the kiss list, adrian pucey
𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓, 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟐

chapter four, WALK OF SHAME

✧ ━━━ · ✦ · ━━━ ✧

     IT WAS ONLY WHEN BIANCA HAD LEFT THE BOY'S dorm when she found the ability to comprehend what had actually happened last night. She followed a dimly lit corridor, that she could only assume was going in the direction of the Slytherin common room. Stripping whilst flat out drunk, at a party, which most of her year had attended, might have been the most embarrassing thing she had ever done, but she didn't remember that. This, she could see as clear as day.

     She stepped out of the hall, to be met with what felt like hundreds of pairs of eyes, when in fact it was only about eight, and most of them were in the years below, but that didn't make her walk of shame, any less humiliating. No, she hadn't slept with him, at least she had been told that (she was too hungover to remember anything), and yet they stared at her as if she had just killed someone.

     With green lamps creating an emerald tinge all around the room, the Slytherin common room actually felt like the dungeon it was located in. It was structured with black and dark green button-tufted, leather sofas, skulls, serpent emblems, and dark wood cupboards. The windows were huge and stretched from the floor to the high ceiling. You couldn't look out onto the Quidditch pitch or the breathtaking Scottish Highlands like you could in her house common room. Instead, if you stared out of the glass, you would be met by seaweed, murky water, and the odd giant squid, minding its own business. The Gryffindor common was quite the opposite.

     No outsider has rumored to have entered the Serpent common room for more than seven centuries, making Bianca's entrance, a lot more intense than it should have been. Slytherin's were territorial and having a member from their enemy's house was enough to piss them off completely.

     Bianca felt mortified as she shuffled across the cobblestone floor and the odd green rug. She had never felt more relieved to see the portrait of the fat lady, brandished on the wall. She thought that as soon as the painting swung open she could hide in the comfort of her dorm until of course, she had lessons; she couldn't bring herself to skip a class. She had never skived off of any sort of lecture or teaching period, however much she wanted to.

     She scrambled through the hole in the wall and avoided all the eyes staring at her, smirking at their friends until she finally escaped to her dorm room. Thank Merlin Katie and Angelina had already wandered off to the great hall, the two of them also battling a raging headache, leaving Bianca alone as she raced into their bedroom, slammed the door shut, and slid down against it, eventually finding herself curled up in a ball of shame on the creaky wooden floors beneath her. She buried her head in her knees, hoping to scream away the nightmare of humiliation that she had caused.

     After Bianca had pulled herself together, she cleaned herself up, showered, and finally changed into much more comfortable attire: her red robes. She thought it best to skip breakfast and all the looks she would get that would come with it. Her hangover and growling stomach thought otherwise.

     She so desperately wanted to hide in the amenity of her dormitory, but she would have to face the stares at some point. What Bianca didn't know is that no one was going to laugh at her or tease her for the things she did the night before, but most of them actually changed their opinions that they had made from her after the previous encounters they had shared with Bianca. Their opinions of her being an uptight and boring supposed-to-be Gryffindor, all changed after the night of September first. But Bianca knew that whatever she did (she still wasn't clear what went on) they would interpret it as an invitation to make advances on her, which it wasn't. She was drunk. And she wanted them to know that.

     Hence why as she walked into the great hall, dreading everything that could happen, she immediately tried to spot Leo and when she did, sped to where he was sitting in the great hall, accompanied by Alicia, Katie, and Angelina.

     "Here she is!" Leo said, although, to everyone else, he couldn't have said it any louder. "The lady of the hour!" causing sober him and Alicia to laugh.

     She slouched onto the bench, avoiding everything and everyone, "Keep your voice down, will you?" she said, slumping her throbbing head into her hands.

     "So, Bianca, which lucky guy's dorm did you disappear to last night?" Angelina asked, with a cheeky grin.

     "I didn't sleep with anyone, Angie." she groaned.

     "You didn't come back last night, so we assumed you 'crashed out' someplace else." Katie shrugged, also smirking.

