(An Eileen Prince story.)
Her mother had awoken her early, with a cry more harsh than a crowing rooster. Eileen had opened her eyes to pale rays of barely-morning light falling in through the round window set high in the sloping wall. She lay in her bed a moment longer, watching the lazy glitter of dust floating in those sunbeams. Very soon she would be free of this attic room and out of the Glass House where nothing must be touched, and her mother lurked around corners to squawk at her, or sat prim, grim, and straight in her chair reading, the pits of her eyes glancing up over the pages if only to look at her daughter with ice.
Her father next to her mother, so very similar but something a bit more alive in him, than in her. He was a man whose smile was almost not there—one had to be very observant of the minute detail of his lips—to distinguish the subtle rise of corners, but at least he was capable of that. Eileen thought he may be prone to a bit more happiness, if her mother did not smash it with her shrill voice and between bone-claw fingers. Her father was often too quiet to protest, his normal tone of voice a mere whisper, just as subtle as his ghost-smiles. Those smiles seemed only to touch his eyes—as dark as her mothers, but not void—when he regarded his daughter. He would not say it, but some things he did showed her that he did care for her, the cold and only child. He stood up to his wife only when it came to his daughter, or his birds.
Eileen propped herself up on her slender forearms, pointy elbows digging into the mattress. Today was the day she would leave on a scarlet train to meet her future. She was eager to learn, less eager to have to spend her living arrangements and most of the year with other children her own age. Like her father she was a quiet girl, and like her mother she tended to be sour. She was fully capable of cruelty should it suit her, and often enough it did. She had never joined in many games with other children, she found most of them frivolous and a waste of her time. She had only tried Gobstones because her father had bought a beautiful set for her ninth birthday. He had suggested she should play with other children, rather than hex them. Her mother thought the glass stones were stupid, and that the other children deserved to be hexed for playing on the ground like pigs, and soiling their clothes, and laughing about nothing and everything, and being generally petulant little rats, simply because they were children.
Though Eileen was more inclined to agree with her mother, she would not admit it, nor give her mother the satisfaction of being right. She learned Gobstones and played the game as often as she could with the other children, remaining a silent competitor, and victorious in many ways. She was good at the game, and her mothers face when she came home for dinner with her clothes dirty continued to fuel her love for the game. She was sure her father was amused as well. He would sometimes stand at the window and watch as a tournament took place on the sidewalk, and later he would compliment her, and they would both ghost-smile, conspiring annoyances to the glowering mother.
Eileen let her bare feet hit the cool wood flooring. She wiggled her toes against the boards, and then creaked across the room to gather the velvet pouch which held her Gobstones. Her mother had threatened to destroy them many times, causing riots between spouses to break out in the kitchen and wands to arch and spray sparks and colors as the evening light would die down to darkness. Did all husband and wives duel each other in the kitchen? She was not sure, but it was life in the Glass House.
Her mother's eek rang up the stairs to her once more, and Eileen gave a rude fingered salute to the closed door, glaring fit to put a hole through it. She opened the top drawer of her dresser, and pulled out a parcel of folded clothing, wrapped in tissue paper. These were her uniform pieces that her mother had chosen for her in Diagon Alley, embarrassing her daughter by riffling through racks and racks of jumpers, going on and on about how hard it was to buy clothes for the girl because she was so thin. She had complained about how she would have to get them magically altered, else they would look like sacks hanging from twigs, and how that would cost so much more. Eileen had inherited her twiggy build from both parents, her father being broader in the shoulders. He wore heavy black robes to make himself look more substantial, but his gaunt face and long, slender fingers, gave him away. Her mother was just a mean bitch, who enjoyed poking her daughter with sticks, as she might an animal to rile it.
Eileen slipped out of her night gown, cast a cleaning charm over herself, and then dressed in her uniform. For now the tie she knotted at her neck was black, with a Hogwarts emblem. Later tonight it would be switched out with one which bore the colors of the House she would be sorted into—most likely Slytherin, as was the tradition of her family.
