Chapter 1
"Hold your head up high, gorgeous, they're just waiting for you to fall."
September 1991
"Ooh, Pansy love, fix your hair, won't you? I'm going to miss you so much."
"You'll do beautifully, Mills. Just don't be too stand-offish."
"C'mon, Vince, get on already, you great big oaf!"
"So this is it, then, Sophie? Does it run on fairy dust?"
"I'll write you lots, Greggie. You don't have to write back."
"Chin up, Daphne, shoulders straight. I know you'll do me proud."
"Theodore. Good-bye."
Ten children board a train.
From the moment she sets eyes on her, Daphne Greengrass dislikes Pansy Parkinson.
Her face – it's almost offensive. Those hard lines, arched eyebrows, that nasty small squished mouth. It's not that she's ugly, just so… hard-faced. Daphne likes pretty things, sweet colours and soft edges. Pansy Parkinson's face is an affront.
Her personality matches.
That first night, Pansy darts to the bed on the corner and plants herself on it. She sends a sweeping look around her dormmates, as though they're gemstones she's trying to guess the price of. Her mouth pursed and her chin held just so, she announces, "Well. What are your names?"
Tracey is the first to accommodate Pansy – a position she'll hold onto with both hands for the next seven years. "I'm Tracey Davies," she replies immediately, gazing at Pansy with sharp eyes. She's small and bony, with short, brown curls that bounce on her shoulders.
Pansy shoots her a disdainful look. The gemstone has turned out to be just another rock. "Alright," she allows, and turns to Millicent expectantly.
When the other girl continues unpacking undisturbed, Pansy clears her throat. Millicent stops. She looks up, her face a mask of indifference they'll come to know intimately over the course of their school careers. She drags the silence out an uncomfortable second longer.
"Millicent Bulstrode."
A bit ruffled, Pansy nods and looks away. "What's your name?"
The question is directed at Daphne, fired like a challenge. Daphne is already annoyed at Pansy's arrogance – after all, who ever heard of the Parkinsons? – but then the poor girl can't help it, probably. She just wasn't raised properly. How sad.
"Daphne Greengrass," she says pleasantly.
Pansy seems to be torn between interest and irritation. "Oh. So you're pure-blood?"
This time Daphne can't even help it; her jaw sets, her nostrils flare. Such a tactless, blunt girl! How ever did she end up in Slytherin? To casually ask whether she's pure-blood! What's next, inquiries after her father's annual salary? Did wolves bring her up?
(As if Daphne's name alone shouldn't make the answer to her question abundantly clear!)
Occupied with internal huffing, the sound Daphne can make is a sort of "Hmph", which Pansy seems to take as a yes. (She'd better.)
"I'm Pansy Parkinson, and I'm awfully glad I'm in Slytherin. The only person I know already – Draco Malfoy – is here too, so that's quite a relief!"
Well, Daphne thinks irritably, it's a good thing you've got someone else's name to drop, because your own isn't worth a Knut.
"Do any of you know someone already?" Pansy continues.
"I've got my brother, in Ravenclaw," Tracey says, and with a sly smile adds, "He's a bit of a prat." She seems frightfully common.
Millicent declines to answer, but Daphne does with relish. "Oh, well, my cousin Cordelia Runcorn is in our year, she was Sorted into Ravenclaw, my cousins the Rowles, my cousin Lysander in third year – let's see – oh! And Halimede of course, in seventh."
"Well, I've got plenty of cousins around too, of course!" Pansy says. "But I hardly think that counts, do you? I meant like friends."
Before Daphne can think of a retort, a cheerful voice from the bathroom shouts, "I don't know anyone!"
The four girls look at each other, incredulous. The fifth bed was there for a reason, Daphne supposes. The bathroom door opens and a tall, gawky girl appears, drying off her wet hair.
"I'm Sophie Roper, and I don't know a soul here. I just had to wash my hair, you always get so dirty from travelling, don't you? Does anyone have a blow dryer?"
Again a look is exchanged between her roommates. The same thought passes each of their minds, but Pansy is the one to say it out loud (of course, Daphne thinks).
"Are you Muggle-born?"
"Muggle-born?"
"Your parents. They – were – Muggles?" Pansy speaks deliberately slowly, as though she's talking to a four-year-old. Or a troll.
