I took a few deep breaths to calm down my irrational breathing as I sped-walked to the Slytherin Common Room. My stomach felt queasy, and I had a feeling that my dinner would make reappearance.

"I'm so screwed. My life is practically over." I whined to Sylvia.

"Oh, come on. You shouldn't have been reacting to Heather's bullshit in the first place", Sylvia snapped.

I looked at her in disgust. "What sort of best mate are you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't take this out on me, Aurora. We both know it's your fault."

I was angry. I was more than angry. I would become publicly humiliated by my arch-nemesis for lying and she didn't have the decency to even try and nurse my bruised ego. Despite what people may think, a Snake's ego was as easily shattered as a teenage girl's heart.

"Bitch." I huffed indignantly, voicing my current feelings towards her.

For a second, she didn't say anything so I almost expected us to make the rest of the way in an awkward silence, but to my surprise, she turned around and stormed off, going to Merlin-knows-where.

I kicked the stone wall in frustration, which was probably not the best thing to do as my right foot was now aching as if a mountain troll had stepped on it.

"Bugger. Bugger. Shit. Goddamn." I cursed loudly, trying to relief my pain.

"Quite a colourful language you've got there, Miss." A male voice called behind me.

The voice belonged to no other than Al Potter, the boy who had surprisingly been sorted into the House of the Snakes, shocking the entirety of the wizarding world seven years ago. He was slowly making his way towards me, throwing me his signature crooked smile, his green eyes alight with amusement.

I observed him for a minute, noticing that he had grown a few inches in Summer, and then I decided that it would do no good to be nice to him, because I had no chance of getting in the Quidditch Team.

"Fuck you, Captain", I replied sassily to the son of the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Are you offering?" He retorted quickly, his playful smile never leaving his face.

I looked down at his crotch. "Is there anything to fuck there in the first place?"

Instead of being offended, he surprised me by throwing his head back and starting to laugh heartily, placing a hand over his chest. His laughter was clear and happy, a sound so magical and contagious that my sour mood vanished into thin air and I started smiling and chuckling.

When he stopped laughing, he looked at me. And by that I really mean he looked at me, as if observing every inch of my body.

"Are you done checking me out?" I asked cheekily to mask my self consciousness and at that moment, I was eternally thankful for my inability to blush.

"Oh, yes. Let's get to the Common Room."

A normal boy would never admit to checking a girl out. But then again, Albus Potter was the weirdest boy, I swear. At least in Slytherin. He wasn't the classic weirdo, but he was certainly extraordinary. He just had a particular air around him, as if he was never quite there, but lost in his own world.

Many girls would swear that it was part of his "sex appeal" and they swore they would kill to know what was going on in that odd mind of his. I, however, was sure that he couldn't care less about appearing mysterious to a bunch of girls who stalked him and his family.

"God, I missed this place", I sighed as I ran my hand over the cold wall, relishing its' cool feel against my warm hand. I loved the dungeons and the cold that came with them. I loved this creepy half-light that was always there, illuminating the objects with its green light and casting shadows everywhere, so you were never alone.

"Really?" He asked me in a bewildered tone. "I thought you'd hate the cold here."

I looked at him quizzically, so he quickly added: "You know, coming from a warm country like Brazil."

I sighed at how many people got my home country wrong. "I'm from Portugal. And it rains quite a lot in the winter, actually."

He nodded, continuing to look forward with a half-blank look on his face. He didn't even have the decency to apologise for getting my country wrong! Rude, detached, cold… FISH!

I almost huffed, but then I realised we were standing outside the Common Room and I didn't know the new password. I had absolutely no idea why they had to change it every bloody week.

"What?" He said lamely, noticing the expectant look on my face.

"The password." I demanded.

The snake door knocker came alive at our voices, hissing and looking at us with its stony eyes.

"Cunningness." Al Potter told the snake. The snake accepted the password with a final hiss and swung the door open for us to enter.

As soon as we were in, the raven haired boy turned to me with a wide grin, which I gladly returned.

"Goodnight, Maria", he said with a wink and with that, he went off to his dorm, leaving me behind, my grin wiped off my face and anger boiling in my blood.

That rude bastard.