She ran her hand over the pleats of her gray uniform jumper to straighten it. She frowned. The pleats hit just above her knees, and her legs looked like toothpicks with ugly knobs in the middle for knees. She pulled on her stockings, adjusting the black line up the back of her long legs. She hated wearing these too, but her mother insisted it wasn't proper to wear a skirt or dress without them.
"Eileen!" It was dearest mother calling up the stairs again. Eileen's thick brows furrowed together as she grabbed her scuffed saddle oxfords. She slipped them onto her feet and tied them quickly, twined the drawstring for her Gobstone pouch around her wrist, and moved over towards the packed trunk which sat in the corner, near her wardrobe. The envelope containing her acceptance letter and list of school supplies lay on top. She ran her fingers over it once more, tracing the long, thin digit along the words.
Ms. E. Prince
The Attic in the Glass House
1660 Mill Drive-
"Eileen!" Her name rang out again, and she jerked her head up with an expression of annoyance pulling her thick brows together.
Eileen did not give her mother a response, she hardly felt like shouting back to her. Let the woman think she was still lying in bed, with a pillow smashed over her head. She put the letter into her trunk, the address at the "glass house" disappearing beneath some folded clothing.
"You'll be late!"
Eileen grabbed her trunk and stopped near the door, looking up at the slender black cat who sat atop the wardrobe. The cat peered down from a long, thin face, much like that of its owner. It's glowing yellow eyes narrowed to slits, and it gave a twitch of its large and angular ears.
"Come along, Hemlock." The cat gave an irritated meow, and hopped off the wardrobe and curled around Eileen's thin shoulders as if it were a shawl.
She banged her trunk down the narrow stairway, extra loud and with a smug expression on her face, just for her mother. The woman stood crossly at the bottom of the stairs, looking much like her only child.
"We're going to be late." Isis Prince snapped, her voice a hiss of impatience. "You won't wear your hair like that." She added, scowling from under heavy black brows at her daughters lank raven hair hanging loosely over her shoulders. Her mother waved her hand, and Eileen's hair coiled into a tight knot at the back of her neck—Hemlock gave a great screechy yowl as his tail was caught up into the hairdo.
"Mother!" Eileen shrieked, battling with the cat that was clawing wildly at her shoulders.
"Next time, you won't dawdle." Her mother said coldly, offering no help to the writhing cat or daughter.
"Hemlock!" The cat's tail was pulled free with much flying of fur, and he sprang off of Eileen's shoulders and bolted across the kitchen. Eileen chased after the cat, dropping her trunk. Hemlock bolted over the table top, across the counter, and out the open window where a pair of drab gray curtains fluttered on the dying breeze of summer. "No!" Eileen climbed onto the counter and poked her head out the window, calling for the cat but seeing it nowhere.
"Eileen—get down from there, you will tear your stockings!" Her mother dragged her down, and left a sharp slap across her face for her behavior. "You knocked over my peyote." Isis huffed, waving her hand at the mess of broken pottery, spilled soil, and cactus that had toppled out of the window sill in Eileen's ridiculous fit.
"I hate bloody stockings." Eileen spat, her face screwed up into a hateful glare as she stomped back to the bottom of the stairs and grabbed her trunk, her mothers hand print stinging and red against her white cheek. "And your stupid sodding cactus!"
"What's all this, then?" Her father asked in his quiet, silky voice. He appeared in the doorway tall, thin, angular, black eyes peering down his long, curved nose. He bore an uncanny resemblance not only to his daughter, but to his wife as well.
"Your daughter is mad!" Her mother raged on as she closed the kitchen window. "She has absolutely no idea how to behave properly, and here she is going off to school. They'll throw you out if you pitch such fits-"
"Mam tied Hemlock in my hair and frightened him off, out the window!" Eileen defended. Osiris pinched the bridge of his nose. Isis scowled, and Eileen smirked. Mother hated 'Mam'.
