When Arlene stormed out of the potions classroom, the adrenaline was pumping through her veins and anger was written all over her face.
"Who killed your puppy?" Blaise questioned as soon as she entered the common room.
Arlene dropped Bast and threw herself beside him on the couche "I just gave Snape a reality check."
The Slytherin common room was by far one of Arlene's favorite places, the walls were made of Roman stone and the floor of marble, curved stairs fell into a large half circle that took half the room where couches, armchairs, tables and a large fireplace took place.
On the higher floor, was random tables and chairs for students to study, on the left and right walls was a large door leading to the corridors of the dorms, a huge marble fountain was at the entrance of the room, green lanterns floated and in every corner stood a statue of The four founders.
But the best thing about the Slytherin common room, was that the ceiling was made out of glass, giving them a clear view of the lake. Occasionally, the giant squid would appear, several fish would swim by, aquatic magical creatures were spotted from time to time, and mermaids stop by for a quick chat.
It was the reason all Slytherins knew sign language, the story she heard, was that around the founders era, mermaids didn't like the humans being under their lake, so they would try to break the glass but since it was charmed, they'd hurt themselves in the process, until a deaf first year managed to speak with one of them through sign language and ever since then, Slytherins and mermaids were on friendly terms.
Speaking of merpeople, six or seven with them where sitting on the glass making funny faces at the first years whose eyes were locked on them while an annoyed prefect was trying to get them to focus as she taught them sign language.
"What did you say?" Blaise snapped her out of her thoughts, closing the book in his hands and placing it on the coffee table in front of them.
Arlene sat up "Well, I er..I sort of told him to..um...figure out his issues because he's a teacher and to.. uh.. to stop bulling kids and..to...er.." She stuttered, embarrassed to tell him "use a shampoo."
Blaise was quiet for a few seconds, then he burst out laughing.
"That's brilliant! Please tell me you took a photo!"
Arlene chuckled "No, but his expression was priceless!"
From the corner of her eye, she saw not her mermaid join them, but unlike the beautiful mermaids and mermen, her entire eye was black and her teeth looked like they belonged to a shark.
Arlene discovered in her first year that three mermaid colonies lived in The Black Lake, selkies, merrows and sirens, and it was obvious sirens were the most beautiful of the three.
It was a common trait for sea mermaids to drown any ship or kill any human they come across, and while selkies and merrows choose the more secretive way of attacking humans while they are alone, sirens use their voice and beauty to lure ships, which is why muggles believe mermaids are stereotypical sirens.
While most Slytherins favored the sirens for their beauty, Arlene liked the merrows more, as she had befriend one of them.
Merrows looked like sirens upon first glance, but then you notice that their hair is actually fins, their teeth are like a shark's and if you anger them, their eyes turn completely black and the veins around their eyes darken.
The first years stared at her with their jaws hanging open, the merrow's eyes returned back to normal and she looked like she was laughing, then she turned around and saw Arlene.
Anaitis was her name, and she was the mermaid Arlene befriended.
"Wait, but doesn't that mean he'll bother you even more?" Blaise said, breaking her train of thoughts once again.
She turned to him "If Snape wants to be a baby about me telling him to grow up, I'm taking it to Dumbledore."
Blaise nodded absentmindedly and started reading his book again.
Arlene looked up the lake and waved at Anaitis, who waved back.
How's third year? She signed.
I'm friends with her. Arlene signed excitedly, wanting to tell her all about Hermione, but keeping in mind not to listen to what she's going to advise her to do, she meant well but mermaids gave terrible love advice.
She kept talking to her, telling her about how Hermione's hair was so wild and her eyes shined when she laughed or how she was passionate about saving animals and was extremely smart.
She could have gone on for hours if Theo didn't enter the common room.
"Don't you have try outs?" He questioned, causing her eyes to widen.
"Shit!" She exclaimed, jumped off the couche and running to her dorm to grab her broomstick, how could she be so stupid?
