CHAPTER SEVEN
asking for a friend

COLD METAL grazes her fingertips as the flip-top lighter makes a home of her left hand before she even realises it's there, found its way out her pocket in the subliminal clockwork automation of her movements.

          Around her, the animated paintings covering the walls of Dumbledore's office bustle about in their self-indulgent business, making light conversation from frame to frame. Their incessant whispers and averted eyes graze against her nerves. A bespectacled man in one of the frames scowls disapprovingly down at her over the rim of his circular, wire-framed glasses, evidently recognising her from the weekly counselling sessions she's dropped by the Headmaster's office for. She ignores him.

          In the sea of two-dimensional conversation from squabbling photographs, Dumbledore's quill scribbles frantically in his absence, moving of its own accord, its sharp tip scratching against a long roll of parchment. Crimson lines of ink shape into neat, cursive words. She ignores those, too. Knees bouncing in agitation, Sawyer watches the sun set through the window in Dumbledore's musty office. She flicks the flame on and off, on and off. The hollow clicking sound ricochets in the silence as she waits. And waits. And waits. Fingers dancing through the flame, toying with the searing pain pricking at her rough skin as the tiny wildfire licks and bites at callouses and old burn scars, not enough to incinerate but enough to let anyone know, given time, it could. The pain keeps her from snapping. Keeps her mind from venturing elsewhere. She builds stone tunnels around it, blocks off all the other highways, so it's the only thing she can ever feel.

           Moments later, Dumbledore sweeps into office with a letter in his hands. The first thing Sawyer's eyes latch onto is the cataract of a shimmering beard, just inches from sweeping the ground, swaying with every elegant step. Eyeing her with a measured look Sawyer didn't care enough to decipher, Dumbledore takes a seat behind his desk, and dumps the letter in a drawer under the desk. Even though its master is present, the enchanted quill continues its unassuming, frantic scribe.

        Instantly, the bespectacled man in the portrait turns his nose up and grunts, loudly, "disrespectful little swot, this one. You ought to chuck that lighter out the window one of these days, Albus. Ghastly little muggle thing."

          Dumbledore arches a brow, but doesn't turn to face the man even as he addresses him directly. "Now, why would I do that, Professor Fronsac?"

           "Any witch with an ounce of self-respect would never have to rely on that abomination of a muggle-made item when their wand could do it for them," Professor Fronsac huffs, indignant. He shifts around on his frame, judgemental features twisting in repulsion. "Such insubordination."

           Sawyer flashes the portrait a toothy grin, but otherwise makes no effort to engage with the talking painting. Not even to retort that she'd been born running on an empty tank in regards to self-respect.

            Dumbledore shakes his head, makes a tower of his hands, and peers down his long nose at Sawyer's slumped figure as though she's a crime scene with a crime yet to be committed. It's how almost everybody's been looking at her these days. The lighter's vanished from her hands, presumably tucked away in some hidden pocket in her robes. Presently, she tugs listlessly at her yellow Hufflepuff tie, fantasising—for a morbid moment—that it'd magically transfigure itself into a noose.

           "Shall we begin to cover some of your goals for the term, Sawyer?" Dumbledore asks, gently. Sawyer gives an impassive shrug—which is as good as a nod in consent as anyone's ever going to draw from her—to which a corner of Dumbledore's lips curls upwards. "Right," he says, declaratively, "how do you feel about the upcoming Quidditch matches against the other houses?"

          A poisonous feeling hooks its claws around her gut. Quidditch was the absolute last thing Sawyer wanted to talk about both inside and outside of practice sessions, but now that Dumbledore was throwing her the gauntlet, she had to approach the matter.

          Sawyer shrugs, again. "Honestly, I have no faith in my team, but everyone's too blinded by their optimism and house spirit to see from my perspective. It's not within my jurisdiction to bother anymore. We'll see how far that gets them once the inter-house matches begin."

          Moments before the Hufflepuff Quidditch team had been dismissed from today's practice session—a little prior to Nia's confrontation on the subject of Sawyer's foreign behaviour on the pitch—Nia had announced that the round-robin Quidditch matches would commence in just one and a half months' time. Now was a crucial period to ensure they'd win the House cup. Sawyer hadn't bothered listening after Nia began preaching about training excellence, about the importance of being able to trust each other on the Quidditch pitch and being able to intuitively predict each other's movements like a well-oiled machine. As far as Sawyer could see, there was no use reminding them of the imperative nature of communication when the Chasers couldn't even coordinate with the Beaters without compromising their goal-shots.

