If my parents taught me anything, it was that life was never fair. I was fifteen, I was failing school and the only thing I had to rely on was a semi-satisfying fancy upon the most gorgeous boy to ever enter Hogwarts: Gaspard Scabior. And the most disheartening fact was the fact that he'd never notice me for the sole fact that I had whiskers. Well, really less whiskers than more invisible feelers on my face but they were still there and you know, sometimes the charm wore off and in certain sunlight you could see them catch a bit of a glow and they looked brown. I was the school brown-noser and I had a brown nose. That wasn't lost on a lot of the really immature boys who roamed the hall, believe me.

Alright, so maybe mum always said that the only true sign of beauty was confidence, and dad always harped on about how I was averagely normal looking, and if someone didn't like the fact that my mother had been genetically altered after an accident in their shop and I came out sort of different to most other children, then they didn't deserve to know me. At this point, though, I didn't care about any of that. I was in love, I was a freak-show and none of that encouragement stuff really made any difference on a fifteen year old girl. How was I supposed to be happy under these conditions?

It didn't help that granddad always went on about how Gaspard's grandfather tortured him and my Great Aunt Hermione and Great Uncle Ron back in the old war that happened hundreds of years ago or whatever. Just because someone's family was evil, didn't mean that made someone evil. It also didn't help that the only time I got to see him was during detention. His detention. Not mine. I kind of volunteered for Professor Longbottom in the greenhouses because, well, school was hard, and Gaspard had hexed all these Gryffindor first years and gotten a months' worth of detention and so I went to help out so I could spend time with him. He'd always shake his brunette maze (stained green in some parts to really show his Slytherin pride) and he'd sort of sneer at me - the first Potter that was ever in a house other than Gryffindor - and shake his head like he thought I was pathetic. Understandably, because I was.

"Alright, Scabior?" I asked sweetly. Mum always said I had the sweetest, most melodic voice that could melt even the stoniest of hearts. It was alright, I supposed, up until the point where purs sometimes snuck in. Still, it was my best feature and no way I'd get a guy without speaking to him. What else was going to reel them in? The gangly appeal of awkwardness and self-loathing?

Like always, Gaspard snickered at my attempts of communication and flipped me the bird. I just turned back to the plants. We were working with attack plants in class. In the seventh year greenhouse, it was all made of poisonous stuff.

"No talking," Professor Longbottom said astutely. It was kind of weird having him as a teacher. During summer he'd go to my grandparents' house and have long tea with them and laugh about the good old days. This Christmas he got me a book entitled Herbology: You may not be great, but this will help. He'd ask me every class if I read it. Not sure what he was trying to say, but considering Grandma Ginny sent me a letter telling me if my grades didn't improve she'd start sending me howlers, I was getting a general idea of what the issue was. "Scabior, you're over there." We both looked to a collection of great big red flowers under a glass dome. Gaspard obviously knew what they were because he just looked bored. Not that he ever looked anything else, but he had different levels of boredom that I had studied in all of my five years loving him. This one was, I would rather be anywhere else and I hate Professor Longbottom but hey, I'm here, aren't I? It was my sixth favourite one."And Jupiter, we need to discuss your essay."

That was another weird thing about having a teacher who was also a family friend. He always called me by my first name, which I hated. Jupiter Potter-Lewis. Urgh. What type of torture was that supposed to be? Especially when people screwed up their noses and asked me where my parents got that name from, and I had to admit they got it from a hybrid animal, the first Potter Lewis experimentation that got my parents together. It was almost like screaming look, I was named after a cat-owl and now I have whiskers, whiskers I say! and expecting them not to notice my slight abnormalities. It was already bad enough I got my dad's neurocies. Mum said they were cute. Freak cat/falcon/teenage girls were not the height of social acceptance. I could shout that from the rooftop but I doubt anyone would care.

So, I sort of stumbled over to Professor Longbottom's desk and he sat me down and started talking about how a mandrake wasn't a person, although they looked like one, and so it was not "creepy" or "breaking wizarding laws" to use them in potions. I grew up in an environment where every living thing was to be seen and appreciated and loved as something wonderful and unique, I just didn't think my parents were betting that extended along to plants. I tried to argue my case, but it came off sounding like more of a crazy rant rather than a deliberated argument if Gaspard's callous laughter was anything to go by. Sometimes I wondered why I even loved him. He didn't even understand me, and I was beginning to think he never would either. Finally, Professor Longbottom allowed my humiliation to end. He sent me across to another part of the room away from all the flowers to iron out the kinks in my essay. Personally, I didn't think it was that bad, definitely not bad enough to get a 'T'. There was almost too much ink covering my essay to make the required changes to it, and I was almost considering slitting my throat to get out of it when destiny took the matter out of my hands.

A sharp prang struck my neck and I put my hand there to see blood, so much blood, and a bit of black ooze climbing down into my blouse. All I could think as I dropped to the floor as a lavender plant struck out again was that I was joking and that I really needed to learn not to give the universe such clear openings in the future. We seemed to be in the right place, though, for plant poisons and cures because as soon as I hit the ground, the buzzing stopped and the stinging stopped and, hey look!, Professor Longbottom was standing over me with so much worry in his eyes.

"Jupiter, are you okay?" he asked, clearly quite panicked.

What was I supposed to say?

Apparently my brain was against me and considered my life not a big enough joke already, because it came out with, "Super duper lemon scooper." Like what was that even supposed to mean? Between the essay and the love of my life hearing that doozy, the plant could happily take me now.

