Dark

Chapter 4

Harry
“Harry!”
I was walking down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid’s hut when I heard my name being called. As I looked back I saw Hermione rushing toward Ron and I. She was smiling widely.
“Harry, thank goodness!” She said as she pulled up short beside us and joined our slower pace. “I need to talk to you. I just had Ancient Runes with Eleanor. She seems pretty nice, Harry. But she also seemed pretty upset about last night. I think you really need to talk to her.”
“What do you mean you had a class with Eleanor?” I asked. That didn’t make sense. She’s year younger than us and she’s never been to Hogwarts before. Why would she be in a fourth year class?
“Well, that’s something else I wanted to talk to you about…” She said, looking up at me with a somewhat pained expression. “I know you’re not going to like this, Harry, but you were wrong. She will be in classes with us.”
I stopped in my tracks trying to imagine how in the world she could have been placed in our year. It was all too unbelievable. Suddenly I have a sister, and suddenly she’s in my classes even though she’s younger and hasn’t had any magical education before? What in the world is Dumbledore playing at?
Deciding I didn’t want to talk about it any longer I walked more quickly toward Hagrid’s hut, leaving Ron and Hermione behind.
As I reached the cabin I could see Hagrid standing outside it and moving around several open wooden crates. I could hear an odd rattling noise coming from the crate nearest to me as well as what sounded like small explosions. What in the world did Hagrid drag up for us this time?
“Mornin’!” said Hagrid, grinning down at me as Ron and Hermione caught up. “Be’er wait fer the Slytherins, they won’ want ter miss this – Blast-Ended Skrewts!”
“Come again?” said Ron.
Hagrid pointed down into the crates.
“Eurgh!” squealed Lavender Brown from nearby, jumping backward.
That seemed to sum up the Blast-Ended Skrewts pretty well. They looked like six inch long deformed and shell-less lobsters and were pale and slimy. I couldn’t find a head anywhere. It looked like each box contained about a hundred of them. I took a step away from the box as I caught the scent coming off of them, it was like rotting fish.
“On’y jus’ hatched,” Hagrid said, beaming at the crates, “so yeh’ll be able ter raise ‘em yerselves! Thought we’d make a bit of a project of it!”
“And why would we want to raise them?” said a cold voice.
The Slytherins had arrived, Eleanor trailing along behind them, once again on her own. Of course Draco Malfoy would have something awful to say though.
As the class finished gathering around the crates Hagrid informed us that we would be spending the day trying to figure out what they eat. No one looked particularly excited about this, but to my surprise Eleanor was the first to approach the table of food options that Hagrid had laid out. She grabbed a head of cabbage and made her way toward a crate. It wasn’t until she was already tearing apart the cabbage that the rest of the class seemed to be spurred into action.
To my great displeasure, Hermione led Ron and me straight to a crate near Eleanor’s. I caught Eleanor look up towards us as we reached the crate but she quickly looked back down and rounded her own crate so that her back was facing us.
I hadn’t realized Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Blaise Zabini approach Eleanor until Malfoy’s voice carried over the sounds of disgust that the rest of the class was letting out.
“And what exactly are you doing here?” Malfoy said viciously. I safely assumed he was talking to Eleanor.
“What do you mean?” she asked. I looked up to see that she hadn’t stopped trying to feed the skrewts from the head of cabbage. She wasn’t having much luck from the looks of it, though no one else in the class seemed to be having any luck either.
“This is a fourth year’s class. You’ve never even been to this school before, how in the world did you weasel your way into our year?” Malfoy reached over the crate and ripped the cabbage out of Eleanor’s hands.
“I studied all summer, Malfoy. I took a placement test and I was okayed to join the fourth years.” Eleanor reached for the cabbage but Malfoy pulled it back farther and Pansy grabbed Eleanor by the wrist.
“Yeah right. Probably just threw the name Potter around and got whatever you wanted.” Pansy said. “You Potters can’t get enough of yourselves.” At this Pansy jerked her arm back and pulled hard on Eleanor which made her tip over into the crate of skrewts.
Eleanor let out a yelp and Hermione rushed over to pull her back out. As she stood back up and dusted off her robes she let out a groan at the sight of a hole singed into the side. One of the skrewts’ ends must have exploded against her when she fell in.
“Just leave her be, Malfoy.” Hermione said.
“I don’t think I will, Granger.” Malfoy narrowed his eyes at Hermione, “And I didn’t ask for your opinion you filthy Mudblood.”
As soon as the words came out Ron had thrust his hand into his pocket for his wand, but it was pointless. Eleanor had already extracted her own and with a quick swish toward Malfoy she mumbled an incantation that sent him flying backward off his feet.
“You watch your tongue, Malfoy. Or I’ll remove it for you.” Eleanor said with a poisonous glare toward the Slytherins.
Eleanor gave Hermione a quick thanks for having helped her out of the crate, but then she turned and walked away from the class, headed back toward the castle. She didn’t even stop to inform Hagrid that she was leaving.
Hermione spent the rest of the class shooting me anxious looks and by the time we were walking back toward the castle, she couldn’t contain herself any longer.
“Please, just talk to her, Harry. Properly.” Hermione pleaded.
“Hermione, I’m not interested. All right?”

