Cold Dungeons & Cold Punches PV Beckett Closed

Dot felt a bit of happiness surge in her veins when she got a reply from Lydia. Even though it was a mere roll of eyes, and a scoff, it was all Dot needed to plant a smirk on her face. Dot wasn't the smirking type back in the Muggle world, but things have changed when she was accepted at Hogwarts. New things and habits developed. She was changing. Or maybe unfolding her real self. Whichever one it was, Dot was pleased with it, and didn't want the changes to go.
The smile from Anastasia was rubbed off when she marched back to where Dot and Lydia were standing. This made some of the confidence being pumped in, for Dot. At least Anastasia was with her now. Her subconscious self was aware of the fact that the time was ticking by, and she could be late for class. It wasn't Dot's first class, so she won't be making a big bad impression, but it was her second one. Yes, she had gotten an O (Outstanding) grade on her homework assignment, but that did definitely not mean that it will help save her when the professor will cut house points for showing up late - or worse, not showing up at all.
Her comment, on Voldemort, was neither appreciated by Anastasia nor Lydia - as she had expected. But Dot thought they'll just give her murderous looks (checked off from Lydia's list) but both of them flushed, their cheeks going red in seconds. Dot frowned at this, but the smirk was planted where it was just as it was. Why were they blushing? Peculiar.
Her smirk was wiped off by Lydia's next words.

"If you're so amazing that you speak that way to your superiors, then clearly, you must be quite powerful," Lydia said, her voice trembling with rage. "Why don't you show, Speck?"

At first, her words didn't compute for Dot, except the fact that she had called herself a 'superior'. Yes, Dot was aware of the fact that Lydia was from the upper years, but she was also sure that that wasn't the reason she felt herself 'superior'. Dot felt bitterness in her mouth as she made a face.
But then her words made sense to Dot, suddenly.
She was challenging Dot. In a duel, probably.
A gulp went down Dot's gullet as she looked at Lydia, not looking as confident as before. But when she opened her mouth, her voice came out surprisingly steady and cold, "Why not, Dark Queen?" She said, making use of 'dark queen' rather than 'death eater', because that would be very dangerous. "Would you like a nosebleeding punch, or do you prefer a nosebleed hex?"
Of course, Dot was bluffing. It might be true in the punch's case, since her adoptive father made sure that Dot should attend self-defense classes, but she wasn't good with hexes or curses, much less the Nosebleed Hex. Dot wasn't even sure there was a nosebleed hex, but, oh well.

"Obviously the latter. The former is just childish. And do you know what? Since I'm feeling particularly generous today, I'll give you a three second head start," Lydia said, her voice and the glint in her eyes rather reminding Anastasia of a snake. That was rather fitting, and if the situation wasn't such a mess, Anastasia would have actually laughed at it. Her cold glare didn't falter though. She was sick of Lydia interfering in her life, and she wasn't going to let her cousin be so rude to someone who had stood up for her despite the fact that she wouldn't get anything out of it, and would almost certainly make a new enemy.  

"Are you really going to duel a first year, Lydia? That'll certainly show everyone who powerful you are. I mean, it's absolutely and positively fair," Anastasia taunted. She was hoping that would get her bloody cousin to back down. She knew that her cousin knew more jinxes and hexes than some people learned in their entire life, and at least a quarter of them were rather dark magic. Dot could get seriously hurt if they did duel, and Anastasia really didn't want that. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the classroom was filling up. If they didn't wrap this debacle up fairly quickly, they might be late to class, and that simply wouldn't do. Lydia merely smirked at Anastasia's remark, her focus solely on Dot now. 

