Cherilyn Way sat in the main office of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic waiting for the headmaster while she was picking at her chipping black nail polish and rolling her eyes and glaring every time a student or a teacher gave her a weird look, silently judging her.
She hated it when people looked at her like that. Why couldn't they just mind their own damn business? It wasn't like she was all up in their noses, judging their hair color, their outfit, the way they talked and the way they walked. In fact, the thought of caring about someone else's outer appearance or general attitude disgusted her.
It had been nearly six years since the letter asking her to attend Beauxbatons school of magic had arrived in the mail, sent by an owl, that refused to leave until her mother gave it these shiny bronze coins. She had been confused at first. All her teachers and all of her friends had told her that magic wasn't real.
Her small eleven year old self had thought that the only magic there was existed inside story books, like the Magic Tree House, books she used to read when she was in third grade at the mere age of nine. The instance had seemed so long ago, undefined in the back of her mind, nearly insignificant.
She wasn't exactly alike most of the other girls at her school. It wasn't that she was the loner, or the UwU so quirky girl that pretended to be goth, or the one that was always angry or sad (even though she was), she just didn't seem fit in that well with the other students at Beauxbatons.
Her muggle mother thought that it would've been great, sending her daughter to such a prestigious school, but she had thought wrong. Cherry was nothing like the other girls there. In fact, she was the only person in the school who seemed to be who she was.
The girl had bright pink hair, while everyone else's was either blonde and brown and shone in the light, whereas hers was messy and wavy, never obeying the straightener that she had tried to force onto her badly damaged hair many times. You could say that they all looked similar.
Everyone else's make up was subtle, just like the teacher's said it should be, when Cherry's was dark and bold, her eyeliner wing nearly able to cut glass.
The girls wore a single pearl earring on both of their lobes, and Cherry had at least three piercings in each ear, her navel pierced, and a lip ring that one of her teacher's had tried to take out once last year, but the girl had refused, countering every spell the professor had tried to cast.
She was also like a muggle, in a lot of ways. If she wasn't so talented in witchy subjects, people might've assumed she was one herself. She listened to "muggle music" wore "muggle clothes" and ate "muggle food". Cherry was sick of everyone labeling her as "the muggle".
What was wrong with listening to the 1975? Or wearing some leather jackets? Or enjoyed a good old peanut butter and jelly sandwich every once in a while?
Some people even assumed that she was muggle-born, a mud blood, as the students liked to call it. And this, in fact, was just a complete lie. Her father had been Mikey Way. No one really knew much about him, only that he had been one of the greatest sorcerers of his time, accomplishing great things in his youth.
It was only too bad that he had left his wife before his daughter was born. She wondered sometimes about what her life would've been like if he hadn't left, if he had stayed and took care of her, along with Alicia, if she would've still been this way. Maybe she would've been more well known in the school, less of an outcast and more of someone they feared.
Maybe she would've learned more, considering the greatness of her father. Even the teachers had refused to tell the young one anything about Mikey when she had asked in her previous years in the school.
Cherry thought that Mikey had been an odd name for someone who people seemed to admire, someone so great. When she pictured someone named Mikey, she would've thought of some cartoon character she used to watch on Sundays, back at her little house when she was a mere child, before she had any knowledge of the wizarding world.
But now, there was no point into thinking about him. It was quite clear, to her and Alicia, that he wasn't coming back anytime soon. He didn't even know that she had existed, and Alicia wasn't reason enough for him to come back and make amends with the woman that he was once in love with.
Now, all Cherry had was her mum and this school, the place she had been in all her life.
The only reason she was putting up with all of this from her school was because of her girlfriend, Fleur.
Fleur was one of the most popular girls at the school. Most people would think, how could someone like her, be attracted to an outcast like Cherry? First of all, Fleur was a closeted lesbian. And Cherry was the only bisexual girl she knew existed inside the prestigious walls of Beauxbatons. None of the teachers or students would ever accept something as sinful and vile as homosexuality.
Fleur found out about the pink haired girls affections one day when Cherry had accidentally left her journal in the girls bathroom during fifth year, and the blonde girl just happened to stumble onto it when she had been dashing in, nearly crying her eyes out when she read those pages.
She had confronted her, asking about the letters and pieces of muggle parchment, where she had written about her confusion, read about her internalized homophobia, and read about when she finally made peace with her sexuality. They had suddenly clicked, and had been together for the bestest of nearly nine months. No one knew about their relationship, and part of the risk and excitement of getting caught was one of the things that Cherry loved about there completely secret relationship.
And surely enough, after a few months of sneaking behind closed doors, Cherilyn had reckoned she had fallen in love with the sweet blondie that she met up with almost every night in the dormitories. Sometimes Cherry wondered if Fleur had really liked her, or if she was only dating her because she was the only other girl who likes other girls.
