Chapter 1
Hey, Leia is back! Took a long time to finish this, but it's finally done! I'm in college now, so I will update when I have time, but fashion school takes up a lot of my time... Anyway, I am also looking for a beta, but am too lazy to find one. So, someone contact me and do it. It'll be nice. And FYI, the ending I have written for this is non-canon for HBP. So it's a surprise! Enjoy my fabulous readers!
Comback Kid -Sleigh Bells
"You snuck in to the Chanel haute couture show?" Astoria Greengrass repeated with her mouth dropped.
"And Givenchy, and Valentino, and Dior. And the week before we gate crashed a bunch of the menswear shows." Leia Allen said with a smile on her face while speaking of the month she spent in Paris with her family. It was true, the Allen twins had snuck by many security men to get into the shows.
"Ah! I'm so jealous! How'd you do it?"
"Well, the first show we gate crashed was the Balmain menswear show, and we got in backstage by saying we were interns. We then ended up standing in the back because we were both too terrified to try and take someone else's seats. We talked to some of the models there and they helped us get into some of the other shows and after parties. It was fantastic."
Theo stared at the two with a smirk on his face. He only understood half of what they were talking about, but he was glad that Leia had decided to return to Hogwarts. The train was now almost boarded and a few late students were looking for compartments. Draco Malfoy walked past, stopping for a moment at their compartment. He almost touched the door handle, but then it appeared that he changed his mind because he walked away swiftly.
"He looks sick." She murmured. He did. Draco's clothes looked too big on him, which was odd, because he got all of his clothes tailored.
He must of lost some weight recently… Is he eating?
His face looked like it had lost all of its colour.
"That's an understatement." Theo said dreamily, like he wasn't talking to anyone in particular.
"Is it?" Leia said eyebrow cocked.
"Let's just say the Malfoy family's reputation isn't exactly fantastic and it's affecting him in ways he'd never expected."
"Because Papa Malfoy didn't get the prophecy and is in Azkaban." Astoria clarified rather than asked. Both looked at her in slight shock. Sure, Astoria was on the gossip train more than anyone else, but she almost always ignored political garble. "What?" She responded to their faces, "I live with Daphne."
"The trial was widely reported on. His face was all over The Daily Profit." Theo added with a sad tone to his voice, almost pity.
"We didn't get much news in France, only brief snit bits."
"Well, what happened in the Department of Mysteries has changed everything." he replied.
Leia nodded as memories of last year filled her head.
"God, that wasn't that long ago, was it? It feels like it's been a lifetime…" She muttered, as the train started moving.
"Well, it hasn't. Pansy's hair is rather short." Theo said.
Leia and Astoria both snorted.
"Last time I saw her she looked like Sinead O'Connor!" Astoria said laughing.
"What, really?" Leia replied. Astoria rolled her eyes.
Fuck, I love Sinead O'Connor.
"Well, she either looks like Sinead O'Connor or like she has some terrible illness… Either way it's an improvement from before." Astoria said quickly.
"You're awful!" Theo said in equal laughter.
The three reminisced in last year's memories and this year's anticipations as the train passed by the Scottish countryside. Leia was excited about starting healing classes, Theo about advanced potions, and Astoria was pretty much convinced that her fourth year would be the same as her third. Theo agreed. They talked briefly about the Minister of Magic's realization that 'The Dark Lord' was back and lightly about the bridge attack, but then nothing more about uncomfortable subjects. In the back of Leia's head she kept asking herself exactly why she had decided to go back to Hogwarts, and apparently that's exactly what Theo had been thinking.
"So, Leia, you're back." Theo said after a few moments of silence after laughter at something Astoria had said.
"Yeah, yeah, that's happening…" Leia said while avoiding eye contact with Theo.
She knew Theo would bring this up.
"Why." He said in more of a statement than a question.
Leia cleared her throat.
"Uh I'm not totally sure, to tell you the truth. I told my parents that I didn't want to do the whole 'new kid' thing again, but that's not true. I guess maybe I feel some sort of attachment to this place. Maybe it's because of you two. I donno, but I don't even want to think about it…"
She almost mentioned that it was definitely not because of Draco Malfoy or Harry Potter's plea for her return.
"So this had nothing to do with Ddddrrr-" Astoria said with her eyebrows getting higher as she slowly started to pronounce Draco's name.
"No this has nothing to do with Draco Malfoy, Astoria so don't start." Leia said harshly and with blush almost starting on her cheeks.
"Nothing?"
"NOTHING."
"So, just to clarify, nothing?" Theo said, his lips curved.
"NOTHING YOU ASS HOLES." Leia said louder than she'd expected.
As if on cue, the train halted. It was the mark that her 6th year at Hogwarts had begun. Leia sighed and fallowed her peers towards the carriages that would take them to the Great Hall. In short moments they were sitting at a long table across from Theo and Astoria, slightly father away from the other Slyherins. Leia wasn't sure if that was intentional or not. She vaguely listened to Dumbledore's speech.
In the middle of the speech she couldn't help notice, like everyone else in the room, Draco Malfoy swiftly enter into the hall. He had a look of satisfaction on his face as he sat next to Pansy, whose hair was slightly longer than Sinead O'Connor and now looked more like a pixie cut resembling that of Twiggy, only brunette. Theo looked at Leia in confusion. They seemed to read each other's mind asking the same question: What was he doing?
As food appeared before them, a just as curious event happened: Harry Potter entered late, with a twinkle of blood dripping down his nose. He wiped it away. Theo and Leia's eyes met again, but now saying: What the fuck?
