You know that old rhyme your parents tell you when you're a kid? You know, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." When you're little, you repeat this to yourself when that girl at the library tells you your hair is too red. Or the boy down the block tells you to, "Watch it, freckle face!" as he whizzes past on his toy broomstick. And the rhyme becomes a sort of mantra, until you've repeated the words so many times they've lost meaning.
And then you start thinking, "Wait a second, that can't be true." Because sticks can only bruise you for so long. But words, well, they don't bruise your skin, but they poke at your heart day in and day out, something you can't forget.
So when that snotty boy (who was pale enough that I mistook him for a vampire on first sight; granted, I was an eleven-year-old with an imagination) told me to, "Get lost, know-it-all ginger," when I accidentally said aloud that there were exactly fifty-two compartments on the train, with five coaches in total. It was just a trivia fact I'd remembered, and I hadn't meant to say it. But Al, who was standing next to me at the time, found the pale boy's comment particularly hilarious, and the two burst into a fit of laughter. With a bit of a huff, I trudged on, nearly dragging my trunk over a girl with a prefect's badge.
As it would turn out, the vampire-boy grew up to be the infamous Scorpius Malfoy.
Well, okay, he's not exactly infamous. At least, not to anyone besides myself and the few other people whose lives he's made hell. Well, I assume there are other people, because frankly, the entire student body seems to revolve around his ginormous head.
I mean, you'd think after six years of this, people would get over it. But nope, partway through seventh year, and all those girls still go gaga when he winks at them.
Which he does. Frequently.
Not to me of course, because if he did, I'd Bat-Bogey his arse into the next century.
But that's beside the point.
Because you see, that first day on the Hogwarts Express, as I walked by a great number of the fifty-two compartments, I realized something I think I knew all along: Words are worse than sticks and stones. A whole lot worse.
Of course, I've never actually been pelted with stones, but Hugo and his dumb friends used to poke me with pointy sticks all the time when he was an annoying little twerp. Not that he isn't now, but the only stick he uses to hurt me these days is his wand.
Anyways. The same way you'd think girls would stop swooning every time they get a whiff of Malfoy's cologne, you'd also think I would get over whatever name he's come up with to call me today. Just something about the way he talks to me as though I'm some sort of little kid who he can just push around or whatever. Not that I don't stand up for myself, because I do. Often violently. You can ask Mom about all the detentions I've got over the years- the majority are due to Paley McArsehole and his stupid comments. There's just something in the way he says things that manages to get under my skin like a rash that won't go away.
Take right now.
You see, here he is, in all of his platinum blondness and neatly pressed robes and with that smirk that makes me want to claw at his face, and I know that whatever comes out of his mouth right now is going to be bad news for the both of us- for him, because he's about to have the hexing of his lifetime, and for me, because I'm about to get the detention of mine.
And there it goes, his lips are moving, molecules vibrating in the air passing along the sound to my ear canals.
"What's with the new shoes, Ginger? Didn't think you were frumpy enough yet?"
My hand clamps around my wand and I feel my nostrils flare.
"Well, you shouldn't have worried, because-"
"Slugulus eructo!" I interject, but he's too quick. His shield charm causes my Slug-Vomiting Charm to ricochet back to me.
I should have known. This curse has never been very successful in my family.
I cross my arms in resignation, and await for the slimy sensation of a slug sliding up my throat. By now, Malfoy's laughing his arse off, as that awfully disgusting feeling of a giant slug popping out of my mouth takes over and I try not to gag. The slug trails out of my mouth, and I pick it up and throw it at Malfoy, who's eyes are closed because he's laughing so hard. It sticks in his hair and I just smirk as I make my way to the hospital wing, leaving a nasty trail of slugs in my wake. The sound of his shriek is enough to make me giggle.
Madam Lafferty makes tsk-ing noises at me when I manage to sputter out my story in between spitting out slugs.
"Now, Miss Weasley, you do know better than to hex other students, don't you?"
I nod my head as much as I can while a particularly large slug slips between my lips. It's really hard not to gag, but I know that'll only make it worse.
"Good. Now you've only got about a minute left of all this slug-belching. And perhaps a detention for attempting to harm another student?" Madam Lafferty raises a white eyebrow.