Isis stamped across the room, the small heels of her pointed boots tapping madly against the wood. She raised her wand at her daughter, pointing it to the thin-lipped, smug-twisted mouth.
"Scourgify!"
Eileen doubled over, coughing and choking, the sour tang of soap over her tongue and bubbles roiling out of her mouth like contents of a pot boiling over. Her father calmly slid his wand out from the holster her wore on his forearm, concealed beneath the draping sleeve of his robe. He uttered the counter curse as his wife began to rage on about the girl needing her just punishment for being such an intolerable little bitch.
"I will hear no more." Her father said, his voice deadly calm and quiet. He slid his wand back up his sleeve, seemingly unaffected by her mothers screech-ranting and flapping of her arms like some skeletal bird. Eileen spat out the last traces of bubbles, and to further irritate her mother, she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her brand new clothing. She looked straight at her mother when she did so.
"Do you SEE!" Her mother jabbed a scrawny finger at her offensive daughter. "The nerve she has!"
"Eileen, come." Her father swept gracefully out of the kitchen, ignoring her mother's continued fit. Eileen followed him into the living room; a room that like the rest of the house seemed bland and sterile.
"I understand your flighty feline has taken leave of this madness, via the window." Her father moved towards a silver cage that sat near a window, next to the high-backed leather chair he often occupied. "Eileen, you will take Muninn." Osiris said, his voice still barely audible but firm. His words were always selected carefully, his lips seemed to caress each one, a silky speech that contradicted the harsh jutting planes of his somber face. He lost his words only when he was pushed to a complete rage.
Eileen bit her lip. She did not want to take one of the family ravens, though she saw her Father's gesture as a way to make peace, and an offering in kind. He cared meticulously for the birds, perhaps loved them, as sometimes she had come in to find him murmuring lowly to them, now and then even singing in that silk-whisper, as he stroked their feathers.
As I was walking all alone,
I heard two ravens making a moan;
One said to the other,
"Where shall we go and dine today?"
"In behind that old turf wall,
I sense there lies a newly slain knight;
And nobody knows that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound and his lady fair."
"His hound is to the hunting gone,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl home,
His lady has taken another mate,
So we may make our dinner sweet."
"You will sit on his white neck-bone,
And I'll peck out his pretty blue eyes;
With one lock of his golden hair
We'll thatch our nest when it grows bare."
"Many a one for him is moaning,
But nobody will know where he is gone;
Over his white bones, when they are bare,
The wind will blow for evermore."
Eileen would rather have her cat back. It wasn't fair that she couldn't take it, he had been with her since she were a tiny girl. Her mother's cat—a gray oriental from the same litter as Hemlock—was curled up beneath the woman's chair. The familiar knew better than to walk on the furniture, lest the cat receive a scolding to match the ones the daughter so often provoked. Muninn gave a harsh caw, fluttered his wings, and bobbed his head at her. Muninn's brother Huginn, a striking albino with piercing red eyes, flapped his wings from his perch.
"You are aware Eileen, why I call these birds such. It is said that Huginn and Muninn were twin ravens "Thought" and "Memory". They belonged to the Norse deity, Odin, who would send his birds out daily over Midgard. They were his ears and his eyes. The raven is a supreme messenger. He is a cunning and intelligent entity, he is sacred and highly magical. His banners flew as honor to Odin and tokens of luck upon Viking vessels, sewn by daughters of great warriors and kings. He will serve you well, Eileen."
A snort issued from the doorway.
"They're birds of ill omen, and death. They dine upon corpses and tap at window panes, waiting to take the souls within. They're horrible creatures. They're macabre. They're dirty." Isis harped, as she stood in the doorway. Her thin arms were crossed over her flat chest, and she still looked cross. Perhaps she was perpetually so. "Take the ugly white one too, I would be glad to get them out of my house."
"Woman." Osiris hissed, and cast her a dark look. He stroked Muninn's shimmering black fathers. Woman was a sign that Osiris meant business. The next step up was a snap in his temper that would see him sending a hex across the room, and no doubt a duel between spouses would irrupt. Today however, there was no time for that. Eileen could see the self-control practiced in her fathers' eyes.
