Letting Go

Chapter Twenty-One

Looking over his essay one more time, Theodore Nott put away his ink well and quill before rolling the parchment up. He didn't say anything to the student sitting across from him in the library. The bubbleheaded blonde has been reading a book on beasts when he'd gotten there. Sitting down across from her or the Gryffindor Princess were his options as most of the rest of the tables were covered in books. The librarian was looking for something and so there was a mess left behind. Chaos. That was all that could describe the massive destruction left before him. Well, behind him now.

Making his way to the great hall, he found that he hadn't taken too many steps forward when a familiar girl in his age group came rushing past him. Tears burned trails down her cheeks, and she looked quite insane. Stepping out of her way, he was assaulted with a mindnumbing, burn the hair of your nostrils, stench. His toes curled in on themselves and his face contorted in what appeared to be physical pain. If he were a lesser pureblood, he would have bolted right then and there. No, he was of the noble Nott lineage. His family was one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight! He would not flee a smell!!

He swallowed and continued to the Great Hall. His arrival was met with sniggering from both Slytherin and Gryffindor students alike. Hufflepuffs looked to be forcing themselves to keep the bile down, and those from other schools just looked appalled. It was as he stepped through the great doors that he was nearly knocked backward off his feet. 'What is this rancid smell!?? It's as if something died...'

"Oh goodness, this doesn't look good."

His eyes, watering in his pain, met curious blue orbs as they looked over the Ravenclaws where the smell seemed to be wafting heavily from. Each one wore expressions of panic, rage, confusion, and disgust. To his humor, even Percy Weasely seemed to have turned his nose up to his Ravenclaw girlfriend.

"I can't take this any longer," Pansy, as opinionated as she is, stood and started towards him. "I don't care how funny this is," she turned and looked the Ravenclaw table over in disgust, "rather than making us suffer with you, why not just lock yourselves up in your tower! Ugh, I feel queasy." She turned and pushed past Theodore who stumbled, still in shock from the onslaught of stink.

"Luna, come sit over here,"

That was interesting. Theodore turned his attention from the smell, looking back down at the much shorter Luna Lovegood. "Why don't you smell bad?"

"Well, I do bathe regularly. Perhaps that's why." As innocent as this statement was, it only served to throw the entire student body into a fit of laughter, with the exception of those at the Ravenclaw table. Theodore wondered if she'd had anything to do with this, but then quickly shook that thought aside. It was highly unlikely. Though, the fact that Granger had called for Luna to join them at the Gryffindor table. Not knowing whether or not she smelt just as bad as the others, no, that was highly suspicious.

'Tch, what? Like that goody-two-shoes would step a toe out of line for anyone other than Harry-Bloody-Potter and his pet Weasel!' Pushing himself to move over to the Slytherin table, he sat down across from Draco. "What happened and who did it?"

"Well, on both accounts, I can't be rightly sure. However, this has does have a certain devilish pair of Weasley's written all over it. Quite the dynamic duo they are, and this is certainly in their repertoire of pranks."

"You think so?" Blaise frowned from beside Draco. "Don't they normally sign their names in big loud letters on their pranks?"

Theodore smirked, "you've confused the twins with Potter and Weasel."

"Ah, right, right. The red hair makes it hard to tell them apart sometimes. Merlin!" Blaise stood, "listen, I'm with Pansy. I can't pretend that a quarter of our student body doesn't smell like they've been rolling around in Hippogriff dung!" Leaving the room, Theodore considered the growing headache before he followed his housemate with Draco close by. In fact, most of the students had taken to following their example.