When Lydia chose to duel, Dot's heartbeat skipped and could have almost stopped altogether if she hadn't sucked in a sharp breath. There was no way Dot could duel Lydia. Lydia by far knew more spells, and defensive spells. There was nothing Dot could do. Except...except backing off. Apologizing, get herself humiliated.
But Dot was too proud to let that happen. She'd at least try and fail.
She was getting ready when Anastasia spoke up. Trying to make Lydia back-off. Is she really that good? Dot thought nervously.
Now Dot was really scared.
Blinking multiple times, Dot took out her wand. Her heart was thudding with every step she took. Even her hand would have shaked if she hadn't gripped her wand so steadily.
I can get very badly hurt, she thought. But then pushed it in the back of her mind.
Clearing her throat, Dot readied herself. Tarantallegra was the best attacking spell she knew. And even that, she couldn't pronounce correctly.
It's tarantallegra. Easy. Ta-ran-ta-leg-ra.
She repeated the words in her head for a million times it seemed, then pointed the wand at Lydia, who only seemed amused if anything. Curving her wrist, she managed to perform the hand gesture correctly, and said in a loud voice, "Tarantallegara!"
Feeling full with adrenaline rush, she took a few deep breaths.
Then realized her mistake.
Instead of saying 'tarantallegra', she had said, 'tarantallegara'.

Lydia literally laughed at Dot's attempt. She flicked her wrist and cast a Knock Back jinx in response. "See, Anastasia, this is why purity of blood is so important. We can't have idiots like this disrupting competent people's educations," Lydia said, her focus back on Anastasia. Anastasia was glad that Lydia hadn't used anything dark, although she'd been on the other side of that jinx herself and knew it wasn't exactly fun. She was so sick of her cousin that she finally just snapped. "Tarantallegra!" she said suddenly with a sharp moment of her wand. She hadn't been able to think of any other offensive spells other than Incendio, and she somehow thought she would get in less trouble for casting a simple jinx than she would for purposely setting another student on fire. 

Lydia's legs completely betrayed her and she fell to the ground as they still kicked furiously. Lydia's face was bright red, and Anastasia could tell she was livid. After a few moments, the jinx wore off and Lydia scrambled back to her feet, both her pride and her hands injured. She dusted off her scrapped hands before looking at the two girls. "Anastasia, are you really going to side with an incompetent Mudblood from a family of filthy pathetic Muggles over your own flesh and blood?" Lydia asked, seething. 

Edric was late for Herbology, which was bad enough because it was his worst subject. Unlike his eldest brother Adair he absolutely didn't have a knack for plants, the only thing that kept his grade acceptable being the fact that he was good at writing essays. Therefore he hurried out of the Common Room, his back slung over his shoulder, hoping to not be more than a few minutes late. Usually he was on time, so maybe Professor Wright wouldn't be too mad that he'd forgotten to pack his dragonhide gloves and had had to venture back to his dorm to get them.

When he was almost at the Potions classroom he heard raised voices, shouting almost. Those were students arguing about something, and he wondered what they were doing here of all places when there were classes underway. Just before he rounded the corner he heard a girl's voice, loud and clear in the silence of the dungeons. "Tarantallegra!"

What... had they lost their mind? Edric was easy to get along with, usually. He still didn't fully understand why he'd been made a Prefect, as he hated arguments and often enough lacked the backbone to stand his ground in a fight, but this really, seriously, made his mood turn very sour. Fighting. In the corridors. During school hours!

He turned the corner, just in time to see the by far eldest of the girls falls to the ground by a Dancing-Feet Spell one of the other girls had cast. To make matters worse she used the m-word as she got up and dusted herself off.

"What in the name of Merlin is going on here?" If he'd heard himself, Edric would have surely recoiled at the venom in his words, but he was too busy being furious at the sheer audacity those girls had. "Fighting in the hallways, hexing each other. Using that word!"

"You," he locked eyes with the oldest girl, who was taller than him, "Should know better. Professor Scheinberg will hear about this. This is unacceptable behavior for a student in the higher years."