Eleanor
I had Care of Magical Creatures earlier. Pansy had pulled me into a crate of Blast-Ended Skrewts and not only were my robes now singed, but they smelled of rotting fish. If that was the way she planned to play, then so be it.
I had gone back to my dormitory and pulled my robes off. Before retreating to the bathroom to shower away the scent, I threw my robes onto Pansy’s bed. Let her spend the night smelling like rotting fish.
I thankfully finished in time to make it to Arithmancy without being late, though I had unfortunately missed lunch. By the time I walked in though, there was only one seat left open. It was right next to Malfoy. I begrudgingly took the seat and pulled out my textbook, Numerolgy and Grammatica.
“You’re pathetic, you know that?” Malfoy whispered at me from the next seat.
“How so?” I asked him, not bothering to keep my voice down.
“You think you can just hex me and get away with it? That’s not going to happen, you’re going to pay for that.” He hissed.
“I managed to test into the fourth year after only two months of tutoring and despite the fact that I’m a year younger than the rest of you. Do you really think that I’m the person you should be messing with? Are you that insecure about your own abilities that you feel the need to punish me for my success?” I said, watching his face closely.
For the briefest moment, Malfoy’s face flitted from anger to confusion before retreating back to anger. He started to open his mouth to say something, but was cut off as Professor Vector began the lecture.
I noticed Hermione looking back in my direction. She gave me a look that said she was sorry I was stuck next to Malfoy before turning back to her work.
By the end of the class, I had another mountain of work to help me catch up to the other fourth years.
Dinner that night was a lot like breakfast. I sat by myself at the Slytherin table, but this time I had brought homework with me. If no one wanted to talk to me, I could at least use the time to get some work done. I glanced up from time to time to look at Harry across the hall. I had hoped that he would change his mind, or that maybe Hermione would have asked him to speak with me again after our discussion in Ancient Runes that morning. But he hadn’t even glanced in my direction the entire meal. So I continued to focus on my homework and my food.
When I reached my dormitory after dinner I was happy to find Pansy Parkinson down on her knees searching under bed for the source of the rotting fish smell. I had made sure the remove my robes from her bed before I had left for Arithmancy earlier. The scent lingered, but there wasn’t any specific proof as to where it came from.
I changed out of my uniform as Pansy and Millicent continued to search for the source of the smell. After piling my textbooks and papers into my arms I made my way back out toward the common room. Thankfully the majority of the Slytherin House seemed to be tired after their first day back to classes. Only a few students were lingering in the common room, and I had a selection of tables to choose from as I sought a spot to work on my homework. I chose a table in a far off corner, trying to avoid as much interaction with the other students as possible.
The hours crept by as I made slow progress on the mountainous pile of work I had laid out before me. I had no doubt that this would be my life for the next couple of months at least. Trying to catch up in both Arithmancy and Ancient Runes while dealing with a full course load of normal homework was going to be difficult. But if anything, I was certainly determined. I had spent the entire summer committing sleepless nights to learning as much as possible before my placement exams. I could easily bring the same amount of effort and determination to this task as well.
It was nearly midnight and my eyes were beginning to feel heavy. The runes I had been focusing on for the past few hours were beginning to blur together and I needed a break. So I closed my textbook and leaned back in my chair with my eyes closed. That was my mistake, letting my defenses down.
I felt a sudden burning sensation against my chest as the spell collided with me and my chair and I were knocked backwards by the force of it. I immediately tried to move but found that I was completely frozen. I could see everything around me and hear the snickers of the approaching Slytherins, but I couldn’t move.
“I told you you’d pay.” Malfoy said as he came into view above me, surrounded by Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise, and Pansy. “We’ll just leave you here for someone else to find.”
Malfoy waved his hand lazily and Crabbe took it as a cue to move. He reached over the table and pulled my Ancient Runes book into his arms.
As they turned away from me I could hear Malfoy calling over his shoulder, “Good luck with that homework, Potter.”