     Bianca didn't feel the need to tell them that she woke up in Adrian Pucey's dorm room that morning. She didn't want to tell them. They'd immediately get the wrong idea and however Bianca tried to convince them otherwise, she knew they'd never believe her. Everyone could see the obvious sexual tension between the two, and everyone would just assume that they finally gave in and forgot their clearly fake feud, by sleeping together. But they didn't, so why bother? She honestly expected people to have seen Adrian carrying her back down to the dungeons, but these three didn't know. And Bianca thought it best to keep it that way.

     "Slept in the common room." Bianca lied, spreading butter onto her toast.

     "We didn't see you when we came down for breakfast," Leo questioned her blatantly obvious lie.

     Bianca paused, waiting for her next fabrication to come to her mind, "I . . . went for a walk. Down by the Black Lake. It's really lovely this early. Peaceful." she smiled.

     A walk was believable. To everyone else, Bianca seemed boring. She didn't do 'hookups', she didn't have boyfriends, hell, she rarely even went to Quidditch matches - not even to support her own house. A walk seemed boring, like Bianca; something old people did. Angelina and Katie didn't necessarily find Bianca boring as such, but still, to them, nothing seemed odd or suspicious about an early morning walk. To Angelina and Katie, maybe.

     Leo knew her too well. He could see through any lie she told him. Bianca didn't like 'walks'. She loved to sit by the Black lake and read, but she wouldn't aimlessly wander around when she would most likely have no destination. She liked nature. But not that much. That was boring.

     It was when Leo narrowed his eyes in her direction and she distracted herself with her breakfast when she knew he knew. I'll have to tell him at some point, she thought.

➼

     SEVERUS SNAPE HATED GRYFFINDORS. AFTER ALL, they weren't Slytherins. All bar one: Bianca Larsson. He was constantly impressed by her exceptional skills in his class and her drive to do well. She too loved potions, except for obvious reasons, she could think of nothing worse than to have to go to class. A class that she usually loved.

     It was September and the room was especially cold. The Potion's classroom had an even more eerie atmosphere that the Slytherin common room had. It was probably the cobblestone walls that were lined with pickled animals in glass jars or the fact the temperature was so low, students were able to see their own breath. In one corner of the room stood a stone gargoyle that was heaving ice-cold water into a basin. Whenever she entered the room at the beginning of a class, that was always the first thing Bianca noticed.

     Bianca followed Leo to the second row and the two of them sat in the far corner. She felt slightly bad that she hadn't asked him how his night went. He wasn't hungover and they were together at breakfast so Bianca imagined it went well. She was also slightly preoccupied with how hers went that when she decided to tell him about it, he could tell her all the details he was currently bubbling up inside of him.

     Angelina and Katie opted to sit on the other side of Bianca, so the four of them created a small talk about the party that had happened last night, despite Bianca's desperate wishes not to. It turns out, the two girls had been pleasantly surprised by Bianca's sudden outburst to let loose; they all thought it was about time. Let's just say, she was embarrassed but felt slightly better.

     The room was soon silenced by Professor Snape bursting open the door and approaching the front of the room. There were a few grimaces from students (including the three girls) as the sound of the door crashing against the hard stone wall, made everyone's head hurt even more than it did before, although no one seemed to think the Professor noticed. Which made sense; why would he care?

     "Welcome back. I hope the hangovers won't be an effect on your attention span. Please open your textbooks to page 21." he droned and a few faces went pinkish and his comment earned a few wide eyes.

     "Oh crap, how did he find out?" Cassius joked from the back of the classroom and he gained a few laughs from the 'brainless boys' sat next to him, as Bianca called them. And Adrian was one.

     Another reason Bianca hated the guys at this school: they all seemed to think they were funnier than they actually were.

     "In silence, Mr. Warrington." his voice was so monotone it was painful to listen to. Especially with a torturing headache. "Now today we will be brewing the deflating draught. A potion used to cause anything swollen by magical means, to shrink back to normal size."

     Bianca pulled her textbook closer to her and flicked to the required page. She desperately tried to read the words, neatly written on the pages, but her head was causing her too much pain to even comprehend whatever they said.