            Dumbledore's lip twitches in amusement. "Perhaps the reason why they haven't been seeing from your perspective is because you don't offer any solutions to mend the problem."

        "My solution is acceptance of failure."

           "Not everyone can detach themselves from Quidditch like you can," Dumbledore says, patiently. "I understand you don't want to be on the team, but that doesn't mean you can take your displeasure out on your teammates, do you understand where I'm coming from?"

           Last Sawyer heard of Cedric Diggory and the other Chaser she'd knocked out of the sky during practice, they were given the all-clear from Madam Pomfrey, much to the team's relief. Back in the changing room, Heather had slanted Sawyer a hateful glower. It was evident who she blamed the entire ordeal on. Even more evident when Heather spat, "you could've cost us our entire season, you know? You could've given Cedric and Lawson serious concussions! What do you have against us anyway? We've been nothing but nice and patient with you all these years. Why do you hate us so much?"

          All things Sawyer knew, but the remorse didn't come. In its place, a wave of irritation swept its wave of needles under her skin as she let out a humourless laugh and told Heather, along with all the other girls in the changing room who cared enough to listen in on their little dispute, "I don't hate you. You just expect me to be like you. That's the part I hate."

          But Sawyer doesn't tell Dumbledore that any and all hope for forging relationships with her Quidditch team is buried in the dirt. Instead, she lets him assume what he wants to assume, and moves on to nod at the list of detentions she's already accumulated. "Did Professor Quirrell tell you I was publicly humiliating him?"

          "Yes," Dumbledore sighs.

          "He ever mention anywhere he cried?"

          For a beat of silence, Dumbledore considers Sawyer through slitted eyes.

           "I understand you have an inferiority complex, Sawyer, but blatantly disrespecting figures of authority just to gain some smidgen of control in your life isn't the right way forward."

          Pursing her lips, Sawyer flicks her gaze out the window again. Evening had washed away the colours of the sunset, and the sky glows a deep blue, matted with clouds that promised another depressing night of rainfall. Some part of her hoped the rain would hold out until tomorrow afternoon, so Oliver would have no reason to drag her out on the pitch for another 5AM Quidditch session. But then Sawyer thought about Violet, about the ebbing three week grace period Nia had granted her to whip Violet into competition-ready shape. They were down to just over two and a half weeks, and Violet still had oceans to traverse.

           "Now," Dumbledore says, snapping her attention back to him. "Regarding the Howler this morning—"

            "I'm fine, sir," Sawyer snaps, eyes flashing. If he was going to tell her she should listen to her mother, to just suck it up and put in at least an ounce of effort into her work, she might just hit him. Point is, she knows. She knows she isn't trying. But she has her own reasons, and if no one is going to understand, then any form of explanation whatsoever is pointless. "I wrote that letter to my mother while I was under a lot of stress with school work, alright? I wasn't thinking."

          "I'm not going to punish you, Sawyer."

            "Then what's the point in bringing up what everyone's always shouting at me for?"

          "I want to help you," Dumbledore says. Sawyer scoffs, but before she has the chance to shoot back a response, Dumbledore holds up a hand to silence her. Gravely, he continues, "I believe that school would be a lot less of a struggle for you once you figure out a goal for yourself. You operate on incentive. Have you thought about what subjects you're planning on taking for N.E.W.T.s next year?"

          Sawyer runs the tip of her tongue over the ruined flesh of the inside of her cheek, which she'd gnashed her teeth against—hard enough to draw blood—when she'd received her mother's Howler. A sharp jolt of pain lances across the side of her face, and her cheek throbs like a seething pulse. Truth be told, she wasn't even banking on going so far as to passing her O.W.L.s. Maybe an Outstanding grade for Transfiguration, but all her other subjects were bound to come back disappointing.

           "I know I want to take Transfiguration," Sawyer says, slowly, "but I haven't given any thought about anything else."

          "What do you want to do with your future? What can you see yourself pursuing?"

          In my future, Sawyer thinks, I'm dead in a ditch.

           "Don't know," Sawyer shrugs. It's not that she doesn't want to do anything, per se. It's that she hasn't planned for a future past eighteen years of age. She'd always assumed she'd end up miraculously dying before adulthood could hit her.

          "Still figuring that one out, huh?"

           Sawyer shrugs. She seems to be doing that a lot, lately. It's like the purpose of her entire existence on this planet has been one gigantic question mark with no answer to search for. So she's learnt to roll with that uncertainty trailing her. Forward, forward, forward. All fight and no plans. There are nights she dreams of the end, of dying the most terrible deaths, but then she wakes up in the dark, disappointed that her heart's still beating.

