Slytherin's perfect villain and Gryffindor's Golden Quidditch girl have been at war since first year - no reason Manon will name, only a stolen boyfriend and a look that still lands like a curse. Seventh year together & Something under the hate is a...
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(Daniela's POV)
Seventh year and I still sit down in the Great Hall like I'm bracing for a duel. Not with a wand. With her. Megan drops her bag on the Gryffindor bench hard enough to make the goblets jump. "If you keep staring at the Slytherin table I'm going to start charging you."
"I'm not freaking staring."
"You're staring."
The Great Hall is the same as it always is in September: floating candles that ignore health-and-safety, house banners twitching in a draft that isn't real, and a hundred phones face-down on the tables because McGonagall said no devices during meals like that ever worked. Mine buzzes in my robe pocket. I ignore it. Across the hall, Manon's doesn't buzz. She leaves it face-up on the Slytherin table like even her notifications are richer than mine.
She's in green and silver like the castle personally tailored it to her. Black skirt hiked just high enough that those pretty brown legs are the first thing you see if you make the mistake of looking. Blonde braids spilling down her back, a few loose curls around her face, Slytherin tie loose on purpose. Pureblood princess. Most gorgeous girl in Hogwarts. Most evil I'll say tho. And she knows all three.
David Enth is on her right, because of course he is. Dark hair, expensive watch that doesn't belong in 1890-or-whatever this school is supposed to be, Slytherin crest polished. He's in love with her. Everybody knows. He can be a jackass and she still has on a leash. Manon flicks her fingers toward the pumpkin juice and he passes it without being asked.
Megan follows my eyes and snorts. "You're doing the face."
"What face."
"The I-wanted-him-first face." "I did want him first." "And then she sniffed it on you and took him like a house-elf takes laundry." That's the official story we tell. It's not the whole story. The whole story is worse because it doesn't make sense. First year I walked into the Great Hall a Muggle-born Cuban girl with an accent the portraits whispered about, and Manon looked at me like her stomach had been hexed. She didn't even know me. She just decided I was an enemy. Bitch from the jump. No reason she ever gave me. Then she stole David, and after that she didn't need a reason. She had a trophy. I stab a roasted potato.
Lara sits down on Megan's other side like she belongs at Gryffindor and Slytherin at the same time. Which she does. She's Manon's friend in public. She's my friend in the places Manon can't know because she'll absolutely explode. Today she's wearing Slytherin green under an open robe and she doesn't look at the Slytherin table longer than she has to.
"Don't start," Lara mutters. "I didn't say anything," I say.
"You were about to." Megan grins. "She was about to."
Up at the staff table Snape is doing his usual impression of a bat that pays taxes. McGonagall's hat is slightly crooked. Flitwick is arguing with a goblet. Hagrid's laughing so loud a first-year drops a fork. Modern Hogwarts, old heads. My phone buzzes again. Quidditch group chat. Tryouts reminder. I play. Manon the bitch doesn't. Thank God. That's actually the other joke that I've noticed and I'm sure others didn't , with Manon she could've been a Ravenclaw. Books. Intelligence . Marks. She'll roast you with a citation. But with her blood line and the other main parts of her was pure slytherin ,