     "This year you will be assigned partners who will be with you for the rest of the school term. They have been decided by alphabetical dictation."

     Bianca thought for a moment. Best to be prepared, right?

     Larsson ─ L.

     a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

     The Professor started from A, of course, and worked his way down. Katie was paired with Randolph Burrow and Angelina with Duncan, "Mr. Inglebee and Miss Johnson. Miss Larsson and Mr. Montague. Miss O'Flaherty and Miss Paisley. Mr. Pucey and Mr. Raywood."

     She heard Leo sigh at the knowledge that he was stuck with someone like Adrian for the rest of the year; she would be too. She guessed Graham wasn't so bad. Of course, he was just like everyone else in his friend group; arrogant, annoying, and ignorant, but he could have been Adrian. Or Duncan. She couldn't imagine being with Inglebee.

     "And finally, Mr. Warrington and Miss Weatherby."

     At the announcement of the last pair, Bianca followed Graham to the back row, where she immediately began setting up.

     "So, how was last night for you?" he asked with a smirk.

     And there it was. She had hoped that no one would approach her with questions about the previous night and yet she knew it would happen.

     So instead of replying properly, like he wanted her to, she simply glared at him in hopes to get the message across that she wasn't proud of what happened at the party and she most certainly did not want to talk about it.

     She had no idea how good or possibly bad he was going into this, so when she asked him to fetch the ingredients he stared at her blankly.

     "Read the instructions, Montague," she said sternly as he continued to look clueless.

     "Oh right." he sparked up and left her alone at her station.

     When he returned, he was carrying three bottles, none of which Bianca knew to be on the instructions. She groaned as he placed them on the table.

     "I'll be right back." she faked a smile at him and she walked over to the Professor's desk at the front of the classroom. She didn't want to fail potions this year and having Graham Montague as her partner, that would most likely be the outcome. She felt bad enough that she was trying to switch partners, so she thought it best to talk to Professor Snape directly, rather than ask in front of the whole class. "I'd like to change partners, sir."

     "And why do you wish to do that, Miss Larsson?" he questioned, not looking up from the parchment and ink in front of him.

     "Because mine is an imbecile," she said.

     She knew he liked her and she knew she could get away with this. No one else could.

     "And who are you to judge on someone's brewing abilities?"

     "Well, I'm not it's just-"

     "And are you a potions master?" he interrupted her.

     "Well, n-no-"

     "Well then." he finally looked up from his work. She was one of his favourite students, despite not being in his own house, but he also knew that she wouldn't do well if partnered with Graham. She was probably his best student. "Who would you wish to switch with Miss Larsson?" he had caved in.

      "Leo," she said confidently, standing up a bit taller.

     "Very well, Mr. Montague, please move to work with Mr. Raywood."

     Bianca's mouth fell open slightly, "No, no, no, no Professor, you misunderstood me. I wish to work with Mr. Raywood, not switch with him." she corrected, ignoring the fact the mistake was her fault, not the Professor's.

     "You said you wished to switch with Mr. Raywood. Miss Larsson, please return to your work with Mr. Pucey."

     She couldn't imagine anything worse. Sure, she still hated him and he hated her, but to make matters worse, this would be the most awkward possible situation Bianca could find herself in. She hadn't looked at him the entire duration that they had been in class and she had hoped to keep it that way. Now, she couldn't avoid eye contact.

     She hauled her books into her arms and sighed as she shuffled her way towards where Leo was previously working and where she now had to. She practically slammed her things onto the desk in front of her, causing Adrian to shudder slightly at her reaction.

     "Someone has their panties in a twist," Adrian said with a smirk.

     "Don't for one minute think that you had any effect whatsoever on my panties." she scoffed, as she restarted the potion that Adrian and Leo had so perfectly messed up. Neither of them had a knack for the subject. It honestly looked like the two of them had just thrown in the 'coolest' looking liquids to make something as fun as possible.

     "So what did I have an effect on?" he was still smirking and he knew he made her mad.

     "Other than my last nerve, none."

𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒔!

kat <3