Cordelia Lyra Malfoy had always been different from the rest of her family. Her family were blood-supremacists who tried to teach their views to their children. Cordelia never believed with their views and would be punished for it.
She never felt a...
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Word of Cordelia's adoption and name change quickly spread around the student population when they returned from winter break, thanks to a Gryffindor fourth year named Lavender Brown. Cordelia usually didn't care much for rumors, especially about her, but she was happy about this particular rumor spreading like wildfire. Her fellow Hufflepuffs were eager to approach her and congratulate her on the life-changing event. Professors immediately started calling Cordelia by her new last name with smiles. Even Professor Snape held back a tight-lipped smile when he saw how happy the newest addition to the Diggory family was.
Cordelia continued to feed Snuffles through out the school year, and she would occasionally bring him clean blankets as she figured the ones she brought him at the beginning of winter probably needed to be changed. She would leave the blankets on the grass by the Whomping Willow where Snuffles would bark happily and wag his tail until Cordelia would walk away. She knew from experience that Snuffles didn't want Cordelia to see where his home was.
The fifth year students started to feel the pressure of their upcoming OWL exams now that they were in the second half of the school year. Professors were assigning more homework than ever before, and students were having trouble with keeping up.
When winter turned into spring, the majority of her time was spent with Cedric and Hermione in the library. While Hermione was 2 years younger than the Hufflepuffs, she was very bright and she was a great help with studying.
Hermione had been fighting with Ron and she was grateful for the company of the older students. Cordelia assisted Hermione in helping Hagrid with his upcoming case to spare Buckbeak's life while Hermione helped Cordelia with her Transfiguration homework.
Her other free time was spent with Fred and George, when she would help them plan pranks, though she didn't participate in the follow-through very often. And she of course made time to play her guitar and ukulele. Cordelia saw these two activities as a way to de-stress from the constant studying and worrying over the exams, and she needed to make sure they still had priority.
June came around quickly and the fifth year students were stressing to cram in all the study time they could, except for Fred and George, who tried to bring laughter to the stressed out students. Cordelia felt her anxiety rise as the dates of the exams came closer, and she was relieved when they were finally over. She could only hope that she did well enough to pass, as she wished so desperately to please her new parents.
This desperation felt different this time. In the past, she felt the threat of punishment if she didn't do well. This time, she knew they would support her no matter what, which made her want to succeed even more.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
One morning a few days before the school year ended, Cordelia and her fellow Hufflepuffs entered the Great Hall for breakfast to find the student body talking in hushed voices. Rumors began to spread throughout the hall, and everyone was beginning to learn what had been going on.
