The fabulous J. K. Rowling owns it all- except for the little cliche plot and the original characters.

By the time we actually reached the Hospital Wing I think I'd lost several layers of skin, and knew there were some serious holes in my uniform. I was nearly delirious from the pain- babbling to Potter about how I hoped he was eaten alive by killer nifflers, or something like that. I don't really remember that well. It was so bad that I wasn't even able to think anything witty. And I'm always able to think witty things.

Potter had to juggle tasks, trying to keep me unright while also attempting to open the door, and honestly, he was grunting like I'm actually heavy. I mean, I'm not small, but I'm not that big either! It was mildly offensive. But he got the door open, and promptly almost dropped me. "Albus? What are you doing here? What happened to your eye?"

Seriously? Dying over here. You know, because someone (annoying jackassian dickheaded jerk) dumped an acidic potion of my head? Yeah. I think the reason for his scrawny little Potter/Weasley-spawn brother being in the Hospital Wing could have waited until I wasn't on the brink of death? Yes? Thanks. Anyway, Potter Junior's unmistakabley annoying voice piped up; "He just bloody hit me out of-"

"Oi! You hit me first!"

Wait- I knew that voice. "Scorpius?" I moaned, eyes still closed, but reaching out my hands for him.

I heard several intakes a breath. Seriously? Had they not even seen me before? I was practically on top of Potter! "Nessie? Holy- What happened to you?"

"Don't touch her! It's acidic- you stupid Slytherin git-" Snapped Jackassian-Elder-Potter, as he guided me to a rather uncomfortable chair. "Madame Pomfrey! Help!"

And honestly, I don't remember much after that. I remember Madame Pomfrey wiping all the goo off- Which was very painful, and Scorpius holding my hand while I groaned and had Pomfrey spreading skin-regrowing blam all over me, I remember her helping me into a loose-fitting night gown, and I remember her asking what happened. "Tripped- spilled potion- uhhnnnn." I'd managed, and heard Jackassian-Elder-Potter breathe a sigh of relief. Bastard owes me one.

I had to stay overnight, predictably. It didn't take long before I fell asleep, even though it was only probably two-thirty at the time. When I woke up again, and could actually open my eyes, it was dark out, and the curtains of my bead were drawn around me. I could only hear the sound of my own breathing, so I guessed that Scorpius, Jackassian-Elder-Potter, and Potter Junior had all been dismissed.

I was grateful for that. Well- I was a little bit sorry that Socrpius wasn't here with me anymore, to assure me that the regrown skin wasn't completely hideous (When a guy like Score tells you you're pretty, honestly, there's no way to feel shitty about yourself), but overall, I preferred being alone. Not all the time- but at night at least I did. Maybe that's why I took such issue with my roommates. I'm a really light sleeper, I wake up every time someone gets out of bed, or sneezes (Unless I'm really really exhausted.). I sat up, eyes adjusting to the darkness quickly, and running a hand through my hair.

I'd expected it to be singed, or matted, but I guess Madame Pomfrey took care of that for me too. Thank goodness. I think she might have even made it a bit longer- maybe thicker too. Nice of her. I shouldn't really be surprised- I'm her best customer. I just…. Tend to be in the Hospital Wing a lot I guess. Most of my teachers think I'm a big faker. Pomfrey thinks I just tend to blow things up in my head a lot bigger than they actually are. 'Exaggeration'- pah- I stand by my original statement on the subject of last week's cough. It was the early stage of pneumonia- if I hadn't gotten treatment, I might have literally hacked a lung out. Look it up- it's happened before.

Well. Don't look it up, because I'm not actually sure that it's happened before… It just seems very likely.

Alright- sometimes I do exaggerate a bit. But I really do get hurt a lot too. I've broken seven bones since I came to Hogwarts- and I don't even play Quidditch! I suppose I'm just not good at… walking? Anyway, Alex teases me about it a lot. Because he never trips or anything. Damn perfect golden boy.

I slid back my bed hangings and looked out into the dark Hospital Wing. This place felt almost more familiar than my own dormitory, the rows of sanitary white beds, almost glowing in the dim blue-tinted night. I examined the skin on my hands- having been regrown. It looked just like my old skin- perhaps a couple of shades paler (Which I would have claimed impossible just this morning), but just as smooth and flawless. Good. It wouldn't do for me to start getting pimples.

Still- I couldn't help looking at it and remembering the way it had been burning from the goop. I ran my fingertips over the smoothness of my palm. This morning I had calluses. Now my hands were soft, and smooth. I couldn't help but hate it. They didn't feel like mine. Grandfather would no doubt be pleased, of course. He'd always told me that my hands were too rough for a proper lady's.

