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oOoOo

Sabotage

OoOoO

October 3, 1990, 5:46 AM, Gryffindor Boys’ Dormitory

I rolled out of bed, fumbling for my wand, and grabbing it off the desk. I slid my thumb down the etched dragon grasping the shaft and flicking it before softly muttering.

“Tempus.”

‘5:46, huh? Guess my internal clock has gotten used to it.’

I slipped into the bathroom, towel in hand before stepping into the shower. I flinched, the soles of my feet stinging at the change in temperature.

The cold water contacted my face, causing me to squint, before filtering throughout my hair and slipping down my back.

I shuddered, gritting my teeth, and bearing through the brunt of it, muttering curses so as to stop myself from screaming out. When I had finally acclimated, I began to wash myself.

The high had worn off weeks ago, quickly being replaced with boring monotony. Sure, magic helped to an extent, but doing the same thing over and over again was bound to make me relapse eventually and that absolutely terrified me.

Every day, I would go through the same motions, making incremental progress and as per usual, my old habits of procrastination had attempted to resurface once more, the very same snide inner voice rearing its ugly head.

When it was time to do anything of note, it would be there whispering in my ears. Beguiling, crooning to me and saying that I should put it off until tomorrow.

It wasn’t easy to ignore, never was. It would always be there, ever-present. As if bound to me by chains.

After all, the disease of addiction was a powerful one. Always lurking around the corner, tempting you to relapse.

The worst part of it was that you would do so out of your own free will and then torture yourself for it.

In other news, the Slytherin-Gryffindor hatred had finally set in for my year group.

But to be completely honest, it was only a matter of time.

At first it was death-glares across the classroom, but it had soon escalated to open hostility, jinxes in the packed corridors, insults outside of class.

It really made me wonder. Why would anyone let this go on? Better question, why separate children at all?

It would only lead to this exact situation. Us humans were quick to isolate each other for the stupidest of reasons, why make it even easier for us to do so?

And to add insult to injury, my apparent blood-status had painted a target on my back.

I had spent the last few weeks avoiding an obstinate Slytherin boy—Deroc Rowle if I remembered correctly—who supposedly wanted to put me in my place.

I suppressed a growl at that thought.

The racism was so deeply set into wizarding society that even children saw it as normal, right even, to hunt down and torment each other for something that they couldn’t even see with their own eyes.

I huffed, stuffing down the rush of anger as soon as it had arrived. ‘The fuck’s wrong with me? No matter how much of a bastard he is, he’s still a child!’

I shook my head, hoping to banish the anger that had sputtered out.

Taking a seat at my desk, I lit the wax candle with a Fire-making Charm before taking out my notebook and an attractively matte black, ballpoint pen.

For a moment, the pen hovered over the blank page, not a single letter in sight nor memory.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, blinking owlishly, my brow creasing.

‘Not every day is a good one, but I still feel like shit regardless…’ I thought, twirling the pen around my fingers

Steeling myself, I began to write, doing my best to disgorge the indescribably uncomfortable sensation I was feeling.

It crawled beneath my ribs, making my chest feel hollow and my saliva thick in my mouth.

I didn’t like it.

oOOOo

The Dungeons, Potions Classroom, 12:05 PM

“Mr Dovahkiin.” Snapped an irritated voice. I reared my head up in alarm, the sudden sound disturbing me from my work.

I almost dipped my elbow into the cauldron, an act that would no doubt result in disastrous consequences.

“Y-Yes, sir?” I stuttered, mentally wincing at the nervousness in my voice.

I cursed my prepubescent body for the umpteenth time before looking at the ground.

“The instructions specifically state to put in the Horklump juice before the Flobberworm mucus, do they not?”

“They do sir…” I trailed off confused, turning back to my cauldron.

The potion was an angry red, the opposite of what it should have been.

'The instructions say that it should be a calming azure, not a livid crimson.'

I frowned, my eyes darting around my workstation for any hint of foul play. Unfortunately, I noticed nothing, narrowing my eyes.

‘I’m certain that I put in the mucus before the juice. When did this happen? I barely left the area!’

My inner turmoil was put to rest by the irritated sigh that left Snape’s mouth. His scrutinous gaze locked onto my cauldron. Its contents hissed and boiled, like an angry snake, the liquid rushing upwards in the form of an enraged froth.

Thankfully Snape vanished it before it could do any harm.

“That will be a Dreadful for today’s potion.” He said.

His voice was effortlessly cold.

