backfired promises part 10.

Ymous was walking towards transfiguration classes alone, when he caught bits and pieces of other students gossipping about him as he went. Apparently his duel with the gryffindor had caused a bit of a stir. The Slytherin wasn't bothered about rumors, after all he had been subjected to a bunch of speculation ever since he walked in the school. Sure they quickly turned around when he stood up to Merula for some reason. fickle students were quick to jump into alternative narratives whenever someone is perceived as worse person, and he loathed to admit that he enjoyed the fact people seemed to forget about the rumors regarding his ill fated brother in favour of his heroism against Merula.
It all made him sick in hindsight, Ymous started to feel worse by the passing moment and tried to think of something else to distract himself, he was caught in his thoughts about today's class when he tried to push away a gryffindor student blocking his way, but the boy wouldn't budge.
"Excuse me, passing trough." Anon said with his unenthusiastic voice.
The gryffindor turned around without moving from his spot. "'ello, what's this then?"
"He's the slytherin who beat Argus, he is." Said another gryffindor. "Saw him at the courtyard yesterday."
Anon didn't recognize any of the redclad boys, and even if he cared enough, he probably  still wouldn't.
"Let me pass, I am not in the mood for this, your friend attacked me first." Anon tried to reason tiredly
"Nah, mate, see the thing is." The larger of the two gryffindors said trying to look intimidating. "Duel's a duel, and ya won fair and square, ain't no one going to argue that. It's the fact ya gone went and threatened a gryffindor with curses. That is the problem here, see?"
Anon was a bit stumped, the gryffindor had a point, he had actually threatened to curse the boy with horrible maladies. However, he wasn't actually serious about it, he simply wanted the boy to admit to lying to him.
"I wasn't going to curse him, I got lost in the moment when he claimed he'd..." Anon stopped.
"Ah, ye, is what ya Slitherins always do when you're caught, ya try to slink out of it without looking back." The gryffindor pulled his wand out.
Anon started beating himself up for getting dragged into a situation like this again. "Alright, what do you want then?" Anon said without pulling out his wand. "Do you want me to appologize to the boy?"
Although Anon had meant it about the appology the gryffindor took it as sarcasm and raised his wand.
"Flipendo" He shouted and pointed his wand at Anon, who was pushed back and fell on his back.
"Are you happy now, can I leave?" Anon said tiredly.
"Nah, not quite. See, I thought I would curse ya with that slug vomiting to teach ya a lesson." The gryffindor walked up to Anon pointing his wand at him.
"Slugulus Eructo!" The gryffindor shouted and pointed his wand at Anon, who had pulled out his wand.
"Expelliarmus" Anon said pointing his wand at the curse, which rebounded and hit the shorter gryffindor who immediately clutched his mouth.
"Ey, what's wrong." The larger gryffindor shouted at his friend. "Say something."
The shorter Gryffindor tried to open his mouth, only to start profusely vomiting slugs on the castle floors.
Anon got up and walked past the gryffindors and continued walking towards his class, he definitely wasn't in the mood for this, his headache got worse and he just wanted to sit down and relax with practicing new spells.
The large gryffindor however wasn't going to let him go that easilly and pointed his want at the Slytherin trying to leave the scene.
Anon noticed from the reactions of the students trying to get out of the way in front of him that the situation wasn't defused yet. He pulled his wand and turned around.
"Expelliarmus!" he aimed his spell at the gryffindor at the last possible moment, who was surprised at Anon's reflexes.
"This ain't over yet, Ymous, ya just wait." The gryffindor shouted at him.
Anon closed his eyes and considered just turning himself in to Snape, but he knew he walked on a razor's edge already. Snape had been uncharacteristically lenient on him for dueling but he wasn't going to risk being expelled in case this was the absolute for real final straw. He however knew there were going to be consequences.

