by Veruka
Notes: First and foremost, I wrote this on a whim for my own personal enjoyment (and Faith's), and decided to post it out of morbid curiosity to see if other, less biased folk would dismiss it as a piece of shite. It's part self-insertion (and blatant fantasising), part perverse experiment, and deals with mental illness, masochism, sadism, blood, pain, and all sorts of other unpleasant things, so sensitive and/or squeamish readers take heed.
Part 1 - Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here...
If anything can be said for foreshadowing, the mid-November weather was grisly the night she arrived, cold and dismal. Rain and snow fell simultaneously from the sky in sheets of soggy ice that turned the grounds into freezing mud. A person would have to be out of their mind to travel by broomstick in such weather -- which was the precise opinion of all but one of the faculty members of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, of the drenched young girl holding a broomstick, standing in the headmaster's office.
"You flew in?" McGonagall had asked her incredulously upon meeting her in the school's massive Entrance Hall. "Are you mad? You must be frozen!"
"I enjoy the cold," the girl had said simply, though she took the blanket the deputy headmistress had conjured for her and wrapped it around her shoulders loosely.
"And your parents consented to your turning yourself into an ice sculpture?"
"My parents have always allowed me my freedoms."
McGonagall had made a small sound of disapproval, and they walked in silence until reaching a very ugly stone gargoyle. "Pumpkin pasty," she told it, and the gargoyle sprang aside as the wall behind it split in two, revealing a spiralling staircase with steps that moved continuously upward. Ten minutes of waiting later, and they found themselves in Dumbledore's office.
"Miss Cross, I presume?" he asked, and the girl nodded once. "Welcome to Hogwarts. I'm Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of the school, and may I introduce professors Flitwick, Sprout, Snape, and you've already met Professor McGonagall," he said, gesturing at each of the four other adults in the room in turn. The girl looked each of them over at length. Professor Flitwick couldn't have been more than four feet tall, though his face was old and kind, like the headmaster's. Sprout was a short, plump, and pleasant-looking witch, while Snape appeared to be the exact opposite: Tall, thin, and male, with a hard glare embedded into his features. McGonagall looked just as stern as he did, but there was a softness in her eyes that betrayed that severity.
Dumbledore glanced down at a piece of parchment on his huge, claw-footed desk. "Ah, yes, everything seems to be in order..." he mumbled to himself, then looked up at McGonagall. "Minerva, the Sorting Hat, please."
McGonagall rose and retrieved the battered, ancient pointed hat from its stand and placed it on the girl's head. "Every Hogwarts student must be sorted into one of four Houses," Dumbledore explained as the hat sat quietly. After a few moments, a flap on its brim opened to speak loudly, "Slytherin!" The girl didn't seem to be affected much by this information, and Dumbledore gave her a small smile with a curious twinkle in his eye before nodding in approval.
"Slytherin House is to be like your family while you're at Hogwarts," he said. "Professor Snape is your Head of House. He will show you to your dormitory. We received your things earlier today; they've already been taken up to your room. Oh, and we mustn't forget this..." He handed her a small cream-coloured card. "Your class schedule. You'll be needing that, I think."
She thanked him quietly, and Snape stood and started for the door. "Come with me," he snapped, and she followed without a word as he led her back down the spiralling staircase.
Snape watched the girl out of the corner of his eye as they walked. She was managing to keep pace with him, probably due the fact that she was quite tall for her age, about five-foot-nine. Tall, yes, but not particularly healthy-looking. Wrapped in her dripping black cloak and the grey blanket McGonagall had given her, she looked washed-out and pale, possibly even paler than him, and even bundled up as she was he could tell that she was far too skinny for her height, though from what he knew, her family was far from impoverished: Her father, Stephen Cross, had acquired a position with England's Ministry of Magic as an Unspeakable -- a lucrative, if secretive, job -- and had relocated his family from America to London, thus forcing his daughter and only child Gwendolyn, age sixteen, to transfer from Asgarth Preparatory Academy of Magic in New York to Hogwarts, and consequently, into Slytherin House.
At last they reached the depths of the dungeon corridors, stopping at a stretch of stone wall near the end of one especially long hallway. "Cruciatus," Snape hissed, and the door hidden within the wall slid open. He turned to Gwendolyn. "Don't forget the password. It changes every week. The prefects will keep you informed. Your dormitory is down the left stairwell, second level, dorm C. Breakfast begins at eight in the Great Hall. Classes begin at nine. Understood?"
She nodded once and gave him an almost inaudible "Thank you." Snape spun on his heel and started back down the hall, his robes billowing out behind him. "Oh, professor," she called softly after him, and he turned to face her questioningly as she pulled a slightly damp envelope from one pocket of her robes. "Could you please tell me where the owlery is located? I need to send this off to my parents to let them know I've arrived."
Snape gave her a look that said without words, "You couldn't have mentioned this before we came all the way down to the dungeons?" Still, he stepped forward and held out his hand. "Give it to me. I'll make sure it gets sent." She did, and after a curt nod of goodnight, he was off again.
Gwendolyn stared after him for a couple of moments, then turned and entered the Slytherin common room. Rough stone made up nearly the entire room; the only light came from dim greenish lamps hanging by chains from the ceiling, and a crackling fire in an elaborately carved stone fireplace. A few large green and silver rugs covered the floor in front of the fireplace, and on them sat about half a dozen high-backed chairs, all of which were filled by older students with their faces buried in books -- probably seventh-years studying for their N.E.W.T.s. On either side of the half-circle of chairs there were Victorian-style sofas, both made of ebony and upholstered in black leather. A good portion of the walls were covered by tapestries, also green and embroidered with silver snakes.
