Pulling Strings - Theodore Nott

9. Beware of loose lips

"Effy!" Pansy's high pitched voice called her from the other side of the common room. She stalled for a moment on her way out and turned to look at the girl. She was sitting on a sofa with Malfoy, who turned to look at her and simply gave her a condescending look. Daphne, Zabini, Crabbe and Goyle were huddled near them. She focused on Pansy again then, who was wildly moving her hand to ask her to join them. Being totally honest, she didn't want to delve into fake conversation right now, but she couldn't see a way out.

So, turning her whole body, she began to walk over to the group and ended up sitting on a couch with Crabbe and Goyle on either side of her. She tried to make herself small and avoid touching either one of them by accident but she realized quickly that it wouldn't matter what she did because the two boys seemed to be keen on bumping into her, deliberately.

Pansy was laying on Draco, her head on his shoulder while the boy looked paler than usual and almost on the verge of falling asleep. If the girl didn't notice it or didn't care, Ophelia didn't know. "I'm so glad you could join us!" she exclaimed, a calculated smile on her perfectly calculated face. It's not like I had any choice, she wanted to say, but she didn't. "I was just telling Draco here that...we should hang out more, right?" Oh dear Salazar, no. "I honestly don't know why we don't do more things together, we're roommates and housemates and..." She paused for dramatic effect. "Our boyfriends are friends, it's perfect."

Ophelia heart did a somersault hearing the word boyfriend. "N–no–we–we're not—" Her voice came out all choppy and she noticed by the corner of her eye the smug smile that appeared on Daphne's face. She swallowed what felt like a rock and tried again, this time more controlled. "I don't have a boyfriend, Pansy."

The girl in question sat up from her previous position to look at her properly. She noticed in her expression that she knew that already, then why did she...? "Oh, sorry, right. I sometimes forget that you're not actually dating Nott." She let out a rich laugh, throwing her head back slightly in amusement. Ophelia felt like a mousse trapped in a corner by a cat. No way out.

She hated herself. Here she was, the last woman of the Selwyn name, a name that once had meant so much in the spheres of the High Society. People in her family used to inspire respect, admiration...even fear. But now? She was the laughingstock of her house, it seems. No-one took her seriously, not even her pears. They saw her as a quiet girl, a girl who doesn't fight back and is always cast aside. It was her fault too, she had made that image of herself and it was extremely difficult now to try to shake that image off.

So, she endured it, as always.

"Regardless, then. We should hang out more, just us, don't you think?" She saw Daphne's face get redder and her perfectly shaped brows close together.

Pansy was eagerly waiting for an answer while every single person looked at her, waiting to hear what she would say. "Uhm...sure."

An instant smile was on the black-haired girl's face. "Wonderful. Now you may go, you were probably going somewhere before I interrupted you." She laid once more on her boyfriend's chest and considered the conversation over. Just like that, every single member of the group who had been silently listening, began once more to engage in loud conversation with each other.

Relieved that the focus was not on her anymore, Ophelia started to get up from the sofa not without feeling a small pinch on her bum. Turning around, she was met with a lascivious smile on Goyle's face and she had to gather all her willpower not to hex him right there. So, she turned around and left the Slytherin common room, he wasn't worth it, asshole.

She decided, instead, to focus back on the matter that had her going out of her common room at this late hour. It was not past curfew yet, that she knew at least because the two Slytherin prefects were still getting cozy in their common room but she knew that if this took longer than necessary, she would be in some problem. It was early October and even though the cold was nowhere as bad as it can get in the castle, a slight chill had already made its presence known and she had to fasten her school robes against herself more tightly.