"Take care of my "Memory", Eileen." He said to Eileen, and placed the ebony raven on her shoulder. He knelt, and whispered to the bird. "And you, Memory, take care of my heart." He nodded towards Eileen, and the bird seemed to nod its head in response. Osiris looked up at his daughter, their eyes catching in a rare moment that transmitted his quiet love to her.
"We'll be late to the platform!" Isis cried, breaking the bond and nudging Eileen with jabbing fingers towards the door.
–
"Keep to your studies, and behave." Osiris instructed, standing on the platform with Eileen. His expression was as stern as her mothers, but his eyes revealed his humanity, as her mothers she imagined—did not. Her mother snorted at her fathers instruction to 'behave' as if this were an impossible thing to ask of the girl.
"I have little hope for her, until she proves otherwise." Isis snipped, her words clipped and hurtful. Her mother had little hope for her, and spoke of her as if she had already boarded the train and been whisked out of their lives for the biggest part of the year. Eileen held her mothers gaze just as darkly.
"I've nothing to prove to you." She stormed towards the scarlet train, Muninn giving a squawk-cough from upon her shoulder as she stepped into the corridor.
The train was alive with chatter, and Eileen made her way slowly down the aisle, glancing into compartments for a place to sit. The first compartment she looked into took her by surprise. An enormous boy with a head of wild brown hair took up the majority of the compartment. His eyes were streaming tears down his red cheeks, and he was waving a huge hand at a small man who stood on the platform, waving back at him. The giant of a boy pulled a handkerchief out from a pocket that seemed the size of a tablecloth, and gave his nose a great trumpeting blow.
Eileen moved on past a few more full compartments, and then peeked into one where a girl with pigtails and round glasses sat all by herself. The girl was slumped and moping, her lower lip pushed out in a pout. Her eyes were full of tears.
"Ohhh..." She whined. "No one wants to sit with me! I just knew this trip would be miserable! Will you sit with me?" She leaned towards Eileen hopefully, grabbing at her wrist. "I tried to sit with those other girls, but they're sooo-ooo mean." She boo-hooed. "They pulled my hair!" She continued to bemoan, grating on Eileen's nerves and furthering her ill temper.
"If you weren't such a moaning, sniveling, little bitch, then perhaps someone would sit with you." Muninn twitched his head, and bobbed on Eileen's shoulder. Eileen turned on her heel, and continued on down the corridor, rolling her eyes when the girls sobs rang out even louder. An older girl pushed past her with a younger boy—probably a first year—and took the boy into the nearest compartment where she gushed over him. Eileen recognized them both as Blacks.
"Lupin, Malfoy, Potter, this is my cousin, Orion." She said. A boy with mousy hair smiled warmly at Orion, while a small blond wizard peered severely at the first year from over the top of his half-moon spectacles. The third boy, tall and lanky with unruly black hair that poked out from beneath a newsboy hat, offered his hand to Orion in greeting. His brown eyes smiled behind his spectacles, but Orion glanced at his Gryffindor tie, and left the offered hand in midair. That compartment was also too full. Wasn't there anywhere a girl could sit? Eileen startled when a small girl with a poof of wild curly hair toppled out into the aisle, and almost onto Eileen.
The girl picked herself up, looking upset as voices shouted at her out from the compartment from which she had been so rudely expelled.
"Crazy, that one is!" A voice said.
"They're letting all kinds in, aren't they?" Another said.
"She belongs at Mungos." Spoke another, and that was followed by laughter.
The girl turned to Eileen, nearly running into her, and looked up with large eyes that seemed to swim behind the thick spectacles she wore.
