Narcissa Malfoy PV Second Clue Closed

Team Narcissa Malfoy
@Cassandra Ironwoods | @Sarah Lightwood | @ Ileen Knight | @ Piper Clark
~ known as ‘the sophisticated snakes’

It had been a close call as to whether Sarah would turn up for the Dorm Battle or not, her dislike of going back on her word being one of the only reasons why she’d actually turned up. Well, that and that @Opeila Winters had asked her and she’d found that she was one of the few Slytherins who Sarah was actually fond of. And even then, she barely knew the other girl. Perhaps if you gave someone else a chance, an unhelpful part of her mind had reminded her. She ignored that part vehemently, concluding that she’d agreed to take part because she enjoyed competition, or perhaps more accurately, she enjoyed winning. And though she lacked the strength it might have taken to partake in the first Dorm Battle which she had purposefully avoided last year, she had a brain which thrived off riddles and puzzles, so hoped this year would be hers to win. So, she’d gone down to the common rooms to find her team.

Despite her hesitation though, she was actually quite enjoying herself. She’d briefly met Cash a few times and knew the other girls as much as one might know their dormmates, but had never really interacted with any of them. Which she thought know might have been a mistake – they all seemed quick-witted if the speed they’d managed to solve the first clue was anything to go by, and the lack of violent threats or stray flames being thrown was always a good sign.

They made it to the Small Hall in good time, or at least Sarah assumed it was good time considering they’d left plenty of other students in the Slytherin common room still trying to decipher their first clue. Their team, which they had now appropriately deemed ‘The Sophisticated Snakes’, had made small talk on the way, Sarah praising the quick thinking of some of her teammates. She’d felt a buzz of excitement she rarely felt nowadays, and hoped their quick start was a sign for their good luck in solving the rest of the clues too.

Sarah was the first one to notice the note pinned to the door and walked towards it with poorly hidden excitement. She couldn’t quite hold it in, the mix of competition and being surrounded by people who weren’t immediately at her throat igniting something within her. “Riddle number two,” She smiled to herself, and when the others were stood around her, she read out the clue, only slightly butchering the Latin words as she did so.

“Something about big creatures, right?” Sarah offered once she’d finished reading the riddle aloud to her team. Clearly her Latin was a little rusty. She might have felt embarrassed at the way she stumbled over the translation considering how long her father had been forcing her to learn the dead language, but it took a lot to actually embarrass her now. All cares of embarrassing herself had been wiped out a few months into first year when she’d practically singed off half her hair leaning too close to a bubbling cauldron. Luckily ‘hair magic’ was one thing she was particularly adept at.

Cash was the one to save her poor attempt at Latin, re-reading the clue in a voice clearly more well-versed in the language and easily translating. Not the size of the creature, but the size of the heart.

“So, animals that can escape through holes in the walls,” She mused aloud, trying to decide whether or not Opeila would actually try and send them into the dark forest to find a magical beast or not. It didn’t sound like something she would do, some of the other Slytherins perhaps, but not Pei. Somewhere within the castle then? With holes in the walls and animals an- “Owls,” Sarah said excitedly, and the second she did she realised it surely couldn’t be anything but. “It has to be the owls in the owlery, right? They’re small with big hearts and they fly in and out of the owlery through the big windows when they deliver our letters,” she explained, inwardly proud of herself for working the riddle out.

The others on her team would have a quick conversation to see whether they could come up with another way in which the riddle could be solved, but when they came up blank, they’d settle on the owls in the Owlery. Sarah was proud of her team for working so well together, secretly hoping that they had all of the Slytherin brains in their team rather than in anyone else’s. With a final agreement amongst the group, Sarah would grin and start making her way up towards the West Tower to find the next riddle. She also made a mental note to congratulate Pei the next time she saw her on doing such an amazing job on this Dorm Battle, even if it had barely begun.

Word Count: 817/700
Moving to the Owlery