Cocaine?
As Leia was looking over to that side of the room, she caught eyes with Hermione Granger. She looked just as pretty as before, but now concerned for her friend's wellbeing. Granger at first looked surprised to see her then darted her eyes towards Harry and then back to Leia, asking Leia: You see this too?
For the rest of the meal Leia shifted uncomfortably in her Miu Miu black cotton-twill skirt. Her Acne boots felt too tight on her feet. The leather seemed to dig into her ankles as she felt Draco's gang send over the occasional glance. Hermione seemed to avoid eye contact with Leia, or maybe Leia was just paranoid. Leia just hoped she was paranoid.
The meal ended and while exciting the Great Hall, Leia broke from her friends to talk to the golden trio. She weaved her way through the sea of people towards a red hair that was the beacon that meant a Weasley. Just as Leia thought she was feet away from them, they were gone. She looked around in confusion.
They were gone.
Poof.
Leia stumbled back to the Slytherin common room in confusion. She wondered if the three had seen her coming closer and purposely disappeared. She had expected at least a thank you from Harry... Instead she found herself mumbling "pureblood" to gain access to the Slytherin common room. She sighed as she saw the group of elitist ass holes, that she knew all too well, in her own group's spot.
Pansy occupied Astoria's spot, Blaise lounged in Theo's chair, Draco sat where Leia would and Crabbe and Goyle awkwardly pulled up chairs to the small table in earnest to be involved. They all turned to Leia as she walked in the room.
As the majority of the group, save Draco, sent glaring looks in her direction, Snape's words rang in Leia's ears. His odd warning last year seemed only now applicable. 'I expect that he will be pushed to do things he could never imagine himself doing.' She looked at Draco's odd expression. He avoided eye contact and looked slightly shameful. For a second his eyes flickered towards hers and then down again.
Leia scanned the room to its farthest corner: where her two best friends sat on a window sill looking equally disgruntled.
"The little shits took our spot." Astoria said with a frown on her face as Leia approached.
"Astoria Greengrass! I say!" Theo said in faux astonishment.
"Whatever. How dare they steal our spots! Leia, you should scare them and get our spot back. Punch them in the face."
"Yes, Leia, I believe colonialism is in your starred and striped blood. Go take what we think is ours."
Leia rolled her eyes, ignoring that whole British colonialism thing.
"But they all gave me the stank eye." Leia groaned.
"Well I'm sure Christopher Columbus got his share of bad looks from the Native Americans." Theo said with a smirk on his face.
Leia laughed.
"Well, he was British."
"Well, Andrew Jackson must have gotten his share of nasty glances too."
"How do you know about American history?"
"I read."
Leia rolled her eyes.
"Okay. I'll only do this because I'm slightly impressed with Theo's knowledge of American history and if you two are my wingmen." Leia said, they nodded and couple looked towards one another and smiled as if they were having a small conversation in a language only they knew.
The three walked over to the small group that occupied their territory and Leia's brain scrambled for something to say.
"What do you want?" Pansy hissed when they were in talking range.
"I claim this table in the name of America, and as my forefathers did, I take this land that isn't really mine…. Seriously, you guys don't even fit here."
This sounded rational to her. This was a three person table and they had five. They had no real reason to bite her head off. The table was silent and they all looked up at Leia in confusion. Even Draco- oh, no, he was still avoiding looking at her. Pansy's look of surprise turned into a smirk. Leia's confidence was slightly shaken just by the look on Pansy's face. It seemed so much more conniving with her boy cut hair.
"Your secret is out, Leia." She said with a slow conviction.
Leia rolled her eyes.
"Oh really, Pansy? Which one?"
Leia expected some ridiculous lie that Pansy made up.
"We know about your blood."
"It's O Positive?"
"Well, after you and Theo split, he told us you were the product of one undeserving wizard and a should-be wizard, but no one really believed that because he stayed friends with you. But after the Malfoy trial, I had a lovely conversation with an Arnold Peasegood. When I mentioned I attended Hogwarts he frowned. He explained to me that his nephew, a squib, married a mudblood, and their child was attending the school. I asked who his great niece was, and he told me none other than Leia Allen-"
"Okay whateve-"
"I'm shocked Leia. You're worse than a mudblood or squib. It's kind of disgusting."
Leia was taken aback.
"Well-"
"Wouldn't that make your blood twice as filthy?"
"I don't think that's how biology works-"
"You're like a human genealogy experiment, it's cute. Will the third years study you in Care of Magical Creatures?" Pansy giggled.
"Pansy." Draco growled in a murmur.
"Well, whatever, but if you really want this table Leia, you don't have to bring in your nationality. You could have spit on the table and we wouldn't come within three feet of it."
Leia stared at Pansy for a long moment. She took a step closer towards Pansy and let a slow line of spit drop from her mouth onto the table. Wordlessly, Pansy stood up and the rest of the group followed her. Draco still made no eye contact, but it almost looked like there was a small smirk on his face. Leia's friend took their normal spots while pushing extra chairs out of their way.
"And that is how America does it." Leia said proudly. Her friends laughed and left the spit to dry on the table as a mark of their territory.
Leia was surprised by this whole interaction because she assumed that everyone already knew of her blood status. Apparently rumor was turned into fact. She was also suspired to hear of her great uncle Arnold Peasegood, a man who she had never met. She let it go because Leia was pretty sure that Pansy was the only one who actually made that big of a deal out of it. Still... Something inside her cracked a little. While Pansy's words were ridiculous, they still burned.