Emily Potter - Book 2 - The Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 1

The scarlet letter then ripped itself to measly shreds after making a taunting face at Ron, leaving him with a scared, doomed expression. Emily looked around the Great Hall, eyes piercing as she stood up, "What the bloody hell are all you lot staring at?" She said aloud, trying to neutralize the pressure that had settled on her friend's shoulders. Almost everyone turned their heads away and avoided the Gryffindor table altogether.

She sat back down and cupped her face with her hands, "Ron, I'm terribly sorry. It's my fault, I'm going to owl your mother and explain, don't worry." Emily promised, fishing her quill and a sheet of parchment from her bag.

Ron shook his head slowly, his burden sinking deeper into his soul, "No, it's my fault. I let you drive." He said, with a little smile that made Emily feel all the more responsible.

"It's my fault. I took the car, I drove it. I'll fix this. Don't worry." She stated, dipping her quill in the ink well. Harry immediately screwed back on the cap of the ink well and put it back in his sister's bag, "Might want to continue that later, class is about to start." He advised. Emily smiled, slightly thankful for his diversion as she herself did not know how to tell her truth to Molly Weasley.

Ouch! Startled, Emily glanced at her hand, expecting a papercut or perhaps a prick from the tip of her quill, but instead deduced her pain was sourced from another kind of prick. Her eyes scanned her fingers and saw the searing glow of the ring, noticing the band leaving her skin a touch too red. Irritated, Emily looked up to the next table and saw Draco Malfoy laughing at her expense, his grey eyes drowning in tears of mirth.

Emily excused herself from the Gryffindor's table, looking at both her brother and Ron, "See you at Herbology." She said to the boys before haughtily walking out of the Great Hall and towards the direction of her common room. Emily kept her pace quick and frigid, barely giving Draco the chance to catch up with her.

When the pair had entered Slytherin House, her mood did improve exponentially when Emily was enveloped in the cool, calming tones of emerald, jade, and onyx. She sat herself down nearest the vast picture window with the breathtaking underwater view of the Black Lake.

"Tsk. Tsk. The first day of school and you already have detention. And to think that I was going to be the worst Prefect." Draco said, picking up a copy of the Daily Prophet. It was a strange development in Slytherin House to establish the rank of Junior Prefects, it was a special title that their head of house wanted to test in order to see if it would encourage more students to be on their best behavior. They were still, of course, supervised by an older set of Prefects, although that didn't make their new positions any less strange.

Severus wouldn't have done this without Dumbledore's absurdity. Emily thought to herself, if they're going to pick a house as their test subject, I would have rather picked Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. They're far more ideal for student leaders.

"You try driving for hours on end with Harry and Ron in the back seat. We couldn't get through the Barrier, what else was there to do?"

Draco sank into a crushed velvet armchair by the fire. "You could have blasted the Barrier to get through," he said, suggesting it as if it were the easiest thing to do. Emily stared back at him, bewildered at his apparent disregard for the safety of the public. "There were Muggles, Draco!" She hissed at him, her eyebrows dipping in concern.

"Does it matter? Muggles saw you either way – seven of them to be exact." He chimed, smacking a copy of the Daily Prophet to the carpeted floor.

As smart as Draco is, he can positively convince me that he's a bloody idiot without even trying. "Seven Muggles as opposed to a crowded public area such as King's Cross. Sometimes I wonder if your brain is just wasting away in your skull – And besides, even if I were mad enough to blast through the barrier, the three of us still wouldn't have made it in time." Emily reasoned. "The Hogwarts Express always leaves at exactly eleven o'clock."