Sophie blinks her pale eyes. "They can't do magic, if that's what you mean! It was all such a huge shock when we found out. They wouldn't believe it at first!"
"I bet they wouldn't," Pansy mutters.
Sophie sits down on her bed and wraps her long legs into lotus-position. "So what's a pure-blood, then?"
Daphne quickly jumps in to answer – she is the most qualified on the subject after all. The others will give the poor girl the entirely wrong impression. "Oh, it's just a word, just like Muggle-born. A Muggle-born is someone with Muggle parents, a half-blood is someone with one Muggle parent and one magical parent, and then a pure-blood is someone who hasn't got any Muggles in their family at all."
"Wow," Sophie says. "So you're completely magical?"
A condescending smile slips over Daphne's face. "Yes. Completely."
"Me too," Pansy adds sullenly.
"I'm a half-blood," Tracey says, almost apologetic.
"This is so interesting!" Sophie's eyes are wide and she turns to Tracey. "So one of your parents couldn't do magic either?"
"One of my grandparents!" Tracey hastily corrects her. "My parents are both magical."
Sophie bites her lip. "So – wait, I'm confused."
"Don't worry," Daphne assures her breezily. "You'll get the hang of it eventually. It's really quite simple."
Living at Hogwarts feels a bit like being at summer camp.
Daphne's only been once, to France, sent by her father to master the language. She came home with a penchant for berets, the owl addresses of five new best friends she'd never speak to again, and an overwhelming desire to sleep in her own bed.
But this four-poster bed, one in a set of five, will be her bed now for most of the year. Her trunk will be her wardrobe. That dingy windowless hole will be her bathroom. Her Clever Clogs Clock is on the nightstand. On the shelf are her books – the entire Charlotte Charmer series squashed next to Madam Longbottom's Guide to Surviving Society Events for Little Girls (her grandmother insisted she bring it. Daphne isn't sure how many 'society events' grandma Claudia is expecting the school to host.)
Hogwarts will be her home, and these girls will be her roommates.
Daphne wasn't too fond of sharing a room at camp, and she isn't too fond of it now. The first morning brings it all back: there's that same awkwardness in dressing, that same taking turns in the bathroom, that uncomfortable closeness to someone you've just met. Four someones, in fact. Four someones who might snore, or who might like to play loud music all day, or who might not even know what the word bibliophile means.
After all, one of them has already revealed herself to be Muggle-born. Who knows what unsavoury quirks the other three are hiding?
Of course it won't always be this way. It better not. Close quarters breed intimacy even between the most unlikely of souls. Daphne can see how life-long friendships are formed between Hogwarts dormmates. But one thing she is sure of: she won't ever be friends with Pansy Parkinson.
"Could you not bang on the door next time I'm trying to take a shower!"
"We've all got to take a shower," Pansy says in an accusing sort of way. "And you were in there for an awfully long time."
"No, I wasn't," Daphne says. "And even if I were, you should have waited until I'd come out to say something. Not bang on the door like a great big troll!" In the mirror she can see Pansy rolling her eyes behind her back.
"I'm going to have my shower now," Pansy says, getting to her feet. Daphne ignores her and focuses on yanking a comb through her wet hair.
More or less presentable, the five Slytherin girls traipse down to breakfast. They sit at their House table uneasily, sandwiched between ferocious seventh-years and trying to make themselves as small as possible. Daphne peeks around at her new housemates.
Draco Malfoy is ranting about getting up at what is apparently an early hour for him. "Mr Hobday never even came before twelve!"
"Maybe we should have a system," Tracey Davies says. "So we don't have anymore trouble with the showers. Maybe if three of us shower in the evening and the other two in the morning?"
"We've got Charms first, with that weird almost goblin, Flitwick," Blaise Zabini says in a low, disgusted tone, glancing at the timetables Professor Snape has passed round. "Why not something cool like Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Daphne frowns and feels like a childish swot for thinking Charms sounds utterly wicked.
"We don't need some stupid system!" Pansy throws a pointed look at Daphne, who concentrates on eating her porridge with poise and composure. "What we need is for everyone to just mind that they're not in the shower for too long!"
"And did you see the size of the dormitories?" Draco snaps at Pansy. "Crabbe and Goyle alone fill them up completely!"
"I did see their size, I slept in one, thank you."
