The First Five Years: An Introduction to a Very Alternate Character Universe
A/N: We sound like Mary Sues in this chapter. We know. It's not in good taste. We won't resort to lame "Don't Like, Don't Read" defenses, but this is only an introduction chapter to our characters, and we promise the subsequent chapters won't be nearly as impeccably perfect-sounding.
Perhaps the simplest way to explain it was like this: Cordelia was too shy to even initiate a romance, Kindali's was a bit unusual considering that it was with Draco Malfoy, and Moona's was just plain off the wall, completely secret, and bordering on illegal.
Cordelia Crewberry was madly internally obsessed with Harry Potter, and wanted to secretly kill Ginny (Oftentimes she would say under her breath, "Stupid redhead", but was just as often reminded by her trusted friends that she, too, was a redhead.) In the fierce competition for famous Harry's affections, while Ginny got over her shyness, Cordelia failed in the endeavour, and was insanely jealous of the younger for getting to "Mr. Emerald Eyes" first.
Kindali Sidera, the sprightly, blonde Ravenclaw of the three, was involved in a secret affair with Draco, who was supposed to be officially involved with Pansy Parkinson, who knew none the better, and would have been in denial if she knew anyway. Secret not only because of risk of inciting the rage of Pansy (whether she believed it or not), but because traditionally, Hogwarts social custom dictates that Ravenclaws and Slytherins do not mix. However, despite the intervening and difficult circumstances, the two have been happily sneaking into each other's dorm rooms for quite some time without consequence.
And as if Kindali's were not secret, dangerous and unusual enough, Moona Peruna's was doubly so. Ever since the first time she laid her eyes on the sulky Potions master, some measure of a soft spot for him had grown until it had reached the capacity of unbearable intensity. Somewhere after this occurred, the two people merged together at some point in time with not much explanation, and since then a series of midnight rendezvous and random passings in conveniently empty hallways commenced, completely undetected even by the Headmaster.
In first year, all three arrived at the school from different places.
Moona was conceived of one of Albus Dumbledore's brother's (Aberforth Dumbledore), children, Winifred, who married a Romanian wizard named Dimitri Peruna, who was a vampire relations negotiator. This was how she got an unusual combination of black hair and blue eyes. She spent many summers in Scotland at her grandfather and great-uncle's summer house, a ways out of Aberdeen.
Kindali's parents, Orielle and Dante Sidera, were from the Mediterranean, her mum from Marseilles, France, and her dad from Turin, Italy. They met when her dad was a sailor and came into port in Marseilles. It was love at first sight. They got married two weeks later; her mother was 18 and her father 19. They moved in together and had Kindali a year or two later.
Cordelia was purely Irish; her parents were childhood friends and fell in love once their hormones started to kick in. They were much like the Weasleys in that they had several children, nine altogether. She was the oldest, and usually helped her parents look after all the little ones growing up. Needless to say, coming to Hogwarts was a relief for her.
When they first came to the school, they were, naturally as first-years are, scared to death. Moona was naturally destined to be at Hogwarts, considering family relations. Kindali's mother and father felt it better for her to attend Hogwarts than Beauxbatons, and Cordelia, well, she lived in the school district anyway.
Lined up with all the other firsties, including Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, and the rest, they waited to be sorted.
Crewberry came first of the three, and she was sorted into Gryffindor. She had all the classic Gryffindor traits, and the hat deliberated right away. Though a House usually runs in the family, Cordelia's family was unusually sporadic. They had family members in every House. Even one of her uncles who died young in a chocolate accident had been in Slytherin.
Peruna was next, and came from a pure-blood family as an only child. She was already ambitious on her own terms, and didn't care much for other's conventions or morals. However, as her grandfather and his wise brother were both Gryffindors, and her mother a Ravenclaw, the Sorting Hat had a bit of a time sorting her. After some time, the hat finally called out, "Slytherin!"
Sidera, last, and the first of her family to attend Hogwarts, was not nearly so nervous now that she saw how it was done, was placed in Ravenclaw. She was indeed studious and intelligent, and as her usually-responsible nature dictated, she was the only person keeping Moona and Cordelia awake in class.