A group of girls that had been talking quietly on one of the sofas glanced up at the new arrival. One of them, a pug-faced girl with mean brown eyes in the centre of the group, obviously their leader, looked Gwendolyn over with a scrutinising sneer. "Look what the kitty dragged in," she whispered to the others, who giggled maliciously. She rose and sauntered over, and the group followed her obediently. "You must be the new girl," she said, and did not offer her hand for Gwendolyn to shake. "I'm Pansy Parkinson. This is Blaise Zabini;" she nodded over her shoulder to a smirking girl with red hair, "Tracey Davis;" another nod, this time toward a fairly tall girl with bird-like features, "and Constance Greengrass." Constance was a small, dark-haired girl with wide brown eyes and flushed cheeks. She seemed the most timid of the group, but was trying hard to form a nasty curl to her lips. "What's your name?"
"Gwendolyn Cross," the latest Slytherin said shortly, and Pansy's eyes narrowed a bit.
"You're American?" she said, more of a demand than a question. Gwendolyn's stoic features didn't so much as flich.
"Yes."
"You're very quiet," Blaise commented suspiciously. "You're not...one of them, are you?" "One of whom?" "A Mudblood," Pansy explained. "You know, Muggle-born, impure, not of true wizarding heritage."
"Yes, I'm aware of what a Mudblood is -- and no. I'm pure-blood." The statement wasn't quite impressive enough to appease them, until she added, "I was under the impression that Salazar Slytherin didn't allow Muggle-born filth into his House."
The girls stared at her as though they could dissect her with their eyes, and after a short bit, Pansy broke out into a wicked grin.
"You're all right, Gwendolyn Cross," she nodded approvingly. "Come on, you're sharing a dorm with us. Your things have been in there since dinner. You'll probably want to change into clothes that...make you look less drowned."
"Lovely," Gwendolyn muttered, and followed the catty group down the left stairwell, second level, dorm C, just as Snape had said. Sure enough, her large trunk rested at the foot of an empty four-poster bed. It, too, was outfitted entirely in green and silver. On top of the trunk sat an empty black basket with its lid off, and Gwendolyn looked curiously at Pansy.
"Oh, we let her out to get her used to the place. She was yowling like mad to be free. Pretty thing, she is. What do you call her?"
"Morgaine," Gwendolyn said, and at the sound of its name, a pretty, sleek black cat emerged from beneath the bed and rubbed against its mistress's wet robes. She picked it up and scratched it affectionately, and was awarded with a pleased purr from the feline before it was set down on top of the bed so Gwendolyn could open up her trunk to retrieve her nightdress. As she began to undress, the other girls dispersed and returned to their previous conversation, something about a Quidditch match against Ravenclaw, and how there was no way a Chang was going to beat a Malfoy at getting the Snitch. Gwendolyn ignored them for the most part and pulled on the short black chemise she always slept in, then slipped beneath the covers of her massive new bed.
"You're not going to sleep, are you?" Pansy asked. "It's early yet."
The redheaded girl -- Blaise -- saved Gwendolyn from replying. "She's probably tired from her trip, Pansy. Let her rest. You can grill her tomorrow."
Pansy frowned, but didn't argue, and the new girl pulled the curtains shut around the bed and closed her eyes, though she knew that sleep would take its time in visiting her. Morgaine curled up comfortably at her feet, and her mind drifted briefly back to Professor Snape. He was so odd-looking, with his hooked nose and greasy hair, thin frame, and those inky black eyes...
Yes, she decided she was especially fond of his eyes. She pictured his pale, skeletal form cloaked in black robes, like Death himself leading her down into the depths of the castle dungeons. Gwendolyn had always had a penchant for Death.
She'd always been a strange girl, in the eyes of others, at least. The words 'eerie' and 'creepy' could often be found strung in sentences concerning her, though she had never paid much attention to these or any opinions of herself other than her own, whether they be about her appearance or state of mind, both of which were a touch...abnormal, to say the least.
"What have you been feeding this child?" her Aunt Alverda had often demanded of her parents, shaking Gwendolyn's frail wrist in her hand. "She's nothing but skin and bone!"
"We feed her plenty," her mother had responded -- she'd never been too fond of Aunt Alverda. "She's just picky."
"You need to eat more, girl," her aunt still kept on. "You'd be very attractive if you only had some meat on your bones."
Gwendolyn, of course, ignored her. She was perfectly content with her appearance, and wasn't about to trust the judgment of a woman who considered pink chiffon robes to be the height of magical fashion.
From beyond the bed curtains, she heard Pansy and her flock of followers burst into a fit of giggles, and rolled her eyes. One thing that she would apparently never escape, despite now being in an older and supposedly classier country -- teenagers who acted their age. Oh, she was all for getting good and unbecomingly smashed when the occasion called for it, but acting like an utter goose incessantly? She would never understand the appeal. Another gripe of her Aunt Alverda's when she had been young: "Why does the child never smile? What possible reason does she have to always look so unhappy?" And once again, her mother would give an exasperated reply: "She's a very intelligent girl, Alverda. I think she's simply too logical to find humour in the mundane. She takes after her father in that respect."
"Stephen was quite playful as a child!" her aunt would persist.
