Parallel

6. The Great Gatsby

When Eve arrived at the Great Hall with Sophie and Kate on her second morning, there was somebody already sitting in her seat.

"Who's that?" she asked, slowing her steps and eyeing the foreign head of tousled brown waves. She frowned—judging from the back of the person, which was covered by classic black robes, he was a male Hogwarts student, but she couldn't say that she felt any kindling of familiarity.

"Augustus Nott," answered Sophie from beside her, though the response sounded more like a question than a statement. She too had slightly paused in the middle of the hall, an expression of slight disdain quickly accelerating across her face as she stared at the boy.

"Nott's back?" came Kate's voice from Eve's left. She wrinkled her nose distastefully, withdrawing her arm from Eve's to lean forward and squint, as though the sight of Augustus Nott sitting at the Slytherin table was unbelievable. "Damn, I was hoping he'd died or something."

Her friends' reactions to the newcomer—Nott—only amplified Eve's concern, and she hesitated. "Nott? Is he—a bad person?"

Sophie and Kate met each other's eyes, sharing a significant look before the latter turned back to Eve, launching into a tirade in the middle of the Great Hall.

"Nott's basically Lestrange, but without any of his kiss-ass tendencies," Kate explained, her lip curling in clear dislike. Sophie nodded her head vigorously. "He's an arrogant bastard. I'm sure you've heard of the Notts—they're one of Britain's richest and most influential pureblood families, being of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and all." She paused to snort in aversion. "So, Nott obviously comes from a lot of money, though you'd think he'd literally been born clutching a Galleon in his hands from the way he struts around the halls."

"He's a horrible, prejudiced person," interjected Sophie, shaking her head and looking troubled. "It's not just his pure-blood supremacy beliefs, but the fact that he acts on them—calling Muggleborns the M slur whenever no teachers are around and pulling what he calls 'pranks' on them." Disgust seeped into her voice. "It's like a hobby for him. In third year, somebody locked two younger Gryffindors in an abandoned side of the dungeons for two days straight. In fourth year, somebody somehow charmed all the mirrors in the castle bathrooms to show writing on them that said 'Mudbloods are scum.'"

"Don't forget about the bubotuber pus."

Sophie snapped her fingers. "Right, that too. Last year, a fourth-year Hufflepuff—Muggleborn, of course—got landed in the Hospital Wing with third-degree boils all over her body after somebody filled her body wash with undiluted bubotuber pus."

Eve couldn't stop herself from placing her hands over her mouth in shock. "Undiluted bubotuber pus can be fatal! How come he hasn't been expelled?"

Kate scoffed loudly. "As if that were possible." She held up a finger. "Firstly, he's—Merlin, I can't believe I'm about to say this—clever. He's smart; he hides his tracks extremely well. Everybody knows he did all those things, but nobody has proof—he guarantees that." She held up a second finger. "Secondly, going against the Notts is like a personal guarantee of expulsion from society. Only Dumbledore's ever told Nott off before—in third year, when Nott cursed Laura Mead with a Calvorio in the middle of class—and that resulted in a six-week investigation by the Ministry on Dumbledore's 'methods of teaching and education.' She placed air quotes around that last part, rolling her eyes. "So nobody really interferes because it always ends up uselessly going in the opposite direction, and Dippet's too much of a wimp to kick a Nott out. Go figure."

To say that Eve felt disturbed would've been an understatement. Extreme, prejudice-rooted bullying had been occurring for years, and nobody was doing anything? A corrupt Ministry, hindering action? A third-year Draco Malfoy immediately came to the forefront of her mind, and the parallels to a specific Hippogriff's near-assassination were nearly undeniable. Kate could've replaced Nott with Malfoy in her explanation, and nothing would've seemed amiss.