A hot flash of anger exploded from within my chest. Snape’s words evoked a round of derisive laughter from the Slytherin side of the laboratory that only pissed me off even more.

“And here I thought you were the only Gryffindor with some sense. Perhaps the idiocy of your peers has rubbed off on you, isn’t that right Mr Calloway?”

He turned to the distracted boy, giving him an icy stare resulting in my housemate lowering his head. He turned his attention back onto his potion, not looking back up as the tips of his ears grew red.

Snape turned his glare back towards me. My righteous anger fizzled out once I realised that there was nothing that I could do.

‘I guess I’ll have to take the failure… for now.’

“Fifteen points from Gryffindor. See to it that we do not have a repeat of this.” he said, a searching look on his face for a moment before he whirled around, his cloak billowing at his feet.

Soon, it was the end of the lesson, and I was no closer to finding out who had sabotaged me.

“You feeling okay?” Asked Katie, tapping my shoulder. Her blue eyes glinted worriedly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, giving her a smile.

I doubted that the smile hid the rage simmering just beneath it but hoped that it did.

‘Not like you could take your anger out on Snape.’

The thought brought forth a ghost of a smile on my face, if only for a moment.

I was wary of Snape, though. He was a dangerous man.

The fact that I knew where his loyalties lay terrified me. What if he chose to peruse through my head under the orders of the headmaster?

‘Maybe I should cut the old man some slack…’ I thought with a wry smile before it vanished from my face. ‘Actually, no, I’d rather I be wrong than have him search through my head at his leisure.’

I hadn’t even met him yet, but it didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t going to take any chances, it involved my very life after all. ‘Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.’

Occlumency, although a solution, was something I wasn’t going near without a qualified professional to guide me. One wrong move and I could put myself into a coma, erase my entire identity or worse, kill myself completely unwittingly.

I refused to make a game of my life, nobody knew if it would be my last and I didn’t want to tempt fate and find out.

For now, meditation and trying to clear my mind would do.

‘I wonder who messed with my potion, though. It couldn’t be me since I’ve been getting ‘Acceptable’ and ‘Exceeding Expectations’ for a little over a month now—!’

Coming to a stop, I strained my ears, the whispering slowly becoming audible.

“...potion… stupid…”

‘That isn’t…’

Furrowing my brow, I halted, turning to Katie, and placing a finger to my lips. I sidled behind one of the dungeons’ many support-pillars, dragging her along with me.

“...the look on the Mudblood’s face?” Said Rowle, his sentence followed by mocking laughter. Katie bristled at his use of the slur but was mollified once I tugged at her robes. “Professor Snape really does favour us Slytherins! I didn’t get punished for screwing with his potion at all!”

‘What kind of idiot exposes themselves in public?’

Although it was unexpected, I had found my saboteur, all that was left now was exacting my vengeance.

‘And exact it I will…’ I thought with a frown. ‘Today’s the wrong day to fuck with me kid…’

I held back the wave of anger that threatened to rush forth, my grip on Katie's sleeve tightening.

I took a deep breath, my earlier rage simmering down to a controlled fury.

“So, what’s the plan?” Asked Katie, something dark glimmering from within her cerulean orbs.

I grinned, placing my hand on her shoulder.

‘I guess she likes our new friend almost as much as I do.’

“Now, dear Katie,” I said, a sinister smile spreading across my face. “We plot.”

oOOOo

Removing an undusted tome from its position on the shelf. I blew over it, the dust tickling my nostrils, before placing it into Katie’s expectant hands.

For the past hour, we had been furiously taking note of any useful spells for educational purposes, of course.

“What’s that one spell that you were telling me about, again?” I asked her, hopping off the rolling ladder, landing on her left.

She hummed, flicking through the book.

“Apparently, it sticks things together,” She said. “The incantation is ‘Epoximise’ and it says here that it’s a popular prank spell.”

"Best part is, the stickiness spreads. So, if one person touches another person, they'll become sticky too!"

‘Oh the possibilities are endless…’

“I think we’ve got our spell, then,” I said. “Try it on me, but when you do, you have to mean it. Cast the spell with only one thought in mind: to make me adhesive.”

She tilted her head to the side, her bronze skin wrinkling in confusion. “What’s adhesive mean?”

I snorted, her expression turning scandalised at my laughter before I hurriedly replied, “It means sticky.”

Her open mouth formed the shape of an ‘O’ before she took her wand out of her pocket.

“Epoximise.” She muttered, flicking her wand in my general direction.

Something began to grow out of the end of her wand, reaching the size of an apple before sliding off the tip.

