The Mudblood

Chapter 104 : Year 5

Here's another amazing drawing by Raven, this one of the Slytherin Six girls (:

It had been twenty-six days since Ashley Pucey has spoken to me. The absence of her pep had brought me to a more desolate state than I'd been in when Fred and I weren't speaking. If the Weasley twins and I weren't corresponding through the blackboards now, I probably would have fallen into a coma of depression.

Brian Urquhart condemned me to practicing Quidditch on my own since everyone else on the team hated me so much. The two of us practiced every morning before the sun came up, in the frigid winter air, alone. He loathed me just as much as the rest, but he claimed that he was "mature" enough not to let his personal feelings get in the way of Quidditch. He pelted the Quaffle at me hard. And Crabbe now tried to hex me every time he saw me in the hall. I was unaware that the apathetic oaf could feel so much abhorrence for anyone. Apparently his girlfriend had sparked some passion in him. He was also rebelling against Malfoy, which was odd, complaining about how he and Goyle had to help guard the seventh floor corridor while Malfoy and I indulged in mysterious activities in the Room of Requirement. This small mutiny resulted in a heated argument between Malfoy and I. What else is new. Also, according to Malfoy, Harry overheard he and Crabbe talking about the fact that we needed the two goons to be our lookouts, making Harry even more suspicious of what Malfoy and I were up to. Even though Harry and I were on better terms than before, he still didn't trust me. He shouldn't have trusted me.

It took a day for the love potion to wear off, but once Vaisey sobered up, he actually believed that I didn't spike his Eye Enhancer with a love potion. He claimed I wasn't clever enough to pull off such a feat. And he reckoned that that fourth year girl's been in love with him since she first laid eyes on his "sexiness", as he put it. The two of us then conspired to slip her a potion that forced her to speak all of her thoughts for an entire day. It was cruel but funny, and reminded me of how much I missed pranking. And it was nice to know that at least one of the boys in my year didn't absolutely despise me, since Harper and Anderson had also been avoiding me for almost a month. In Divination, which was the only class that Anderson felt comfortable speaking to me in, he claimed that he wasn't angry with me, but he had to support Harper in his grudge. The word Harper often used to describe his current state was "wounded", which Anderson made sure to emphasize whenever we spoke about it. Anderson also attempted to bribe me every time the subject came up, saying he would convince Harper to forgive me if I could break up "Weasels" and "Thomas Dean" and then make the former fall in love with him again. I said I would allow Harper to forgive me on his own. I was starting to get nervous with how long it was taking, though...

Given that I was being shunned by half of the Slytherin Six, I'd been eating my meals with the sixth year Slytherins, which Malfoy was not too pleased about, or with Darrin Hunt, who had agreed to giving me lying lessons again, to Urquhart's chagrin. I'd now learned to convince myself that I had no romantic feelings for Malfoy, which made our meetings in the Room of Requirement much less awkward over the past few weeks. Though, given that Malfoy was so busy with Prefect duties and now the mandatory Apparition lessons that he didn't need, I'd been trying to mend the Vanishing Cabinet on my own half the time.

Friday, February 14th was the twenty-sixth day of Ashley's silence toward me, as well as the dreaded occurrence of Valentine's Day.

Astoria woke up with more animation than she had in months. She globbed on an overabundance of makeup, primped her hair to perfection, painted her nails a blinding shade of pink, and wore a tight pink dress to breakfast instead of her Slytherin uniform. Ashley was in the same resentful mood she'd been clinging to for the past twenty-five days, but that mollified when we walked out into the common room and Crabbe presented her with a bouquet of green and silver roses. Melody was as dull as usual, though instead of hexing other students on the way to the Great Hall like she normally did, this morning she spent the walk informing me of her "gift" for Harper.