"Gwendolyn plays," her mother argued. "Why, just yesterday I looked in on her having a tea party with an imaginary friend. She's very creative, just...serious."
Imaginary friend, indeed. Perhaps imaginary to them. To Gwendolyn he was very real, resplendent in his distinguished black robes, with his scythe resting regally against the table by his side like a staff. That had been his only visit to her, but it was more than enough to spark a lifelong infatuation. It was love at first sight.
She'd asked him politely, "If I am not to die soon, why have you come to visit me?" And Death had answered her, just as politely, "Because, my dear, you make excellent tea." It was a response that would make most people's brows furrow in bewilderment, but to Gwendolyn, it all seemed perfectly logical, cause and effect. She hadn't given it much thought at the time -- hadn't cared to, really. A very interesting man had come 'round to visit her, and had given her a compliment. It needed no more explanation than that.
Seeing Professor Snape that night had brought the memory back fresh in her mind. She'd never seen anyone that so resembled her childhood fascination, and had the presence to match. Snape was possessed of that same hushed, down-played exterior that deceived the tremendous authority, knowledge and power that was commanded within, and Gwendolyn was sure that, like Death, Snape's demeanour and treatment of others depended on how readily they accepted him for what he was. Death could be a violent, terrible, wrathful thing, but he could also be funny, ironic, and even downright pleasant, if one knew when to protest and when to yield. She had an inkling that Snape could be just the same -- all she had to do was be logical about him.
The fleeting mental image of his face had brought forth nearly two hours of contemplation, and Gwendolyn found herself sinking into a pleasant half-dream of random glimpses of her unconscious. She had just begun to boil the Potions master in a kettle of tea when at last she drifted off, and the picture faded to black.
She was awoken by a sharp nudge to her left shoulder, and sat bolt upright in bed, causing whomever had been prodding her to let out a small, startled shriek. Gwendolyn turned her head to see Pansy standing next to her, one hand clutched tightly to her chest, looking alarmed.
"Bugger all, don't ever do that to me again!" she gasped out and lowered her hand, regaining her composure. Gwendolyn only looked at her quizzically. "I thought I'd wake you so you wouldn't miss breakfast," Pansy continued. "It's already ten to eight. I wasn't sure how long it takes you to get ready in the morning."
Gwendolyn rotated her neck, then twisted around to either side. A series of pops sounded from her back as her spine cracked from the lowest vertebrae up to the highest, and the other girl wrinkled her nose in distaste and shuddered.
"Ew. How do you do that?"
The newest Slytherin shrugged and arched her back forward, popping the last two joints easily. When she had finished, she turned back to Pansy. "Thank you."
"No problem," the pug-faced girl muttered, then left the room, shaking her head. Once she was gone, Gwendolyn rose, got out her toiletries from her trunk, and headed for the bathroom to wash up.
It took her a good half-hour to break free from the daze of early morning. She was a nocturnal creature at heart, and the only mornings worth being awake for, in her opinion, happened after she'd been awake for the whole of the previous night, or ones that began before the sun rose. It wasn't until she was mid-way through pulling her long, dark brown hair back into a French braid that her brain could be considered fully functional, and even then it was a bitter functional at best.
After dressing and giving Morgaine a good morning scratch on the neck, she checked the schedule Dumbledore had given her the night before. First period was History of Magic with Professor Binns, and following that, a twenty-minute break. Good. She would only need to cart the one textbook to breakfast, then.
Finding the Great Hall had been simple enough, as it was the most obvious room in the school with its enormous polished oak doors through which students and faculty alike were continuously swimming in and out of during that time of day. She stepped inside, and surveyed the scene with a calculating eye. The Great Hall was obviously called 'great' for a reason. Hogwarts in its entirety was truly grand, there was no denying that. Grander than Asgarth had been, certainly, with its Norse heritage and gruff wood-and-brick architecture. True, it was the oldest and most illustrious wizarding school in North America, but it lacked the opulence and atmosphere of Hogwarts, the almost tactile sensation of the past that seemed to float around the school like a warm blanket. It would probably have it even without the twenty or so ghosts hovering above the tables. One in particular, a gauntly-featured spectre with silver bloodstains covering his robes, caught her eye. Ooh, yes, she liked him. That was how a real ghost was meant to look -- frightening, foreboding. Just deadly glares and vicious scowls, none of that jolly laughter which was coming from a podgy, bald phantom who was conversing with a lanky-looking ghost with a thick ruff around his neck. They should've been ashamed of themselves.
Gwendolyn recognised the Slytherin table easily, and slid onto the bench next to Tracey and Constance, across from Pansy and Blaise. After taking a cranberry scone from one of the large plates that lined the middle of the table, she continued on with her inspection of the huge room while she covered the pastry with jam and cream. The table next to Slytherin was evidently reserved for Ravenclaw House, judging from the blue and bronze patches on the front of their robes. After them came the Hufflepuffs, yellow and black, and then finally the Gryffindors on the other side of the hall, scarlet and gold. She scanned the table for one individual in particular, and found him near the top end, flanked by a gangly redheaded boy and a haughty-looking girl with bushy brown hair.
The infamous Harry Potter in her very same school year. Fancy that. Though he wasn't much to look at -- she'd expected him to be taller somehow, less...well, mongish-looking. With his mass of untidy black hair, small frame, and round glasses, he hardly looked the part of the Dark wizard-defeating hero. She'd never thought much about him to begin with -- after all, she, too, had only been a year old when the boy wonder managed to half-kill the Darkest wizard of their age.
