Metanoia • Harry Potter • Book I

Chapter 10

Word Count: 4032

Watching everyone get parcels and letters while not getting any yourself, Keziah realised was quite depressing. She'd gotten used to it, of course, watching all these large well-fed owls descend from the rafters with claws full of sweets and other tokens. Plus the other Slytherins usually shared with her, with Daphne Greengrass letting Keziah have a sample of the sweets and perfumes her family would send. Even Draco would allow her to have a small piece of Honeydukes' fudge or a butterbeer lolly. 

She did get a little bit of satisfaction, however, staring at Harry from across the Great Hall, that he didn't get anything either not through his owl or from his classmates. A small and very petty part of her thought it served him right for ignoring her ever since the Sorting Ceremony. Whenever she would raise her hand in greeting or try and talk to him, Harry would always be inexplicably busy or disappear among a random corridor. Fine, she'd thought grimly. If he was going to be a petty git, so would she.

Of course, none of her feelings towards Harry had anything to do with the reason that when Draco had come up to her on Tuesday afternoon, 'apologising' for being such a stuck-up prat, she'd accepted it. Her loud and dramatic answer had nothing to do with Harry's sudden appearance in the courtyard she and Draco were standing in, with Crabbe and Goyle standing guard. 

Nothing at all.

On Friday, things went a little differently. She'd walked down with Daphne since Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode had thought it too much effort to wait for them and Lily Moon had wandered off again. Keziah had been pleasantly surprised to find that Daphne was actually a nice person to keep for one-on-one company. 

Once they had finally made their way down to the Great Hall with minimal detours, Keziah found Hedwig waiting patiently on the breakfast table, pecking through Blaise's cereal.

"There you are, Keziah! Get your bloody bird away from my food!" he screeched, eyeing Hedwig mistrustfully.

"She's not mine, Blaise, " Keziah shrugged, poking Hedwig away from Blaise's food and pulling the scroll gently away from her ankle before shooing the bird away. It was a very short letter, written in a large and untidy scrawl.

"Who's writing to you?" Draco butted in, leaning over to stare at her mail from around Pansy, his voice muffled by toast. He nearly fell off the bench, from leaning just a bit too much. Pansy steadied him quickly, letting go of his robes as though he'd burned her. 

"Haven't got the chance to read it yet, have I? Not with you nosy buggers around," Keziah snapped, earning a giggle from Daphne and a smirk from Theodore, who, once again, wasn't eating a thing.

Dear Keziah,

I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig.

Hagrid.

Keziah borrowed a quill from Daphne and scribbled back a response, cringing at how it reduced her handwriting to chicken scratches. She missed her ballpoint pens. Because she had shooed Hedwig away, Keziah noticed that she didn't exactly have an owl to send a reply back with. Her solution came fluttering down with a tiny school owl that crash-landed on the table, not carrying anything. Keziah seized it by its fluffy middle and attached her reply, lobbing the feathery tennis ball up into the air.

"I believe that's called animal cruelty," Daphne winced, stroking her owl, Duchess fondly. Duchess, meanwhile, was happily helping herself to Blaise's abandoned cornflakes.

"It'll live," Keziah said flippantly, pouring sugar over her pancakes. "By the way, what've we got today?"

"Erm," Daphne fiddled with her schedule, which was practically painted in different coloured highlighters. "It's– oh! It's Double Potions with... with the Gryffindors."