* * *

ALL TOO EARLY, VIOLET IS UP before Sawyer can collect her for today's 5AM Quidditch practice.

          To Sawyer's surprise, Violet had prepared biscuits and tea in the common room for them to devour before heading off to the pitch.

          "It's a small thank you," Violet said, bashfully, a rosy blush staining her cheeks, when Sawyer arched a brow in question—what's this? "I just thought I'd do something nice, y'know... since you've been sacrificing so much of your time to help me make the team when you didn't have to."

           They ate quickly in an easy silence, since Sawyer was still too tired to talk. But gone was the moody thundercloud perpetually hanging over her head, which Violet seemed to take notice of as she snuck glances at the older girl, but gave no indication of interest in the tremendous shift in atmosphere. For a moment, Sawyer thought she could go the entire day without wanting to set herself on fire. There was no grin on her face, no pleasant glow to her features, but something was different, and it was enough to change the weather.

            Even when they left the Hufflepuff common room to meet Oliver down by the Quidditch pitch, ready with their equipment in one hand and their broomsticks in the other, Sawyer was still floating.

           "What's wrong with you?" Oliver asked, as Harry and Violet raced each other to the center of the pitch to begin their warm-up laps. Sawyer glanced over at him as they stretched out, fully expecting a raised brow or a condescending frown. But when she met Oliver's gaze, he only looked disoriented as he furrowed his brows in bafflement at her. "Why're you so... happy today?"

           "Good morning to you, too, Wood," Sawyer drawled, lips curling into a sardonic smirk as she sprawled on the bench, watching the Harry and Violet zip around the stadium in circles like comets locked in orbit. Against the breaking dawn, they spun overhead, headache-inducing binary stars with a silhouetted trajectory that made them blur into indistinguishable streaks.

           Oliver rolls his eyes and moves to stand before her, arms crossed over his chest. "You're in a good mood."

           "Why? Planning on destroying it with your ridiculous drills?"

           That earned her another eye-roll as he sat down beside her, keeping a solid barrier of two inches between them. "No," he said, turning to watch Harry and Violet as well. There was an inkling of something in his tone, but Sawyer couldn't pinpoint if it was just the shock wearing off, or the flummoxed strain of someone still trying to put the pieces together. "It's a nice change. You should do it more often."

            "I'm not in control of my mood, Wood."

            "Can I assume it's got anything to do with seeing my face this morning?"

           Sawyer tapped his knee with her bat in warning. "Don't push it."

             It surprises her, again, how easy it is to draw a genuine laugh from him. Even though it's short, breathy, and half-suppressed, half-startled out from his chest. She's spent enough Christmases around him to be able to distinguish between what's a superficial front and what's real. It's only ever been Wyatt at the dinner table who could press these moments of amusement from Oliver.

             "So you're actually in a good mood?" Oliver asked, as though he needed further confirmation.

           Without taking her eyes off the two blurry figures flying laps against the still dark sky, Sawyer nodded.

          "Can I ask why?"

           "No," Sawyer said. She slanted an accusatory glower at him. "What's it to you, anyway?"

              A surreptitious smile ghosted over his lips. Oliver gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Asking for a friend."

             Minutes later, Sawyer was in the sky with Harry, two fleeting shadows in the half-light gaining momentum on their broomsticks. Oliver's orders were to get Harry to pick up speed and learn how to work under pressure. While Sawyer was busy slamming bludger after bludger at the scrawny boy, Oliver was on the ground with Violet, lobbing tennis balls at her as she whacked them across the pitch with her bat. Yesterday, he'd promised to help her with her technique, and he was keeping to his word. His logic had been this: while Oliver wouldn't go easy on Harry either, his skill as a Beater wasn't as good as Sawyer's, and he wanted an endless assault on Harry to steepen the learning curve. Plus, he was better off helping Violet correct her swing while they worked on precision.

          At one point, Sawyer almost thought she'd killed Harry as the bludger narrowly missed his head. Though, he'd ducked in the nick of time and it only looked like he'd been decapitated. But she carried on without relenting, and Harry's determination—though his strength was waning and his near-death experience made his certainty falter a little—shone through. He dodged every single one of them, nimble and slippery, using his narrow frame and stature to his advantage. Sawyer could see why Oliver had chosen him. There was a certain aptitude for the sport that not every athlete could achieve, but it seemed to run in Harry's veins like ichor.