Lord Voldemort was far less publicised in America, a bit like the worrying nuisance Hitler had been during the Muggle World War II before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and officially dragged the States into the conflict, though the Potter baby's thrashing of his powers had been considered internationally a bloody lucky miracle.
Yes, Gwendolyn knew Potter's name. No, she hadn't ever given him much thought, and she wasn't about to start now. She had far more interesting pursuits than a fortunate, rumpled, fifteen-year-old boy.
Her dull green gaze shifted to the exceedingly long High Table at the front of the room. Dumbledore sat in what appeared to be a highly structured throne in the centre of the table. Seated next to him was stern McGonagall, followed by a scruffy-looking man with sandy brown hair in battered robes. Next to him was nothing short of an absolute Ogre of a man with a thick, bristly beard, then a regal-looking black woman outfitted in robes of golden-yellow. Gwendolyn's eyes stopped at the person sitting dourly next to the black woman, and watched as Professor Snape mumbled responses to a witch in royal blue robes with spiky silvery hair who was speaking to him animatedly.
"Hey Gwen," Pansy interrupted her observations, "enlighten us: What magic schools do they have in America?"
"Gwendolyn," she corrected the other girl shortly. She had a given name and wasn't one for shortening it cutely. "Because America is so large, there are three schools: Asgarth Prep in New York, which I attended, the Salem Institute in Oregon, and Magia en la Pantano de la Cocodrilo Crespo somewhere in the South, I think either Texas or Mississippi. It's Spanish for Magic in the Swamp of the Fuzzy Crocodile. We didn't really associate with them much."
"What was your school like?" Tracey asked casually, trying not to appear too eager.
"Not like this," Gwendolyn said, her eyes raising to look at the mammoth arches of the ceiling. "It was more...ship-like. The Viking wizards who first settled there had a lot of nautical influence in their designs. This place is like a palace."
"Did you have Houses, like Hogwarts does?" Constance put in shyly.
"We did, named for the old ones of the Norse country. Odin, Heimdalr, Freyja, and Loki. There's no Sorting Hat, though. Instead, we had five fire goblets, four smaller ones surrounding one large one. The same sort of goblets that choose the most worthy contestants for the TriWizard Tournaments here in Europe. All the new students' names go into the centre goblet, and it chooses which House you belong in by spitting the names back out into the Houses' corresponding goblets. I was a Loki, naturally."
She didn't elaborate further, and Blaise looked like she was about to ask something more when Pansy spoke up with a syrupy smile.
"While I'm sure that this conversation is far more fascinating than anything Binns will have to say, we're going to be late if we don't hurry." She rose, and the others followed suit. Gwendolyn memorised which corridors they were taking as they went along, and was careful to keep an eye out for any trick steps. Back at Asgarth, one staircase in the Charms wing would begin to roll like a wave at random, while another near the Transfiguration room had a step that you had to skip, for the second you put a foot on it, it would turn liquid and you'd find yourself neck-deep in ice cold seawater.
"Binns is a boring old goat," Blaise whispered at her as the group entered the History of Magic classroom. "But not to worry -- the textbooks are nice and pillowy if you need a nap."
Gwendolyn found that they shared the class with the fifth-year Ravenclaws, all of whom regarded the new arrival with analytical looks. She took the third seat at Pansy and Blaise's table, while Constance and Tracey sat behind them with a large, heavily-jawed and dim-looking girl. To Gwendolyn's left was a table with three boys, two of which looked like trollspawn, and a pale, blond boy with pointed features who glanced at her snootily just as Professor Binns entered the classroom -- through the blackboard. She filed this spectral information away in her mind, and the ghost took attendance. He stopped when he got to her name and arched one translucent eyebrow.
"Ah, yes, Miss Cross," he droned. "We're in the middle of studying the evolution of the Ministry of Magic -- tell me, how far along had you gotten in your history class in America?"
"I left off on the North American branch-off of the Wizards' Council in the fourteenth century, sir," Gwendolyn answered, and Binns clicked his tongue.
"I see. Well, you're a bit behind, but judging from your previous marks in the class, I'm sure you'll catch up in no time."
She nodded, and the ghost began the day's lesson. Gwendolyn found that she wasn't too far in arrear, thankfully, and with a few notes was able to piece together what she had missed. All throughout the class, she noticed a steady succession of students wilting into their textbooks at the professor's monotonous lecturing. It seemed like everyone but herself had their eyelids drooping, but she found the way Binns conducted his class to be rather enjoyable -- simple outlining and storytelling, no random variables to keep track of. She absorbed it all like a sponge -- History of Magic had always been her best class. Yet another one of her 'quirks', preferring book learning to wand waving. Books were precise. They told you what you needed to know, no tricks, no foolishness, no frustration.
When the hour was up, the class filed lethargically out into the halls to do whatever it was they did during the break. Gwendolyn followed Pansy and the others back toward the Slytherin dormitories, more from a need for her Arithmancy book than any desire to further socialise with them. The blond boy with the pointed features and his trollspawn companions caught up to them.
