**A/N** Hello beautiful humans! Above is the stunning Slytherin student Evie West! Happy reading!
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"You got a light?" I ask Louis as we walk through the castle grounds and down towards Hagrid's hut for Care of Magical Creatures.
"You really want to have a cigarette on our way to class at eight-thirty in the morning?" Lou says digging around his robe pocket for a lighter.
"You're damn right I want a cigarette on my way to class at eight-thirty in the morning. This has been the most stressful week of my life." I say taking the lighter from Lou and lighting my fag. I inhale deeply and sigh, "Ever since Hannah threw herself at me when we got back from break I've been stressed out. She looks at me all the time, making eyes and shit."
"But she won't break up with James," Lou says, taking his lighter back and lighting up a cigarette for himself.
I exhale, "But she won't break up with James."
We step out of the group of fifth years heading down to the hut so that we aren't blowing smoke in people's faces. "Have you told him? That his girlfriend is for lack of a better word, a complete fucking bitch?" He says to me.
"Right cause that won't blow up in my face. I tell him that she tried to kiss me again and all he'll hear is that it almost happened again and I'm just a fucking asshole who flirts with people's girlfriends."
Louis laughs so much he chokes on the smoke in his lungs, "Couldn't hurt to try."
Amar comes over to us, "What're we talking about?" He takes my cigarette out of my hands and takes a drag before giving it back to me.
"Hannah Torres throwing herself at this asshole," Lou says nodding towards me.
Amar laughs, "Again? What do people see in this guy? Tall, skinny white boy with a nicotine addiction who causes absolute chaos everywhere he goes?"
The two of them laugh, I finish off my cigarette and put it out on the tree behind me, "You two are fucking assholes you know that?"
The three of us start walking towards Hagrid's place again, "The worst part of it all? I can't even be relaxed in my own fucking dorm room because James is in there." I say.
I can see Hagrid fussing with something but I can't make out what it is. "You just gotta become head boy so you can have your own dorm. Easy." Amar says with the dumbest smile on his face.
Louis snorts which draws the attention of a few girls in front of us. "You three idiots aren't talking about becoming head boy are you?" Isabella Kemp from Ravenclaw says sarcastically.
"I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere but it's way too early for that," Amar says making Lou and I laugh.
"You're a fucking pig."
"Awh come on Izzy he didn't even say it," I say with a smirk.
Isabella goes red and she and her friends turn back around to face Hagrid, who is still fussing with something that I can't see.
"Mornin' mornin' hows everyone today." Hagrid says cheerily looking at all of us, "Got a real special lesson fer yeh." He stands in front of us with his hands on his hips, "Bes' get yer books out. Go on now."
"Fuck, I didn't bring mine," I grumble. I slowly move to the back of the group as everyone looks through their backpacks. I take out my wand and double-check to make sure that Hagrid isn't watching, "Accio care of magical creatures textbook." I say waving my wand around.
We aren't really supposed to do shit like this, it was banned a few years ago when someone, definitely not Louis and I, summoned their bed for shits and giggles and it knocked out eight students.
I hear a window smash in the distance and a scream. I turn to look at the castle and I can see my textbook soaring towards me. I snatch it out of the air and squeeze back to the front of the group where Louis and Amar are standing.
"Can any of yer see wha' I got beside me?" He says looking out at us. We all look around the group, one person has their hand high in the air, they look nervous as all sin.
"I'm sor'y yer can see 'em, Miss Evie. Really am." Hagrid says to the Slytherin girl. We all look at her and I can tell that she's trying to shrink away from the attention, it's the same thing that Cass does when too many people are looking at her.
"You can't see that?" I can hear her whisper to her friend.
"See what?" Her friend says back.
"That... grey, skeleton horse thing?" Evie whispers.
Hagrid clears her throat and everyone looks back at him. "These 'ere are called Thestrals. Yer can onl' see 'em if yer been witness ter death."
There's a collective uncomfortableness in the group now, I catch myself looking over my shoulder at Evie. Lou jabs me in the ribs with his elbow and I look back around to the front.
"Miss Evie, are yer comf'terble with comin' up 'ere an do a deomonstratin' fo the class wit me?" Hagrid asks.
