The Great Hall was generally well known for being the very epitome of magic and the students at Hogwarts were reminded of just that on several occasions every year in case they somehow managed to forget.

With autumn in full swing and Halloween right around the corner, the hall looked more than the part for the season. There were pumpkins of various shapes and sizes, some carved and some not, floating around and dancing under the crispy, colorful leaves falling down from the ceiling that was beautifully disguised as the darkening evening sky.

The long house tables were almost bending under the weight of even more pumpkins, not to mention peacefully flickering candles going on throughout the lengths of each table and lanterns as well as fireplaces crackling as background noise.

Every now and then a bat or two managed to bat their way down from the sky, and spiders roaming around in the middle of their food and pumpkins, making webs, weren’t an unusual sighting. But an unpleasant one? For some, definitely.

“Oh for the love of Merlin, I do not want spiders in my bread!” Santana shook the harvestman off of her slice of bread in one quick flick, shuddering in disgust while the poor eight-legged creature went flying across the room.

The fifth years sitting right next to them looked at her in horror.

"Dude, that was Flint" One of them muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. "I hope he's okay."

Kurt hid his laughter behind his cup of pumpkin juice, not particularly looking to get slapped. He knew Santana well enough to recognize the difference between her being completely out of patience and her just being her fairly vehement, usual self.

“Are /you/ okay?” He asked, hiding his amusement poorly despite trying very hard.

“I just want to eat in peace” The girl sighed and focused on pouring soup onto her plate, ceasing to comment on any of the conversations around her for the next fifteen minutes.

Once they were both done eating, she leaned her head on Kurt’s shoulder and looked up at him, answering the question he hadn’t wanted to repeat; “Yes, I am fine. I have just already dealt with so many idiots today that I can barely tolerate anything anymore.”

“Ah” The boy nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry.”

“None of that, Hummel” She waved him off and lifted her head up, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was nearing six. “What’s on your agenda for the rest of today?”

Kurt smiled instantly. “Uh, I think that Blaine said something about wanting to carve a pumpkin. Together. How that’ll work, I don’t know, but knowing us-”

“Okay, that is disgustingly cute” Santana cut him off, nudging his arm with her elbow. “I have an allergy. I’ve gots to leave before the symptoms kick in.”

The boy just chuckled, so used to how Santana preferred to show affection with more or less insulting yet endearing compliments. He was just glad that she had some way to do that and prove every once in a while that she wasn't a thing of metal or wood or something else emotion-resistant.

“At least they don’t make it pour rain on us every day” She took a final look at the ceiling, plucking a leaf out of her hair before getting up from the bench with a small wave at her best friend.

At this point she just couldn’t wait to spend the rest of her day lying in bed doing nothing. Only the universe didn’t quite have that in mind for her.

“Hey, Lopez” Sebastian’s bored voice greeted Santana just as she’d got outside the Great Hall, and her first thought was to go through every possible curse word she’d ever heard. If the day’s theme for her was interactions with idiots, this was certainly the ultimate way to end the day. She had already had to sit through a conversation between three fifth year Slytherins in the common room earlier that day, trying her hardest not to combust at the utterly idiotic ideas they had for their Halloween costumes. She was surprised none of them had said they wanted to be a witch for the occasion, but a cat didn’t sound any better. Especially when said cat was apparently going to be ‘a muggle version of the costume, not an animagus kinda thing’.

This was beginning to be too much even for her.

She turned around to face the other Slytherin with a wildly exaggerated roll of her eyes - hoping more than anything that she would’ve had a visibility cloak on her, just to get a stack of parchments shoved into her hands.

“Put these up for me, please?” The boy asked, his usual ever so present smirk nowhere to be seen.

The dark-haired girl accepted the parchments but raised an eyebrow in question without even taking a look at said parchments. “Although I appreciate you having learned the magic word, why the hell would I do that?”

“If you want to lose your place in the team like Hummel then feel free not to” The boy said nonchalantly, already turning around on his heels when his words only began to hit Santana.

“Wait, what did you say?” She practically shrieked out, proceeding to chuckle in sheer disbelief.

Sebastian sighed heavily. “Hummel’s off the team. We need a new Seeker, and if this continues soon we’ll also need a new Chaser.”

Santana’s eyes widened and she shook her head vigorously, anger flaring up inside of her chest. “Why in Merlin’s name would Hummel be off the team?! He’s the best Seeker there is!”

“He’s underperforming” Sebastian turned back around and looked into Santana’s eyes with his teeth gritted together, as if those two words were enough of an explanation. “We can’t have that.”

“That’s bullshit!” She screamed, startling several younger Gryffindor by-goers. “He’s as good as he’s always been. And don’t even try to tell me that this has something to do with his grades or something because 1. he’s acing every class and 2. we both know neither of us would be in the team if outstanding academic success was a requirement!”

