Now I really wouldn't tell anyone that I had a feeling this year's DADA class wouldn't be bad, especially when everyone was making fun of the teacher. "Have you seen his robes? You'd think Dumbledore paid him enough to get some new ones." Daphne comments shaking her head as we walk to the class. I nod along as Blaise starts speaking. "He looks so underfed too. Skinny as hell, even more so than a lot of the models I meet." I roll my eyes at Blaise's comment and walk through the open door and into the class. We all took seats near the back and I sat with Daphne. "Hey, I never really hear you talk about your boyfriend anymore." I turn to see Daphne's eyes widen just slightly before she gives a fake chuckle. "Nothing special has gone on recently so there's nothing to talk about." She looked slightly panicked but before I could question it Professor Lumpin began speaking. "We will be having a practical lesson today. Follow me." He proceeds to walk out the door as the rest of us stand up and follow. "Are we having a practical lesson? It's been so long since the pixie incident." I hear Maven remark to Draco. We all walk into the staff room to see Professor Snape. He takes a long sweeping look at all of us before walking out, not before greeting me and Maven. "Today's lesson is about Bogarts. What can anyone tell me about them?" I see Granger raise her hand to answer the question. I didn't expect him to not pick her instead saying, "Mr. Emrys, would you please answer." "It's a shapeshifter that takes the shape of your greatest fear." Maven states. Lumpin nods his head and continues."Boggarts are reasonably common usually found in dark places of houses but are easily handled. Does anyone know the incantation?" "Ridiculous." I loudly respond. Granger turns to me glaring. "You weren't even called that's,-" "Cheating?" I mimic her high-pitched tone. "Yes, it is actually." Maven of all people respond. He sends a wink Granger's way making her blush so red you'd think her head got transfigured into a tomato. "Well, then why don't you expel me I'm so sorry I answered a question." I sarcastically remark not at all liking the way he was backing up Granger. He must have noticed me side-eyeing him because his mouth tilts up in a small very sly smirk. He comes behind me and leans forwards whispering in my ear, "Don't get mad about little old Granger or do because it'll make what happens next a lot more fun." I don't respond just crossing my arms over my chest and looking straight. I hated his close proximity to me it made my body shiver from what I assume is disgust. He doesn't move from behind me. The professor continues a small lesson on Bogarts before calling up Longbottom. The entire class begins laughing when professor Snape dramatically saunters out of the wardrobe. He says the incantation and instantly the professor is wearing old woman's clothing. Everyone gets in a line while music begins playing. Each of them tackled their fears making me think more and more about mine. I was scared of more than one thing that's for sure. I was behind Potter in the line and began to get anxious. For as powerful as I am and how brave there are things that a part of that I strongly believe any other person wouldn't be able to handle. When potter steps up a dementor shows up. Nothing really escalates from there as Lumpin stands in front making the boggart change into a full moon. That was a very peculiar fear. Once the boggart was taken care of Lumpin locked it up saying that class was dismissed.
My friends were quite bummed about them not being able to see what their fears were despite them being relieved that they weren't displayed for the whole class to see. I took note and met with Lumpin privately to ask him if my friends and I could see our boggarts privately. He understood and told me to meet him in the same room after classes were done. I rounded up all my friends and Maven, dragging them to the same room. "Merlin Nyssa, can't you tell us what this is for?" Daphne asks. I roll my eyes. "Can't I do anything nice for you without you pestering me trying to ruin the surprise?" She shook her head which I ignored as I led them into the staff room. There stood professor Lumpin. "Ah Miss Pendragon, as per your request you all may try your boggart." All of them turned to me grinning. "I heard all of you whining yesterday so I decided to do something to stop my ears from falling off." I was very puzzled as to why they wanted to know their fears so badly as most Slytherins would opt not to. Daphne went first after all the boys chickened out. Her fear was turning into a simpleton and getting disowned by her family for it. Matteo and Draco had fear linked to letting down the family. Blaise had a dream where he became ugly and no one ever wanted him again. This really showed me how rooted our fears really were. It wasn't spiders or clowns it was fundamental fears. None of them wanted to disappoint their families or lose the thing their families praise them for. They're scared of being abandoned, or unloved. Maven went next and the boggart showed him