Apparently, Evie nods cause she comes through the group and stands beside Hagrid, as far away from the Thestral she can get I assume.
"Open up yer books to page hundred an four please an thank ye." Hagrid says. As we open our books to the page he says, he turns to Evie and has a hushed conversation with her. I see her nod a couple of times and Hagrid straightens out to his full height. "Thestrals are gentle bein's they are. For those of yer that can't see em, an I hope tha' none of yus will ever see em, they are big black horses wit white eyes. Yer books have got pictures of em."
Evie is staring at the empty space by Hagrid, I don't think she's blinked in a solid three minutes. I look at the picture in my textbook, if the thing that Evie is staring at looks anything like the thing in my book then I understand why she looks like she's gonna be sick.
"We've got a herd of em living in the forest at Hogwarts, the ol' headmaster Dumbledore brought em in, started off wit bout ten of em or so and now the herd's at forty las' time I checked. After the war, studen's came out an gave em attention all the time, cause afta the war nearly everyone a Hogwarts could see em." Hagrid continues talking, a few people around me start taking notes.
I start thinking about mum and dad, how they can definitely see these things. I'm pretty sure that everyone else is thinking the same thing right about now. Louis beside me shifts his weight from one foot to the other, "That's fucked." He mumbles under his breath.
Hagrid goes on and on about them, talking pretty quickly. Evie is stuck beside him getting more and more uncomfortable by the second. Then he goes, "D'ya mind Miss Evie? Hows bout a demonstration? Up yer get." He pulls a little stool out of god knows where and places it beside the empty space.
"Sir you can't possibly..." Evie starts.
Hagrid laughs, "He won't bite yus, up yer get now." He helps Evie up the step and it looks like she climbs the air and sits on nothing. A few of her friends shriek but Hagrid holds one of his fingers to his lips to signal them to be quiet.
"Ye holdin' on tight Miss Evie?" Hagrid asks in a quiet voice, well as quiet as Hagrid can talk, which isn't very quiet at all.
Evie looks at the nothingness underneath her. Her hands are half disappearing in what I think is the mane of the Thestral, "Yeah... Yeah, I'm good."
Hagrid then picks up a bit of rope and slings it over... again nothing but it doesn't take someone that has seen death to know that he put it around its neck. He picks up the other end of the rope and slowly guides the Thestral to a different part of the pasture that he's got set up. Evie is bopping up and down in the air with every step. It looks really fucking cool, but I have to remind myself that what she's seeing is some skeleton horse with no pupils and big bat wings.
The rest of the class is pretty uneventful, Hagrid draws a diagram in the snow trying to explain something that someone asked but it's nearly impossible to see. When the bell rings he smiles really big, "Thank yer for comin' out in the cold e'ryone. I'll see yus Friday aftanoon."
I put my book in my bag and hike it over my shoulder. Lou stays back to ask Hagrid something so it's just me and Amar walking back to the castle.
"Ah shit," Evie says beside me as she misses her bag and drops her textbook in the snow. I reach down and pick it up for her. "Thanks..." She says taking the book from me, "I'm Evie."
"Uh yeah, I know, you just rode a thestral. Kinda hard not to know your name after that." I say which makes Amar snort behind me. "I'm Freddie."
She smiles, "I know... I mean that sounded weird. It's just everyone knows who you are."
Amar scoffs, "What in the romantic comedy am I witnessing right now?" He says.
I can't help but laugh, but I stop myself cause I don't want to make it look like I'm making fun of Evie or anything. "See you around," I say with a little wink. She goes red and I don't think it's from the cold.
Amar and I walk off, "Oh course I know your name, Freddie! Everyone knows yooouuu." Amar says in a high-pitched voice making kissy faces.
"Oh fuck off," I say laughing.
Amar nudges me with my shoulder, "How do you do it? Honestly. Every single girl that looks at you is instantly in love and goes all blushy and shit."
"Mum calls it the Weasley Charm whatever the hell that means. Says that I got it from Dad."
Amar howls with laughter, "I don't think so, every Weasley I've met is an ass."
"Weasley ass? The hell are you two talking about?" Lou says coming up to us.
"Talking about your sister." Amar says with a smirk on his face, "Is Dom seeing anyone?"