“No, it’s actually just about the fact that he’s barely attending practice and spending that time with someone who we both know is going to end up getting in the way of our team’s success.”

Santana froze for a fraction of a second.

Blaine.

He was talking about Blaine.

The girl was pretty sure she could no longer see anything through the steam that was coming out of her ears, but that didn’t disable her verbal capabilities. “Yeah, that’s right! He is going to get in the way of our success, but not because of Kurt, no, but purely because he’s better than any of us. Face it, Smythe! He’s always been better than you! Better of a captain, better of a player, better of a person!” She counted each thing with her fingers, her eyes never leaving the boy’s. “You’ve literally got nothing on him, so you choose to attack what’s most important to him. I have to say, that’s pretty damn low even of you.”

“No” Sebastian said sternly, although he was practically shaking with anger himself. “This is solely about Kurt not living up to the expectation, that is it.”

“We are not going to get anywhere without him!” Santana hissed through her teeth.

“We’ll see about that” And with that he was gone.

The Latina had to truly put work in so that she wouldn’t end up biting her tongue off in rage.

She stormed out towards the stairs to the second floor and shoved the flyers in her hands to the first person to walk by.

“Hi” Santana greeted the younger Slytherin who was now looking at her with two raised brows. “Listen. I‘m going to need you to put these up anywhere in the castle but in the Slytherin common room.”

“And why would I do that?” The blonde countered.

“I know people who could get you into a position where you would have to do my N.E.W.Ts for me” Santana lied smoothly, watching as fear flickered in the younger girl’s eyes momentarily.

“And also, I have razor blades in my hair, just all up in there."

“Fine” The younger girl sighed and rolled her eyes before closing the book in her hands and tucking it under her arm.

“And you can’t tell Sebastian Smythe, okay? Remember what I said!” She chirped before the girl left her presence, groaning barely audibly in response.

In her mind Santana couldn’t help but think that the girl had potential – aside from how easy she was to manipulate, but still. The sorting hat had once again done its job.

“Thanks!” Santana made sure to shout after her, waving a hand at her disappearing back.

After this she made her way to the library where she could only hope to find Blaine doing his homework post-practice, like he usually did.

Considering everything that she had had to tolerate in the past 24 hours she was positively shocked to spot Blaine in his standard far-end corner of the library.

“Hey, you” She walked over to the table the Hufflepuff was seated at and took the unoccupied chair next to him.

Blaine looked up from the book his nose was practically buried in and chuckled softly. “Hi to you too, Santana.”

“Look, I need to talk to you about something. Sebastian’s being a bigger ass than ever before. He’s cutting Kurt from the Quidditch team” She earned a well deserved glare from Mr.Figgins who was sorting books into a shelf at the other side of the room and mimicked zipping up her mouth before leaning more on the table to whisper; "-because he claims that he’s underperforming."

Blaine froze. He opened his mouth to say something but found himself completely speechless. His head was beginning to buzz with anger and Santana noticed the thought process from personal experience.

“He can’t do that” Blaine hissed once he’d finally gathered his thoughts, closing the book in front of him with a thud.

“Yeah, I know. But I-“

The Hufflepuff took a deep breath, interrupting her before she even got started. “Wait. Does Kurt know?”

Santana squinted at him. “I assume no, but how could I be sure?”

“As unfair as this is, if he doesn’t know I don’t think that he would want us to be planning anything. He will want to deal with this on his own terms.”

“What if I told you that Sebastian thinks that kicking Kurt out is the only way he’s going to get to you? The only way he has left to affect you, to shake you and thus weaken yours and strengthen our team?”

The boy looked into her eyes, feeling like something was closing around his throat. “What?” He managed to get out, but sounded so small it almost made Santana feel bad.

“I mean he’s an idiot for trying to do so by getting rid of the one player that has actually made us fairly successful, but sure he has a point, which is why you can’t show him that you are affected.”

Blaine shook his head weakly. “How in the world am I going to do that?”

“Well you’re gonna have to figure it out. I only want you to help me with the planning of possible ways to stop this nonsense, but I’m not going to let you act on anything. Sebastian will never know that his plan worked and I will get Kurt back on the team.”

Little did Santana know that her plan would backfire before she even got the chance to do anything.

The girl walked into the Slytherin common room just before seven, and almost fell down the stairs upon seeing what was pinned onto the board on the wall.

In three brisk steps she made it to the announcement cork board, grabbed the crumpled parchment and pulled it off of the surface with such force that the pin that’d been holding it up flew across the room, clattering barely audibly on the cold stone floor.

Kurt’s head snapped up at the sound of parchment being ripped into pieces then, his eyes landing on Santana. “What was that?”

“Oh, that? No, nothing. Just Sebastian’s wildly unnecessary Quidditch announcement.”