In case I didn't mention it, my dad's father is sort of a…. pureblood elitist. He was all into the whole 'We inbreed, therefore we are.' thing. Whenever Score and Monty come for a week during the summer, he tries to fix me up with Score. And I know he's tried to talk Dad into talking to Mr. Malfoy about something. Lucky for me Dad isn't into the whole elitist thing. I mean, he pretends to be, like pretty much all of the other purebloods of his generation, but he's way past caring. He'd rather me be happy than marry into another old pureblood family. Mum too. Bless their hearts. Luckily, Grandfather will kick it soon and we'll be able to stop pretending to entertain the idea of Score and I getting married.

There are so many reasons why that marriage wouldn't work out. One; We'd rip each other's faces of after about a month? Two; I'd force him to be my sex slave (Which, as fun as it sounds, wouldn't make for a healthy marriage.). And three; Score swings his bat on the other side of the fence.

You know. Plays for the other team. Is riding the rainbow train. All that.

So yeah. The only way a union between the Nott and Malfoy families could be made would be for Alex to tap that. Well- I've got the feeling Score'd be the one doing the tapping, and if he did I'd be morally obligated to kill him. Plus- Alex isn't riding the rainbow train (I have no idea why, when he gets to watch Score walk around naked all the time). So it just wouldn't work out.

Let me take this brief moment of silence to point out that it's okay for me to sexually objectify Scorpius because Scorpius sexually objectifies the world. Seriously, it's part of the reason Monty wants to strangle him. Monty, Alex, Mimi-that's Pleiome-, and I all know about the whole gay thing. I mean, maybe more people know, but we're the ones I know of. It's not really a secret, but it's not really widespread either. Probably because Scorpius does a lot of snogging girls. His parents know- and his grandparents.

God, he has the most awful coming out story. But we're not going to get into that. Ask him about it, if you really want. I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to stop laughing long enough to tell it.

It ended with his mother sobbing about how he didn't trust her enough to let him into his life, and his dad mentally scarred/confused about where a fourteen year old bloke gets skin mags. I think it was probably the only time Scorpius had the dignity to be ashamed of himself.

Back to the story of my life: After another look-over in the morning, Pomfrey sent me to breakfast, telling me that I was right as rain, and would be perfectly okay, thank goodness.

She'd given me my uniform, all mended and fixed up, so I put it on, and pulled my hair up into a pony tail, and left the Hospital wing with my book bag over my shoulder (someone must have dropped it off for me) and feeling refreshed. I'd never gone to sleep again after I woke up at what I now guessed to have been two in the morning, so I felt fresher and less grumpy than most mornings.

Alex did not look particularly fresh when he came charging into the Great Hall, bags under his eyes and his hair uncharacteristically mussed. He looked… Completely unacceptable, and I think his shoes were on the wrong feet. Scorpius and Monty were lagging behind, hands shoved deep in their pockets, shoulders hunched, and eyes on the ground. They looked like goons of some sort. I barely had the time to even register Pleiome's presence before the ridiculously-tall-and-gorgeous blond shoved Alex out of the way so that she could throw herself at me and started kissing me all over the face.

"Nessie! Oh, thank heavens! Scorpius told us that you were burned all over- that you were scarred beyond recognition- that you might die!" She whispered, blue eyes wide and focused on me. I could swear I saw tears.

Like I mentioned yesterday. Pleiome is a bit… ridiculous.

Scorpius sat down next to me flipping, looking suitably uninterested and nonchalant. "No- I said she'd come in with some sort of acidic goop all over her that was burning her hair and skin, and that everything would probably be fine." He corrected lazily, as if he didn't care if I really was fine or not.

Alex sat on my other side and glared at me accusingly, those puppy-dog eyes boring into my very soul- as if he could rip me apart with just the gaze of his adorable big brown eyes. Merlin, even when he was being threatening I found my little brother cute as a puppy. That either says something very sad about me, or something very sad about him. "You were out cold when I came to see you- and Score said something about Potter-"

I waved my hand dismissively; "It was nothing. Just an accident in Potions. Potter took me to the Hospital Wing is all. Still a slimy git though. Jackassian- oh, sorry."

"Ness- I've heard the word jackass before."

"Shh, Alex. You'll ruin your puppy-dog image. I feel dirty swearing in your presence. Cover you ears."

He did.

"-jackassian pompous dickhead." I finished, and nodded so that Alex knew to uncover his ears.

He was rolling his eyes. But don't worry- he'll thank me one day for preserving his innocence. Poor little Alex. So what if he's only a year younger? It's still my job as his older sister to shield him from the harsh reality and crude words.

Don't judge me.

