Cast yourself (you are the spell)

Chapter 49

When Hope comes to the common room after dinner, she finds it suspiciously empty.

She stops finding it suspicious when she notices Ryan Clarke sitting by the fireplace, legs crossed as if he had been waiting for her for quite some time.

Surprise: he has.

"I've been waiting for you," the boy says right away—so, so creepily that Hope has no choice but to roll her eyes.

It's no wonder the common room is empty. He had probably scared every Slytherin in sight away.

Hope folds her arms across her chest, eyeing the way the flames catch each other in the darkness. She scoffs. "Why?"

"I need to ask you a favor," he tells Hope, giving her a lopsided smile. She doesn't find it charming, and only arches a single brow to clamp down on the urge to roll her eyes again.

"The last time you asked me a favor," she says, "I ended up in the hospital wing."

Ryan doesn't seem to be listening.

"As I've heard it," he drawls, standing up and digging his hands into the pockets of his robes. "You have yet to select a date to the ball, despite your many...admirers."

Not a question. His eyes even sparkle.

Hope narrows her own. "I rejected you. Get over it."

An irritated scowl flickers at Ryan's smile, but it's gone before Hope can be sure that she truly saw it in the first place. He waves her off.  "It's not...that."

His smile comes back full-force. "I have a proposal for you."

Hope says nothing, so Ryan only continues.

"As I've also heard it," he says, quirking up his lip even further, like he's somehow amused with himself, "Landon Kirby has the intention to ask you out to the ball tomorrow. You are familiar with him, yes?"

Well. Yes.

Hope already knows that. The boy had been eyeing her strangely every day this week. Of course, she would never accept his invitation, as he had asked Josie before her and that's just weird.

She briefly wonders who gave him the idea to ask her.

"He's a Hufflepuff," Hope deadpans. "So, no way in Salazar's left ass—"

Ryan holds up a hand. "Just listen."

Hope bristles. How dare he silence her like that. As if he has power over her.

"While the boy is a Huffepuff and, maybe even worse, a halfbreed," Ryan admits, almost thoughtfully, "I have it on good authority that it would be in your best interests to allow him to take you."

Hope knits her eyebrows together. "On what good authority?"

"Namely..." Ryan smirks, pausing for dramatic effect. Hope glances off to the door, wondering if she can leave as quickly as she came. "...My father."

"I understand that you are to meet with him on the night of the ball?" Hope nods. "Let's just say that my father has taken a special interest in the boy. He would like it very much if you were able to introduce him after your meeting."

Hope scowls. That sounds like the exact opposite of where her best interests lie. "Why can't you do it?"

"Believe me, it's easier this way." Ryan sighs, looking exasperated that the other pureblood doesn't get it. "No one will blink at an innocent, pretty girl introducing her date to a family friend such as my father. On the other hand, if my father were to just waltz up to the boy, well, we might have a problem."