intrigue ' sirius [editing]

i. colors

chapter
↳ one
moodboard
↳ red & green

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Mildred Yoon hated the colors red and gold. Perhaps it was the fact that they clashed so harshly against each other. Perhaps it was because they were fit for a palace interior, and not the den of an old Scottish country home. Perhaps it was the fact that she was surrounded by those colors every day, and with them, the virtues they represented.

Gryffindor was the home of the brave and the daring, and Millie didn't belong there. She never had, although her family refused to believe it. When she and her brother first attended Hogwarts, however, it was set in stone. Millie was never a Gryffindor. She was a Slytherin.

This was okay with the young eleven year old, who thought snakes were cool and a common room under the lake was a great accommodation. She was excited to tell her parents that she wore green robes to class every day, unlike the red ones her twin brother donned. Her excitement quickly evaporated when her parents wrote back, telling her that the Slytherin house was a disgrace, and people who were accepted into that house never came out the same. They turned into bad wizards, Millie was told.

She wanted to argued back every time they said something against her house. What about Merlin? The greatest wizard of all time, who did nothing but good for the wizarding world? Wasn't he a Slytherin? What about professor Slughorn? He's super nice and helps me after class. He makes potions fun.

They sent letters to Dumbledore, requesting that she be put into Gryffindor, or at the least, Ravenclaw. If she couldn't be brave, she could at least be witty. When Millie found out about the letters, she was devastated. Her parents would never understand her unless she was in Gryffindor. They would never try. While her brother received praise and gifts, she was warned to stay out of bad crowds and to make friends with other houses instead of her own.

Millie never wanted to be on her parent's bad side. She lied her way through her years at Hogwarts. Instead of telling them about all the friends she made, she'd tell them how horrible every Slytherin was and that it truly was a mistake for her to be associated with those people. Instead of excitedly writing about how well her quidditch team was doing, she would rant about how Gryffindor definitely should've gotten the win.

As soon as she arrived home for the summer, her green robes were stored in the bottom of her trunk and her torso was covered with her mother's old Gryffindor sweaters. She would fake it and act like Gryffindor was all she wanted. How Gryffindor was the house she longed to be in, and red and gold were the colors she longed to wear.

In reality, she hated Gryffindor with a passion. She hated the scarlet color of blood and the golden color of a galleon. She preferred her emerald: the color that looked just like the murky waters of the black lake during a sunrise. She preferred silver, and the way her similarly colored ring would glimmer in the sun whenever she went outside. She didn't belong with the heroes in red. She didn't belong with those who thought they were kings wearing their golden-striped ties. She belonged with the outcasts in green. She belonged with those who came from hardened families and broken love. She belonged with those who had families who would never understand, and never care to.

It was better that they didn't know, she assumed. She was entering her sixth year, and they still had no idea that she loved Slytherin house with all her heart and hated Gryffindor with a boiling passion. They didn't know that she had friends, and was the star beater on her quidditch team. They had no idea that she was a top student in potions and helped tutor Slytherin first years when they didn't understand the material. They would never know how much she hated Gryffindor. Just looking at someone from that house could get her blood boiling. The fact that those no-good arrogant brats thought every Slytherin was on their way to serve You-Know-Who really irked her. In reality, Millie knew so many Slytherins that weren't interested in being evil. She knew Slytherins who wanted to be muggle doctors, wizard lawyers, and hogwarts teachers. They weren't all evil, and yet that's all her family saw.