Mimi was calmed down, and everyone was back to normal. You know. The whole 'cut-carefully-stick-delicately-with-fork-lift-to-lips-gracefully-chew-daintily' routine. Standard procedure. Sometimes I wonder how we must look to people outside of our circle. Do they see the little slip ups that we see? Are they attuned to the subtle facial twitches that we see as full-on emotional outbursts? Like the was Alex's lips twitched upwards a little bit, that showed me how glad he was that it wasn't serious. How Monty's eyes were hooded- and he was quieter than usual- that showed he'd already started missing Mimi. The way Mimi's eyes kept flicking over to him, that showed me she was missing him too. The way Scorpius sat next to me even though he usually didn't, and how he wouldn't look at me, and the way he hadn't smirked or flirted at all- showing that he really had maybe cared a bit that everything had turned out fine with the whole acidic goop thing.

I don't think other people notice- if they did they wouldn't think us as icy and stoic as they do.

I seem to think about the whole pureblood and Slytherin thing a lot at breakfast, don't I? Yeah. I should probably stop that.

I was stirred out of my deep thought by a mass of red sweeping across the Great Hall, near the Gryffindor table. At first I thought maybe Bowen Finnigan had accidentally set fire to himself again (It happens surprisingly often. Idiot Gryffindor.), but then, due to the lack of shouting and screaming, I took a second glance and recognized that it was actually just the Weasley-Potter clan come to breakfast.

Jackassian-Elder-Potter, Potter Junior, and Dumb-As-Rocks-Weasley(That would be Fred.) were easy to spot. They all stood out like sore thumbs, with their black hair, and on Fred's part, also his dark skin. The rest I had to work to pick out. There was Girl-Potter, one of the shorter ones being only in her fourth year, and with her hair tightly braided. And there was Dominique- who I had yet to come up with a reference for, after six years of hating her. And Annoying-Brat-Weasley, also known as Hugo. And then there were the Annoyingly-Different-Twins-Weasleys. The Miniture-Weasley- that was Luis, because he was only a first year (Would their reign of terror never end?). And then there was Should-Be-A-Pureblood-Weasley.

Which is codename for Rose Weasley. Normally I wouldn't say any Weasley should be a pureblood, but she definitely warrants it. She's got the looks for it- the elegant-ness. Other than the red hair and freckles she looks more related to Pleiome than she does to the rest of the Weasley clan. Even her brother- Annoying-Brat-Weasley. But of course her attitude is still complete Typical Weasley behavior, so it doesn't really matter.

Damn gingers.

Even though there is a general sense of dislike between the Weasley-Potter clan and myself, and I think they're all jackassian prickheads, we typically don't pay that much attention to each other at meal times. The great hall is like a neutral zone. Normally there's nothing more than a known sense of animosity- and the occasional witty banter ended with or followed by a little spat and/or a lack-wit prank pulled by the gingers(With the addition of J-E-P, P-J, and D-A-R-W) even outside of the Great Hall.

This morning, after they'd all settled down and started eating, and I had returned to my own meal, I looked up again to find Jackassian-Elder-Potter staring at me. It wasn't even a glaring sort of stare it was a 'I can't figure you out and I'm trying really hard' sort of stare. A confused one, with his dorky glasses slightly askew, and his brows furrowed slightly, so that there was a little wrinkle in between them- and I really shouldn't be paying close enough attention to notice that from this far away. I looked away quickly, attempting to engage Monty is a riveting conversation about his chocolate frog card collection (The use of the term 'riveting' is used very lightly here. Very lightly.). Only when I looked up again, J-E-P was still staring at me with that dopey look.

No one else had noticed, thank Merlin's blessed beaver's tail, not even his family, or the douche bag Blaise Zabini, who had taken a seat just across from me at the table and over who's absurdly broad shoulder Potter now had to crane his neck to see me around. What a bloody idiot- why was he looking at me like that?

I decided to meet his eyes head on, with my best glare. I was channeling all my hate into this glare.

Giant squid ripping him to pieces. Devoured by rabid nifflers. Die, Potter, die.

"Nessie, are you choking on something?" Alex asked me in a concerned voice, breaking through my Potter hate-fest and glaring tactic. "You're face is all red and I think you've gone a bit cross-eyed."

Damn you, Jackassian-Elder-Potter- that's low, making me so angry that I go red and cross-eyed while trying to shoot hate beams through my eyes at you during breakfast. Obviously he knew me too well- knew how to penetrate my mind and make me angriest.

That bastard.

"Seriously, Nott? Stop making googoo eyes at Potter." Snapped Monty.

Googoo eyes? GOOGOO EYES? Didn't Monty know what a proper red-faced-cross-eyed-hate-beam-glare looked like? I nearly choked on my own spit. "I was trying to shoot hate beams!" I sputtered at him, shooting him a hate beam.

To my credit, he did flinch.

Googoo eyes my perfectly shaped arse.

Seriously. Review? I'd love to know how I'm doing. It'd be super nice.