Chapter One: The Rumor
"So you were gathered here tonight because it's time I set the rumors to rest. Everyone here believes that I have done things that I have not and now Mr. Scorpius Malfoy is going to administer Veritaserum so that you get the truth," I announced to all of the fifth, sixth, and seventh years that had assembled in the Quidditch Pitch. They were going to learn the truth of what really happened in Hogwarts this year even though it was going to embarrass me greatly to tell them. I watched as about 120 students suddenly silenced and looked up at me from their seats.
It was time for me to tell my story…
At the beginning of this year, Roxanne, my best mate, couldn't understand why I didn't want to spend time at the Gryffindor Common Room parties with her.
"Desi, come on, you don't do anything fun at all! I'm just asking for you to come with me to a party that's being thrown by my family in Gryffindor," she pleaded. I did not want to go. Her cousins were a bunch of bloody obnoxious Gryffindors that always got into trouble. I just didn't want to spend a weekend in detention.
"I have a lot of homework to do Ros. I don't have time for parties," I told her. She huffed at me, flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and left Ravenclaw tower. I smiled at the fact that I was finally alone and free to do my homework without interruption. I loved Roxanne, but sometimes she just was too much of a distraction. I went upstairs to the girls' dorm and grabbed my textbooks. When I went back down to the common room I relished in the thought of a night alone. All the younger years were already in bed awaiting the first Quidditch Match of the season, and all the fifth years and above were at the Gryffindor party. I was free to just sit and do homework.
There was a cluster of squashy blue chairs in the corner of the common room with a table between them. It was my favorite place to do homework in the common room. I walked over to the table, through my knapsack on it, and pulled out my Charms text. I needed to brush up on some of the charms we had been practicing.
It was usually around the second paragraph about a specific charm that I would get up and move while I was performing it. On this particular night, I was working on Accio and Silencio. I moved through the common room waving my wand at any object and summoning it to my hand. I used Silencio to quiet the radio. If anyone had come in, I'm sure they would have thought I was bloody mental. It wasn't every day that a fifth year Ravenclaw girl danced around her common room with inanimate objects.
When I felt that Charms had been sufficiently taken care of, I switched to Care of Magical Creatures. I needed to write a sixteen inch essay on thestrals. I thought it was impossible to write an essay on an animal that I could not see, so I started with that detail.
I was half-way through a Potions essay when Lorcan Scamander, Head Boy, came through the common room entrance.
"Hello Corner," he greeted. Lorcan's twin brother, Lysander, was Roxanne's biggest crush so I knew both boys from our various times together. Both were good friends with a lot of the people in seventh year around Hogwarts, including the one bloke I have spent almost my entire life loving.
"Hello Lorcan how was the Gryffindor party?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," he answered with a grin. I assumed that his comment meant he couldn't be known to be at common room parties since he was Head Boy. It was probably the reason he was back early, needed an alibi.
I nodded, "Well then goodnight." I assumed that he would just go to the boys' dormitory. Instead, he picked up my Potions text. He glanced at it.
"Did you need help?"
"Not really," I scoffed at him. I was intelligent. I didn't need his help.
He smirked and disappeared. I watched him go. I naively believed that he was going to retire for the evening. I went back to my parchment. I needed to write a few more items about these ingredients and their magical properties.
I heard a thump across from me; I looked up to see Lorcan had rejoined me with his own Potions materials. I ignored him as I continued to write about mandrake root. If he wanted to sit and do homework on a Friday night, who was I to tell him not to?
We were sitting like that an hour later when several of our housemates returned to the tower. One of them was Roxanne. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, before moving up to the girls' dormitories. I didn't know what the gesture meant, but I'm sure she would explain it among her many stories from the party tomorrow.
Once everyone had made it back from the party, I went up to the dorm. Once I got there, a slightly mullered Roxanne attacked me with questions.
"What were you doing with Head Boy all alone here?" She questioned in a sing-song like voice.
"Nothing, he came back from the party and did homework in the same corner of the common room that I was."
"Liar! You did something with him! I know it. You're just not telling me," she accused me. I shook my head, told her she was tankered, and crawled into my own bed.
The next afternoon, Ros and I were getting ready to walk out to the Quidditch Pitch when she pushed me into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
"Tell me all about what you and the other Scamander did last night," she demanded. I tried hard to tell her that we did nothing. I claimed that we did homework, which we did, but Ros did not believe me. She continued to accuse me of having sex with Lorcan in the common room, when Venus Brown stepped out of one of the stalls.
Venus stared at me. Somehow, Venus ended up the exact opposite of her mother. She didn't believe in snogging or anything that wasn't very witch-like before you were being courted. I don't know if she read too many novels from the ancient times or if she was just dropped, but she believed that proper witches worried about their education. I was in agreement with her, unless Scorpius Malfoy happened to ask me to the Yule Ball, then bollocks with studies.
"What are you looking at Brown?" Roxanne snidely asked.
"Just a couple of slags," she answered as she made her way to the door.
"I resent that. I am not a slag. As I was telling Ros, here, I did not have sex with Lorcan," I defended myself. She rolled her eyes and pushed through the loo doors. Great, the only thing Brown had in common with her mother was the ability to gossip.
I shot an evil glare at Ros, "I can't believe you didn't check to see if someone was in here first!"
"What does it matter? You're denying that you even did anything."
"I'm denying it because it isn't true. It isn't called denial when it's the truth," I reasoned with my disillusioned best mate.
"Fine," she said in a tone that told me she didn't really believe me. How she couldn't believe me, I didn't know. We had been best mates since we were in nappies. She knew my personality, and that I fancied Scorpius Malfoy.
…I looked around at the Quidditch Pitch as I assessed the faces I could make out in the crowd. I could see Ros looking at me in disbelief, Venus giving an evil glare, and Lorcan shaking his head in shame. It was going to be a long time before this entire story was finished.