"It was just an idea," Tracey mutters, shrinking back in her chair. Pansy clicks her tongue irritably.
Daphne finds them all woefully uncivilised.
Between Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, it was hate at first sight.
They were forced together on a handful of play dates since the age of seven, courtesy of a friendship between fathers, and both hated every second of it. Every meeting was like meteorites colliding – inevitably ending in tantrums, tears, and the occasional black eye.
Their parents should have known better than to put two unfeasibly spoiled only children together.
Draco wanted to go flying when Pansy wanted to play with the dolls; Draco wanted to play with the Little Potioneer's Kit when Pansy wanted to listen to Witches of Salem; Draco wanted to build a fort when Pansy wanted to have a tea party.
It takes arriving at Hogwarts for them to discover something they both enjoy: the gentle art of bullying.
Draco heckles Neville Longbottom during a flying lesson, and Pansy laughs. Pansy steals a Hufflepuff's Omnioculars, Draco joins her in a game of catch. Draco doodles a cruel caricature of a professor, Pansy thinks up a clever caption.
They'd be hard-pressed to call each other friend, but they are certainly partners – partners in crime.
Daphne thanks Merlin for whoever created the class schedule of the Slytherin. The Charms classroom is set up like a tiny amphitheatre, with longs rows of seats, rather than duos of tables. And so the first-years are saved the uncomfortable situation of pairing up with people they don't know.
Daphne slips into a seat next to Millicent Bulstrode, the huge girl who hasn't said much yet. "Hello," she says with a winning smile. "Your name is Millicent, right?"
The girl nods curtly.
Daphne doesn't let her smile waver. She is going to find someone in her dormitory willing to carry on a conversation, if it kills her. "Aren't you excited for Charms? I am."
Another nod.
"What kind of wand do you have?"
Millicent rattles off, "Phoenix feather, walnut. It's twelve inches."
"Phoenix feather, how special!" Daphne coos. Millicent's rudeness is only making her more determined to be sociable. "I've got unicorn tail hair, and I'm ever so pleased with it. Would you like to see? Here –"
And then all Daphne's determination washes away, because her fingers hit not wood, but only fabric.
"Oh no," she mutters. "I forgot my wand! My wand is still in the dormitory! I left it on the night stand!" She wants to slap herself. Last night she deliberately took the elegant dark wooden box containing her wand out of her trunk and put it on the night stand, so she wouldn't forget. And now look what she's done!
Millicent frowns. "Oh. That's clever of you. You'll have to –" she inclines her head towards Professor Flitwick, who is still in the middle of calling roll.
"Roper, Sophie!"
"Yes," the Muggle-born girl says in a sing-song voice.
"And lastly, Zabini, Blaise…"
"Yes," the black boy with the girlish eyelashes drawls, and Daphne hesitantly rises from her chair. Everyone stares at her.
Professor Flitwick looks up in surprise. "Miss – Greengrass, was it? What is it?"
Daphne takes a deep breath. "I'm really sorry, sir, but I have forgotten my wand in the dormitory."
Professor Flitwick chuckles. "Well, you'll need that! Hurry and fetch it." He seems good-natured enough. "Run, don't walk!"
Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum.
"What are you humming?" Blaise Zabini says distastefully. Merlin, he thinks as Theodore Nott starts and glances at him. The boy looks like a starved animal, to be honest. His robes are hanging off his skinny frame, and there's a bit of a crazy look in his eyes. And there's a good chance he is where that smell is coming from.
Blaise wrinkles his perfect Roman nose and turns ever so slightly away from his unsavoury seatmate.
Theodore Nott continues humming his song, which isn't a song really, which isn't anything really. He drums his bony fingers on the table and tries to concentrate on Professor Flitwick's voice, but the charms he's mentioning are all ones his father has shown him thousands of times.
The light is pouring into the Charms classroom from the huge windows, it's almost hurting his eyes. He blinks. He focuses on a spot in front of him –
Theodore's favourite word right now is defile. It sounds a bit dirty and obscene, and Theodore must shamefully admit that he is a bit dirty and obscene. It's what he's doing all day long – he's defiling. It's what he's always done, even as a child. Killing ants with scientific concentration, taking apart things, defacing a pure white page with his heated black scribbles.
