The Little Pureblood [1]

Chapter 13: Fake Friends

Week 2 + 3

My brother's owl, Hootie, was waiting for me in a nest of her own convention when I arrived at the owlery the next morning.

I looked down at the letter I had tucked in my sleeve, wondering if I was making a mistake or not for doing this before tying the letter to Hottie's leg.

"Take this to Mom, Hootie. Please."

The silver Owl did not even give me a look. She just flew off without a sound and left me to watch her go with a sense of wishing I was going along with her.

I wiped a quick tear from my face and shook my hands out as I tried to calm myself down. By the time I was walking back to the dorms I no longer had puffy eyes nor a red face but the same sense of homesickness filled my stomach like liquid lead.

When classes started up again for the week Sam and I started to feel the natural course of how Hogwarts worked and how Slytherin house was made to be a home for us. Students in green that I found in the hallways started to feel like protection to me, like having older siblings there to watch, not get involved.

In the common room, names became a newfound game for me. Older students that I had never spoken to before would call my name, or rather, call my last name if they wanted my attention. And the only times they would want my attention was when they were shooing me away from the seats I was sitting on near the fire place, the now coveted spot in the common room. I started to learn from groups of friends calling each other out, peoples names from years above me. And I started to learn peoples reputations around the school. It turns out that plenty of Slytherins were middle class and half bloods.

But only in Slytherin would I learn such information because of my house's obsession with blood status.

Draco and his gang became a prominent group in the common room, always taking up one of the fireplace lounges after classes. I avoided him like the plague, and only heard from him every other day about still waiting to hear back on my father. And when I wasn't hearing from Draco, I'd get an ear full from Pansy, the girl who somehow has decided to become Draco's prominent messenger. Or at least, so she says.

As for classes, I soon figured out what class was my caveat. Transfiguration.

For the life of me, I could not understand the transition of a beetle to a button. It just refused to work for me. Sam found my failure to be amusing. I found her amusement irritating.

As week three began I found myself sitting in the library, idly looking at my transfiguration textbook, in hopes of some kind of miracle. Sam had already left the library to take a break from her homework, ("you should seriously consider joining me before you mold into that chair!") I continued to work on my transfiguration homework, writing about the theoretical way to change a match into a needle. I had my Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration leaning on one of the lamps that stood by me on the table on the page about transfiguring similar items into the other. The example they gave me was a piece of paper and a piece of cloth.

I sighed, glaring at the same sentence I had now read for the fifteenth time in a row and then glared down at my half-finished essay before slamming my book shut with a loud Thump causing a very irritated Madam Pince to appear from around the corner and gave me a finger to the door. I gave her a dirty look behind her back before grabbing my things and walking out. When I exited, I was met face to face with Hermione who was just about to enter. When she saw me, she momentarily stopped, then looking unsure about herself, and started to walk again toward the doors.

I turned around to watch her as my mind started to calculate. Just before she opened the library door, I made up my mind and called out to her.

"Hey Hermione, how were your first classes since being back?" She stopped this time and turned to face me, her face still showing signs of being unsure.