on a throne but it changed to him in chains and being thrown to the ground looking ragged, his powers seemingly gone. It was understandable as someone with his power wouldn't want to give that up or his thrown. "Nisha?" Lumpin questioned. "Would you like to go?" I looked around to see eyes on me. Taking a deep breath I move forwards and the boggart begins to change. Soon it shows my dad holding his wand out. "Nisha, this is for your own good. You must learn the consequences of disappointing the family. And don't even think of running to your mother or I'll do this to her." He takes a step forwards while I take one back out of instinct. I knew he wasn't really there but it felt so real. I was petrified by it. "Crusio!" As soon as the words left his mouth the boggart changed to a mirror. Inside it was a mirror image of me but my arms up to just before my elbow were pitch black and glowed purple. My face looked sadistic and I wore a ruling smirk on my face while blood covered the ground. Out of nowhere the dead bodies of everyone I held close appeared. Their eyes were hollow and empty while blood trickled from many different places. My mum was closer to me than most. Her eyes were foggy and blood trickled out of her mouth. I look back at her to see her still smirking. "You did this. We did this." It was like I was in a trance I couldn't move I couldn't speak I was frozen. That is until someone touches my shoulder making me absentmindedly raise my arm and cast the spell the mirror shattering into diamonds. I didn't realize I was crying. Of all the things I was expecting, feeling as real as it did wasn't one of them. I still didn't register anything that was going on after. Voices were muffled and it felt as if my head was underwater. I just walked to the common room heading straight to my dorm. It wasn't even the fact that I saw the fears it was the fact that now all my friends and Maven knew. Maven knew. Great, this was definitely going to cause problems.
Later that night I continued to sit in my room staring at my bedsheets the boggart replaying in my head. If I stared at my fingers long enough they almost looked black even though I knew they weren't. The door opened and I looked up to see Blaise and Daphne. Blaise had a bowl full of cut strawberries while Daphne carried a jar of sugar. "Hey, Nyssa." They both say taking a seat on my bed. Blaise and Daphne place the food down and make themselves comfortable. "You wanna talk about it?" Blaise asks. I shake my head no. None of us did, but that didn't mean we shouldn't. "I'll talk about mine if you lot talk about yours." Daphne pipes up. "Deal." Blaise responds. "Alright fine." I mumble taking a strawberry. "Well you know how sophisticated my mother always acts, I feel that if I was anything less I wouldn't belong. Not just belong though. I wouldn't be loved I wouldn't be appreciated. I'd be discarded." I take her hand offering her some comfort. "Well, you both know how beautiful my mother is, and how much pull she has in the modeling industry. Well if I wasn't born with my looks or if I lost them somehow all of a sudden I won't be loved. I feel like the only reason she keeps me around is because I give her popularity and a live person to design clothes for. It's my looks that gain me her love and admiration, if I lost it I just know that it would disappear." Hearing that broke my heart. "It's like they say they love you unconditionally, but that's not the case, because if I was anything less than their expectations their unconditional love would disappear." Daphne pipes in. My eyes water hearing them say it. I take both their hands as I blink back tears seeing them both struggle to keep their own from falling. "I'm so sorry. You both are the least deserving of that pressure." They both smile a bit at me. "You turn Nyssa." Blaise softly insisted. I let out a sigh before talking. "I was about five or six when it first happened. My mum had gone on a trip and left me with my father. I was doing something he told me not to do. He threatened to use the crusiatus curse. I was so little so I didn't know what that was. I did the thing again and the next thing I know I was lying on the ground convulsing with pain. Half my screams didn't make it out of my mouth because of how severe it was on me. Once it stopped I was an absolute wreck sobbing uncontrollably. He told me that if I ever told my mum he would do it to her too. I didn't want my mum to experience it so I kept my mouth shut and tried my best to do everything the way he wants to avoid punishment. Sometimes it happened because of his temper." I paused swallowing before looking towards the ceiling trying to keep my tears at bay. I wanted to get through this without crying. I hated crying. A few tears escaped and Blaise cups my face wiping them. "I'm so sorry that happened, Nyssa." Daphne expressed hugging me. "Thank you," I mumble as I hugged her back clinging on like a lifeline. "The other part of it is a bit newer. Last year after I almost killed Maven I found out that my shadow powers have side effects. If I get very