The spot Theodore focuses on, in front of him, is hair. It's hair, and it's blonde. It looks like milk. Theodore imagines if he touched it – if it would feel sticky, gooey. Maybe threads of sticky gooey milky substance would cling to his fingers. He imagines ripping it from its owner's head, holding great pale chunks of it between his fingers. That would be the only way to get it off his fingers, wouldn't it, if it were all sticky. Theodore almost extends a hand and reaches for the sticky hair.
All of a sudden the spell is broken. The girl attached to the hair shoots out of her chair as though she's been burned, as though Theodore's thoughts have somehow trickled into her pretty little brain and scorched it. Theodore imagines a great black burn spot on her brain. She squeaks something at Professor Flitwick and is out the door in a flash, and Theodore thinks, Oh no. I've scared her away.
Daphne does what she's told, setting off into a sprint as soon as the Charms classroom door falls shut behind her. By some stroke of luck she manages to not get lost on the way to the Slytherin common room, which is mercifully empty. She races into the dormitory, snatches her wand off the night stand and darts off again.
It is only on her way back to the classroom that disaster strikes.
"Ickle firstie loitering around the corridors!" a voice cackles. Daphne freezes. Is it an upperclassman? Is it Filch, the infamous janitor who enjoys tormenting students? Slowly, she turns around, and stares into the horrible face of every nervous first-year's nightmares – Peeves.
Her father told her all about the poltergeist, who would lob ink pots at him as he walked to the library, drop busts on students and wrecked classrooms. Her mother, on the other hand, spoke of him fondly.
Out of seemingly thin air, Peeves plucks a balloon that looks suspiciously full. Daphne shrieks and darts backwards, but the water balloon hits her anyway – bam! Water explodes in her face, and drenched, Daphne shrieks even louder. Peeves cackles one last time and zooms off, leaving her standing there, water dripping from her robes.
Trembling, Daphne tries to get her bearings. This morning has been disastrous so far. Forgot her wand, and now soaked…
She slumps down on the floor and stares stonily at the opposite wall. Thank Merlin all the other students are in class right now, so no one has to see her humiliated. Daphne bites her lip, which is quivering the way it always does when she's about to cry. At least no one will know, she's already drenched.
In her left hand she's clutching her wand – brand-new, shiny, willow, unicorn hair. Soaked in water. Why didn't she just get Flobberworm slime for a wand core? And now she's got to go back to Charms, too. It's her first class, she can't very well miss it. Daphne hangs her head, wallowing in self-pity.
But then she hears something that makes her spike her ears. Oh no, foot steps. Daphne bundles herself into the tightest ball she can, and presses her little ball body against the suit of armour. Maybe whoever it is will just keep walking and not see her.
Life doesn't work like that, though.
"Daphne?"
Oh no. Daphne recognises Pandora's lazy drawl. A second later her least favourite cousin's face looms inches above hers. "What are you doing?" Pandora asks in a level-headed tone.
"Nothing," Daphne says quickly, scrambling to her feet.
Pandora looks at her with that queer look she always wears, as though she's completely unbothered.
"Why aren't you in class? And –" the first hint of emotion is shown through her bristly blond eyebrows, which dip into a puzzled frown "why are you all wet?"
"I went for a swim in the lake," Daphne says stonily. "And I was just on my way back to class."
Pandora doesn't react in any way to Daphne's petulant sarcasm. "Well, hurry up. It won't do to be hanging around the corridors instead of in class your very first day." She gives Daphne an appraising look. "What will your teachers think? You are a pure-blood, a Greengrass, and now you're a Slytherin. Don't forget that." She cracks a tiny crooked smile, hiding her admonishment in a joke.
"Sure, Pandora," Daphne says pleasantly, and she walks away, seething on the inside.
Stupid, ugly, stupid hag. With her stupid eyebrows. She may be a Twilfitt but nobody even knew her father at all, I doubt he's even pure-blood, I have more prestigious connections in my ear lobes than she has got in her whole stupid body… How dare she! How dare she lecture me! My manners are about a million times better than hers, she's got no tact or charm, and she's ugly and looks like a boy…
Her mental ranting and ravings are so loud she barely notices when she has reached the classroom door. Before entering, however, she squares her shoulders. She's still dripping wet, and in the suit of armour opposite she sees her drenched face reflected. She looks a fright.
Still, no matter. As Pandora said (without having any idea of what she was talking about) she's a pure-blood, a Greengrass no less, and a Slytherin, now, like her mother.