She should be smart enough to realize that their Head of Hourse would be furious once she learnt of what had transpired here, especially since a Slytherins had been involved in name-calling of the worst sort. Otherwise she'd done nothing wrong however, and this was a problem of attitude more than anything else. It wasn't Edric's place to reprimand her more than he already had, and he watched her go without uttering another word.

Some of his anger fell away then. He turned back towards the two First Years, his hazel his fixing first one and then the other. He didn't know if they'd argued among themselves or fought the older girl together, but in the end it didn't really matter either. He heard the girl with ther darker skin use the Dancing-Feet Spell and seen the other Gryffindor girl do the same.

"You are First Years and the school year has only started," he began, not really knowing what to say. Without the anger he was mostly sad, sad and scared of what could have happened had they used other spells on each other. "You were both told about the rules by your Head of House. Fighting inside the castle is forbidden, as is duelling without supervision. You could have seriously hurt each other today, even if you didn't realize."

He run a hand through his messy brown hair and sighed, his Herbology lesson all-but forgotten.

"You will both meet me tomorrow after class outside the greenhouses for detention. If you don't show up this will be reported to your Head of House as well and you will receive a more severe punishment than an afternoon of detention with me. Is that clear?"

Anastasia felt a flush of pride when her jinx worked perfectly. She had only learned it days ago, and despite her fear of getting in trouble in the first week of school, she was rather proud of herself. That was until a Slytherin boy with a prefect's badge came around the corner. She wanted to laugh or cry at her bad luck. If she hadn't controlled herself so much and had cast the spell when she'd first wanted to, she probably wouldn't be in trouble right now. She bit her lip and looked down at her feet when the boy began to speak. Her cheeks flushed with shame as she listened. How could she had managed to get herself in trouble the first week of school? She'd wanted to get all O's, which so far she had, play Quiddich and never get detention in her seven years at Hogwarts. Maybe the last one was a tad unrealistic, but she knew it was utterly impossible now.

You will booth meet me tomorrow after class outside the greenhouses for detention. If you don't show up this will be reported to your Head of House as well and you will receive a more severe punishment than an afternoon of detention with me. Is that clear?

 Her cheeks still red with shame, she nodded. She only hoped that her parents wouldn't hear about this. Lydia wouldn't write to them because that would mean having to explain that she got in trouble as well, but who knew what the school would send them. "I'm ever so sorry. Um, this might be a bit impertinent of me to ask, but will our parents hear about this? I really am so sorry about all this, I normally never do things like this," she told the boy. She was utterly humiliated and her only hope was her parents wouldn't hear about it. They'd threatened to disown her in their letter and she thought they'd actually do it if they heard about this. 

Dot tried to sit up, dizzy. Her vision was slightly blurred from the impact of the hex, and her head hurt. Hurt? No, it pounded.
Weakly, Dot set one slender hand on the marbled floor and pushed herself to her feet. Her wand was lying a few steps away, abandoned after the...failed spell.
Blood rushed to her face when she thought about it, and it made her only dizzier. She didn't focused on Lydia, or Anastasia, both of whom were bickering about something. Dot bent to retrieve her wand.
Wait, they weren't bickering. Lydia was...on the floor? Twitching? Dot vinced, sure her mind was playing tricks on her.
Coughing, she pressed her index and middle finger to her temples, massaging. It hurt. Badly.
Dot focused her vision on Anastasia. Took small steps towards her, to just grab her and get out of the mess. What Dot did was not cool. She should've punched Lydia, in which she was way more better, but trying to hex her? Ugh.
She could've even used Incendio. Yes, they might have landed in the worst detention ever, but seeing that...purist...in pain would've been worth it. But no, she had to use the one she lacked any practice of.
Before Dot reached Anastasia, however, something Lydia said in her torturing voice made Dot stop right in her tracks.

"Anastasia, are you really going to side with an incompetent Mudblood from a family of filthy pathetic Muggles over your own flesh and blood?"