"Oh!" The girl gasped, and when she spoke her voice was breathy. "I'm so sorry. I just-" The girl gasped again, and leaned in to peer closer at Eileen, who bent back from her as far as she could without toppling backwards over her trunk. The girls eyes rolled around and went strange, like glassy baubles. "He holds the hand of evil and light, one in the left, and one in the right. Sinner and saint one in the same, between two worlds-"
"What are you on about?" Eileen pushed the girl out of her way.
"No, wait!" The girl trailed after her, big eyes wide behind their spectacles, a white shawl clinging to her shoulders. "He will be Protector, called Fiend! I speak truth—my great-great grandmother was-"
Eileen rushed towards the back of the train car and away from the spouting little fool. She did not care anymore where she sat, only that she could close the door to a compartment and be walled off from the madness outside. She ducked into the nearest chamber, and slammed the door closed. With a sigh she sank down onto the seat, and looked at the girl next to her, who wore bright pink ribbons at the ends of two perfect brown braids. Her face was round, her mouth thin and a bit too wide, her eyes large and her nose small, the unfortunate combination which gave her a look that slightly resembled a toad. Across from the small girl, an attractive, older boy sat. The boy seemed to be appraising Eileen, and she had the feeling she had interrupted something.
"They're mad out there." Eileen commented. Muninn nodded his feathery head in agreement. "Er...excuse me if I've interrupted."
"We were just talking." The boy said.
"Yes, he has some very interesting ideas." The round-faced girl said in a sweet voice, smiling pleasantly. "I'm Dolores Umbridge, I'm a first-year too. This is Tom."
Tom straightened his green and silver striped tie.
"Eileen Prince." She answered, as the train began to move forward and leave the station.
"Are you a pureblood?" Tom asked, curling his lip slightly.
"Yes, the Prince family is pureblood...perhaps not one of the more well-known lines, but we are."
"Very good." Tom said, his mouth now curving into a small smile of approval."That makes you a cut above the others, you know."
"So am I!" Dolores added quickly. "Haven't you heard of the Selwyns?"
"I'm sure both of you will be sorted into Slytherin." Tom went on. "It's the best House, the only house which remains true and loyal to the highest order of wizard, and the purest form of magic. It disgusts me how our unique qualities have been diluted and polluted by outsiders. Muggles, half-creatures, such as that unnatural freak-first year...the giant half-breed, have you seen him yet? He is quite hard to miss."
Eileen nodded, though the half-giant had hardly seemed beastly: he had been sobbing.
"They should all be done away with. They should be destroyed, and those who mingle with or approve of them, should be done away with too. If we allow them to carry on, they will destroy our bloodline, our magic, we will be no better than those dirty Muggles. It is up to witches and wizards such as you and I—the few who remain pure or rooted in pureblood ideals—to come to power and rebuke those who oppose us, who would bring us to ruin, who would have us living as powerless swine! Don't you agree, Ms. Prince?"
Eileen was unsure how to react. This handsome, well-spoken young man, had in his way made sense. However, there was something about him that unsettled her. She shifted in her seat, and stroked the raven's head.
"I...suppose you have valid points." She said, and looked to the other girl, who was nodding along in agreement.
"Of course I do." Tom assured her. "But we shall not speak of such things when we are not private, there may be ears listening who disagree, who might not understand, and I must wait. The time is not right for them to see my true power, my true intentions, do you understand? These things are kept for now, only between like minds." Tom tapped a finger to the side of his head, grinning conspiratorially to the girls, in a dark sort of way that Eileen could not bring herself to completely trust.
She sat across from Tom, listening to Dolores go on and on about Hogwarts, and Slytherin, and everything, and nothing. Eileen bobbed her head at the right moments, or uttered small sounds that gave the impression she was paying attention. However, Tom's eyes had seemed to captivate her, lost and dark they seemed, but in them some sort of power stirred, some sort of poison swirled. She watched his lips curve up into a small, haunting sort of smile. Dolores' voice seemed like a fog in her ears, and in her head she heard his voice.
The dead are lying in the field,
Oh, hear Her Kraaak and cry!
The gaping wounds, a raven's yield,
She comes hungry from the sky.