She ran as fast as she could to the Quidditch Field, if she missed it she would drown herself in the Black Lake and give its name a new meaning.
"Arlene," Marcus Flint acknowledge her as she gasped for breath "you're late."
"I know, I'm sorry, it won't happen again, I promise-"
"Just get on your broom." Flint sighed, pointing towards the field where a few players were chatting.
There were two teams, one had a team keeper, two tryout chasers and a team beater, while the other team had a tryout keeper, two teem chasers and two tryout beaters, Arlene guessed the point was that the team players would be against the tryouts.
Arlene bit her lip, Jude was their star chaser, she had to beat her.
Just as she was about to drop her broom and run away, she heard cheering from and the stands and saw Sage, her face painted green and white with a banner that said "GO ARLENE!"
And that was all she needed.
"The first team to score three times wins." Flint announced as he, being one of the chasers, got on his broom.
At first they were doing okay, they were tied one to one when a bludger almost hit her but the beater managed to throw it at the other team at the last second.
Then it got more competitive, she barely got her hands on the quaffle before Jude or Flint managed to take it, but the worst part was that none of the other players were really on her team, there was only one place for a chaser, which meant the boy who was playing with her was also trying to limit her playing, and the same went for the other two players, the keeper focused on stopping Flint and Jude and the beater just wanted to make the other one slip up.
The boy managed to score, which now tied them two to two.
Arlene sped up as Jude and Flint passed the ball to each other, they were almost at the hoops, Arlene couldn't take the ball alone and if the other boy got his hands on it, she doubted he would hand it to her.
It was hopeless, if they make that shot, they won and the boy would be the new chaser as he made the second shot and the quaffle was in his possession most of the game, so Arlene took a leap of faith.
It might have been the adrenaline, or the all the training she had done that summer or simply luck, but as Arlene sped at them, she jumped off her broom and managed to hit the ball with her forehead just as Jude threw it at the hoop to score.
The next thing Arlene knew, she was hanging in midair as she gripped her broomstick and Sage was yelling like mad.
She had scored.
When they all returned to the ground, the team players looked as if they hadn't even broke a sweat and the tryouts were panting as they struggled to catch their breath.
"You did it!" Sage screamed as she ran as her and gave her a bear hug "And you smell like sweat, but it doesn't matter, you did it!"
Arlene chuckled at Sage's enthusiasm "We still don't know that."
"Are you kidding me? After that shot, Flint would be mad not to choose you." The girl told her as they pulled away.
"Everybody, gather around!" Marcus called out as everybody made their way to him.
He and Jude were standing side by side, whispering at a paper Flint was holding, the other team players were sitting on the ground a few feet away and Arlene briefly wondered if Jude was the captain from how they shared the leadership.
"Peggy Derrick is going to remain beater," Jude announced, causing an Asian girl with black eyes and golden hair, who was sitting with the rest of the team player, to give her a thumbs up as she took a sip from her water bottle "and the new beater is Lucian Bole."
A boy with dark skin, chocolaty brown eyes and incredibly curly hair grinned "Awesome!" He exclaimed.
"The keeper remains Miles Bletchley." Flint announced, pointing a team player with black hair in a short hairstyle, they stood up and gave a dramatic 'thank you' bow, causing their teammates to chuckle as they sat down again.
"And finally, for the new chaser." Jude said, causing the suspense to rise.
"Kevin," Flint said, looking at the boy "you scored the second shot and the quaffle was in your possession most of the game."
Arlene's self-esteem dropped.
"And Arlene," Flint continued, turning to her "You throw like a girl."
She stared at him in disbelief "I managed to score from across the field with my forehead!"
Flint broke into a grin "Exactly, you're in."
It was like the world froze as the shock settled, she was the new chaser, she did it.
The boy, Kevin, marched angrily to the castle as Sage ran at her once again and gave her another bear hug.
"We'll tell you when the practices are, and I'll send a house elf to get you your uniforms."
People started to clear out of the field, Lucian was talking with Peggy and Miles about how horrible the Chudley Canons were and Flint and Jude hand in hand.
