The Girl Who Lied || Draco Malfoy

The Hungarian Horntail

November, 1994

She couldn't do this.

"C'mon, Hya," Tracey practically begged.

The girl in question stayed firmly wrapped in her dark green comforter, auburn hair poking out the top. "Nope, I'm skipping."

"You can't! We have potions."

Hyacinth groaned loudly from her safe place, knowing that skipping potions would lead to Snape tracking her down. The last thing she needed was her head of house sniffing her out like a bird dog hunts a duck.

What she equally didn't need, however, was the rest of Hogwarts. Over the days since the announcement, everything went to shit. The Hufflepuffs bullied her relentlessly, more ruthless than she ever expected them to be in all honesty, after she 'stole' Cedric's moment. Someone in Hufflepuff had even created badges, taunting her with Draco Malfoy's well-known nickname for her.

"Evil Potter's Ghastly! - Support Cedric Diggory"

Worse than Hufflepuff's aggression was Gryffindor's. She assumed it was just because they would do anything to antagonize Slytherin when given the chance. Added with their moral-to-a-fault character, the Gryffindors were outraged at her supposed cheating. She bet if the Weasley twins had been successful the Gryffindors wouldn't have cared, but since it was a Slytherin that made it not okay. They'd even shunned Harry to a degree for his association to the matter. She heard he and Ron got into a pretty ridiculous fight about it all, but she had bigger issues than her brother's dumb friends.

Like the fact that Gryffindors would attack her in the hallways daily. She was racking up stinging hex welts like Daphne collected jewelry.

Ravenclaw, always the neutral house, did not get much involved in the new civil war that Hogwarts underwent. The worst of it from them was the occasional backhanded insults and passive aggressive comments. No, they weren't fans of her either, but since they weren't sending hexes at her in the hallway Ravenclaw was generally off her radar. So it was only half the school, really, that actively wanted her dead.

You only need to make an example of one person and all your troubles will go away.

The thought briefly crossed her mind - something not so innocent, like a slicing spell on the next person to mess with her - but no. She couldn't top to Tom's level.

"Merlin, stop pouting or I'm about to blast that blanket off of you."

"Fine, fine."

She wanted, more than anything, to be able to blend into the crowd until she disappeared.

She walked out of the common room at Tracey's side, head down as they went through the maze-like dungeons to the Great Hall. The moment the double doors opened, heads turned their way.

Blending in was impossible for Hyacinth Potter.

"...strutting around like she owns the place..."

"Cedric's going to wipe the floor with her."

"...I bet she can't even cast expelliarmus..."

"Think I can hit her from all the way over here?"

"Protego," she muttered, the hex in question bouncing off of her shield and hitting another Hufflepuff as she and Tracey walked down the aisle between the yellow and green. The victim hit by the rebound spell started to form boils over her face.

"Whoa. Did she just hex Hannah?"

"First she messes with Cedric and now she's messing with Hannah? The nerve!"