         When Oliver called for a break, Harry was visibly shattered—using his broomstick as a crutch to keep from keeling over—but still breathing, Violet was beaming, and Sawyer almost didn't look like she'd rather astral project herself into the sun for once. Even with the eminence of her two worst classes approaching by the hour.

          "Keep up the good work," Sawyer heard Oliver tell Violet, clapping the small girl on the shoulder, as she landed on the grass beside them. "You'll be a permanent fixture on the team in no time."

          Violet looked three seconds away from bursting. Like she had the sun inside her chest, fissures spiderwebbing over her porcelain skin, streams of light spilling out through the cracks. Overhead, a flock of birds hollered down at them. Sawyer squinted into the lightening sky at the cacophony.

          As the sun made its daily climb, and as the sky shed its darkness, Harry slumped down on the bench, exhaustion scribbled in the drooping of his eyelids. The sunrise lit up the pitch, slowly draining the night's shadows away, igniting the elevated stands in their glorious colours. A deep wince twisted his features as as he shook out his arms. When Sawyer's shadow fell upon him, he looked up in surprise. Eyes wide and bugging out behind his glasses. She gave his weakened, skinny body a critical once-over.

          "You alright?"

          Harry managed a weak smile. "Yeah. Just tired. I'll be fine."

          "Did Oliver feed you before this?"

          Harry shook his head.

          Sawyer scowled, making a mental note to give Oliver an earful in a second. Right now, though, she had to save the Boy Who Lived from dying as a ramification of his Quidditch captain's unhealthy obsession. The one person who should've been actively looking out for Harry Potter. She almost scoffed at the irony. "What a bastard. Here—" From the pocket of her training robes, she drew out a packet of crackers she hadn't been able to finish during the breakfast that Violet had prepared. She extended it to him, practically shoving the snack into his face. "Eat."

             In stunned silence and a tentative glance (almost as though he wasn't accustomed to older people performing acts of kindness, as though he thought she might snatch it back in a n act of cruelty when he reached for it), Harry took the crackers from her, but his hands were shaking so badly he struggled with opening the packet. Wordlessly, Sawyer took the packet and ripped the foil open before dumping it back into his hands. She shot Oliver—who was busy demonstrating to Violet what her swing should look like—a disapproving glower, but it was missing the ice that could've cut through bone.

           "Make sure you eat before you come to practice."

           Harry frowned. "Oliver didn't eat anything either—"

          "That's because he's not human," Sawyer interjected, waving a hand in dismissal. Both at Harry's observation, and the nonsensical fact that Oliver didn't eat breakfast anyway. "The only fuel that he needs is the illusion that Quidditch is a legitimate sport. You, on the other hand, look very human and like you're ten seconds away from collapsing. If you don't have anything— ah, screw it. I'm bringing you breakfast for Wednesday morning's practice. No arguments."

            "You'd do that?"

           Affronted, Sawyer peered down at Harry, a disdainful sneer curling her lip. "You doubt me?"

          "No," Harry said, grinning sheepishly. "Thank you."

            Sawyer gave him an awkward pat on the head.

* * *

SAWYER SPENDS THE ENTIRETY OF History of Magic class doodling in the margin of her textbook to the droning metronome of Professor Binns explaining the conflict between wizards and giants during the Giant Wars.

           On her left, Jeremy's head was buried face-down in the crook of his elbow, fast asleep, while the other arm dangled over the side of his desk, his textbook propped up like a barricade to obscure his business from Professor Binns. In the desk behind her, Rio didn't even have the decency to shield his slumbering state as he slumped forward on his desk. As exhausted as she was from the morning's training session, Sawyer couldn't force herself to take a nap like eighty percent of her classmates seemed to be doing, so she occupied herself with marring the spaces in her History of Magic textbook. Indifferent to the state of his students, Professor Binns carried on with his lecture.

           "Woah," Marcus gasped, leaning over to gape at Sawyer's doodles. A couple were hastily crossed out in blue ink, but the others that'd survived her creativity purge were blooming flowers snipped off at the stems and knives dripping in blood. She hadn't even realised she'd drawn so much it covered the entirety of two pages. As if her brain had clicked off and her hands had clicked on and all the time flying past her ears ran in the ink-stains and smudged lines on the paper. "You're awful chipper today. No dead bodies."

             Like Oliver, her friends weren't oblivious to Sawyer's elevated mood. What brought on the change, however, they threw Oliver in as the suspect. Although it wasn't true, she didn't deny it.