"So you're the new girl," he drawled, looking her up and down. He was a slender boy, about her height, who appeared to have only three facial expressions -- a smirk, a sneer, and a bored glower. "My name's Malfoy." He offered her his hand, which she shook limply. "Draco Malfoy. This is Crabbe, and that's Goyle," he gestured to the two trollspawn, neither of which looked very talkative. Probably a blessing, if their appearances said anything of their intelligence. "You've been incorporated into Pansy's little gaggle, so I can assume your lineage is decent enough. You wouldn't believe the way that Sorting Hat malfunctions sometimes -- we've actually got two half-bloods in our House -- two! And after all that lyrical bollocks it sang about never being wrong....Well, at least they know their place and don't try to get in the way of their superiors." The boy's bluster finally died down, and then he added, almost as an afterthought, "Oh yeah -- what's your name?"
Gwendolyn told him, and he nodded as though he'd already known and had been testing her to see if she did.
"My father told me your father's a new Unspeakable in the Ministry. Has he ever told you what it is he does?"
Oh, honestly. "It's the oddest thing," she said dryly. "He's not supposed to talk about it."
"I might like to be an Unspeakable after I leave Hogwarts," Malfoy continued, oblivious to her sarcasm. "If only the Minister of Magic was someone more competent than that inept dunderhead Cornelius Fudge."
"Who would you prefer?" Gwendolyn asked, though she had a distinct feeling that she needn't encourage the boy for him to keep speaking.
"My father, of course. Lucius Malfoy. He's brilliant. Doesn't believe one lick in all the Muggle-loving nonsense that's going around these days. He'd sort the Ministry out right, get its priorities in order, make the wizarding world belong to the wizards again."
They reached the entrance wall to the Slytherin common room, and Blaise gave it the password. They went inside, and Gwendolyn decided that she was much beginning to enjoy Malfoy's company to that of the girls'. At least his arrogance was amusing.
"What sort of wand do you have?" he demanded, brandishing his own. "Mine's dragon heartstring, yew, thirteen inches."
Gwendolyn took out her wand and allowed him to examine it closely. "Dragon heartstring, mahogany, eleven inches."
Malfoy nodded approvingly, but Pansy wrinkled her nose.
"Isn't that a boy's wand?" she scoffed.
"No, it's my wand," Gwendolyn replied. Pansy seemed unfazed.
"My wand is rosewood," she said haughtily. "One unicorn tail hair, eight and one-half inches."
"That's a sissy wand," Malfoy snapped at her. "What's it good for, Cheering Charms?"
That seemed to take her down a couple of notches. She sniffed, turned her nose up in the air, and headed down to the dormitories. Malfoy returned Gwendolyn's wand and cocked his head at her curiously.
"What class do you have next?"
"Arithmancy," she told him, and he frowned.
"I've got Care of Magical Creatures with that savage oaf, Hagrid. He provoked a Hippogriff into attacking me once, you know. And then, when the Ministry members came to execute it, he deliberately let it escape! He should have been fired years and years ago. That's the only reason I still sign up for his class -- I think he's got something against me, and I'm going to prove it. He'll be out by the end of the year, I'll wager."
"How brave of you to make such sacrifices," Gwendolyn remarked mordantly. Malfoy again didn't seem to notice her tone.
"My parents send me a box of sweets every week," he said. "I think I've got some Cauldron Cakes left. Do you want one?"
Gwendolyn accepted the offer (the scone hadn't been very filling, and she was always hungriest in the mornings), and Malfoy headed down the right stairwell to the boys' dormitories. She took the opportunity to switch A History of Magic for Arithmancy: Magical Mathematics and An Intermediate Guide to Transfiguration. Pansy narrowed her eyes suspiciously when Gwendolyn entered the dorm. She was sitting on the new girl's bed, stroking Morgaine, who didn't look outstandingly pleased about the situation, but was keeping her mouth shut.
"Wow, you and Draco seem to be hitting it off really well," the pug-faced girl commented, trying to act casual but ending up contemptuous.
Gwendolyn looked at her sceptically. "If you say so," she said flippantly. "I've no interest in boys."
"What, are you a lesbian?"
"Perhaps you didn't hear me correctly -- I've no interest in boys. Take it however you wish."
Pansy's brow creased in bewilderment. "Whatever. So long as you know that Draco Malfoy is spoken for."
"Funny," Gwendolyn managed a smirk. "It seems to me that he can speak plenty for himself." She left the room without another word, and went to collect her Cauldron Cake.
Gwendolyn was pleased to find that she wasn't behind schedule in Transfiguration, and even a little ahead in Arithmancy, which was quite a relief, as it was her worst class and would have probably taken her the rest of the school year to catch up on. At lunch, she could barely bring herself to eat from anticipation of her next class -- double Potions with the Gryffindors. From what she had heard from Blaise, Professor Snape's was one of the most challenging courses in the school, and that he favoured the Slytherin students above all others, Malfoy most of all. Not that that mattered -- Gwendolyn wasn't concerned with winning over the professor's academic esteem. Her motives were rooted in a much more personal sphere of pursuit.
The Potions room was, aptly enough, located in the dungeons. The ghost she'd fancied at breakfast was gliding through the halls, and the cluster of students outside the classroom parted like the Red Sea to allow him to pass.
"That's the Bloody Baron," Malfoy hissed in her ear. "Supposedly he slaughtered a whole mess of Muggles in the twelfth century who wanted him hanged because they suspected he was a werewolf. It was a load of rubbish, of course, but he didn't like them tarnishing his reputation and whatnot. He didn't even use his wand to kill them -- just his sword -- and then bathed in their blood to boast of his victory. But one of the Muggles, an archer, had kept his distance from the mob, and after everyone was dead -- snap! He shot an arrow straight through the Baron's heart."
