The Mudblood

Chapter 36 : Year 3

Due to the fact that I barely slept, I was particularly cranky over the next few weeks. Other than Draco Malfoy, no one knew about the vision I'd had of my mother's torture, and I was feeling extremely guilty about not divulging the information to the rest of my family members. How could I tell them, though? It would make things worse, surely, and as of now, I knew no way to reverse the damage. If there was a way to reverse the damage...

Ashley had been avoiding me for days, so eventually I gave up on badgering her with questions and just accepted that the entire broom closet lock-in was a bizarre situation. Malfoy didn't seem to think so, given he'd been acting completely normal with me in D.A.D.A. and Arithmancy. And by normal, I meant he was a cruel, supercilious git. Typical.

Carl Vaisey had also taken to taunting me about how horrible I was at Quidditch. He just couldn't seem to let it go that I'd dropped such an easy pass in the Quidditch scrimmage. At first, I'd tried to repudiate these remarks, but he was right about my lack of ability to be Chaser, so eventually I just ignored it.

Soon enough, the leaves on the trees had changed to fit many hues of the color spectrum, and the air had cooled to a chilling temperature. I didn't have too much time to be outside, however, since most of my time was spent cooped up in the library with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Like Malfoy, Hermione was an Arithmancy genius, yet she had a difficult time helping me understand it. By the second week in October, I'd almost given up on the class all together.

I wasn't alone, apparently, because one afternoon in mid-October, I was leaving my dormitory to head over to the library when Ryan Harper halted me in the common room.

"Lainey! Come over here!" he called from one of the tables. He had a vast array of papers and books surrounding him—a sight I'd never seen before.

"Are you...doing homework?" I questioned in disbelief as I approached him. His normally slick, longish brown hair was now frizzied and frazzled as he clutched his forehead between his hands.

"I'm trying—I don't know how you do this all the time—I'm ready to go feed myself to the giant squid in the lake," he whined.

I smirked to myself, taking the seat across from him. "Well, what are you working on? I can try to help—"

"Arithmancy," he groaned before dropping his head onto the table. I'd almost thought he'd passed out until he sprung up a few seconds later with wide, wild eyes. "It's impossible—like—what is the square root of sixteen? Is that even real?"

I covered my mouth in an attempt to stifle my laughter. "Harper—that's not even the hard part of Arithmancy. That's just Muggle math. Have you even looked at the real Arithmancy stuff yet?"

"No—I'm still trying to understand square roots—and what is this triangle thing?" he rambled, pointing down at one of the pages.

I squinted my eyes at it, unmistakably seeing a delta (∆) symbol scribbled into his notes. "Oh—that's just delta—also used in Muggle math. It usually just means change—but wait, did you really never go to school?"

Harper glanced up at me with his nose wrinkled. "You think I went to school with Muggles? C'mon, Fitzroy, I thought you knew me better than that."

I pursed my lips. "Well, I'm sure Malfoy never went to Muggle school, yet somehow he's got perfect marks in Arithmancy. Why don't you go ask him for help?"

He grunted, shaking his head. "Malfoy would never help anyone. Besides, he's too busy with Parkinson over there." He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the sofas, and I looked over to see that Malfoy was cuddled up on one with Pansy Parkinson. Er—well, Pansy was cuddling; Malfoy was just sitting there uncomfortably with a book in his lap.