#cpxchristopher

Great Hall; Lunch time

Elio had been picking at his food for about five minutes now. The day had been an absolute bore. The Aurors had, for once, decided to stick to their assigned room to debate possible clues, making it impossible for Elio to overhear, not only that, but the Gryffindors had shifted their behavior into silent treatment, no longer bothering with Elio’s taunting over the previous day’s match.

What an absolute bore.

Giving up, Elio excuses himself out of the Slytherin table, walking over towards the entrance to the Great Hall and nearly colliding with Christopher who seemed to be in such a hurry he didn’t even notice Elio. This, of course, spiked his interest. And so, the Slytherin simply stood there by the door, following the younger one with his gaze. 

Things escalated in interest when he noticed Christopher sit in front of Pollux and talk to him about something that was placed on the table and later on stashed on Christopher’s sleeve. The two seemed a little tense, from a quick analysis of their body language.

Interesting.

It wasn’t a long exchange of words though, as Pollux soon enough bolted up to his feet and started marching towards the door, only giving time for Elio to turn over as if to look at the Slytherin table and change his hair colour to a dark shade of brown. He’s known the Gryffindor for far too long to know he won’t notice him like this.

Elio can only smirk when Pollux acts according to his expectations and walks past him without so much a glance of acknowledgement. 

Now all he has to do is wait for Christopher.

He sneaks out of the Great Hall and quickly makes his way over to the Slytherin Common room entrance, the dark surroundings making up for a perfect ambush.

It doesn’t take too long before he hears the young Slytherin pace towards the end of the dark hall in the dungeons, and just as he is about to open his mouth to say the password, Elio moves from the dark corner he’s been hiding in.

Morning - Potions Classroom

“Can’t you brew that a little bit faster?” he snapped, slamming his palm against the table by doing so, startling Christopher in his seat.

The two had opted to meet before the Quidditch game, figuring nobody would ever wander all the way down to the Potions’ Classroom when they could be trying to hype up all the players... also because on Saturdays nobody steps in that dusty old place anyway.

Pollux had convinced Christopher to concoct a non-lethal poison for him, something that could have him in the Infirmary long enough but not in a way that would damage him or keep him from proceeding with his plan.

He watched, impatient, as the young Slytherin poured stuff into his cauldron and mixed it slowly. It was worse than watching Castor polish his treasured broomstick - no pun intended. 

Christopher was paying him no mind, regardless of how he’d jumped a little when Pollux tried to get his attention, he was focused on his assigned mission after all, and that was something that pleased Pollux to some extent. He could trust the Slytherin boy to refrain from asking stupid questions.

Pollux turned his gaze down to his pocket watch, the game was bound to begin in short of an hour.

With a sigh and a jerk of his head to the side - a nervous tick of when things weren’t going as smooth as he intended - he pulled out his phone.

[ ✉: jun ] cover for me at the game, will you? I’m not feeling very well [ ✉: jun ] i’ll make it up to you later

It wasn’t the first, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time, Junjie had to fill in for Pollux as the announcer for the Quidditch games. At this point he had actually been proclaimed to be as much of an announcer as Pollux himself, not that the latter cared terribly for the position itself.

His phone chimed with a message being received mere seconds after he’d typed in his, Junjie confirming he could, indeed, fill in for him.

Good.

Pollux ran his fingers through his hair in impatience, soon enough his window of opportunity would close if Christopher didn’t move any faster - this was why Pollux hated potions, all the waiting, all the rules, all the binding to nonsense. It was a complete waste of time.

His pocket was beginning to weigh in his pocket at each ticking second.

He really had no time to lose.

Pollux let his eyes wander through the labels of the millions of vials in display on the several shelves that composed the Potions’ classroom walls in search of something that would ring a bell.

Lunch Time - Great Hall.

A week has gone by since the professor was murdered and Pollux can only be baffled at the incompetence of the ministry employees. Not only had they done nothing to develop the investigation like they kept getting in his way.

He hasn’t been able to sneak out at night, walk into the forest, hell, he hasn’t even been able to go through some of Hogwarts secret tunnels. It’s like if he took one step wrong, the Aurors would fall onto him like a cerberus to a dragon bone.

It's absolutely unnerving and it keeps turning his mood sour.

“How hard is it to find a person who wanted to kill the man, damn, can they just leave?” He grumbles as he keeps picking his pumpkin pie slice apart with a fork. “Look at the smug fuckers, i bet they’re stalling on purpose just to get a bigger paycheck over some leisure days.”

Pollux lifts his eyes from his plate and finds none other than Christopher sitting opposite to him, the white mink perched on his shoulder as always. “When did you get here? Why are you here?” he frowns in confusion. It isn’t normal for this particular Slytherin to stray from his table at meal time. 

And just as he was about to ask something else in a rather snappy fashion, he noticed the younger boy was holding a photo in his hands. Had he found his camera?