They had met in Herbology Club. All three, peculiarly enough, had an interest in growing dangerous magical plants. Naturally, Professor Sprout was the teacher in charge, so a bunch of Hufflepuffs came and rather left the three House loners out. Because of this, they became friends. It was a weird blending of the Houses, like cultural fusion or something.
But still, they got along and became fast friends. Because of House differences, they gave each other the passwords to their dormitories, and soon, after giving up trying to get them detention as the inter-House visits persisted even with detentions, the other students got used to the frequent visits from the foreign girls.
It was a slow process for Moona to fall for her professor of Potions. When he gave his usual intimidating speech to the first years, she wasn't intimidated, but intrigued by his eloquence. Of course, slowly but surely she eased into a state of obsession over him, but didn't tell anyone because she was afraid of being made fun of by her friends. Snape treated her as no more or less than the other Slytherins, and often seemed to barely acknowledge her, except when he handed back marked assignments, which he semi-complimented her for working well on. It was because of these small gestures that she always worked very hard in Potions to receive O grades. She knew it was in the most extremely unlikely degree that anything would ever happen between them, but after nearly five years to give up the idea, in what was an extremely unlikely incident, something did.
One Christmas holiday, while mostly everyone was away with family, Professor Snape called Moona into his office to "discuss her grade".
She went down to his office, on the chilly evening of December 23rd, and knocked quietly on the heavy iron door. The sound resonated and echoed through the cold stone room. She was very, very nervous. This was the first time she was ever alone with Snape, which was really embarrassing in itself because it was about her grade in Potions. She didn't know how she could have a bad grade, and if she did, her meeting with the professor tonight would not be pleasant.
Snape snapped the heavy door open, and said quietly, "Miss Peruna… please come in."
She stepped in cautiously, paying special attention to her attempt to not step on his feet in her fit of nerves. He closed the door slowly, and turned to face her as he latched the lock.
"Now…" he said, moving closer to her. "Forgive me for what I'm about to do."
"What?" she breathed, a fraction of a second before his lips touched hers and his arms circled around her body.
When he stopped, her face was very red, and her heart rate was going haywire. What he had just done was very unexpected, and honestly, very alarming.
"Again, forgive me for that," he said coolly, smoothing his clothes. "It was really bothering me."
"What, your clothes being rumpled?" she said, dumbfounded and still shocked.
He looked up at her and smirked, though pleasantly so. "You know what I meant, Miss Peruna."
"Wh—why?" she asked simply.
"I'm not sure," he said, as though it had just dawned upon him that what he had just done really had made no sense. "I just felt it had to be done."
"So… are we going to discuss my grade now?" Moona asked, quite disordered.
"There's nothing wrong with your grade, Peruna."
"So… I'm confused. What am I here for?"
"This," he said simply and kissed her once again. "Do you understand now, you silly girl?"
Moona looked at him. "Do that again…"
And he did. He pushed her gently back against the bookshelf of his office, and kissed her again and again.
"Since when?" she asked, drawing in deep breaths when her mouth was free. "When did you first feel…?"
"I'm not sure… just a while ago," he whispered, and held her arms at full span against the wall and pressed himself against her body.
"Oh… okay…" she managed to say just before he started kissing her again.
Thus it began: the illegal romance.
On the other hand, Kindali's affair with Draco Malfoy began very suddenly at the start of fifth year. Moona had been talking to him casually outside of the library about how he needed to get some new goons because Crabbe and Goyle were just a little too stupid (okay, a lot too stupid) when Kindali walked up, trailed by Cordelia who was mumbling something about the Potter boy.
"Hey Kin, Cord." Cordelia ignored her and kept on with her incoherent mumblings. "This is Draco Malfoy."
"I know who he is Moon. He's the Muggle hating psycho who unfortunately is very good looking." Kindali, though refined about most other subjects, wasn't too subtle about who she thought was hot.
Draco's glare turned into a smirk at the mention of his amazingly great looks.
