Cast yourself (you are the spell)

Chapter 44

Severus Snape pales, his face losing all color at the audience of professors staring expectantly at him—all of whom look thoroughly cross. Quite unlike the middle-aged man he is, he drops his gaze nervously to the floor like a scolded child.

"It appears that I was sorely mistaken," he begins, trailing off to search for the right words. It doesn't matter, because someone interrupts him pretty quickly.

"You wrongly informed us that they were engaged!" Professor Vector jumps in, her eyes ablaze. Snape winces, flitting his own gaze towards her sheepishly.

"Well..." he defends himself, swallowing thickly, "...yes."

The entire room only gets louder at that, the rest of the professors choosing to vehemently lecture the man instead of understanding where he might be coming from.

Headmaster Albus Dumbledore chuckles quietly from the window of his office, looking out into the distance. For a second, he swears that he can see two figures near the Great Lake, before he chalks it off to his imagination.

What would any of his students be doing out there, anyways? He almost laughs at himself—surely, he must be getting too old.

Dumbledore raises a commanding hand as he turns back to his staff, swiftly catching their attention and silencing the room all at once.

"The inaccuracies of the engagement matter not," he says, clasping his hands together delicately. "I fear we have more pressing troubles at hand. Irma, if you will?"

Madame Irma Pince nods, parting her way through the crowd of teachers to come to a stand next to the headmaster. She then removes a piece of paper from the pocket of her white robe.

"I found this left behind by two students in the library," she says, unfolding the piece of paper. Snape swallows thickly, somehow recognizing the piece of parchment, even though the sides of it are torn and jagged.

"Is that...?" Snape speaks up, trailing off for fearing of being right. Pince nods and slowly hands over the paper, allowing the man time to read over it. A second is all he needs.

Snape looks away and sighs as if confirming some deep suspicion. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Who were the two students?" he asks, a profound part of him not wanting to know the answer.

"Hope Mikaelson and Josette Saltzman."

—

Hope stands by herself in the Slytherin locker room Saturday morning, trying to complete her usual pre-game ritual. There's about an hour before the quidditch match starts, so she expects the rest of her team will be here within a few minutes.

It's the famous rival game between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and frankly, Hope is seconds away from going into cardiac arrest. Her entire body feels on edge, from her jumpy nerves to her prickling skin.

Where the routine of lacing up her boots and piling on her pads is usually calming and almost cathartic, now it only serves to further agitate her.

That's how she stands currently—her back ramrod straight as she stares into the locker in front of her with disinterest, her thoughts miles away from quidditch, more specifically on the winter ball instead.

The ball itself is in two weeks, which doesn't give Hope a whole lot of time to prepare, in truth. At least, it doesn't give her a whole lot of time to mentally prepare.

She still needs to rehearse for any possible upcoming conversations with her family, and she still needs to practice her expressionless mask in the mirror. It won't do well for her father to catch a flicker of pain in her eyes when he inevitably hurts her somehow.