"How dreadful!" Gwendolyn exclaimed, the most emotional response anyone had yet to see from her. "The poor thing, no wonder he always looks so sour; his party was completely ruined!"
Malfoy frowned at her as though she were insane, and she looked at him forthrightly.
"Well, wouldn't you be upset if you were shot through the heart right when the celebration began?"
"I suppose." He shrugged noncommittally just as Snape arrived to let everyone into the classroom. Crabbe and Goyle slumped down on Malfoy's left side. Gwendolyn took the seat to the blond boy's right, and caught Pansy glaring daggers at her. She stared back into the girl's mean brown eyes, keeping her own face blank and unwavering, until Pansy broke the contact and turned to mutter something scathing to Blaise, who glanced over, but didn't seem to give much of a damn about the seating arrangement.
Gwendolyn focused her attention toward the front of the room, where Snape was writing down the day's assignment on a blackboard. She watched his bony, long-fingered right hand as it formed the sharp edges and arcing curves of his handwriting, the sallow complexion of his skin contrasting with the pure white of the chalk and the black of his robes. His greasy black hair swung limply at his shoulders as he moved, always shadowing his face from her view when he glanced sideways at the open book on his desk.
At last he turned around to face the class, his black gaze scanning over the tables, first the Gryffindors, then the Slytherins. When it flickered over to her table, he fixed his eyes on Gwendolyn for one shrewd moment before continuing on down the line. He marked something down in his book -- most likely attendance -- and wasted no time in beginning the lesson.
"Copy the board. Partner up. Now," he barked, and Gwendolyn picked up her quill, dipped it in ink, and began to write.
Wound-Cleaning Potion
2 Abyssinian shrivelfigs (mashed)
1. Place mashed shrivelfigs into cauldron. Bring to a boil.
1 ounce bubotubors (finely cut)
3 Opaleye dragon scales (whole)
3 mole crickets (ground)
2. Add bubotubors, wait ninety seconds, add dragon scales. Allow to boil for fifteen minutes.
3. Add ground mole crickets, bring solution down to a simmer for five minutes.
4. Remove cauldron from flame and let potion steep for ten minutes. Strain mixture into phials, stir gently.
When she'd finished, Malfoy leaned toward her. "You're partnering with me," he ordered quietly. "I can't stand partnering with Crabbe or Goyle -- they always mess something up."
Gwendolyn nodded at him and began slicing up the bubotubors, while he started mashing up the shrivelfigs in a small ceramic mortar. Snape paced slowly through the aisles, on the look-out for errors. Out of the corner of her eye, Gwendolyn noticed Pansy looking at her fiercely again, and ignored her. Snape, however, did not.
"Parkinson," he snapped. "Stop scowling at Cross and concentrate on your work."
Pansy's face flushed crimson, and lowered her eyes gloweringly as she punched at her shrivelfigs with her pestle. Gwendolyn's eyes narrowed -- that was considered showing favour to Slytherin?
But then, she came to realise when Snape scolded a stout, round-faced Gryffindor boy called Longbottom, that 'favour' meant chastisement without the deduction of ten points from one's House.
Malfoy placed the shrivelfigs into the cauldron and lit a fire beneath it with a mutter and a slight wave of his wand. After a few minutes, the purple-brown sludge began to bubble profusely, and Gwendolyn added the bubotubor bits. Malfoy kept an eye on his watch, and dropped the iridescent dragon scales into the lumpy mixture precisely ninety seconds later. He kept track of the time while Gwendolyn tended to the mole crickets, which only took five minutes to grind sufficiently. She had just finished when Snape reached their table. He inspected Crabbe and Goyle's work first.
"The ingredients list says 'finely chopped', Goyle, not broken into four large blocks. You're making a potion, not your grandmother's cabbage stew."
A few of the Slytherins behind them sniggered. The Gryffindors were also smirking, though didn't dare make a sound unless they wanted to spend the rest of the week in detention. Snape himself gave Goyle a slippery-looking sneer before moving on to Malfoy and Gwendolyn, whose concoction he examined thoroughly before bestowing a nod of positive appraisal.
"Excellent work, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Cross," he said silkily, and Malfoy beamed proudly.
"If you don't mind my asking, sir," the boy enquired, "how are we meant to test this potion to see that it works properly if none of us have any open wounds?"
Snape was about to answer when Gwendolyn looked at Malfoy, picked up the knife she'd use to slice up the bubotubors, cut a long, semi-deep gash into the palm of her left hand, and rested it lesion-up on the table in front of him. His grey eyes widened at her in disbelief, and even Snape's brow was knitted like he was looking at a madwoman.
"For Merlin's sake, girl, I was just going to say that a simple pinprick would have done for a demonstration!"
She stared up at him, unblinking, and said nothing. Snape held her gaze for one long moment, and she envisioned herself being pulled into the dark tunnels of his eyes before he turned abruptly and made his way back to his desk. She watched him as he surveyed the rest of the class, his eyes narrowing when he noticed she had yet to look away from him. It took Malfoy's low, harsh whisper to distract her.
"Are you completely bonkers?!" he hissed at her, and she glanced at him coolly.
The rest of the class seemed to share the assumption. Over on the Gryffindor side of the room, two girls, a blonde and an Indian, were mumbling things rapidly to each other and looking her way. The Longbottom boy had gone pale as a corpse, and even the celebrated Harry Potter was looking at her as though she had horns growing out of her head. Of course she paid no mind to them, and occupied herself with watching the blood pool in her palm like hot wine-coloured paint. Well, that would never do -- at this rate, the cut would be closed by the time the potion was ready to test.
