Huffily Puffily || Golden Trio

Lemon Drop || xxxvii

Lucy woke up the next morning, a dull throbbing in her temple that only worsened when she saw what time it was. Five minutes past noon. Now, this was all well and jolly on any other day, but this just so happened to be a weekday and she had a little thing called 'class' to get to. She glowered at her alarm clock. Mrs. Cole had given it to her. Even hundreds of miles away, the old woman still caused her suffering.

She went to get out of bed, but in her brilliance she managed to catch her foot in her blankets. She fell face first into the mahogany wood floor, groaning.

"Good one," an amused voice said.

She didn't bother getting up. For one, she was still very tired and for another, she didn't know she was going to make eye contact with Tom after the previous night. She hated crying in front of people, and he was the coolest of her friends. You can never cry in front of a cool friend... She sighed and rested her cheek against the cold floor.

"That's it," she said dramatically. "I'm dropping out!"

She saw Tom's legs pass in front of her. Did he walk through her? Git. Unwillingly, she pulled her eyes up to see him giving her an amused look. "And what do you plan to do out of Hogwarts?" he asked.

She pretended to think about it. She rolled onto her back and stroked her chin. This was how professionals thought.

"Maybe tax fraud is my calling," she said decidedly.

Tom gave her a flat look. "Yes, the Darkest Art of tax evasion suits you fine, Lucy," he said sarcastically. "Anyway, you didn't have to rush in the first place; Herbology is canceled due to a blizzard."

"How do you know?" She wondered.

"Just because you were sleeping doesn't mean I was," Tom said, like it was obvious. "That Locke girl mentioned it in passing. I'd have woken you up if you were running late."

She grinned despite herself. "You're such a good alarm clock, Tom."

"On second thought, you're on your own."

He leaned back against the wall, and Lucy sat up, observing her dormitory. It was empty— she had locked it, after all— but the lack of friends inside it was depressing all the same. She was surprised she slept in so late, but then again, yesterday had been rather stressful.

She was less upset with the fact that she had gained a mysterious ability to speak Parseltongue— it was off putting, certainly, but at the end of the day, there was no real loss. If it wasn't snowing, she was half-tempted to find a snake just to have a conversation. She was more upset that her friends— ex-friends— formed a militia against her. They refused to hear her out. Lucy knew she wasn't the most moral of people, but she'd do anything for her friends... If she caught any one of them red-handed at the scene of a crime, she'd still go out of her way to ask them the circumstances. Why couldn't they extend the same respect to her?

Their bitter accusations had completely blindsided her. One moment Megan was crying to her about how scared she was, and the next she declared that Lucy was the devil. It made her wonder... had Megan always felt this way? Did they all think she was evil, and this was the first time they decided to say it? The thought disturbed her. She truly thought she could trust them.

At least she had Tom and Harry, the two people whose confidence never wavered for a second. Ron and Hermione had her back too, even if they had been wary of her Parseltongue last night... The whole world could hate her, for all she cared. She'd be alright so long as she had them on her side.

"Soooo, what do you want to do?" Lucy asked, leaning back against her bed. Tom hadn't made fun of her yet, so she wanted to let him take control of the day. It was the least she could do.