I thought I knew my ending - Year 1 and 2

Chapter 11 - A proposition from the new teacher

As it goes at any High School, magical or not, information circulated faster than within a secret government agency. At dinner, a couple of hours after our Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, every department knew about my fight with James.

I seated myself at the table opposite of Evelyne and Severus and Evelyne immediately started bombarding me with questions.

"Not right now, please," I said as I grabbed the bowl of green beans and started scooping them onto my plate. I tried not to look at Carrow who stared at me as if I had just given him a present. I got something thrown against my head and looked up as I grabbed the Brussel sprout that had fallen into my plate.

"Hey, Evans."

"What?" I snarled, but quickly shut up when I saw Bellatrix grinning at me.

"What have I heard about you and Potter?" I sighed and tried not to look at her. I didn't want to start a confrontation with this self-righteous unpredictable witch.

"I didn't know you could go that high with a Leviosa,' she continued, 'you'd better teach me. Who would have thought our mudblood could attack a Gryffindor with harmless spells?" I was glad she started laughing after that and didn't hear Severus threaten her: "Don't call her that..."

As I walked down the corridor between Severus and Evelyne, I heard an angry buzz from the Gryffindors behind me. They didn't even try to whisper.

"Who does she think she is?"

"Did you hear what she did? And James couldn't help it."

"What a terrible witch."

"She belongs in Slytherin, I wouldn't have wanted her in my House."

I turned to them, ready to lash out, but Evelyne stopped me.

"No... don't prove them right by going against it. They don't know how it happened and Potter is not going to help you by explaining everything."

"I won't let anyone talk about me like that," I hissed as I felt my ears turning red.

"I understand it doesn't feel fair, but believe me if you go against them now, it's only going to get worse. Let it be and after a week or two they will have found something new to gossip about and someone to suffer because of it."

I didn't say anything. I wanted to believe her. It was the rational thing to do, but it felt incredibly unfair to let all these comments wash over me like this.

"Thank you, by the way," Severus whispered. This was the first thing he said to me after the incident. "I don't know how I could have fended him off. If it wasn't for you, Potter could have made a big fool of me."

"Or made you end up in the hospital wing," I muttered as I thought of James' murderous glare.

Evelyne was right. After a week, the freshmen from Huffelpuf, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor were no longer walking around me with frightened looks on their faces, there were no more whispers about me in the halls and students stopped looking at me dirty when I passed them. A few things had happened that made them forget what I had done:

1) A student from Huffelpuf had caused a potion to fail so badly that all his classmates ended up in the infirmary with horribly smelly and festering sores.

2) James Potter began to spin his story to the point where everyone began to doubt his credibility.

3) There was a rumour going around that Professor Slughorn and Professor McGonagall had secretly gone on a date with each other and were now having an affair.