"But- but Madam Lafferty, it was pro-" I'm cut off as another slug slides out into the bucket. "Provoked!"
"Now, Miss Weasley, it always is with you. But that doesn't make it right to respond with magic. Back when I was a girl, children settled disputes with theirwords, not their wands." Madam Lafferty gives me a pointed look and I'm tempted to reply with, "Voldemort didn't use his words, Madam Lafferty," but fortunately a slug slips out before the words can.
She glances at her watch again. "Well, that's the ten minute mark. You may want to use some mouthwash before you go breathing on anyone's face," Madam Lafferty suggests helpfully.
"Thanks!" I reply cheerily (and sarcastically, but she can't tell). I stand up from the bed and I'm out of the hospital wing before Madam Lafferty has time to even move my slug-bucket.
Al is in the library when I finally find him, playing footsie with his latest girlfriend, Jane Something-or-other, who he's been talking about nonstop for the past week. I can't help but roll my eyes.
"Guess who just got detention?" I interrupt, and they both look up at me in surprise, and Al even looks a bit sad, as though he can't stand not to have his eyes on Jane. That's the thing about Al- he can charm girls pretty easily, but he falls in love with them even more easily. And then either he gets his heart broken, or he's decided that he's fallen in love with some other girl. Either way, his relationships don't last too long.
"Rose, that's, what, your fourth this semester?" Al asks once he's let go of Jane's hand.
"Fifth. And it was from Madam Lafferty, too," I add, plopping down in the chair next to Jane's.
"Wait, I didn't know she could even give detentions," Jane says, looking confused.
I try not to laugh. "Oh, trust me, Jane, she can."
But Jane just looks more confused than ever. "Um, my name's Kimberly." My eyes go wide.
I mouth, "This isn't the Jane?" to Al, but it appears as though Al sucks at reading lips. He just gives me some bewildered hand gestures before I finally repeat myself out loud.
"Excuse me, Rose, but just who exactly is 'the Jane'?" Kimberly says, and now she's staring daggers at Al, who shoots me a dirty look.
Um... oops. "Uh, this is kind of awkward... maybe I should just go." But I don't know if they've heard my last word because I've already dashed, and now Kimberly is shout-whispering things at Al.
As I walk out the library doors, I turn back in time to see Kimberly throwing what looks to be her Ancient Runes book at Al, before she hits him with a Horn-growing Hex. I bite my lip to keep myself from laughing before getting out of the library as soon as possible. Turning the corner, I bump into somebody, knocking his book out of his hand.
It's Owen Bennett, who would be a really hot guy if he didn't just happen to be best friends with and standing right next to, you guessed it, Malfoy. He's got that nice sort of curly brown hair that falls into his eyes when he turns his head, and he's a chaser on the Slytherin team. And from the book he dropped it looks he's got a thing for Muggle literature, because The Count of Monte Cristo isn't exactly required school reading.
I pick it up and hand it to him, saying, "Nice book."
He looks at me kind of excitedly. "You read it?"
"Yeah, it's fantastic," I reply. "I love the part where Dantès-"
"No, don't tell me!" he says. "I'm not done yet."
We grin at each other kind of stupidly before Malfoy interrupts. "Listen, if the two of you would rather talk about books," he says 'books' like it's a dirty word, "then I'll just go to Quidditch practice by myself."
"Aw, damn it, Scorp. You know how much shit Parkinson gave me last time I skipped," Owen says, and the two of them start walking away.
But they're not far enough away that I can't hear Malfoy when he tells Owen, "Really, Owen? You'd stoop that low?"
He turns around, and from the smirk blooming on his stupid face, he knows that he's hurt me.
Sticks and stones my arse.
A/N Okay, so I know I should be working on Going After Scorpius Malfoy, but I don't know. This just kind of came to me, and I wanted to write it down before I forgot it. And hey, might as well publish it, right? ;)
TO BE CONTINUED! ...When the mood strikes me. Or should I say, when the muse strikes me? Either way, it'll be updated eventually! Maybe even frequently if people like it? *cough* Maybe? *cough*
Soooo... be a doll and review!
xx
Ali