"We better get you to Madame Silssica," Professor Longbottom fretted. Suddenly, his gaze jumped up to Gaspard's and Gaspard gave us a look of horror as Herb Man said, "Scabior, take her to the Hospital Wing."

"Not my problem," Gaspard replied. He honestly sounded very unamused by the whole thing, though his eyes lit up when he saw me writhing on the ground in pain.

"Well, make it yours," Professor Longbottom snapped as he tried to heave me up, "because if you don't, that's another months' detention and you'll have to explain to your house why you lost fifty points." Gaspard glared so heatedly at Professor Longbottom that my ovaries exploded. Still, he threw down his secateurs and came over to me. I almost peed myself as his wand levelled at my chest and I went four feet off the ground in a levitation field.

"I ain't touching her," he snarled at Professor Longbottom's disapproving stare. I felt like yelling out to him, can't you see that he was just bluffing? but considering it was some quality alone time with my love I didn't so much as mew. Well, it wasn't so much quality alone time so much as quantity alone time, but who was I to argue? You see? If there was any such thing my life had taught me, it was that it just wasn't fair.

If my parents had taught my anything, it was that life wasn't fair. Here I was, stuck carting around Jupiter bloody Potter-Lewis because she couldn't see a freaking terrornaughter plant sneak up on her. It was bad enough she was basically in love with me and stalked me around the school, but now I was trapped in a corridor with her while she garbled on about some tripe? Hell bloody no. Soon as we got to the castle entrance, I dropped her on her fat arse and let her walk the way there. If I hadn't already lost so many house points to the fact that I'd be sleeping outside the rest of the year if I lost any more, I would have left her there to herself. I scowled at her, hoping it would encourage her not to speak, but those stupid pink lips crashed wide open as soon as her feet touched the ground.

"Thank you for doing this," she crooned perkily like I'd had a say in the matter. I'd rather be anywhere else, even back with those puny first years who well deserved what they got. Some Gryffindor git told them to ask me about my snatcher activities, so I hexed them all the way to the vanishing closet on the other side of the castle. Taught them not to mess with a seventh year Slytherin bloke. Gotta keep those shits in line somehow, especially since they all listened to Harry Prat-head, the last remaining cousin of Potter-Lewis still at this school. I was gonna be so happy when I got outta this place and never had to see his git face ever again. "It's okay, it's not the first time I've been struck down in my prime. There was Joe Wadcock just last year, you remember him? He got me with one of those bogey curses, I can't remember which one, but mucus, everywhere!"

Well, that was just disgusting. Still, it was pretty funny. In fact, seeing her struck down by a rather placid plant like a terrornaughter (named for it's naught but terror attitude towards our kind) was pretty hilarious. I watched for a good three minutes as it slowly slithered its sticky leaves towards her before dropping its blackened, sharpened point into her neck. Bloody hilarious. Would've laughed if not for professors being around.

"Knew you'd love that," she said cheerfully. Why did all fifth-year Slytherin girls have to be so damn annoying? It was just then that I noticed that we were going towards our common room rather than the Hospital Wing like I was supposed to have done.

"We're going the wrong way," I spat, loathe to interact with it.

"Nup, we aren't, this is the way to the portrait," she replied. I wanted to bang my head against a wall. Better yet, I wanted to bang her head into a wall until it bleed. I wondered if her mouth would keep going then, if the blood would just all pour in and gargle her into an eternity of silence. It was all I could dream for when it concerned Potter-Lewis.

"I would kill myself before entering the common room with you," I gagged.

"You know, your honesty is really refreshing," Potter-Lewis hummed to herself. Dare I say it, a bit of a crumpled cat sound came out too. It disgusted me, the rumours that her parents had copulated with a cat, or the ones about the animal orgies in their shop, and that she was the by-product of it. How was anyone supposed to concentrate in school with such a monstrosity roaming the halls where normal people lived? I reminded myself once again to sign the petition Peggsy'd drawn up to have her expelled. With one well-aimed Jelly Legs Jinx, Potter-Lewis dropped to the floor in a heap. I snickered as she flailed about loudly. Wondered how long it'd take her to get to the common room in her state.

"Hope no one finds you any time soon," I told her, jovially enough since my voice was coated in hatred for the girl at my back. That was when my legs collapsed out from under me and I turned to face her. Potter-Lewis's stub of a wand was pointed at me. My mouth dropped open out of shock. "You hexed me," I snarled.

"You'll never love me, will you?" she wailed. "You'll never care for me? Or try to at least be civil?"

"You're a stupid, disgusting half-breed of a pain in my side, how could I ever feel anything for you?" I hissed. I hoped the heat of my gaze would cause her to spontaneously combust, but she was still in front of me a moment later so no such luck.

"Fine then," she blubbered. I watched triumphantly as she used her arms to drag her body past me. I thought she'd keep going all the way down the hall and then right to the portrait and I was going to enjoy her struggle, but then when she got even with me, she flipped her body so she was she was uncomfortably close. Before I could say anything, her pink lips were on top of mine and, well, my mind cleared itself in surprise. She pressed her lips harder, pulled her body closer and angled her face so her breath was on my cheek.

Something tickled my nose.

Then, it was over. Potter-Lewis crawled away like a seal making her way through an artic blizzard and I watched after her. I had no idea what just happened, but my stomach shifted uncomfortably as the Jelly Legs Counter-curse fleetingly fluttered through my mind. I was getting one hell of a view of her arse from this angle though, so I figured why bother and watched as she tottered around the corner without even sending a glance behind. She'd left me stumped in the corridor with nothing left to do other than to follow right after her.

Maybe Potter-Lewis had some moves on her after all. Life really was not fair.