             When Professor Binns dismissed the class with a foot-and-a-half essay due on Friday, Sawyer—knowing she wasn't going to do that essay anyway—jammed her knuckles into Jeremy's neck. Startled from sleep, Jeremy jumped clear of his desk, whipping his groggy head around, only to be met with a cackling Sawyer and the amusement of the students slowly trickling out of class. They hustled out the classroom for Charms soon after as a hurricane pack of four.

             Along the way, Jeremy kept stopping at odd intervals to pick up light chatter with some of the students they bypassed, who were also bustling through the corridor during the brief transition period between classes. With a bright beam and sparkling eyes, Jeremy let them talk his ears off about Quidditch statistics and homework from classes they shared. Sawyer stalked ahead, not bothering to wait for her friends. They caught up with her anyway, in a handful of long strides that covered her many short ones. Perks of having tall friends.

             "Shit," Rio said, frowning in realisation, "I didn't do the essay."

              "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't either," Sawyer said, impassively, as they rounded the corner and joined the rest of the fifth year Slytherin and Hufflepuff students gathered outside Professor Flitwick's Charms classroom.

           "You're all horrible," Marcus said, smirking, as if he wasn't just as notorious for skipping out on homework tasks either.

            "You know, if you need help with Charms homework, I'm always here to help, right?" Jeremy said, shooting his friends a pointed look.

            "We know, Golden Boy," Rio said, lips upturned in a sharp smile as he slung an affectionate arm around Jeremy's shoulders and ground his fist into Jeremy's skull. "And we love you for your generosity."

             "I don't mean letting you copy my essays word-for-word, by the way." Jeremy scowled, struggling to shove Rio off him. "I meant tutoring. We can find a way to sneak Sawyer into the Slytherin common room."

          "If only we could cast invisibility charms, huh?" Marcus mused.

             Jeremy laughed, raking a hand through his flaxen hair. "That'd be convenient. But, seriously—" he eyed Sawyer with a pointed glance, as if to inculcate in her the understanding that he was there for them all, no matter what— "just ask. I'm more than happy to help you guys out."

          Sawyer's lips lifted in a half-smile.

          But the reason why Sawyer wouldn't ask for help—not even from Jeremy—went deeper than just not being able to comprehend anything and thereby making a fool of herself. It had very little to do with pride, though that didn't mean the issue wasn't still an impediment. There was no viable explanation Sawyer could give to make them understand that it didn't matter how much help she got when the words on the pages kept shifting and melting away too quickly for her to read. Or that all the noises in the world seemed to pour in through the windows and made it impossible to concentrate on much of what her professors had to say.

             "Oh, you're all here!" Professor Flitwick squeaked in his mousy voice. Collectively, his students glanced down as the tiny man scurried down the hallway towards them with his wand in hand and a textbook in the other, an enthusiastic beam plastered on his face. "Come in! Come in! We must start preparing for your O.W.L.s examinations in haste!"

           When they took their usual seats in the back of the class, with Sawyer and Jeremy occupying the two seats in front of Rio and Marcus, who appropriated the back row, Sawyer placed her wand on her desk. Making an effort, she thought, a bitter voice in the recess of her mind. I showed up to class. I didn't stay in bed all day. I didn't blast anyone out the window or across the classroom. Making an effort. I can stick to that.

Professor FLitwick hopped up on his desk and surveyed his class with kind, twinkling eyes. "Today, we shall begin with the Silencing Charm, which functions precisely as it is named," he squeaked, tapping his wand against the edge of his desk to catch the attention of his restless students. "A question for those who have done the reading: What happens when an unsuccessful Silencing Charm is cast?"

Amidst the few hands that'd shot up, Flitwick picked Jeremy, who cleared his throat and said, "If performed incorrectly, the target will swell up to an immense size and start making deafening sounds. The exact opposite of subtlety, which is what most who cast the Silencing Charm would want."

"Excellent, Mr Knox," Professor Flitwick said, lips stretching into an appreciative smile. "Five points to Slytherin. Now, to cast a Silencing Charm, the incantation is silencio."

"Oh, this will be fun," Sawyer mused, turning to Jeremy with a devilish grin. "So many people who I can shut up in a second."

Jeremy scoffed. "That's only if you can master it."

Sawyer shrugged. Her main problem wasn't practicing spells. It was the written work. Muttering a few words and getting the right wand movement wasn't that difficult. She knew how to imitate Professor Flitwick's tutelage to the point where her practical skill in Charms was at a subpar level. She just couldn't get her written work to cooperate.

