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For all the winter holidays, this one was by far the worst. Regulus had stayed behind, as had the entirety of his ‘Slytherin Skittles’, as they had been so fondly coined by an angry teacher who cursed them out and loathed them for being ‘all the colors of a vapid, disgusting, unworthy rainbow,’ he believed it was. The name stuck around. They were the only ones left in Slytherin, which meant absolute chaos. Barty was lounging in Evan’s lap, twirling a pocketknife in his hand and occasionally jeering at Pandora and Dorcas who were playing chess.
“Oh c'mon, Cas! Rookie mistake,” He cackled, and Dorcas fixed him with her death glare that shut most everyone up, surprisingly even Barty, mouthy as he was. He never insulted Pandora. Everyone snickered at his soft treatment of her, but Regulus knew it was because of Evan. Barty would never dare to even jokingly show so much as one ounce of malice towards Evans's baby sister. Maybe he was even protective of her.
Regulus preferred to stay wrapped up in his obnoxious silk pajamas, sipping tea on the couch and reading a book he had borrowed from Lupin, much to the other's chagrin, though they loved to tease him to no end of his particular fondness for the ‘twink of Gryffindor tower’. Barty, who was seemingly getting bored, called this out.
“That from your boyfriend?”
He called out tauntingly, giving Regulus a grin and a wink.
“Yes, actually, now so kindly shut the fuck up about my twink boyfriend, would you Crouch?”
Pandora hummed slightly,
“Takes one to know one I suppose.”
Dorcas spat out her coffee laughing, which caused an uproar of Barty accidentally falling off of Evan’s lap, which made him laugh so hard Barty fumed, yanking Evan down with him, resulting in a play fight. They tussled and wrestled with each other, ending up with Evan victorious and tackling Barty to the ground, straddling him. Dorcas reached over and covered Pandora’s eyes, booing them.
“We have innocent eyes watching!”
Pandora scoffed, rolling her eyes and going to sit by Regulus, who had long given up on his book.
“Idiots, all of you.”
He grumbled, sighing in concession when Pandora looked at him with wide pleading eyes and let her sit next to him, head on his shoulder.
Dorcas lamented her lack of a chess partner, trying to rope Evan into playing a game.
That was when it happened.
Evan screeched, more panicked than anyone had ever seen him before. In a flash, he was standing on the table in front of the couch screaming something incoherent and knocking over Regulus’ tea.
“My fucking tea!”
Regulus sprung up, leaving Pandora to fall over and blink confusedly.
“Forget about the tea, Black! We have other matters at hand, like, maybe, that spider in the corner that happens to be fucking venomous??”
From Dorcas’ wail, Regulus assumed she had spotted it as well. Barty, in the commotion, tried to sneak out.
“Crouch, if you don’t get your cowardly arse back here right now I’m going to dye your hair bubble gum pink in your sleep you bastard!”
Dorcas screamed, promptly kicking over a chair to use as a… weapon, supposedly.
Evan was incoherently waving Pandora over to him, who was incredibly calm and shrugged, indulging him and letting him hang onto her frantically. Regulus tried to hop up too, but Evan pushed him off as there ‘wasn’t room for three’.
“Don’t think I’m ever going to forget this.”
Regulus hissed lowly, getting a mouthed, ‘I’m sorry’, from Pandora. Evan just stuck his tongue out hauntingly.
He wildly scanned the room, Barty cowering in a corner and Dorcas manically waving a chair about, it seemed she had broken a leg off it and was screaming profanities. Finally, all eyes in the room were set on the massive spider. Regulus just about fainted, it was horrid and more ugly than his mother in the morning when she was upset. He shivered, running over to Dorcas and ducking his head to narrowly avoid getting concussed from her wild swings.
“Salazar, put the fucking chair leg down Cas!”
She let him cower behind her before taking the chair leg back up.
“What if it’s some kind of- of vampire spider! You’ll all be thanking me,”
She screeched out, and the entire room erupted into various screams and conversations as everyone talked over each other.
Pandora was tugging on Evans's sleeve, trying to say something, but her voice was drowned out. She grew more incessant until finally, she screamed.
“Everyone shut the fuck up!”
There were a few heartbeats of silence, everyone wide-eyed and staring at Pandora, hearts racing so fast the tension in the air was palpable. That, of course, was the exact moment a teacher walked in. They took one look at the state of the dorm, glanced momentarily at everyone’s scattered positions, sighed very disappointedly, and walked right back out without a word.
Then, Barty, who had been slowly inching toward a discarded pillow from his corner of the room, threw it at the spider, which caused it to skitter. Dorcas found out she could probably pierce the sound barrier that day. The sheer force of her scream only aggravated the spider even more, and it skittered faster across the floor until it flew straight into Barty’s face. That was the first, and last time, anyone would ever see Barty cry. (Well, sob would be more accurate, but Barty would heartily deny this.)
“You know I love you, right bat?”
Evan called out from across the room, stifling a laugh— though heavily failing.
“Fuck off!”
Barty screamed through heavy sobs, racking his body.
Dorcas pulled herself together long enough to take her own jab at Barty, since apparently ganging up on him was the preferred method of coping with fear.
“Did you piss your pants?”
She got out through hysterical breaths of laughter, and if looks could kill, Barty would have been a known criminal and a murderer.
“I will take that stupid fucking chair leg and stab you with it Meadowes don’t you fucking underestimate me right now.”
Regulus’ eyes practically bulged out of his head as he screamed and toppled Dorcas over, wildly swinging the chair leg as the spider decided they were next in its reign of terror.
“Could you have any worse aim?!”
Regulus panted out, flat on his arse and wildly scooting further and further back as the spider seemingly followed him. He pulled out his wand and Evan promptly threw up, surprisingly with impeccable aim straight into the conveniently placed trash can.
“What are you gonna do, crucio the damned thing?!”
Barty gestured, waving his hands around and nervously eyeing the distance to the door.
Regulus’ voice broke, high pitched, and his eyes had an almost comical wide look to them.
“Yes??”
Pandora, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, finally stepped off the table with a concerned look from Evan, calmly walking right over to the spider stopped in front of Regulus. Seemingly having had enough of the chaos of the situation, she held out her palm and cooed at it softly until it crawled into her hand, promptly opening a window and setting it free outside. The entire room fell silent, jaws dropped and mouths open.
“Are we done?”
She tossed her hair, blinking a few times for good measure.
For all the winter holidays, this was one by far the most… interesting.