If looks could kill, Lydia would have been dead before Dot even made eye contact with her. Her facial features twisted in pure rage, lips curving in a most displeasing manner, hands balling. Her dark eyes had become sharper than ever, jaw tight.
The fury coming off her could almost be sensed - Dot suddenly had a murderous aura.
She turned to Lydia, huffing ever so slightly, sending daggers her way with her eyes. Before she knew it, she was marching towards her. I'm going to kill her.
When she spoke, her voice was trembling with anger, words coming from gritted teeth. "Whom did you call pathetic you ugly little snaky puris-"
Someone interrupted her.
She could've screamed in rage.
But she didn't.
Because, she was taught to think before acting.
Furiously, she looked at him - and stopped being furious, though only for a moment.
It was a guy. Tall one, perhaps, with short brown hair and somewhat piercing hazel eyes. A very light tan on his skin. But that wasn't the first thing she noticed. It was the badge on his robes. The letters P-R-E-F-E-C-T etched into a moss green background. Slytherin. Slytherin prefect.
Oh, shit.

"What in the name of Merlin is going on here?"

As the scolding continued for minutes, Dot did all but looking at the prefect, mostly glaring at Lydia to make sure she remembered it for the next time.
If there will be a next time.
After Lydia had scattered away, the prefect turned to them. Still, Dot did not meet his eyes. Ashamed? Yes. How much? A lot.
Regret almost-yelling at Lydia?
No.
Definitely not.

"You will both meet me tomorrow after class outside the greenhouses for detention. If you don't show up this will be reported to your Head of House as well and you will receive a more severe punishment than an afternoon of detention with me. Is that clear?"

This time, she did look up at him. Her dark eyes bore in his, maybe with dislike, maybe with shame. Or a mixture of both. She blew some hair out of her face, and when a few locks came to stick back to her face, she hastily brushed them aside and tucked them under her ear.
Nevertheless, there was no venom or regret in her voice when she spoke this time. "Clear as crystal."

The one of the girls who had hexed the older Slytherin students looked extremely guilty, while the other one remained motionless and avoided making eye contact for as long as possible. Great. They were first years, new to the school, and had already gotten detention within their first week. Edric didn't even know their names.

He felt bad about the whole incident. After had happened before he'd appeared, the older girl had called the silent one of the two Gryffindors a mudblood - she'd deserved to be hexed, he couldn't deny that, and hoped that Professor Scheinberg would hand out an appropriate punishment to her for saying such ugly words to a Firsty. It wasn't acceptable at all. Nobody should ever call a muggleborn that, his mother had made that clear to all three of the Banes boys from a young age.

"I don't think so," he replied when the more talkative one of them asked about their parents being notified of this. "As your Head of House Professor Valtome will decide that of course, but you just started school and from what I've seen my fellow Slytherin provoked you by saying quite horrible things. I don't think you'll do something like that again, right?"

Edric didn't expect an answer. They didn't look like the kind of kids who would just cast spells at each other for fun, but then again he couldn't really know that. Witnessing fresh First Years casting Tarantallegras at each other had given him a scare if he was honest, simply because it had made him remember Marcia at the end of last year, lying in her hospital bed ghostly white and with half her body bandaged. He'd been so upset then, shaking and worried, and this incident brought the bad memories back.

Fights were stupid. Hexing other people was stupid. This didn't solve any problems, it just hurt people. That's why he'd been so angry a few minutes ago. He didn't want to imagine what scene he would have found if one of them had used an Incendio inside the corridor.

"Please go to your class now," he told the two Gryffindor girls. "If your Professor asks about your absence tell them to come to me. I'm Edric Banes, Second Year Slytherin Prefect ... we'll talk about everything else tomorrow afternoon."

With that he shooed them away, nodding with his head towards the exit of the corridor that led upstairs. He watched them until they were out of sight, making sure that they would not double back or make a move to attack each other.

After that he stood in the empty hallway for a few minutes, waiting for his hands to stop shaking.