𝕾𝖑𝖞𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖘 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝖇𝖊 𝖇𝖗𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖙𝖔𝖔

Vintage

The next day as I was walking past Harry Potter, he smiled at me. Actually smiled. Well, it was closer to a grimace than a smile. All the same I smiled back, and then quickly rounded a corner, wondering to myself why the hell I'd befriended a boy who I was supposed to hate, who I was supposed to deliver to the dark lord when the time came.

Who, if the Dark Lord asked, I would do anything to, even torture.

I tried to find flaws, inconsistencies in Potter, in Hermione, in Ron, but I couldn't. I couldn't even find in them a hate for the Dark Lord, or a fear of him. Perhaps it was ignorance, perhaps it was inexperience. Perhaps because they knew so little about the number of Death Eaters the Dark Lord housed, maybe they underestimated Him. It was the only logical answer.

I found myself desperately trying to ignore them throughout the day, trying to hang out with Cedric instead. After all, it wasn't like Hufflepuff's were all mud bloods, it wasn't like they were all people that I was supposed to hate. 

In the end, I found Hufflepuff's to be a lot more blase about certain things. If I'd hung out with Cedric and his friends one day and then had to hang out with Malfoy's crew the next, they didn't really mind at all. It was only Gryffindor's natural curiosity and repulsion of anyone from Slytherin that kept me a fair distance away from them.

"Morrigan, pass me the pumpkin juice," Pansy said, her chin raised so high I doubted she could even see me. 

I silently rolled my eyes and then poured some for myself, slowly, then began to push it back to where it was, so tediously that her face went red with frustration. Goyle snickered, but Crabbe flicked his eyes towards Draco who was sitting next to me, who seemed oblivious of the situation. Good.

Across the tables in the Great Hall, I spotted Fred and George Weasley arriving late for Breakfast, mischief on their faces. I wondered if I could buy any puking pasties to sneak into Pansy's food, or better yet, pumpkin juice. Cedric seemed to spot them from where he was sitting on the Hufflepuff table and look back at me, as if he knew the exact spot I'd been sitting at all morning. He flicked his eyes towards them, as if to say 'wanna haggle them for prices sometime?'.

I gave him a small nod back, but Draco had noticed, turning towards me, his chin up as high as Pansy's had been. "I need to talk to you after classes."

I knew better than to question why, but I also knew better than to assume Pansy wasn't jealous of me spending more time with her with Draco. As if anyone would want to compete with whoever could snuggle up to him more. "Of course," I said, taking a croissant from the middle of the table and standing up. "I'm needed in Arithmancy, I'm stuck on a few homework questions"

"Arithmancy?" Pansy's face contorted. " Muggle subject much?"

I fought from rolling my eyes one last time and receiving a screaming Pansy to come throttle me from across the table. "It's a required subject for me," I said, pursing my lips. 

"Do you still want to go to St. Mungos?" Draco turned to me. " I'd rather pluck my eyes out with my wand than have to mop up vomit for the rest of my life"

Crabbe snickered, and Goyle snorted. I wondered if they'd been programmed ever since the first year to laugh at whatever disgusting nonsense Draco spat out on a daily basis. Maybe they just had no imagination in their brains whatsoever, or maybe they just didn't have any of them to begin with.

I held my books and croissant tight as I left the Great Hall, feeling stares on my back and hurrying further into the hallways of the school just to turn left at the staircases leading down into the Arithmancy classrooms to go through the courtyard near the herbology gardens and into a small section in between a greenhouse and the old stone of the castle. The way light reflected through the glass and onto the slivers of stone that weren't covered in mossy green vines had always made be feel a little bit more relaxed, and the way the large oak trees stretched to cover any rain that came down but let any light come through made for the perfect study space, as long as you brought a coat, picnic rug, scarf and remembered to double-layer your socks.