that's pure..."

"Evil?" Josette looks down in guilt. Hope no longer pretends that she's trying to pay attention to the lesson. She tilts her head to hear the rest. "I know."

"No," Hope corrects her quickly, smiling slightly. Her heart thuds too quickly beneath her chest. She does not know what she's doing. "I was going to say Slytherin."

Josette peeks up at the last word, her teeth worrying her bottom lip before drawing into a smile. Her lips glisten red with the previous attention, and Hope falters as she glances down towards them and back up into curious eyes. She leans in only barely, almost as if she's in a trance. Her own lips begin to quiver so noticeably that she backs away with fear, remembering herself. Josette blushes and does the same, remembering herself as well.

They both look away, each wondering what the other was thinking.