Eileen gasped, and grabbed the nearest thing to her, which was Dolores white-gloved hand.
"Eileen dear, are you alright?"
Eileen opened her mouth to answer, but his voice like the hiss of a snake began to repeat.
The dead MUGGLES and MUDBLOODS and TRAITORS
Are lying in the field
Oh, hear them SCREAM and CRY!
Their gaping wounds-
STOP IT! Eileen shouted wordlessly at the voice in her mind, the mad cry of high pitched laughter, like a frozen winter wind raping through the dead-black trees.
I come hungry from the sky.
I come hungry.
Again.
The dead are lying in the field-
Muninn gave a loud caw-croak, and flapped his wings threateningly from Eileen's shoulder.
The spell was broken. Eileen was aware that Dolores was going on about her hand being squeezed—indeed Eileen was griping it in her hand like a vice. Tom's expression had not changed, and his horrible eyes—handsome but ugly beneath—did not blink.
"I can make them do what I want, you know." He said very quietly. "Animals. I can make them do what I want. I could make your raven bow to me, if I wished."
"He will not." Eileen snapped, poking her pointed chin up defiantly.
"He will." They all will, and we will be a mighty army of Ravens, pecking out the eyes of Sparrows in the mud.
His voice again, in her head. She sprang out of her seat, and punched him in the nose. Dolores gave a squeak of surprise, and her small hands covered here wide mouth. Tom just laughed as trails of blood trickled over his lips; a sound which sent shivers twisting up her spine.
-
For the rest of the train trip, Tom was quiet. He sat with his face turned unhappily towards the window, watching the scenery rush by. Eileen and Dolores fell into friendly chatter, after the awkward silence had been broken. Dolores did the larger part of the talking, and Eileen most of the listening. Eileen found that she enjoyed the other girl however, and hoped that they were indeed Sorted into the same house, preferably Slytherin and not one of the others—she did not want her mother to have one more thing to hold against her.
A lady pushing a snack trolley came by and tapped on the door. Dolores opened it, and bought candy which she shared with Eileen, and offered to Tom, who did not respond. They opened chocolate frogs and traded cards, and went through a bag of Every Flavor Beans. Hours later, Tom spoke up to let them know they were nearing the station, and better get their robes on. Eileen and Dolores quickly slipped their school robes on over their uniform jumpers, and soon enough the train did come to a stop.
The first years were ushered across the Black Lake in boats, and Eileen sat with Dolores glad to be away from that eerie boy. Dolores held excitedly onto Eileen's hand. Despite being protective of her personal space, Eileen allowed Dolores chubby hand to remain where it was.
Once inside the castle, the eagerness and anxiety doubled and bubbled through the group of first years. The half-giant was going on and on about how he really wanted to be in Gryffindor. The girl with the shawl and large glasses was busy breathily babbling on about who would be Sorted into which House, and how this person or that person would die a grisly death this year, while no one paid any sort of attention to her. The girl who had been crying on the train was still looking pitiful and pouty, and her whine sounded like the cry of a wounded dog. She moaned about how she wouldn't fit in with any House, and how her year was going to be completely miserable.
The first years were ushered in, and after the introductions by Headmaster Dippet, and the song by the Sorting Hat, each first year was called forward alphabetically.
Eileen was sorted into Slytherin along with first years Orion Black, and Odysseus Filch, the last of who had sat down next to Eileen and was eying her openly from beneath locks of dirty hair. She crinkled her long nose at him; he smelled. He nudged her, grinning with dingy and uneven teeth.
"Fine crow yeh 'ave, lass."
Eileen glared.
"He's a raven, you filthy git."
"Wot's diff'rence it be?"
Eileen turned away from Filch, and back towards the Sorting Ceremony. She was eager to see into which house her companion on the train would be sorted into. Eileen did not make friends easily, and she and Dolores had got along well. She found other children generally annoying, but there was something about Dolores she could tolerate, despite the hideous amounts of pink and poof that surrounded her. Dolores was packaged as a sweet candy, but beneath she was not pink, frilly, or sweet, and that personality interested Eileen.