“For what?” He questioned, his eyebrows knitted together. She was pretty sure he could see through her and suddenly she felt very empathetic towards Bloody Baron.

“He’s holding tryouts” She shrugged as she threw the ball of ripped parchment pieces into the fireplace.

"Oh" The boy sounded incredibly uninterested. "Why?"

“My guess is to humiliate some poor soul by getting them to try out just to tell them that we have a full team and laugh in their face."

“Wow. Well that’s a whole new low for him.”

“Yeah” Santana said flatly, sitting down at the end of the sofa. The conversation at hand was ripping her soul in two and she hadn’t even gotten to the enraging part yet. She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. She knew that she had to do something.

“Okay, uh” She started, then proceeded to mutter out perfectly incoherently; “He’scuttingyoufromtheteam.”

Kurt narrowed his eyes at her. “If I could just get that again, in English, please?”

Santana sighed deeply, wanting anything more than to be telling this to her best friend and possibly the most multi-skilled individual she’d ever met. “He says he’s cutting you from the team and looking for a new Seeker.”

A shrilling silence settled in the room – they could’ve heard a pin dropping two miles away. Then, Kurt exhaled and nodded with a tight smile. “Yeah. So I heard.”

Santana didn’t have any time for silence. “What?” She pretty much just yelled, disbelief written all over her features. “You know? How are you not screaming? It’s not fair! What is wrong with you? Don’t you have any sense of self-respect?”

Kurt on the other hand didn’t have the time to tease Santana about her being so nice and caring about the whole thing because he was so much more frustrated about it than he made it out to be.

“Santana-“

“We need to do something about this, Kurt!” She went on vehemently, standing up and starting to pace the room like she was plotting revenge on the whole entire world.

“Santana, this is my problem. Not yours” The boy said sternly, lifting his legs up on the chair he was sitting on. “You don’t need to do anything, nor will I let you.”

“What are you going to do then?” She was quick to ask, a tinge of anger still evident in her voice. Whether that was for Kurt or for Sebastian or for the universe in general – he couldn’t begin to tell.

“There’s nothing I can do except watch the damn team fail without me” He snapped, letting far more of his irritation show than he'd have preferred.

“Yes you damn sure can! We are the oldest at this school, we should rule, we know all the spells that some of the younger people have no idea about! Let’s turn someone’s bones into jelly and they can’t even try out! You have to be the Seeker, there’s nobody else who can do what you can.”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but for once I’m not going to go against Sebastian. He is clearly setting himself out for failure, and besides, I don’t want any of this to affect Blaine in any way.”

“Well that’s too late” Santana spat out, crossing her arms against her chest defensively.

“Santana!”

“What? Did you really think that I wouldn’t go to him instantly after hearing? Especially when Sebastian’s entire goal is to sabotage the Hufflepuff house team!”

“Well he can’t” Kurt said like he’d thought this whole thing through dozens of times. “I’m done with Sebastian trying to meddle with me and my life. I want to see him fail for once, and he’s practically guaranteed to now.”

Santana sighed again. “Well I guess you know what you’re doing.”

Kurt scoffed humorlessly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

When he met Blaine for their pumpkin carving date twenty minutes later, he could tell from a mile away just how agitated he was and it didn’t require much thinking to know just why.

“Blaine, we’re not going to do this. I just talked with Santana and I’m totally done, I’m not going to-“

“No, I know” The Hufflepuff cut him off, grabbing his hand and pressing the briefest kiss to his forehead before pulling him in for a hug. “I talked with her earlier too, and I promised that I wouldn’t interfere or let your ever so charming captain-" The sarcasm that fit into those three words was almost astounding. "-know how much it breaks my heart that he’s taking away your chance to shine, because apparently that is essentially his desire. But it’s not easy. I thought about stepping down-”

“No. That’s exactly what he wants. Not gonna happen.”

“Kurt, I’m not going to do it. It did cross my mind, but Santana will come for me-“

“So will I.”

“Yeah, I know. I won’t do anything, I promise.”

Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine’s waist as tight as he could, burying his face in his neck. “And I was stupid enough to think that he was done with us.”

“I’m sorry that I keep getting you into these situations…” Blaine breathed, the sudden, genuine sadness in his voice shattering Kurt’s heart.

“No. He’s had it out for me even before I ever said a word to you. That's the kind of person he is. It’s not your fault – end of discussion.”

“How about a change of plans?” The Hufflepuff asked, smiling slightly.

Kurt leaned back to look into Blaine's eyes, somehow instantly feeling more anchored onto the earth. He did not understand what the boy was talking about though. “What?” He asked with his brows furrowed.

“We can carve the pumpkin like we planned, but how about just- smashing a few first? In the name of anger management, of course.”

Kurt laughed - really laughed, for the first time all day and squeezed Blaine's hand gratefully. “Yes, please.”