The Slytherin Troublemaker

Chapter 14

I  walked towards the brown bushy-haired girl who was crying her eyes out. I sat down next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hermione what's wro-" I started. But, she interrupted and turned to face me, tears running down her eyes.

"Don't pretend you don't know what you did!" she yelled back at me. "It's all I heard all morning long. Did you guys know Granger has lice? I got Crabbe and Goyle to talk. They told me it was you." I was overcome with guilt. I had hurt someone who had tried to reach out to me to look cool in front of the Slytherins. I was being just as bad to her as Draco was to me. I vowed to myself that I wouldn't become rotten and this is what happens.

"And don't try telling me you're sorry," she said between sobs. "I tried to reach out to you when Malfoy was being mean, but I've seen you. You like him. And you weren't afraid to slam the door in the face of the person who tried to help you!"

She spoke the truth. I felt like a terrible person. How had I become so evil? And it was all just to gain admiration. Just to get the people in my house to look up to me. I was becoming the stereotype of Slytherin. I didn't know what to say.

"Colin told me what you did to his camera," she said, still crying. "I thought you were different Shayla, not just one of Malfoy's little sidekicks."

"I am different," I said quietly. "This is all a mess."

"It is, but it's your mess," she said accusingly. "You did this." I saw the ghost girl float next to us.

"You really messed this up!" she said in a girly voice. I was too upset with myself to shoo her away. But thankfully, she retreated to one of the stalls and went down the toilet. I just sat there looking at Hermione crying.

"Hermione, I have been rotten," I said. I didn't really know what to say. That was the best I had.

"Glad you've pieced the puzzle together," she said.

"I really am terribly sorry, Hermione. I don't know what got into me, but I will try to fix this," I said. I was surprised she let me get the whole sentence out.

"I don't forgive you," she said. "And you can't fix this." I deserved this. I had this coming the entire time. I just wanted to shrink and never be seen again. "But I know you're sorry," she said.

I knew that if I wanted to gain her trust back, it was going to take a long time. She was probably never going to trust me again anyhow. I blew it.

The least I could do was explain everything to her. I felt that I needed to tell someone all the motives I had for everything and Hermione was right there. I told her everything. I told her about how I had heard that all Slytherins were rotten. I told her that I was afraid to be sorted there and about the vow I had made to not be bad. I told her about the pressure I was put under to become a proper Slytherin. I told her about Draco, everything about him from his attitude changes to my crush on him. I also told her about the voices and the dream I had. It was just like word diarrhea, but she never interrupted.

"Shayla, why did you tell me all of this?" she asked when I was finished

"I needed someone to talk to and I know you probably will never forgive me, but I want you to trust me. Now you have all my secrets. You can expose them if you want. I definitely deserve it," I said depressingly.

Suddenly, she sat up and did the last thing I would've expected her to do. She smiled. "As much as you've been a jerk to me, you're an extraordinary person."

No, this couldn't be happening. I expected her to take revenge. After all, she deserved it. Instead, she took pity on me. Never again would I let myself be mean to her. She was beyond great. A perfect role model. It didn't matter that her blood wasn't pure. I never even cared about blood in the first place. It's amazing what you can be pressured into. I had only really talked with Hermione this one time and she was more a friend than any Slytherin was to me.

"I can't even tell you how much I value you right now," I said. She pulled me into a hug. I was not expecting her to forgive me, let alone hug me.

"Peer pressure can be a strong thing," she said. "I fell for the same thing when I was younger." I couldn't believe she understood me. 

"I didn't think you'd forgive me," I said.

"Neither did I," she said with a laugh. I didn't want to rush what I said next, but I mustered up enough courage to say it.

"Friends?" I asked.

"Friends," she said with a smile.

"This is great," I said.

"Precisely," she said. "Hey you mentioned hearing voices, right?"

"Ya," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"Harry heard them the other day too, but Ron and I couldn't. You should probably talk to Harry," she said.

"I don't know if that would be wise," I said. "Technically you're supposed to hate me."

"Oh, right," she said. "I forgot about that."

"Ya," I said. "Ron and Harry would probably jump me, that is if you told them already."

"They know," she said.

"Well than we should probably wait until the rumor dies down," I said.

"But, this is urgent," she said. "You and Harry might know something. Harry thinks that something bad is going to happen this year, something to do with You-Know-Who. If you helped us a little, we might be closer to finding the answer. And I know that you can't just depart from your Slytherin friends, but I hope you don't do anything nasty again. We could meet in secret so you wouldn't get in trouble for hanging out with us and we wouldn't get in trouble for hanging out with you. It will be like nothing ever happened. I will just have to suffer through this rumor."

"That's a brilliant idea," I said. "And I won't do anything bad again." I definitely picked up the words You-Know-Who. So the voices had to do with him? That creeped me out. I thought he was vanquished, gone. But, now wasn't the time to question her.

"It's settled then," she said. "It's good to meet the real Shayla."

"It's good to be the real Shayla," I replied. I knew now that I had a real friend. Not someone who pressured me to do things I wouldn't normally do. "So who was that ghost who was in here?" I asked.

"Moaning Myrtle," she said. "She's extremely annoying."

"I could tell," I said. We both stood up and brushed ourselves off.

"I'm going to go and tell Harry and Ron about this," she said. "Hopefully, they understand that you were just a misguided person and not Malfoy's little follower."

"Okay, thanks for everything," I said gratefully.

"You're welcome," she said.

She went to leave the bathroom, but right before she walked through the door, she turned back and said, "Even though Malfoy's a rotten git, I know he has a crush on you. The way he looks at you is unmistakable." I blushed as she left the room.