Instead of falling to the floor, as the laws of gravity would dictate, the transparent blob leapt towards me.

It wasn’t quite invisible, for I could still make out its shape, but it would be hard to spot in the castle’s crowded corridors.

It touched my chest, causing me to wrinkle my nose as an uncomfortable sensation spread across my body; like a thick gloop had been dumped on me.

For a moment, I felt sluggish, before it subsided, and I returned to normal.

“Did I do it?” She asked, placing her wand atop the mahogany table.

“Let’s see…” I replied, moving my left hand toward the shelf behind us.

I knew almost immediately that it was a success but just to make sure, I made a show of yanking my arm backwards, all to no avail.

“Well, that’s proof that it works.” I said, a small smile as my wand slid into my right hand. “Finite.”

“Okay, we’ve got the spells,” I said, sheathing my wand and facing Katie, who closed the tome with a soft thump. “All that’s left is revenge.”

oOOOo

The next day, I went through the majority of my lessons without much trouble.

I rounded the corridor, taking a seat on a worn wooden bench, looking out the Hogwarts courtyards with a small smile.

The grass was cut trimley, not a single leaf looking out of place. Bountiful hedges were placed around the fields, some shaped in the figures of robed witches and wizards wearing pointed hats, and others mythical beasts.

A few students were scattered around the courtyards, playing rounds of Gobstones and a game that bore a striking resemblance to Hacky Sack— although the footbag remained in the air a lot longer than its muggle counterpart.

Amidst my sightseeing, my thoughts returned to the Slytherin kids that had made their mission to try and start trouble with me, a flash of annoyance souring my mood as a result.

I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut and holding the bridge of my nose. The behaviour that some of the kids had been exhibiting was really starting to get on my nerves. Every third word to leave their mouths would be something related to my supposedly filthy blood.

But could I fault them for it?

After all, children were generally the products of their upbringing, an upbringing that was most certainly bogus for the most part.

Case in point, Deroc Rowle.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I noticed that he had been attempting to tail me, all to no avail thanks to the Disillusionment Charm.

I had far more important things to worry about than schoolyard bullying and, although amusing at first, his not-so-subtle attempts at espionage had begun to grate on my nerves.

The Potions incident was the final straw.

My plan, one consisting of not very many steps, relied on Rowle doing exactly what I thought he would— that left quite the large margin for error but if I screwed up, that would be on me. Though based on his previous behaviour, he didn’t seem to be the smartest cookie in the jar.

For the most part, I ignored him, something that without a shadow of a doubt infuriated him.

In the little classes that we shared, he would throw me hateful looks and would stop at nothing shy of getting himself caught to screw me over if he could, for what reason I didn’t know. That would be an impossibility in classes that relied on my own merit but in a subject like Potions where Snape’s blatant favouritism towards his house showed itself quite explicitly, it was another question entirely.

I rose from my spot on the bench, noticing Rowle and his two goons—Burke and Fawley—sauntering down the corridor.

Burke was a gangly thing, his hair was wiry, almost like intertwined wires. He laughed like a hyena, and I suppose that he acted like one too, sucking up to Rowle as if he were Jesus reborn.

The other was Fawley, a blonde ponce with slicked back hair. He had high high cheekbones and aristocratic features. His eyes were cold, completely devoid of any interest or care.

I stared at them for a few moments longer before looking around.

Other students, both young and old, flitted back and forth on their way around the castle, obscuring them from my view for a few moments at a time.

Spotting me, they shot each other conspiring looks before stalking forwards, chests out and shoulders rolled back, the promise of violence written on their faces.

‘Well, this obviously doesn’t bode well.’

“Now lads,” I began, moving slightly so that my back was facing the wall. “We’re not going to have any trouble, are we?”

Rowle grinned at me, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. He looped his arm around my shoulder, squeezing it enthusiastically.

“Not at all, Asim.” He said, his voice sickeningly sweet.

He led me down the courtyards and across the castle’s fields, his goons in tow. We had passed the greenhouses minutes ago, reaching a well-trod dirt track that undoubtedly led to the Forbidden Forest.

‘These bastards...’ A ball of heat sparked to life from within my chest, the blazing anger that I felt begging that I let it loose. ‘Have they no shame?!’

I refused, crushing it vehemently. ‘Not yet…’

Eventually, we stopped just shy of an undergrowth, the bushes stretching across the breadth of the broadened track. The tall, looming trunk of the trees stretched upwards, knotted branches hanging overhead— like ominous, skeletal fingers.