She didn't like to think about it though, because Fleur was enough for her. Fleur had been there. Around her girlfriend, Cherry could laugh and joke around as much as she wanted, in hidden rooms all around the castle, without some student or teachers eyes following her, judging her every move.
When Cherry first came to the castle, she was carefree, fun, the jokester of her entire year. She was always the one who cracked a joke, pranked the other students, but eventually, people started to shame her for it, teasing for being funnier than the others, for not being like them, not liking the same things, not doing the same things.
Cherry had wanted to rid of this world, return to the muggle side of the universe after she had graduated from wizarding school. She wanted to move to New York, where her mum was born. She'd told her daughter great things about the place, and she had always wanted to move to America, somewhere where she could go to a good college, make some memories and push her years as a high school student learning magic tricks out of her life.
Fleur had been the only person that had stuck by her side this entire time, even if Cherry was suspicious about where her true affections lie. She ignored it though, because she was just so hopelessly in love with this woman, or so she thought.
The only other problem was the rest of the students, who just couldn't seem to get it in their heads that not everything was about them. They had there heads so far up their own asses, and Cherry had said it in their faces multiple times, though after a while she just quit trying to avenge her dignity and just sat afar, glaring at the other students and silently loathing their existence.
Why go make someone else's life miserable when you could just ruin your owns? she had thought. Because that was exactly what she had done.
Still sitting and waiting in the headmaster's office, she hadn't been wearing the required uniform, as required, because well, the ghastly shade of blue just wasn't her color. So instead, she was wearing a black button down with the top three buttons loose, and the sleeves rolled up, messily tucked into a red and black pleated skirt that she had dug up from her closet the other day, looking like she had stepped out of a 1990's grunge movie, where the main plot evolved around a biker gang and a sweet girl they'd met on the street one night at the candy shop.
Her messy pink hair flowed down her back in a bunch of unruly waves, that just seemed to describe her personality perfectly. She had a pink flower crown on top of that, one that she made from the flowers she stole from the school courtyard south of the castle. Her hair used to be purple, and had been until about half a year ago, when she decided that two years with purple hair had otta to do it.
Cherry had a thing for flower crowns. She bought the fake ones from muggle stores when she was visiting her mum on the holidays, and made some out of flowers and leaves she picked from the garden.
But as she picked at her chipped nails, she thought about why she was here in the first place, sitting in one of those overly large fancy chairs you would find in the Queen of England's castle, or in an expensive hotel room, the colors too dull and the cushion too thick.
Sighing, and even laughing a tiny bit at the situation she was in, she looked around the dreary looking office, clutters of parchment and quills, textbooks and other magical sorts of items, as Cherry's eyes landed on the painting that hung next to the headmasters desk, right in the middle of the wall.
Unlike every other painting in the castle, this one was not moving, and normal, for the muggles at least. Cherry wondered why Madame Maxime had one. She had mentioned before that she had gotten it at a muggle store once, an expensive one at that, when she was visiting.
But why would she get something so out of her world?
Because it was different. That's why it was valued, unlike many other paintings on the wall throughout the entire castle. It was an object of difference, one used to show the specialty and the peculiarness of the place.
She had it, and she treasured it enough that she hung it on her wall for every one of the students who passed by to see, to admire, because it wasn't something ordinary, to them at least. It was something entirety different, something special.
Why wasn't anything else treated the same? Why wasn't everyone treated with value and respect, why weren't muggles and their lifestyles considered as great and important as theirs were, just like the paining in Madame Maxime's wall?
Before she could answer that question in her own head, the office door opened with a swish and a flick, the headmaster entering her office with another student dressed in the same hideous blue uniform as ever other girl in the castle.
That brought her mind back to why she was here in the first place, making her unintentionally chuckle a little bit.
"You think that this is funny, Ms. Way?" The headmaster said, sitting down in the throne-like chair at her desk, with the other student standing there in front of it, looking quite smug, despite the lack of hair on her head that Cherry may or may not have caused.
"Maybe a little bit..," Cherry mumbled under breath, the corner of her mouth lifting into a thin smile.
Fake crying, the girl standing next to Maxime's desk whined, "I can't believe you would do this to me! What have I ever done to you?! Do you just go around putting that muggle hair remover in everyone's shampoo? What is wrong with you!?" She practically shrieked, smirking through the fake tears on her face.
Cherry rolled her eyes, looked her directly in the eye, and said, "You deserve it Leya. It's not my fault that karmas a bitch. Do you go around tormenting all the muggle born's?!" She glared deep into the girls soul, seething her energy into her pores, making her back down a tiny bit, though Cherry was secretly enjoying this, maybe a bit too much even.
"Cherry! Your behavior has been extremely unexceptional, and I cannot further allow this, especially at a school like this. This isn't even your first offense, young lady, but this time, you have crossed the line here. Putting hair remover in another fellow student's shampoo?!"
Maxime took a deep breath, and said, "I'm afraid, that this time, I have no choice but to expel you."
~~