As Professor Flitwick spoke, Sawyer tried to pay attention. She sat still as a pillar, gripping her wand in her hands, keeping her eyes to the front of the class even as a charmed paper crane fluttered over onto her desk from Rio. But then the background noises began to trickle into her ears. The sound of Jeremy's quill scratching against his parchment as he took down notes, whispers from three Hufflepuff students sitting on the opposite end of the room hosting their own hushed conversations at an ironically obnoxious level, chairs scraping against the floor, wobbling desks and fingernails tapping against wands. Days like these Sawyer would build tunnels around the professor's voice so they came to her clear and undistorted, try to keep the distractions from cramming themselves into the spaces between his words, fading his voice in and out of audibility, but it didn't work.

Days like these she would hear it all, so she would hear nothing. Like all the sound in the universe would stream in through the windows, tangling with the ones inside, and they'd all be the same volume so she couldn't separate the threads.

Frustration pricks at her veins, the familiar pulsing pressure of blood flowing too quickly within and her skin burning up too hot setting her brain at a slow boil. Huffing in irritation, Sawyer slumped back in her chair. She couldn't do it. She'd remain stupid and slow forever because nothing went into her brain. She couldn't even do the bare minimum of listening in class, and she couldn't read properly. She would always be lazy and ungrateful and she would never excel at anything.

Scowling, she snatched the origami paper crane Rio had sent her off her desk and unravelled it with jerky movements. Even though Rio's handwriting was reasonably legible and the words in the line were scarce, as they always were, Sawyer struggled to read the note. The letters morphed and shifted, until all that was left were a soup of unintelligible shapes. Heat crept up her neck. Sawyer ground her teeth together as she screwed her eyes shut, remembering the breathing exercises Dumbledore had taught her in one of her earlier counselling sessions, and opened them again. Finally, after a few minutes of decrypting, she managed to catch the gist of Rio's note.

Wtf is prof saying?
-Rio

don't kuow dan't care
-S

Knowing fully well she'd mixed up a couple letters, Sawyer figured Rio was used to reading her half-assed essays enough to be able to decrypt what she meant. She sent it back to him in a charmed paper plane which zipped backwards and hit him square in the forehead, since she couldn't be bothered to fold the note back into the complex origami crane.

Sneaking a furtive glance over at Sawyer, Jeremy frowned, as though sensing the sudden shift in mood. "You okay?"

Sawyer exhaled sharply through her nose. "I'm going to fail O.W.L.s, and I'm going to catch hell from mum once she finds out I'm getting kicked out for being stupid. But I can't even pay attention most of the time, and I can't fucking read or write properly. Does that make me the failure of the century?"

"You can always borrow my notes," Jeremy offered. "I'll go through them with you during study hall."

"It's not just that," Sawyer sighed, miserably. "You can't sit my O.W.L.s theory papers for me."

Jeremy pursed his lips in contemplation. "Maybe not, but we'll work something out."

Sawyer grunted.

"Alright, class, you will each claim one toad and we will practice our Silencing Charms!" Professor Flitwick said, squeaky voice grating against Sawyer's ears. "Remember, the incantation is silencio! Once you have silenced your toads, you will move onto the raven, which is the more challenging subject to silence."

When Sawyer got her toad, however, she didn't immediately start practicing on it. She watched Jeremy silence his toad. She witnessed Marcus panic as his toad swelled up as both of them started screaming at each other. She suffered Rio shoving his toad in her face and teasing her, "snog the prince, Sawyer."

After watching Jeremy move onto a raven, which was much more difficult subject to silence according to Flitwick, and examining his wand movement, Sawyer screwed her face up in concentration and muttered the incantation. Although, instead of silencing her toad, Sawyer's wand had been aimed at the three Hufflepuffs on the opposite end of the room, who'd been hosting their own hushed conversations, instead. "Silencio," she murmured under her breath, flicking her wand exactly as how Jeremy had demonstrated for her. They instantly fell quiet, eyes bulging in shock, features paling in alarm as their mouths stretched open but not a sound fell out. Their toads croaked back at them.

Professor Flitwick sighed, and shook his head. He shot Sawyer a warning look, and reversed the charm.

Jeremy smirked. "Looks like you don't need that much help after all."

Sawyer rolled her eyes. "They were pissing me off."

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
i'm deadass so sorry to keep spamming updates for this book i just love sawyer so much omfg

anywho... tell me ur thoughts!!!!!