‘Now isn’t that just a tad ominous.’ I thought, holding back a nervous chuckle at the sight. ‘And it’s still daytime, too.’

My eyes darted around my surroundings, looking for possible blind spots and hidden companions. I muttered swift thanks to the Divines underneath my breath once I found that it was all clear.

Rowle harshly shoved me forwards, sending me stumbling, but not enough to make me fall over.

His minions cackled gleefully, egging him on.

“Look at him!” Said Burke, his face the perfect picture of joy. “He looks like he’s about to piss himself!”

Fawley wrinkled his nose at his friend’s crass language and then fixed his attention on me. His gaze was completely blank and uncaring, almost causing my rage to flare up just at the sight of him.

‘Do they seriously have no other goals in life but sucking up to this idiot?’ I wondered, gaining my balance, and turning around, my back facing the undergrowth.

Despite my apparent calm, my heart was pounding in my chest, the adrenaline running its course. Thankfully, my fear at the current situation was dwarfed by the sheer anger I held towards these three before me.

Insults in the corridor was one thing but they decided to make it personal, wasting my time on little more than a glorified dick measuring contest.

I exhaled loudly through my nose, attempting to expel my frustration.

I put weight on my feet, making sure that I wouldn’t lose my balance due to the uneven ground. I relaxed a little once I confirmed that the ground was pretty solid.

“So, we’re really doing this, huh?” I sighed, gesturing at the boys.

“Oh yes, yes we are.” Chuckled Rowle.

A cocky smile was fixed upon his face and his posture was relaxed, not even a hint of caution on his person. He reached into his pocket, pulling out his wand and pointing it at me rather lazily.

“To be honest, this was inevitable,” He began. “See, as a Mudblood, you must not be aware of your place here.”

“And what is my place here, then?” I asked him, more curious than anything else. After all, it wasn’t every day that one got to hear the reasoning of a racist.

“Below us, of course!” He said incredulously, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re Purebloods. Wizards who are naturally superior to one of your… origins. Therefore, it's only natural that you defer to us, no?”

The entire time, he spoke as if we were having a normal conversation. He thought that he was certainly in the right, and that is what was so unnerving about it.

I hummed, a pensive expression on my face. “I’m sorry, but I’m failing to see where this makes even a modicum of sense.”

He tutted and shook his head, twirling his wand around. “No one as filthy as the likes of you could ever boast such magical talent.” He scowled. His voice took a hard edge, one that completely took me off guard. “And after today, you’ll never boast such prowess ever again.”

At the open threat, I frowned, dropping all pretence of weakness. The sudden change in my demeanour threw the boy off, giving me enough time to summon my wand from my holster. “Then tell me, how do you plan on stopping me?”

Rowle stuttered, not expecting me to turn the tables on him so quickly.

“Depulso!” I incanted, a white burst of light sending the boy catapulting backwards.

His two friends immediately sprang into action, pulling out their wands from their robes.

I turned around and began to run as if my life depended on it. Travelling back up the dirt track and followed by all three Slytherins, I looked over my shoulders every once in a while. Brightly coloured jets of light sailed over my head; I lowered my torso as the wind buffeted my face.

The track began to taper the further along we went, forcing the boys to run in a straight line. I cracked a grin, hearing their enraged yells.

Coming to a stop, I looked behind me, the boys imprisoned within an entanglement of robes on the ground. The rustling of leaves from my left caused me to whirl around with a grin.

“Took you long enough, innit?” I said with a smile. A light sheen of sweat coated my forehead as I took in a deep lungful of air.

“I’m not the one who took you to who knows where.” Muttered Katie, pocketing her wand before pointing at the boys. “It took me a good while to find you, even if I was following you the entire time.

I turned to the downed Slytherins, flashing them a smirk.

“Now, what do we do with them?”

The once furious yells had calmed down and the boys were waiting with bated breath, hatred and a touch of fear colouring their faces.

I made a show of my twirling around my wand, enjoying their panic.

“Hmm…” I mused, stroking my thumb along the etching. “I’m not sure. You reckon we could just leave them out here? Hagrid’s Hut isn’t too far from here and it won’t be sunset for a while. If they’re smart about it, they could make it to his hut before it gets dangerous.”

She looked at me, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

‘A vengeful one, she is…’

“I think that sounds just about right.” She said, frowning at them. “Stupid gits.” She muttered before stalking off towards the castle, its spires still visible from here.

I gave the boys a final wink, chortling at their cries and insults before jogging to catch up with Katie.

.