"Arlene this is so, so awesome! This is even more awesome than awesome, what's more awesome than awesome!?" Sage rambled excitedly.
She probably meant an adjective that meant very awesome, but Arlene wasn't thinking clearly "This!"
"Yes!" Sage agreed, then she seemed to calm down "Okay, now help me get this paint off my face."
The Slytherin Quidditch Team, as Arlene would soon know, was a group of the most diverse people she had ever met.
Jude was muggleborn, extremely ADHD and she took every chance she got to embarrass Flint, Miles was gender fluid, so when she joined the team in second year, they teamed up and made her three bracelets, blue, pink and purple so they'd know what pronouns to use every day, Peggy was Asian, Lucian was black and Arlene liked girls, of course there was the slug that calls itself Draco, but you can't have everything.
As they walked, Sage spoke to her about the newspaper.
"Oh it's doing so well! I mean, not a lot of people read it, but it's only the first issue, and that girl from Ravenclaw told me she liked my writing! Also, Lee gave me an idea-"
"Woah, woah, woah," Arlene interrupted "Lee? When did you talk to Lee?"
Realizing her slip up, Sage bit her lip and looked away as she blushed "He gave me the timetable for the games and um...we sort of...talked."
Arlene raised an eyebrow "Talked?"
If possible, Sage blushed even harder "Yeah, I told him about the newspaper and...Um..."
"And?" She questioned, drilling her friend for information.
"I told him I'm going to be alone on my first Hogsmeade trip because you can't come and he said I could come with him." Sage blurted out.
Arlene's good mood rose to ultimate yeet mode "He asked you to Hogsmeade!? Is it a date? Oh we need to go shopping, where are you going to go? Are-"
"Arlene!" Sage exclaimed "It's not a date, the twins are coming."
"Oh, well why don't you just ask him on a date?" She asked, causing Sage to widen her eyes as if Arlene had just grown an extra head "Come on, what's the worst thing that could happen?"
"He could hear me!" Sage said in disbelief "Plus, Miss Love Advice, why can't you just ask out Hermione."
"It's different." She vaguely explained.
Sage rolled her eyes "Sure it is."
Before they knew it, they were at the barrels, as Sage approached them, Arlene stood as far as possible.
"This phobia is ridiculous." Sage told her she did the knock, causing the lid to open.
"If you don't do it right, you get covered in vinegar!" Arlene exclaimed she crawled into the tunnel.
Sage dropped the banner she was holding into a random armchair as the made their way to the third year dorms.
"It's not my fault our founder was high, I mean, 'tickle the pear'!? Come on." Sage argued.
"You want to talk about bad founders? Our common room is in the dungeons, do you know how long we have to walk?"
"Or the tower thing, in Hogwarts, A History, it says that Rowena and Godric had a competition about who could build a better tower, in the end they kept arguing about who had the tallest one, even though they were exactly equal, until sometime in the 1970s a Gryffindor taped a rock to the top of their tower so that it would be taller by exactly 3.5 inches."
Just as Arlene was about to make a sarcastic comment, Sage opened the light of the room, causing everybody to jump up as they yelled "SURPRISE!"
Arlene stared in shock, there was a huge "Congratulations!" banner hanging from the ceiling, everybody wore party hats and a large cake was on a table in the middle of the room.
Arlene was going to say 'thank you' but she somehow ended up saying "What if I hadn't made the team?"
Sage shrugged "I would have taken you to the Slytherin common room," She shoved a plate with a piece of cake into her hand "now eat."
Arlene smiled and joked and thanked the girls. Finally, since third year started, everything was perfect, she was happy.
She should have known chaos was just around the corner.
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I feel very strongly that there wasn't enough representation in the books, Dumbledore was basically an afterthought
Also, if you were wondering, I made a bunch of random paloroid because I was bored and couldn't find any good Slytherin quidditch images so I just used one of them.
Anyways, get ready for some serious Snake Family vibes.
Adios Muchachos :)