《Thorn | Neville Longbottom》Chapter 4: Boggart

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The week was passing by in a blur. Briar's roommates hadn't mentioned her comment in the dorms the other day, and for that, she was grateful.

It was Thursday now, and Briar was heading off to her first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. She was running late, so she hurried into the classroom and immediately started searching for an empty seat. She rolled her eyes when she realized that the only empty seat was beside Malfoy.

He smirked at her when she defeatedly plopped into the seat beside him. She sent him a wilting look that told him to not say a word if he wanted to live, and it seemed like it worked.

They both looked up to see a new Professor walk into the room and up to the front. He scanned the sea of faces as he spoke, but he froze when his eyes landed on Briar. She gave him a slight smile when he looked at her. He carried on introducing himself, "Hello, class. I'm your new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. I'm Professor Lupin. Today, we will be learning about boggarts. Can anyone tell me what they are?"

Hermione Granger's hand immediately shot up to answer the question. She replied, "They change shape to reflect your biggest fear."

Professor Lupin nodded with a smile. "Exactly. The counter-spell is Riddikulus, which will turn what you fear the very most into something funny."

Malfoy mumbled under his breath, "This class is ridiculous."

Briar had to fight the urge to laugh at one of his jokes for the first time. He seemed pleased when she unexpectedly blew air through her nose and attempted to hide her smile. He smugly smiled to himself as the class carried on.

Students began to line up to try the spell, and Briar watched curiously from her seat. When Neville Longbottom whispered to Professor Lupin that his biggest fear was Professor Snape, Malfoy snickered to Briar, "Is he serious? What a loser."

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Something about this comment severely annoyed Briar. All earlier friendliness between the two dissolved when she immediately snapped back, "Oh, shut up, Malfoy. Yours is probably your father."

The blonde haired boy immediately whipped around and pointed his wand at Briar, under her chin, but he put it away just as quickly when Professor Lupin turned to look at them.

Professor Lupin blinked and decided, "Miss Davies, why don't you come up next?"

Briar swallowed hard and walked up to the front as confidently as possible. She didn't know what her boggart would look like, but she wasn't thrilled to find out with such a large audience.

She stood in front of the boggart with her wand raised as Professor Snape began to transform into something else. At first, it was unclear what she was looking at, but then she realized it was herself.

She blinked in confusion and heard Malfoy murmur, "What in merlin's beard?"

Her boggart replica giggled and dreamily sighed, "Oh, I'm in love! I'm in love!"

She heard some students begin to snicker behind her, but all noise in the room stopped when the boggart suddenly dropped to the ground with blood pooling out from unseen wounds. Even though it was the boggart that was choking and spluttering for air, Briar felt like she couldn't breathe either as she watched herself die.

She was dying because she fell in love.

Briar was frozen in place as she watched this for what felt like an eternity before Professor Lupin ran forward and changed the boggart into his own worst fear. Briar didn't notice what it was because she bolted from the room before she could look at it.

She hurried to the nearest bathroom and moved to the sink to splash water on her face in an attempt to gain control of her shaky breaths. She started to feel embarrassed that her classmates had seen this, but she brushed those thoughts away. They all had embarrassing fears. Fears in themselves were embarrassing, so she didn't need to feel like hers was somehow more so.

She calmed herself down quickly, but she waited in the bathroom until the period was over before she went back for her bag. It was a stupid lesson anyway.

———

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