Moona rolled her eyes and continued on with the introductions. "And the loud mouthed Ravenclaw is Kindali, while that one right there," she pointed to Cordelia who tried to hide behind Kindali, "is my other best friend, Cordelia." She purposefully left out the Gryffindor part, and shot Draco a warning look about saying anything bad to or about her.
"Nice to meet you," he stated flatly.
"I'm afraid that I can't really say the same about you." Kindali looked at him with an eyebrow raised in boredom.
"Yeah… I have to go check out a book now, Cord?" Moona said subtly. The air was think with a strange sort of chemistry, and she just knew that Kindali and Draco needed some "time alone." Cordelia rushed to follow Moona, not wanting to spend another moment with that Potter-hating freak.
Kindali glared at him, and Draco just smirked back. "So, I hear you think I'm hot."
"Well, duh, I just told you that, dumbass."
"I know you probably don't like me…"
"How did you guess that, smart one?"
"I'm just gonna cut to the chase here. Wanna snog?"
"Are you serious? Because, why would I wanna make out with a nutcase like you?"
"Because I'm hot, and besides, I think you're hot with your attitude problem. Kinda reminds me of… ME!" Draco reasoned proudly.
Kindali stared at him as though he was a parasite, but a sexy one in any case. She figured what the heck, he was hot.
"Okay, sure," she said.
"Well then," Draco said smugly, "Let's go down to my dormitory… of course, we have to keep this on the low, because I've got a girlfriend."
"Erm, yeah, I know that…" Kindali said.
"Well, just warning you. Pansy can be a real bitch."
"Erm, yeah, I know that too… Moona's in Slytherin… she tells me a lot of things about you scumbags."
"Jeez, don't turn me on too much before we get to my bed, you sex kitten," Draco purred lazily.
"Since when was I a sex kitten?"
"Oh, I've heard stories…" Draco said vaguely.
"You WHAT?" Kindali exclaimed.
"Only joking… but you are just totally turning me on…"
And the two hurried down to Draco's dorm, and since then, they have had a happy secret affair full of sex, snogging, and making fun of Pansy and her goon-bitches, as well as Hufflepuffs.
Cordelia's romance was anything but. She had first seen the famous Harry Potter during the Sorting the very first year and it was obsession at first sight. As she very often described over and over to her two closest friends when they were half-asleep at one of their rule-breaking dormitory sleepovers, 'I swear to you, his face was angelic, and lit up by the light from the windows in the Great Hall… and his eyes were so green… he looked like a god the first time I saw him…' to which they often replied something like "Yes, and a king he was, his crown the bejeweled singing Sorting Hat" before mumbling that she ought to shut up and let them sleep.
And for six years she never got over the charm of him, regardless of his fame. It was the simple things that nourished and sustained her interest in him, like when he said hello to her in the halls, or seemed to glance at her ever so slightly during class, and even asked her for the assignments he might have missed while he was bedridden for Quidditch injuries every rare once in a while. But despite her unspoken, unknown devotion, she was beaten out by everyone more forward than she was to be on his list of noticeable, dateable girls. Cho Chang, possibly his friend Hermione, and now Ginny Weasley. Cordelia wanted to kill Ginny. For God's sake, she was a year lower than her and she'd even gotten to him! And what was so great about Cho Chang? The girl was an emotional wreck ever since her boyfriend died, but Harry was still stupid enough to get into a mess like that. Cordelia herself really wasn't shy. She could start a school wide water-balloon fight or even stand up to Snape, but when it came to Harry, her mind slipped away into the manhole sewer drain of anxiety and panic and nothing intelligent ever came out of her mouth.
Cordelia mulled all of this over in her brain as she laid in bed, as she often did every night in her obsessive state over him. It was interesting, she now thought, that wizards and magic folk had it quite a bit easier than Muggles when it came to many things, but in the race to understanding and untangling human love, they were neck-and-neck in their little bit of progress.
A/N: Again, we're sorry that we may seem a little 'Mary Sue'. It will get better, that we promise you. Please review! Thank you and we lurve you!
- Moona Peruna and Kindali Sidera