𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄~ {The Lestrange Daughter #1}

𝟔𝟔. Goodbye

In Divination, Valentine and the boys sat together despite that it was supposed to be two students to one table. Since they'd all returned to classes, they'd been sticking together closer than ever. The boys didn't go anywhere without Valentine anymore.

Professor Trelawney didn't try and stop them to say anything about it, none of the teachers did. After all, to do so would have sounded horribly insensitive, even for someone like Trelawney that so often was unaware of things like that. It was clear she took pity on them for a number of reasons, so she left them to their own devices.

Blaze had his head down on the table although he wasn't sleeping. Draco and Liam had taken the crystal ball off its pedestal in the centre of the table and we're rolling it back and forth to one another with no exact measure of enthusiasm. Probably just something to keep their hands busy.

Days had passed since Olivia's death and things were yet to go back to normal. Blaze was subdued and quiet, there were no jokes made, no jabs or dramatics. Liam was pretending as though everything was just fine but everything about him seemed so tense. Draco was more of a jerk than ever before, snapping at other students like it was his job. One boy had looked at him so pityingly when he had done so that it just made Draco angrier.

Valentine, however, through all of it, stayed largely the same. She read her books, ignored most of the conversation during meals and fought with Snape during Potions. She had to stay alert for Harry, just because the end of the year was drawing in, didn't mean something else couldn't happen. They'd already had wrongly convicted murders and werewolves so she was hardly going to let her guard down just because things seemed to have calmed down. If there was anything this year had taught her, it was that unexpected things were just that, unexpected. You couldn't crumble when those things came into play she couldn't at the very least.

She noticed the whispering just before Draco did. His hands stilled on the crystal ball and Liam looked at him in question. It wasn't all that strange for people to stare or gossip about her on a daily basis. It was generally all bad anyway which was by her own design. But this was different. They weren't just talking about her, they were talking about Draco and Liam and Blaze and what had happened.

Lavender Brown seemed to suffer from the same affliction of Leah in that she whispered far louder than could be technically considered a whisper. She and Parvati Patil were sitting down at the front, three tables away from Valentine and yet she could still hear what they were saying. The two girls were leaning across their table towards one another, every now and then passing a minute glance at the small group of Slytherin's. By now, Liam and Blaze had picked up on it as well.

"Yeah, I heard that too." Said Lavender.

"I wouldn't put it past her." Parvati nodded.

"I mean, Benson never really fit in with them to begin with. I always thought they probably forced her to hang out them just so they could take advantage of how nice she was."

"I always thought the same thing. She helped me find a book once in the library. She was really sweet and everything so I never understood why she would hang around people like that willingly."

"I bet it was Lestrange."

"I think Benson shared a dorm with Lestrange and Lovat. It's too bad for her. It's like she never had a chance to make real friends."

"Oi!" Draco called down from them. "We can hear you!"

The two girls turned to gape at him, horrified. The entire class had fallen silent and were now staring at them.

"Is there a problem?" Asked Trelawney hesitantly.

"Yes, there's a damn problem!" Draco spat. "Those two morons don't have the guts to speak up when they bad mouth people but don't have the brains to do it where we don't have to hear!"