❝Sometimes I feel my sanity slipping away from me. Then I wonder how strong of a hold I even had on it in the first place.❞
In which Viola Jugson attempts to hold her world together, but it insists on crumbling apart.
BOOK TWO!
started: 1st january...
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"COME ON. NEXT SATURDAY morning. It'll be well over by lunch, and it's not like you're planning on doing any homework right after breakfast."
Viola sighed, heavy enough that her breath made a page of Confronting the Faceless flutter. Taking it as a sign, she turned it over, hoping that a more relevant answer might present itself for her essay. The last three hadn't proven useful, but then again the words hadn't exactly registered in her head. Harry had seen to that, having been standing there for the past eight minutes and demanding her attention through his determined pestering.
"Do you know if Inferi are affected by light in general, or is it just fire?" she asked.
It was Harry's turn to sigh now as he finally pulled out the chair he had been hovering over and sat down. The common room was empty, as it tended to be during free periods, but Viola had given up her favourite armchair by the fire in the hope that a wooden chair at a table would get her to focus more. What she hadn't factored into that was Harry.
"Why are you so against playing actual Quidditch?" he asked. "You loved it during summer at the Burrow."
Viola sat up straighter, grinning as she moved her finger to underline a passage. "Oh! Here we go: 'Preserved indefinitely by dark magic, an Inferius can only be destroyed by fire, for no spell has been found to render dead flesh impervious to burning.'" She glanced at Harry. "A bit grim, isn't it?"
She dipped her quill in the ink pot, but just as she was about to write down a new sentence on her essay — that was severely lacking in words — the parchment was pulled halfway across the desk. A blob of ink falling to the table, Viola whipped her head up, only to be met with Harry's expectant face staring back at her.
"Hey! Give that back."
"Alright." He didn't move, hand still firmly splayed on the parchment. "If you give me an answer."
"I did give you an answer."
"Oh yeah? When?"
"When you first came in here," she said, placing her quill down so she could lean back and fold her arms. "You burst in through the door and said, 'Viola, you're trying out for Quidditch next Saturday, aren't you?'" She made her voice deeper in an attempt to mimic his, not missing the bewildered look on his face. "And then I said, 'No.' You were answered. Case closed."
As she made to grab her homework back, Harry pushed it further away and scoffed. "I don't sound like that."
Viola hummed in consideration. "I guess that's true. You are a bit more whiny."
"Whiny —?"
"You've been whining about me not trying out for the past ten minutes so, yes, whiny."
She grinned in satisfaction at the scowl on his face, then took advantage of the distraction to pull her essay back. Before she could make it back, however, Harry's hand landed on top of hers, halting it in place.
