Round Two Submission Entry
written by Lislchen


“NO!”

That came out a lot more forcefully than she’d intended. Instinctively throwing the younger Pukwudgie an apologetic look, Queenie took yet another step back. If possible, she wanted to avoid Aidan’s hands touching either the bread or her hand in the process. She already had that song he had been humming earlier stuck in her head, she didn’t need to be reminded of it again. Nor did she want to hear his praise over how good her loaf of bread smelled. Which, for once, she hadn’t heard him think about but had rather extrapolated based on the look on his face. He was basically drooling.

Aidan, being the excited first year that he was, wasn’t at all deterred by her exclamation, however. “That looks sooooooo good!!” His eyes were fixed on the bread in her hands as he took a small step closer again. “Can I…” Apparently yelling NO! hadn’t done the trick earlier so Queenie was slowly running out of ideas. She didn’t want to shove him out of the way after all but he was standing between her and the Common Room entrance. Queenie sighed, lifting the loaf of bread over her head a little to buy some more time before briefly closing her eyes.

One brick down, two bricks down, three…….

It all flooded her head at once, words merging, different tones, different pitches, different emotions; someone was very angry, someone else was reliving the memory of receiving a Howler from their grandmother. It felt like she was standing in the middle of a very busy train station, trying to make out one particular person’s voice. While she’d had quite a lot of practice by now, it still took Queenie a few moments to follow the right voice once she’d found it. It was like trying to catch a fly; you could hear it buzzing from somewhere around the room but by the time you were in that corner, its wings were already emanating sound from the opposite corner……….

…..BREAD!

It was a word she latched on to and quickly followed it until she was sure she was listening to the right person’s thoughts. That was when she opened her eyes again and looked directly at Aidan. Who...was still staring at the loaf of bread above her head. While trying to lean up high enough to reach it. Now, Queenie absolutely hated doing this and her sister would scold her for sure if she were to find out but she couldn’t think of any other way out of this situation. “It reminds you of what your grandfather used to bake early every morning, right?”

That surely got Aidan’s attention and he briefly abandoned his attempt of grabbing the bread. “..............I………...what?” And that was all Queenie needed. Just a second of distraction to quickly slip past him and through the door of the Common Room, to safety.

Running and building the wall simultaneously was apparently an impossible task, which was why Queenie was wrinkling her nose at the oncoming headache. None of which mattered, however. She’d made it. Her bread was safe and Ruth was going to LOVE hearing about all of this. She just had to make it to their shared dormitory.

Almost there...