She raised her hand to her mouth and took a healthy lick, allowing the metallic taste to settle on her tongue for a second before swallowing it down. Malfoy's expression twisted further into one of half-disgust, half-morbid enthralment.
"What the hell are you, part vampire?" he asked, and she took another lick before holding the wound open with her right hand and answering him.
"No."
"Does that...does that taste good?"
"Decent enough."
"You're a bloody weird girl."
"If you say so."
Malfoy glanced at his watch, added the mole crickets, and reduced the flame beneath the cauldron. The mixture stopped bubbling, and a swirling, silvery smoke that smelled like antiseptic began to rise from it. Gwendolyn idly threaded the fingers of her uninjured hand through the ribbons and watched as they curled in tingling tendrils around her skin. She risked another fleeting look at Snape, and this time found that he was already staring at her, wearing a scrutinising expression on his face, as though he were trying to gauge what she was thinking just as much as she was attempting to dismember his own mind's inner workings.
She had a suspicion that this dual investigation could have continued on for quite some time, if Longbottom hadn't somehow managed to cause his and a sandy-haired boy's potion to boil over and drench everything within a three-foot radius of their cauldron in scorching violet liquid. The Gryffindors all back up considerably, knocking over chairs and generally making a fuss. Snape was restoring order within seconds, cleaning away the spilled potion with a single wave of his wand. He deducted ten more points from Gryffindor, five from Longbottom for incompetence and five from the sandy-haired boy whom he addressed as Finnigan for not keeping a watchful enough eye on Longbottom.
In the wake of the chaos, Snape returned to his desk, and didn't attempt to meet Gwendolyn's eyes again. She bit down on her bottom lip and glared deeply at the stout Longbottom for shattering such a perfectly bewitching moment. He was shaking like a leaf and still trying to get what few wits he had about him in order while tending to a greenish-brown toad almost as lumpy as he was that had leapt from his pocket at the first sign of trouble. Clever animal. Quite the opposite from its owner.
"Stupid Squib," she heard Malfoy mutter under his breath. "No wonder that wart-ridden thing always runs away. It's trying to put itself out of its misery."
A tiny smirk tugged at the corners of Gwendolyn's lips. "Indeed."
By now, their potion had steeped long enough, and Malfoy took charge of straining it carefully into the set of crystal phials that were situated next to Gwendolyn's brass scales. Once he'd finished, Snape rose and came to stand in front of them, his gaze flickering to his newest student's injured palm.
"Miss Cross, as you were so eager to provide a helpful exposition..." he trailed off, and Gwendolyn gave him her hand. It trembled slightly cradled in his warm fingers, and his response was to grip it tighter, almost painfully so, as he poured one phial of the smoking violet potion over the wound. She watched it bubble like peroxide, and a pleasant stinging sensation travelled from her palm up her slender fingers and down her wrist.
"Do you feel anything?" Snape demanded.
"It burns," she replied, and brushed her thumb along his forefinger unconsciously. He let go of her hand immediately, then regarded her with the scarcest trace of shock against his meticulously controlled expression. Reaching into the pocket of his robes, he retrieved a clean white handkerchief and dropped it on the table in front of her.
"Success achieved," he murmured softly as Gwendolyn began to gingerly wipe the combination of blood and potion from her hand, then turned to Malfoy. "Well done."
Malfoy straightened his back smugly, seemingly unaware of the short exchange of sensuality between his professor and his partner, and Snape moved on to Crabbe and Goyle.
At the end of the class, Gwendolyn approached the Potions master's desk, and held out the muddled handkerchief for him to take.
"Keep it," he told her, not raising his eyes from his grade book.
Gwendolyn folded the bit of fabric neatly and tucked it into the pocket of her robes. "Thank you."
"That's unnecessary. And for the record, so is slicing yourself up in the name of this class."
"I apologise if it displeased you. It merely seemed the thing to do."
At last he looked up at her, his face deathly serious. "In the future, do try to contain your...impulses."
She nodded once. "As you wish."
Snape's gaze lingered on her for a few more seconds before he returned to his grading. "You're dismissed."
Gwendolyn left the room quietly, and found the dungeon halls to be completely empty. With a small sigh, she pulled out her schedule card. Her next class was Defence Against the Dark Arts with a Professor Lupin, room 302, near the Charms corridor. It would be easy enough to find on her own.
Casting one last glance at the door to the Potions room, she tucked the card into one of her textbooks and started for the stairwell that would lead her up to the ground floor.
The remainder of the day seemed uneventful compared to her fourth period class. Professor Lupin had excused her tardiness due to the fact that she was new to the school, and had sent her down to the hospital wing (with directions) to have Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, bandage up her cut.
"How on earth did that happen?" Lupin had asked, nodding at her hand not a minute after she stepped foot in the room. She realised later how odd it was that he'd noticed it so quickly, as her palms hadn't been facing him. It was almost as though he could smell the blood.
"We were making a wound-cleaning potion last period. I needed a wound to test it on."
Lupin had looked momentarily aghast. "And Professor Snape agreed to this?"
"No. He was rather opposed to it, though that was after the fact."
She could tell that the brown-haired man in the patched-up robes was just itching to ask her why she had agreed to harming herself, but he had controlled his rudeness well and simply given her a pass to the infirmary.