angry or I'm in enough pain even if I'm just sad enough shadows in the room around me will try to take over and command me. It's like they want me to use them but at the same time, they want to be let into my brain. They are supposed to unlock an evil version of me. An unforgiving, merciless one who could kill the people she loved if she wanted to." I pause my voice cracking. "I-I'm scared that one day my resolve will diminish and I'll kill one of you. It's actually possible and I don't want that to happen." I was crying now. Hot tears streamed down my face as I sat. I had never told anyone about these things because they made me feel vulnerable and weak. It felt like a part of me was exposed and I hated it. "Hey, look at me." Blaise whispers. "You're not going to kill one of us. I've known you my whole life, Nisha, and if there's one thing I know about you it's you won't let anything happen to the people you care for. No matter how much pain you're in. Just look at what you've been doing for your mother. Think of how selfless it is, think of all the shit you put up with. If it ever gets hard you now have two people you can go to. We're here to help you with this. You're not alone in this anymore." I smile through my blurry eyes jumping forwards to hug him. "I'm here for both of you too. Anytime you're families suck we can shit talk them and eat food." Both of them smile at me. "It felt good to finally get this all out. We need to start trauma dumping more often." Daphne remarks as I move away from Blaise to my regular spot. I nod whipping my tears leaving just my red puffy eyes. "Yeah, we definitely needed this." Blaise remarks picking up a strawberry and dumping it in sugar. He brings it towards his eyes as if inspecting it then plops it in his mouth. His eyes light up after a few seconds. "Why have you been holding out on me this whole time, this is so good?" Blaise exclaimed. I stare at him before almost yelling, "Why tf do you think I eat them all the time! I don't eat things that taste like shit for kicks." He just rolls his eyes. "You never told me to taste them." "Say that again." My tone of voice changed and I was glaring at him. "I don't think you ever told him to Nyssa." Daphne remarks. I gasp dramatically. "You know what missy next time you need help curling the back of your head ask someone else." She dramatically gasps holding a hand to her heart. "You wouldn't dare betray me like that." "You just betrayed me!" I counter. "Yes, but that doesn't interfere with hair." I roll my eyes at her. "Bitch." I mutter. I turn back to Balise who stared at me with amusement in his eyes. I throw a pillow at him and he dodges but he doesn't dodge the second one that hits him in his face. "Not the face!" He yells and Daphne and I both laugh. I felt much better than I did before and I felt blessed to have two best friends like this.
Maven's P.O.V
I wasn't expecting her fears to be that bad. I was expecting something I could tease her about like her fear of spiders. I wanted it to be something that I could exploit, that I'd want to exploit but the fact that I saw into her head this way felt wrong enough. I still hated her. Sure I felt a little bad for her at the moment but why would I honestly care. Why did I care? She didn't care about mine so why should I care about hers? Even though I just found out her father abused her. She probably deserves it, right? Either way, I had more important things to do. I wanted to make her life a living hell and I planned to do exactly that just with the help of a certain mudblood.
Sitting in DADA I stare at Granger until she looks my way and I give her a wink. She giggles and blushes. This was going to be so easy. We had time to do an assignment in class and I continued to give her smiles and winks when I knew that Nisha was looking. It took a while because she's really good at not paying attention to me. It's really annoying because pissing her off always takes grand things. Every time she did see me winking or smiling she would roll her eyes or would seem disgusted so I knew it was working. I did this in every single class I had with the two of them. In Care of Magical Creatures, I would always walk by Granger and give her a comment, or I would just hang around her while Nisha would stay with Blaise or Daphne talking to them while taking care of the horrid snails we needed to keep alive. After about a week of it, I started doing a bit more so it would annoy her to the point of showing it. I would whisper to her to come to the Slytherin table while I'm eating with my friends and told her to come near me in class making sure to flirt loud enough for Nisha to hear. I made sure that Granger thought Nisha wanted me to so she would start doing too much around Nisha. I knew girls could get crazy if someone decided to take a boy away from them so I just started the chaos and watched it play out. It was fun seeing Granger always do embarrassing things in front of Nisha and start making scenes. And I knew that my plan was starting to work because Nisha was starting to fight back against Granger.