I laugh a bit and shake my head. Lou makes a high pitch squeal noise, "Isn't there a code or some shit? Like sisters are off-limits or whatever?"
Amar whistles, "Not when that sister is part Veela. That woman could literally use the Cruciatus curse on me and I'd say sorry."
"Fucking hell you're such a simp," Lou says. "She doesn't even know who you are."
Louis and I both have a free period after Care of Magical Creatures so we decide that we should go up to the library and actually start studying for our OWLs. Mum asked me about it over the holiday and I totally lied to her and said that I've been studying this entire time. I mean seriously, how hard can they be? If Dad could pass them then I definitely can.
"So you think that Amar is like straight, straight, or like... spicy straight?" Lou says to me after a little bit.
I look up from my notes and into his face, "The fuck is spicy straight?" I say to him with a smirk on my face.
Lou shrugs, "You after a few too many butter beers? Course you never remember when you end up kissing Wood goodnight after a good house party."
"You gotta kiss the homies goodnight, it's common courtesy." I say which makes Louis laugh, "Why are you so interested in who Amar's attracted to?"
Lou dips his quill in ink, the man refuses to use muggle pens for some unknown reason, "I'm not... But if he's pining after Dominique then I guess he's straight."
"Who's pining after me?" Dom says from behind Louis.
Lou looks at me before he turns to look at Dom. "Just a friend of mine. Says that you could cut him in two and he'd say sorry."
"Répugnante." She says scrunching up her nose. "Have you talked to Ophelia recently Freddie?"
I shrug, "Not even a little. I couldn't care less about her right now."
Dom sits down in the empty chair at our desk and takes a few crystallized pineapple chunks out of the little plastic bag I have beside my textbook and plops one in her mouth. "She's been acting funny since the train ride. Like at practice last night she didn't say a single word."
I look at Dom, "Maybe she finally learned to keep her mouth shut. Only took her thirteen years."
"C'est une gamine. You did a bunch of dumb shit when you were her age. Which was only two years ago mind you." Dom says putting another candy in her mouth.
"I was never like her, don't get it twisted," I say, putting my pen down and giving Dominique my full attention.
She snorts, "Right, you weren't the one that told ma mère that you saw me snogging some guy in the boy's toilets? Must have been some other nosey red-headed twat I suppose."
Louis laughs, "The boy's toilets eh Dom? You're a real class act."
Domonique swats him on the back of the head, "Et qu'est ce que tu es? le prince d'Angleterre ou une merde?"
"Je n'embrasse pas les garçons au même endroit où je prends une merde." Louis says back. I always forget he can speak French, it throws me for a loop. Not that I have any idea what the fuck he just said.
"Tu n'embrasses pas du tout les garçons. Mon orteil gauche est plus sexuellement actif que toi." She laughs at her own joke but I really haven't got a clue what the fuck she is saying.
"You two wanna translate for me or what?" I say, but they both ignore me.
"Je ne veux pas entendre parler du fétichisme des pieds de Lucas, merci beaucoup." Lou says, his whole body shivers.
"Guess not then. Great." I mumble to myself.
Dominique laughs really loudly, causing Madam Pince to start walking over to us, "At least I have someone to explore fetishes with. What'd you have? A ratty old sock?" She takes another sweet from my bag and stands up, "Talk to Ophelia. She looks like she needs her big brother right now."
Dom turns around and literally walks right into Madam Pince, "Miss Weasley. Eating in the library is forbidden. Ten points from Slytherin." She says in a very cold voice.
"Ta maman mange de la merde de cheval et adore ça." Dominique says to her. Louis snorts and does his best to cover up his laughter.
Madam Pince, who apparently doesn't speak a lick of French, stares at Dom, "Don't let me catch you in here with food again Miss Weasley, I don't care if it's your last year here, you cannot start breaking my rules now."
Dominque does a very dramatic curtsey, "Whatever you say, Irma." She says using Madam Pince's first name.
As Dom walks away, back to wherever she came from Madam Pince shouts that she's taking another ten points from Slytherin.
Once Pince leaves, Lou allows himself to laugh. "Seriously, what the fuck did she just say to Pince?" I say, wanting to be in on the joke.
Lou wipes a tear from his eye, "She said, "your mum eats horse shit and loves it."