Lupin had a very hands-on way of conducting his classes that one wouldn't expect from someone so perpetually tired-looking. They had spent the majority of the lesson discussing kelpies, their habits, and the proper way to subdue them, and the rest of the lesson making sure that everyone was proficient in Placement and Warming Charms. He said he'd spoken to Dumbledore, who'd in turn spoken to the merpeople who lived in the lake, and both had agreed to a field trip of sorts -- there were currently four of the water demons residing in the lake that were becoming nuisances by continuously disguising themselves as fish and then attacking the giant squid whenever it attempted to eat them. The merpeople had been planning just to kill them, but Lupin would have considered it a great learning experience lost if that were to happen. Thus, the fifth-year classes from all four Houses had the infuriation of subduing one of the beasts each.
"Don't forget -- swimsuits and towels on Wednesday, and we're meeting on the south lawn of the school," Lupin's parting words had been. Gwendolyn had yet to decide what she thought of him. If she didn't get eaten by water demons in two days' time, he might turn out to be an amusing switch from the norm.
Divination had again been different, though nearly as entertaining. Professor Trelawney had turned out to be a bug-like, melodramatic bint of colossal proportions, and had spent the entire period flitting around the room, proclaiming that Gwendolyn's life was so tragic that its misfortune was second only to Harry Potter's poor, wretched existence. The longer the student remained sitting quietly, as she was prone to doing no matter what the situation, the more horrifying and ghastly Trelawney's predictions became.
The experience would have been maddening, if Gwendolyn hadn't taken every word the so-called 'Seer' had spouted with a mine of salt. She would have to remember to bring popcorn to the class tomorrow.
By dinner, Pansy wasn't any more amicable toward Gwendolyn than she had been all day, and once the others had taken the hint, they began to follow her example without asking why. Apparently, the newer girl's mere association with Malfoy was cause for expulsion from that particular social circle. Not that it mattered. Malfoy didn't seem to care -- he had no reason to like her any less. She was pure-blood, and she didn't make him look bad in classes. Gwendolyn had an inkling that part of the reason he hadn't shunned her along with the rest of them was because she was as he said -- bloody weird -- and it was about time the Slytherins had someone in their House who gave people cause to talk, even if she was a little...eccentric. If Gwendolyn happened to be that someone, then he wanted to be associated with her. The arrangement was fine by her -- she had someone to keep her amused, and it pissed Pansy off to no end. A win-win situation if there ever was one.
The Great Hall was a chorus of activity that night. Word of Gwendolyn's Potions demonstration had spread like wildfire throughout the school. Already she'd been informed that she was part vampire, an escaped mental patient from Saint Mungo's, and an undercover operative of Lord Voldemort's.
"Please. If my life were that interesting, I certainly wouldn't be wasting my time and power here of all places," she huffed, having just been told of a rumour that consisted of a blend of all three of the others, something about a love triangle and a long snake moan. Prodding her mashed potatoes with her fork, she directed her attention to the High Table, where Snape and Lupin were talking amongst themselves, the former looking especially disagreeable and the latter somewhat concerned. As if he sensed her watching him, Snape caught her gaze and held it intensely, his midnight eyes boring into her pensively, wrapping her mind in nothingness. Lupin followed his line of sight, and observed the altercation with a shady frown.
Gwendolyn chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip and felt her hands begin to shake in her lap. She clenched them into tight fists, savouring the sting as her nails dug into the cut through the bandages. How strange it was, this reaction she had to him. With Death, her hands had been unfaltering and still. But then, with Death, most everything became still. Why then, with Snape, did things seem to revolve around this delicious pain? Death could come with pain. Perhaps that was what the Potions master was -- a facet of Death, one of many means to the inevitable end.
Across the Great Hall at the Gryffindor table, a small explosion tore her awareness elsewhere. The sandy-haired Finnigan boy was covered in black soot, a helpless, broken expression on his face. Gwendolyn heard the bushy-haired girl -- Granger, she thought her name was -- reprimand him loudly.
"For Heaven's sake, Seamus! You've been trying for over four years already -- that stupid spell is never going to work!"
Malfoy snickered callously. "I'd tell them about the anti-alcohol Transfiguration enchantment placed on the school, but...that just never stops being funny."
Gwendolyn took no notice of his satisfaction and shifted her eyes back to Snape -- but it was too late. He was now paying more mind to his food than he was to her. Yet another spell broken by the Gryffindors -- two in one day. Did catastrophe follow them wherever they went? And if it did, why did they have to bring it to the attention of others, namely those who couldn't have cared less? With a short, frustrated sigh, she forced her hands to relax and picked lackadaisically at the string beans on her plate.
When she slid into bed that night, Morgaine curled up contently at her side, Gwendolyn lay awake as she always did for at least an hour before sleep would claim her. It had been quite the eventful first day. In the span of but fifteen hours, she'd acquired a reputation for being a bit askew of normal -- something that had taken nearly two years for her classmates at Asgarth to recognise -- and she was already dancing on the tightrope between who she could count as enemies, and who were allies. She'd looked her Death in the eye and had gotten lost twice. All this, and she hadn't even attended Charms or Herbology yet. It could very well prove to be a most interesting year.
She felt herself begin to slip into a restless unconsciousness filled with dreams of burning hands charring pale skin, writhing on a blanket of black. Through the lucid cravings her fingers curled tightly around a piece of white cloth, still tarnished with blood and potion. Yes, certainly an interesting year...