Rowan, Penny and Merula were rushing the hallways trying to find Anon, they all had different kinds of worst case scenarios playing in their heads about Anon's current mental state.
Rowan was especially harsh on herself for not noticing Anon's troubles earlier. He had mentioned her about his trouble sleeping the day before his last duel against Merula, but had asked her not to pry into it. She of course immediately backed off, because that's what she always did whenever Anon said something.
She was incredibly frustrated that she was powerless to do anything to stop Anon from doing reckless and stupid things, especially things that caused him ...or others harm. She had not thought of it much before, because Anon's intentions seemed good most of the time, but he really was a reckless idiot quite often as well.
The three girls ran into a group of students surrounding some gryffindors causing a scene.
"What is going on here." Penny asked from another Hufflepuff, who was observing the situation.
"You know that Slytherin, Anon Ymous?" The Hufflepuff said with cautious tone. "they're saying he cast some curse on a gryffindor bystander."
A nearby Ravenclaw chimed in "I always knew he was trouble, after all the rumors surrounding him, but casting slugulus eructo on someone is a really rotten behaviour."
"I wasn't here when it happened, but I heard he lost a duel and cursed someone because of it." The hufflepuff looked around the three girls and yelped when he noticed Penny was with two slytherins. After he recognized the two slytherins Penny was with he let out a high pitched voice and backed up into the Ravenclaw.
"We're not here to cause harm." said Rowan reassuringly. "We just wanted to know what was going on."
Merula felt uneasy after hearing what Anon had done, she probably would've done something similar and admitting that felt even worse. Especially hearing that it was Anon who did it on someone else, possibly a bystander.
"Don't listen to those mudbloods." A pale slytherin pushed past the other students to get to Rowan. "Ymous defended Slytherin and the gryffindors attacked him without provocation."
"What really happened then?" Asked Rowan.
"Ymous taught these misguided gryffindors a lesson they needed to learn." The boy looked at the gryffindor, who was crying while choking on giant slugs, with disgust. "It also sounded like Anon wasn't the one who cast Slugus ergurgio anyway..."
Rowan felt like correcting the other slytherin, but decided that teaching this incantation to people was a bad idea. "Well, we're late from the classes, we really have to go."
The slytherin looked at the three girls hurrying down the hallway then went back to laughing at the gryffindor trying to hold back his tears.

"I refuse to believe Anon did this." declared Penny.
"It's not like him to just go around cursing people." agreed Rowan.
"Yeah, it was only characteristic for him to curse people like me." Merula finally said frustrated, both of Anon's friends refused to see any flaws in him.
"He wouldn't cast a curse like this on you either, Merula" Rowan tried to calm her down, but was really unsure if he wouldn't. Rowan just looked at Penny who looked back at her with a hint of a sad smile.
"It must be his emotions are messed up, because of the potions." Penny said to the other girls.
"Has either of you thought of what to do when we find him?" Rowan asked with a slight panic in her voice, she was really worried about what would happen if Anon snapped, he's been very closed to being expelled, because of his ruffles with Merula.
"We need to read up on the potion, find out if there are any ways to counter the side effects." Penny said trying to remember what she had read. "Does it cause addiction, Merula?"
"Why are you asking me if..." Merula started in her usual way but stopped herself. "I... I don't know, I am not sure if it causes chemical addiction, but if it's the only thing that lets him sleep, he's pretty dependent on it."
"We need to find out how large his dosage is, let's try to keep an eye on him during classes, I'll read up on the potion and we'll figure out during evening how to catch him take the potion without him noticing it." Rowan said while still hoping for the best, maybe the situation hasn't gotten as out of hands as it seemed like.
"Alright, I'll keep an eye on his stupid ass from a distance, he seems to be ignoring me anyway, so he probably wont even notice." Merula said.
"I'll do some research of my own, you two share more classes with him anyway." Penny said. "I need to leave for my own classes now, good luck to you two."
"Can we actually trust her?" Merula asked Rowan after a while.  She had felt uneasy about the hufflepuff eavesdropping on her and learning about the situation.
"We can trust Penny, she's a friend." Rowan assured Merula.
Friend... She had acted poorly towards the two girls who seemed to accept her a few weeks back and were now again helping her fix a situation with Anon, she partly felt responsible of. Knowing that she felt worse, but she also realized the girls were in it to help Anon, Merula was just another part of it. If she was her usual arrogant self, she'd have imagined Anon was suffering all because of her, but she was probably not a major reason behind Anon's troubles.
After all, she meant nothing to him.