𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 ; 𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘺

eight

08 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠

          𝐈 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐃𝐋𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐃 the last of my chicken into my mouth—which was a fairly large chunk as it took up most of the space in my mouth.

"How ladylike of you Sage." Landon announced from aside me, assuming he had watched me take in much more food than I could handle.

I attempted to stifle back my laughter, nearly expelling all of my slightly chewed-up chicken onto Maeve who was seated across from me.

I quickly gained my composure back because of Maeve's face, who was laughing too, but her nose was all crinkled up. I harshly swallowed the remainder of my bite of food and wiping the back of my hand across my mouth.

"Sorry, I think dinners over soon." I explained my out of the ordinary actions, stifling another laugh at Maeve's disgusted face.

And with that said, the final bell of the day rung out, and an immediate rush of students flooded out of the enormous doors, soon followed by my friends and I.

The topic of our walking-through-the-halls conversation on this dingy evening was, discussing the foreign schools who would be coming to Hogwarts later this month—hence the poster that caused a commotion in the corridors earlier today as everyone crowded around it, reading the printed words that informed the arrival of the schools— and debating who was rumored to be entering in the Triwizard Tournament.

Claire and Maeve were fairly certain that the Weasley twins would find a way to get past the age restrictions, which later sent Landon off into a heated rant about how 'ignorant' Dumbledore was when he set the regulation.

"I, without a doubt, would have won the whole competition if I were able to enter." Landon proudly declared, his steps soaring with pure confidence as we crossed the dim Entrance Hall.

Even though I was only a year younger than what the required age was to enter, I still found it humorous that anyone would be foolish enough to want to put forth their name.

I only turned to Elaine, who was just like me, attempting to restrain from snickering at Landon, who was being overly confident for his scrawny figure that, surely, wouldn't even get him past the beginning of the tournament.

I held my hand up to my smiling mouth, hoping that Landon wouldn't notice our faces full of amusement. But he did anyways.

"What?" Landon squinted at the both of us, eyebrows furrowed, as he took notice of our doubting expressions.

I opened my mouth to inform him that he was no where near capable of the sort, but no words managed to come out, as a certain voice, that I had no trouble recognizing, cut me off.

"You wouldn't last 10 minutes in the tournament Raines." Draco firmly called out from behind, and even though his face was out of my view, I knew that he was flaunting a smug smirk.

My friends, by now, were quite used to Draco's desperate ways to get a reaction out of the timid Hufflepuffs—which he clearly had an umatched hatred towards. Which explains why they kept with their strides, as the short walk back from dinner had us only a few steps away from the staircase that lead to the basement.

But I wasn't used to it, and I probably would never be.

I rigidly planted my feet into the stone floor, and listened to the approaching footsteps of Draco and his plus twos in the nearly deserted corridor.

I spun around, instantly being met with his a crossed-armed Draco who appeared to be annoyed at just my presence alone— was I that pesky that he felt the need to always bother me?