She knew however, that it would be just her luck that Dolores would be sorted into a different House. Eileen would be stuck with these creepy Slytherin males all on her own—she glanced around the table—well, Malfoy was sternly-pretty, perhaps not as creepy. Abraxas glanced to her with his storm-gray eyes, and nodded at her minutely. Oddly, it sent a flutter through her chest. Don't be ridiculous, Eileen. He's much older, and too pretty—you are much younger, and nothing to bother looking at.
Eileen sniffed, and turned a deaf ear to Filch when he tried speaking to her again. She focused on Dolores, as her small, plump frame moved to the front of the Great Hall. The hat was placed over Dolores' head, and it had barely touched, when it shouted BETTER BE SLYTHERIN!
A hoot, holler, and applause broke out from the Slytherin table. Dolores moved smugly towards the table, her pink-ribboned pigtails bobbing. She took one look at Filch sitting next to Eileen, and huffed.
"Who are you?"
"Odysseus Filch." He offered a grimy hand for Dolores to shake. Dolores wrinkled her nose, and then primly placed her thumb and forefinger to each nostril, pinching her nub of a nose.
"I'm sorry dear, Odorus Filth, did you say?"
Giggles and sneers sounded along the length of the Slytherin table. The Sorting continued but Eileen was not paying attention. Filch narrowed his at Dolores, his greasy, unkempt hair, falling into his face.
"I do believe that you have sat in the wrong chair." Dolores continued, in that twisted-sugar way of hers. She smiled sweetly at the filthy Filch, but her eyes were hard and her meaning clear. She did not have to repeat herself, or resort to dirtier tactics, she had only to look at him with her fluffy-distain and he sulked away, down to the end of the table where he watched Eileen through the grease tendrils of his hair. Dolores cast a cleansing spell onto the chair, and then one more just to be sure.
"Horrible boy, that Odorus Filth." She said, and sat down next to Eileen, giving her a knowing smile.
"Yes." Eileen agreed, glaring down the table at him.
The night finally came to a close. With their bellies full the new batch of Slytherins made their way to the dungeons, following after prefects Malfoy, and Pettigrew. Once in the dungeons, Malfoy broke away with the boys, bidding the girls a solemn good night. Prefect Pettigrew—a small pudgy girl with mousy brown hair and bucked teeth resting against her lower lip, took the girls.
"I'm Polly Pettigrew." She explained, leading the first year girls to their room. "First night is often difficult, being away from home. If any of you need me, don't hesitate. Slytherins stick together." She flashed her prefects badge, and left the girls to settle into their fourposters.
Eileen moved towards a window, and ushered Muninn towards the sill.
"You have to sleep in the owlery tonight. You may come back to me in the morning." Muninn cawed, and then unfurled his inky wings and departed into the starry night. Eileen watched the diamond stars twinkle briefly against a velvet sky, and then went to her bed and curled up on it, enjoying the satin feel of the silver sheets. She watched Dolores pull all manner of pink, fuzzy, cutesy, décor out of her trunk, and began spattering her bed and portion of the green-silver-black room with bubblegum and cotton candy and kittens.
"Dolores?" Eileen called, as Dolores waved her wand, sending a pink feather boa to drape between two of the bedposts.
"Yes, dear?"
"Do you know how to play Gobstones?"
"I don't." Dolores replied, yawning. She untied one of her hair ribbons, and the braided strands of her brown hair undid themselves, twining apart, and falling over her shoulder in long, shiny waves. She began to work the ribbon free of the other braid.
"Then I'll teach you tomorrow, after classes."
Dolores' second braid unwound. The shorter girl moved towards Eileen's bed, one of the bright pink ribbons dangling from her fingers.
"I would love for you to teach me." Dolores said, smiling at Eileen. She tied the vivid ribbon around one of Eileen's bedposts, and into a bow.
Eileen thought it garish, but she did not remove it.