"Why are you nice to me?"
The girl leaned on her palm, letting her long black hair fall like a curtain behind her wrist. Her dark eyes were narrowed slightly as she eyed the boy sitting besides her, almost as if she was bored.
In the background there was the pleasant hum of many people talking at once. The low light and the flavory smells filling the dining hall of Hogwarts gave everything a homey feeling.
The boy and girl sat among others dressed in black and green. They were from the Slytherin house, but more than fitting in smoothly, the other students sitting around them seemed uncomfortable and bitterly annoyed.
"Why are you nice to me?"
The girl had to repeat her question stressing her words, since the boy only placed down his spoon and hunched his head timidly, but said nothing.
"U-uhm...w-why?" The boy stuttered, lifting his face just enough to peer at her from the corner of his eyes, his light gray irises seeming unfocused.
The girl continued to watch him with her uninterested expression, so cold the boy's eyes widened slightly as if alarmed and he looked down to his lap shyly once more.
"Why...?" The boy repeated.
The girl, seeming fed up with it looked away and sighed audibly.
"Why do you get so worked up over it?" she said seeming exasperated, "it's just a simple question. Why do you feel you always have to be nice to me?"
A girl with short blonde hair sitting across the table from them looked up from her plate. Like everyone else around them, a grimace was making her wrinkle her nose as if something stinked.
"What ever do you mean, Rizeth?" The girl began, catching the boy and girl's attention as a nasty sneer made its way into her face. "Even if he had anything against you, he wouldn't dare say it aloud. Phyton is a wimp."
The girl who went by Rizeth tensed her jaw, her black eyes like daggers as she eyed the other girl with silent hostility. The timid boy, Phyton, was looking from Rizeth's dangerous expression to the girl's unsympathetic sneer. His eyes were wide and his pink lips were parted slightly in surprise.
"Wh-wh-what!?" He stuttered out in a cry, making both girls break their locked glares, his cheeks shading into a bright pink as he struggled to continue, "I-I'm n-not a wimp!"
The blonde girl's expression relaxed as she cocked an eyebrow at Phyton testily. Rizeth only watched him silently, her eyes skimming over his face as if looking for something.
"Ohh. Aren't you bold." The girl said sarcastically, a happy smirk coming to her face, "how does it feel to talk back to someone for the first time in your life? Good?"
She laughed amused.
On his lap, Phyton clenched his fists slightly. He closed his eyes briefly, letting his dark gray locks fall over his eyes and took a sharp small breath.
"Shut up!"
The girl caught her breath abruptly at the sharpness in his voice, her eyes narrowing as if in suspicion.
The others sitting around the three, paused their dinner, too, at the boy's sudden outburst. All of them had their eyes on him, and Phyton felt it, too as he lifted his face, now a hot red, and continued, his teeth bare in anger.
"Shut up, Mildred. I am not weak, I am not a wimp." His expression became darker, the blush fading little by little as he met the eyes of all who were staring at him baffled. He seemed like a completely new person. "I am not someone that can be trampled and treated lightly—" he slammed his palms against the table, rattling the plates and making everyone jump "—I am the first son of Darius Trancy, destined to marry the first daughter of Robert Trancy, and the next successor to the head of the Trancy household! Any who look down on me and my cousin are not worth the—"
Rizeth stood swiftly from the bench and clasped a hand over his mouth firmly, cutting his words. "That's enough, Phyton." she said grimly.
Hatred flashed into Phyton's eyes for a moment, but as he reached to jerk her hand away, he recognized the feeling of her skin and his expression turned in a blink innocently stunned. His gray eyes round and glistering almost in tears he pulled away Rizeth's hand gently and sighed softly closing his eyes as his eyelashes shivered.
"I'm sorry." he said softly to everyone, but no one in particular. He stood, his face still lowered, and taking hold of Rizeth's arm, they silently exited the dining hall together.
Mildred watched them go, a pleased smirk making its way into her face. She huffed heavily through her nose like a horse.
"And I always did wonder how such a wimp could end up in Slytherin. Seems he's not such an air-head after all." She said.
A boy with scrubby brown hair sitting beside her piped up in interest. "Oh, what a show! But... 'marry the first daughter of someone-Trancy'... What did he mean by that? Who is it? Is he seriously already engaged at this age?"
A girl with small red pigtails who had been sitting next to Phyton not so long ago clicked her tongue audibly as she placed down a slice of pumpkin pie on her plate.
"Didn't you know?" she said seeming annoyed, "Phyton and Rizeth are engaged. They're cousins, but it's something the Trancy family does to—" she seemed more irritated as she did quotations with her fingers at the next words "—'keep the bloodline pure'."
The boy's expression turned mild in sympathy as he thought over her words.
"That sounds tough on them." He only said.
"Who cares. They're gross." both girls answered simultaneously. They paused as they eyed each-other startled and then laughed amused. The boy pouted slightly to himself and continued eating.