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“Why aren’t you doing anything? You never do anything!” Gideon yelled at Fabian, who hadn’t even looked up from his book as his brother had been up in Lucious Malfoy’s face. His cheeks were beat red and eyes filled with rage, Lucious smirking down at Gideon as the redhead got more and more upset. His little group of cronies laughing from behind.
Fabian barely lifted his head, dark eyes piercing and brow scrunched. Hands still in the middle of turning a page. He had sat at the Gryffindor table with Gideon and Robert, the first time this semester he’d done so, and now he was seeing what a mistake that was. It was too close to finals for him to be dealing with this.
He lifted his chin, giving Malfoy and Gideon a sweep over, drumming his fingers on the book slowly. He let out a breath of a chuckle.
“Because Gid, he doesn’t matter,” Fabian said, voice like velvet and tone like ice. The voice foreign from the jokester he’d been up until this point. People started to look over.
Malfoy stilled, grin depleting. If there was anything these types hated most, it was being told the truth of their unremarkability. “He crossed path with me, what? A dozen times at most? People deal with him for seven years, it’s formative grant you, but in the span of a life time it’s a blip. He, dear brother, has to live with his own mind for the rest of his existence. Given the pompous attitude to overcompensate for the crippling insecurities and overall poor performances, the grades and quidditch teammates his daddy had to buy, and not to mention the boatload of very clear parental issues, I say that’s punishment enough.”
Fabian turned his page, a dramatic flip before resting his elbows on it, folding his hands and placing his chin on top. An almost innocent pose for such a face. His eyes lit like a forest fire.
“People will get tired of you. Everything you built around yourself will crash and burn, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself and the piss-poor attitude.”
Malfoy’s cronies didn’t know what to do with themselves. They kept looking at each other then to Malfoy on what to do, but he was locked onto Fabian. His posture stiffening and feet stepping back with every calm word the younger Prewett brother said. Eyes filled with a mix of rage and absolute shock. Gideon couldn’t believe his ears, mouth agape and wiggling as it searched for words, eyes risking piping out if they got any bigger and didn’t blink soon.
“And I, for one, can’t wait to watch.”
Malfoy tried recovering, come out on top like he wanted. He straightened up, glare neutralizing and eyes growing colder. He let out a low chuckle.
“You would have made a great Slytherin, Prewett.” He hissed out, as if that was some sort of insult to Fabian. He almost rolled his eyes at the prospect of Slytherin being his only life goal. “Shame you didn’t have what it took.”
“The hat offered, I declined, wasn’t interested,” he had turned back to his book by now. Clearly his interest in Malfoy had ended just as soon as it began. “And good thing too. I hear you’re bleach stinks up the whole boys corridor.”
The jokester was back, but the ice still hadn’t melted from his tone. People laughed, the Gryffindor table running with the information of Malfoy using dye for his locks. Fabian hadn’t heard anything about Malfoy dying his hair. The thought was blatantly untrue, the blonde didn’t have the roots for even wizard hair changing spells, but no one cared. At the moment the facts weren’t nearly entertaining, and the humiliation had Malfoy and his friends scurrying back to their table.
Gideon sat back across from Fabian slowly. Robert had no idea what was happening, and hadn’t closed his mouth for several minutes. Genny was looking impressed too, leaning over the table to get a good view, which brought the slightest bit of heat to Fabian’s cheeks when he glanced over at her, Kathleen, and Molly.
“H—how did you do that?” Gideon stiffened out, face still red from all his yelling.
“I’ve been preparing that speech for four years,” Fabian sighed, going back to his book. He really was far too stressed for this. “And unlike you, I keep my trap shut and wait for the perfect moment, not burst every chance I get.”
The jab was uncharacteristically truthful. Fabian wasn’t know for hard truths or even being very serious at Hogwarts. People speculated a lot his first year, trying to get information about him or slither their way into being his friend for his grades. He was quiet except for class, his advanced theory of wandless spells from his father’s teachings and the almost radical way of looking at British history got him a fair bit of attention. Now Fabian tended to say yes to any rumor that was said about him. It was with an air of joking, but it undermined trying to create rumors about him, because no matter what you would get the same answer. Eventually people stopped paying attention to what he was actually doing and in favor of making up increasingly ridiculous things for him to look someone dead in the eye and say “yes that happened.” No one wanted Fabian’s drama when they could have his comedy.
“Did you mean it?” Gideon asked, his body moving in slow motion and his mouth hadn’t quite closed yet.
“Which part?”
“Were you really almost in Slytherin?”
Fabian eyed him carefully. Robert watching him as he munched on his food next to Gideon. Moody was sitting across from Robert, grumbling to him about Malfoy’s behavior. Robert hadn’t paid much attention to Fabian past an occasional glance. He was just Gideon’s little brother in Ravenclaw who never hung out with them. Why would Robert notice his existence? Fabian found himself growing hot under the glance, though he couldn’t pin point why. Probably from embarrassment or something.
“That’s what you’re concerned about?” he tutted, dark eyes going back to Gideon’s blue.
“I mean, you in Slytherin, it’s pretty unbelievable!”
“Gideon, I’ll let you in a secret, the only real difference between Ravenclaw and Slytherin is that when we plan something, we’re not stupid enough to get caught.”