She's her mother's daughter, and so she squares her shoulders and channels the poise of all the Greengrass women before her (except Great-Aunt Annis the hag, but then she wasn't a Greengrass).
Looking like something the cat dragged in, her hair plastered to her face, her robes hanging off her like dead wet weight, clutching her willow wand in her right hand. She walks with swift small steps, her head held high, her eyes guarded.
"I'm dreadfully sorry for taking so long, Professor," she says in a tinkling voice as she enters the classroom, and strides to her seat with all the grace she can muster. Every other face has whirled round to goggle at her.
"Miss Greengrass, there you are, finally! And why are you so wet?" Professor Flitwick inquires incredulously in his squeaky voice.
Daphne takes a deep breath to compose herself. "Peeves." She smoothes down her robes and sits down perfectly straight-backed, trying not to draw attention to the fact that she's dripping all over the floor. At the other end of the classroom, Pansy is furiously whispering into Tracey's ear, darting glances at Daphne and tittering.
Professor Flitwick chuckles. "How unfortunate! Let this be a lesson to all of you, boys and girls – steer clear of Peeves." The other students chuckle nervously. "And let this be another lesson –" He hops down from his stack of books, walks over to Daphne's seat and says, "Exaresce!"
Daphne feels a strange warming glide up and down herself, and her robes stiffen, her face is soon free of all droplets. "The Drought Charm. Miss Greengrass has generously provided us with an opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness of Charms in every day life! When you need something from the other side of the room, you shall use the Summoning Charm. When you have set yourself on fire accidentally, which many of you will probably do sometime in the next seven years, you shall use the Watering Charm. And when you run across Peeves with a supply of water balloons, the Drought Charm will come in handy!" He beams at Daphne. "Charms are there to make the life of the wizard a little easier, and also in many cases a little more fun." He takes out his wand again and waves it at the tea cup sitting on his desk – instantly it sprouts legs and begins dancing, rather like Daphne's Clever Clogs Clock.
The girls coo, even the boys can't help look intrigued. All dried off, Daphne is beginning to believe her own illusion of composure and rather looks forward to making tea cups dance.
Faster than expected, the first day of Hogwarts has come to an end.
The remnants of dinner have Apparated off the table and down to the kitchens below for the house elves to tend to. Patting their stomachs after their second hearty Hogwarts dinner, the first-year Slytherins trudge downstairs.
"Ugh, I can't believe they made us do a double class of Herbology the very first day," Daphne mutters as they file into the dormitory. She examines her dirty hands in disgust.
"Oh, I really enjoyed it," Pansy says. Her voice, loud and obnoxious, is already grating on Daphne's nerves. "I was so glad to have a class with the Ravenclaws! I was afraid I'd never see Padma."
Daphne resists the urge to roll her eyes. "Of course, that's true. I was awfully glad, too, to see Cordelia."
"Oh yeah, your cousin." For some inexplicable reason Tracey laughs. With a sly glance at her, Pansy continues, "I've to say I thought Charms was wizard. You were having a little trouble, weren't you, Daphne?"
Daphne gives an irritable little shrug.
"But then I suppose your concentration was just shot after that horrible incident with your wand, and Peeves…" Pansy laughs. "You've been such a mess today!"
Daphne isn't too sure how to respond – inside she's seething that her classmates, especially that horrid Pansy, have gotten such a completely wrong first impression of her. Messy! She isn't messy at all! She's poise personified!
"I'm going to go to sleep now," Millicent pipes up resolutely. Daphne wonders what she's expecting - for Pansy to say, oh sorry, I'll shut my gob then?
As if noticing her for the first time, Pansy looks at Millicent with interest. Her gleaming dark eyes scan the girl's appearance – taking in the big-boned frame, the bulbous nose, the spots. She bares her teeth. "I'm really sorry. Don't you want to sit here and have a little chat, get to know each other?" She pats her bed.
Millicent looks frozen. Slowly she sits up and edges towards the foot of her bed. "Alright."
Just then, the bathroom door opens and Sophie appears, her hair out of its braid, hanging down her back like a long curly curtain. She looks like a fairy.
Pansy smiles sweetly at her. "Oh – you can go to sleep, you know. We're going to be chatting for a bit, but we'll keep it down. Night-night!"