Ecdysis

PART V - Return

The art of making someone feel small.

It wasn't difficult to achieve among a group of young women sharing a dorm—all one had to do was make eye-contact with the only person she respected, while pretending the others were invisible.

When all the Stiletto Snakes laughed at Pansy's unfunny jokes, none laughed at Tracey's. And Millicent's comments about her extended summer—as she so eloquently titled her suspension—went ignored by Daphne and Pansy.

The tension between them was like a zephyr of hot air, rife with Tracey and Millicent's famish to be included again. Was I smug about it?

A little.

By now, I knew none of them wanted anything to do with me, and I was tired of caring about it. So I took to my bed and books, happy to pretend they didn't exist.

But that didn't mean I wasn't listening.

"Prudence and I went all over Europe this summer," Pansy boasted, running a hand through her sleek black hair. "I bought chocolates in Belgium, silk scarves in France, and snapping sweets in Austria. I'd offer to share, but I already promised some to Draco and, well, that doesn't leave much for me."

"Uh huh," said Daphne, half-listening. She'd returned from holidays a little thinner, her hair cut bluntly to her shoulders like Pansy's. "That sounds great."

"Where in France did you go? My mother offered to take us to Nice if I was—"

Pansy spoke right over Tracey, addressing only Daphne. "Let's go find Draco and Blaise." She checked her reflection in a gilded hand mirror and applied berry-coloured lip gloss to her mouth. "I want to compare our timetables."

I'd missed the Welcoming Feast in the Great Hall earlier. Snape pulled me aside the moment I entered Hogwarts to give me my schedule and a Time-Turner that I was dying to test out.

"I vouched for you at the Ministry of Magic. As my strongest student, I believe you're somewhat competent enough to pull this off without abusing it. Don't disappoint me," he'd said with a stern look. "If anyone finds out about this, I will confiscate it at once and you will eviscerate all my trust in you. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Professor," I replied earnestly, without adding that nobody paid enough attention to me to realise what I was up to, anyway.

Now, the Time-Turner sat heavy beneath my shirt and I vowed never to take it off, worried it might fall into the wrong hands. None of my belongings were safe here as I'd found out last year, and even with a new lock on my trunk and nifty little protection spells I'd cast over them to shock anyone who tried to touch my things, I knew better than to leave valuables lying around.

Pansy and Daphne left the dorm without inviting Tracey and Millicent to join them. Pansy, I'd discovered, was very territorial about her things. The whole time she was bragging about her adventures with Prudence and all her wonderful souvenirs from Europe, she never complimented the others on their new belongings. And she certainly didn't invite them to hang out with Draco. Daphne was Pansy's one exception, and I suspected it was because she showed no interest in him whatsoever. And besides, everyone needed a best friend.

With the two of them gone, Millicent and Tracey sat on Tracey's bed and stared at one another, stumped. I wondered if they'd seen each other over their suspension and were all talked out, or if they were butt-hurt that Pansy had brushed them off so quickly.

Admittedly, even when they all hung out together in first year, and part of second, they were mostly the Goyle and Crabbe to Pansy's leadership. But that meant eye-contact, and inclusion, and sharp comments that could be brushed off as conversation if they squinted hard enough. Suspension seemed to mean demotion, and I could see it devastated the girls.