Cherry Lips // s. black

-OCTOBER. 3.-

She sat back and heard her back crack. "What's a Mudblood?"

"What?" Sirius WHEEZED, dropping the sponge he was using. It didn't do anything. He really hadn't cleaned before.

"I said what's a-"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you," Sirius interrupted quickly, holding his hands frantically out like he wanted her to stop talking. Carmilla narrowed her eyes. "I'll let you off cause you don't know what it means, just, like, never say that again."

She looked at him, and the sighed. She passed him a brush that would actually clean some of the stains. "Use this, sponges don't do anything... And what do you mean I can't say it?"

Sirius screwed up his face. "Oh great, no one else has explained this all to you, have they?"

Carmilla glared, and he nodded, taking the brush from her. "Okay, so... Not all wizards are good. Some of them, mostly Slytherins, you know, purebloods and all, want to keep magic... well, pure."

The spider bits floated in front of her in the bubbles, and she tipped the last of the water onto the only patch of dry stone.

"So they think that muggleborns and halfbloods are tainting magic and all that bullshit," Sirius continued, waving the brush around as he spoke and generally just not cleaning. Carmilla sighed again. "And they call muggleborns, people with no magic parents, well, the word you said."

"Okay," Carmilla said, and finished washing off a purple stain. She'd finished half of the room, and Sirius had hardly started his section. She dumped the brush back into the empty bucket and rolled her sleeves down.

She sat on the table he had occupied before and ran her fingers through her hair to get the hair tie and the knots that had formed out.

She understood why the bad wizards thought that way, to an extent. It made sense, if being a muggleborn actually affected blood lines and the quality of magic, which she knew it didn't.

They should probably teach biology at Hogwarts.

Then they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. She looked down at her fingers, which had turned wrinkled and dry from the soap that smelt like the failed potions in the dungeon classroom. She couldn't believe she'd accidentally broken that boy's wrist.

Of course, she'd been meaning to hurt him, and she didn't regret it one bit now that she knew what mudblood meant, but she didn't actually think she could do that much damage with just her hand. She'd broken the other boy's nose too, and red had gotten all over his yellow and black tie.

Carmilla frowned.

She looked to Sirius. "Why is it mostly Slytherins?"

"Hm?" He asked, looking up. He smiled. There was a bit of dead spider on his hand.

"That think like that, about muggleborns," she continued. "Why did you say it's mostly Slytherins?"

He shrugged, "because it is. Listen, Dumbledore and the sorting hat like to waffle on about whatever he thinks the house represents, but it's actually pretty simple. Gryffindors, like me, are just normal people. Slytherins are the ones that practically worship that Voldemort dude, Hufflepuffs are pretty normal to, when they aren't stoned, and Ravenclaws... uh..."

"No, no," Carmilla said icily. "Keep going. I'm interested."

Sirius narrowed his grey eyes suspiciously. "...No."

He was wrong. Charlie was one of the loveliest people she'd ever met. He'd lent a random student his inkpot without question and hadn't complained when he'd gotten a couch cushion in return.