Being His Daughter

The Growling Tree

  "Draco if you don't stop I am going to-"

"Whoa, don't get too nasty love. I'm just playing with you," Draco said quickly as he shifted slightly away from me. I scribbled one last sentence on my essay for Snape before I leaned back and cracked my knuckles.

"Okay done," I announced mostly to myself. "Now all I need it Flitwick and McGonagall." Please kill me.

"Hey, Crabbe," Goyle said from where he sat across from me in the common room, right between Crabbe and Blaise. "Watch this." He flicked his wand and a bookcase a couple feet away from us fell to the ground, making a group of first years who were chatting underneath it shriek and scurry away. Draco, Goyle, Crabbe, Blaise, and Theodore all howled with laughter and I sat back crossing my arms.

"Ahem," I snapped, making Goyle look over at me. "I'm trying to do homework. And lay off the first years. You were right where they are two years ago."

"I was never as helpless and lost as them though," Goyle countered cockily, making me raise a single eyebrow at him.

"Oh, really?" I asked, my hand twitching suddenly. "Because I think you were just, if not more, as helpless and lost. I mean, you've been following Draco around like a minion for almost three years now."

They all stared at me in shock as I huffed and stood up roughly, shoving all of my parchment and quills into my bag. I stomped away and down to my room without saying another word, and left them to mutter curiously.

I swung the door to my room open, making it collide with the wall with a loud bang.

"Holy crap, Sierra!" Airam said with a hand over her heart. "You scared me!" I marched past her without so much as a glance and threw open my trunk, throwing in the completed essay and empty ink bottles. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I muttered, slamming my trunk closed. I heard the soft pad of her footsteps and felt her presence right behind me. I grumbled irritably as I took the new parchment I had pulled out of my trunk and rolled it up into a scroll. I still had two more essays to complete, but I didn't feel like going back down to the common room to do it, especially since I had just gone off on Goyle and they would all probably question me. My head ached with the thought.

"Sierra," Airam said. "Something is wrong. You can tell me-"

"I said nothing is wrong!" I snapped, pivoting my body towards her quickly and glaring at her. She looked taken aback as she stepped back quickly. Her large, dark brown eyes scanned my face, and I wanted to apologize to her, but instead I spun on my heel, grabbed my jacket, and darted out the room.

Ignoring the stares from the five boys that was burning a hole in the back of my head, I shoved my way out of the common room and out into the chilly dungeons, my parchment and quill held so tight in my hand that my knuckles had turned white. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Something so small as Goyle irritating me, which he had done quite a few times throughout our school experience, had set me off. It also caused me to be an absolute grumpy arse to Airam, who was only trying to be a good friend.

More frustrated than when I left the now stuffy common room, I hurriedly trekked down to the castle exit, but someone grabbed onto my upper arm before I could leave.

"I just want to do some homework outside, Draco," I whined as my persistent blond-haired best friend spun me around to face him.

"Okay, I get that but...are you alright? I mean--you've been weird lately--"