Liberty - A Harry Potter fan fiction

Chapter 4 - Adjusting to School

I don't know how Lavender managed to get her wish, but I soon found myself wandering the halls alone. Come the end of first year, I still had no close friends, though I was able to talk to my house and classmates openly enough. Having copious amounts of time to study did have it's perks. Hermione and I began to vie for the top spot in classes. She'd also struggled with friends for a while, but as I was still a loner, by June she was thick as thieves with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.

Every time I saw the blonde boy who'd knocked me down at the train, I glared his way. For some unknown reason, Slytherin and Gryffindor were always paired together with classes, so I saw him nearly every day. Whenever he caught me looking at him, he'd smirk at me in return, his grey – blue eyes pouring into mine. What I wouldn't give to smack that smug look off of his face! The happiest moment of the school year for me was when I stepped off the platform at the start of summer knowing I would be free of him for a few months. 

The summer holiday was uneventful, just lots of bickering between Lavender and I, driving our parents crazy. Lavender hated the fact that I was a better witch than she and that when I did talk to our classmates, I was a lot nicer to them than she, who always had an air of superiority in her voice. I had a feeling her friends liked me, but didn't talk to me because of her. It gave me a sense of pride and as we got older I often laughed to myself knowing that I was getting under her skin the way I was. Still, I focused on my school work, determined to become first of our class.

When we returned for our second year, I met Ginny Weasley on the train. I was polite enough and made small talk with her. Apparently she saw something in me that no one else yet had. When the sorting hat deemed her a Gryffindor, she plopped into the seat next to mine instead of with her family.  

So as second year progressed, I often found myself in the library with Ginny and her second year friends. Though she and her brother Ron didn't see eye to eye, she often hung around him, Harry Potter and Hermione. Sometimes I was with her, other times I hung back. I was quiet around them, never really knowing what to say or do. They were very nice, nicer than some. But at the same time, they were always running off to do one thing or another that they would never tell anyone why they were breaking rules. Ginny sometimes went with them to help, though she never told me anything other than it had to be done to stop the Dark Lord from rising to power.

In their absence, I often wandered the halls of the castle as a way to clear my mind. Filch, and his cat Mrs. Norris never caught me. You'd be amazed at all the secret tunnels and passages I found hidden through the school.

Towards the end of fifth year, Harry had run off again. Not only did Ron, Hermione and Ginny join him, but a few other fifth years as well. I had stayed behind in potions class to ask professor Snape a question, otherwise I may have plucked up the courage to go along. When they returned, everything was very subdued around them. It was as if they knew something no one else did, and that they couldn't quite place it. But things went on, somewhat normally.

I really began to fill out the summer before and I knew that most of the boys in school had noticed. Though my twin was pretty in a baby faced way, I heard rumors that boys considered me "dark", and "mysterious", and even "sexy". I did nothing to disprove the rumors, even though all I wore under my robes was my usual combination of jeans and a sweater or t-shirt. I turned down dates more often than not. I wanted nothing to distract me from my schoolwork.

Malfoy and I never spoke nice words to each other. He usually sneered my way and I gave him a nasty retort before walking away. I'd been stuck with him as a Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts partner for the past two years and it was quite obvious that we both hated the arrangements. We only talked when necessary towards our grade and it easily made us the quietest people in the class. I suspected he didn't mind the arrangement because I got him passing marks. 

I sat with Ginny in the common room in the evenings and quickly noticed she began to spend a lot of time with a boy named Seamus. With a lot of pleading and convincing on her part, Ginny convinced me to allow his best friend Dean to take me on a few dates. I liked Dean, he was a real sweetheart, but I couldn't get past an awkward friendship with him. I knew he was more or less with me because he liked Ginny but couldn't have her, but I pretended not to notice. We dated until the start of sixth year. That was the year everything seemed to fall apart for me.