Avarice
"Where are my barrettes?" Pansy shrills as she tears their dorm room apart in search of her missing hair decorations. "We are going home for Christmas break the day after tomorrow and I still haven't found them!"
"Sorry Pansy," the other girls in the room reply as they pack. Millicent Bulstrode smirks behind the magazine that she is pretending to read. She had already packed the day before, and she knows full well where Pansy's missing barrettes are. In the bottom compartment of my trunk, naturally.
Millicent knows what will happen; it is so routine. She will take the hair ornaments home with her, wear them only when she is certain that the Parkinsons will not show up for tea, get tired of them after a few weeks, and add them to her shrine of outgrown, stolen treasures. It's what she's done since childhood.
Her family is not poor by any means, but certainly nowhere near as wealthy as the families of many of her housemates, a fact which had not escaped Millicent's notice even at the age of five years old, when she noticed that her playmates always seemed to have more and nicer clothes and toys than her. She remembers one day Draco Malfoy had been bragging about a new toy broomstick his parents had bought him, and asked her why she didn't have one too? To this day, she still remembers how red her face flushed, and the smirk that adorned his features as he told her she looked like a tomato. When he left to go to the bathroom, she grabbed the toy broomstick he had left lying on the ground, ran into the sunroom, hid it under the sofa, and ran back outside with another plate of biscuits, asking him-for he had returned at this point- what was wrong, and saying she had just gone back into the kitchen for another snack, couldn't he tell from her plate? She smirks as she remembers, still unable to believe she had gotten away with it.
No one had ever taught her theft was wrong. Her family had been in league with the Death Eaters, after all, when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was alive, rejoined when he had returned last year, and they did far more than steal through it all. After her first time, it became something of a habit whenever her family had company over, and that habit transcended to her school life once she started Hogwarts. Once she started, she's never been able to stop. She always wants more and more and more.
She only steals from her roommates right before school breaks though; this way, she can take their belongings home, use them until she becomes bored-as she inevitably does- and never get caught. She'll tell her parents she bought those barrettes in Hogsmeade, not that they'll care. She doesn't just steal solely for the sake of thievery though.
Millicent is aware she is no beauty. She's not "feminine" enough and she's "too bulky." Her jaw is "too protruding" and her nose is "obtrusive." Yet, she hopes to be rich. One day, she will be richer than ickle Draco and his stupid toy broom, and wealthier than Pansy Parkinson and her precious barrettes. She is not naïve to the superficiality of teenage boys; they seldom display interest in girls who look like her, which rules out marrying into money. She is an average student at best, and not willing to exert the extra effort it would require for her to actually potentially earn a lot of money one day. So how will she become rich? The answer is both simple and complicated; she will continue to commit larceny. She's had this plan for years. When she grows up, she will sell every object she has ever thieved for more than they are worth. At the moment, the shrine she has hidden in her closet back home- her inventory, as she likes to call it- is filled with hundreds-no- thousands of items she has "collected" over the years, some more priceless than others. That charm bracelet she nicked from Tracey Davis has to be worth a hundred galleons at least, and she can certainly sell it for more than that….
"Millicent, help me!" Pansy demands.
Millicent stands up and sighs, folding her magazine (which incidentally she purloined from their last Hogsmeade trip when the store's cashier wasn't looking). "Is there any place you haven't already looked in this room?"
"No," Pansy pouts.
"Why don't you go check the bathroom, "Millicent suggests. "While I go check the halls to see if maybe they fell or you dropped them there or something."
"Fine," Pansy flounces into the bathroom as Millicent exits the room, bringing her magazine with her. Once outside, she immediately leaves the girls' dormitory and heads to the Common Room, where maybe she will find some peace and quiet.
She finds third-year Astoria Greengrass sitting beside Malfoy on one of the couches by the fire. He is talking to her about who knows what, while she holds parchment and a quill in her hands for her to ask questions and answer him with. He's probably just talking her to see if he can get in her pants.
Millicent's eyes fall on Astoria's quill. It's one of those new, just on the market quills that do not require an inkpot. You fill it with ink once, and it can supposedly last for months before it needs to be refilled. She also notices that Malfoy has a solid gold watch on his wrist.
"Astoria," Millicent says as she slides into the seat next to Malfoy. "Could I borrow that quill for an essay I have to give Snape by tomorrow? "
"Can't you see she's using it?" Malfoy drawls. "Don't you have any of your own?"
"I do, but I packed them all into my trunk when I was packing and I'd have to dig everything out just to find them." The lie flows off of her tongue as smoothly as melted chocolate.
Astoria scribbles something onto her parchment before holding it up. It reads: Sure, I've got loads more in my bag anyway that I can use. Just give it back to me when you're done.
"Thanks," Millicent smiles as she leans over Draco to grab the quill, making sure her wrist brushes against his in the process.
Astoria pulls another quill out of her pocketbook as Millicent stands. Millicent is about to turn away, when Malfoy calls out, "You will give that back to her though, won't you Millicent?"
She almost laughs. Draco Malfoy, acting morally righteous? She forces herself to feign an expression of slight indignation though. "Of course."
It is not until she passes the threshold of the girls' dormitories that she allows herself a smirk as she glances down at her prizes: The gold watch and the quill. Two for one; not bad. She remembers what Greengrass Junior had written. Just give it back to me when you're done. Ha. Fat chance of that happening.
For a moment, she almost feels…guilt? Almost. True, she did just steal a tool a deaf and mute girl uses to communicate with the world around her. There's no denying that. But it's her own fault for being so damn trusting, Millicent reasons. Honestly, maybe this will teach her to not be so naïve in the future. She can't afford to be so gullible, not in the world we live in. Besides, she can't be that innocent if Malfoy's into her. Then again, maybe she is. Maybe Malfoy's finally grown tired of Pansy and wants some cute, inexperienced girl to corrupt.
You just stole from a disabled kid, another part of her argues. That's low, even for you, especially when she needs what you stole from her to communicate with other people.
But would it not be discriminatory of her to have not thieved her because of her disabilities? Besides, she said she had more, and she did consent to giving that one away.
I didn't do anything wrong at all, Millicent thinks as she stuffs the watch and the quill down her shirtfront, before she opens the door to her dorm room. Nothing at all.
A/N: Please note, this is all from Millicent's perspective, and does not reflect any of my actual opinions, nor do I condone any of her behavior.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, Please Review!~
Thanks so much to thunderthunder and Meg-Helix for adding Slytherin's Seven Deadly Sins to story alerts! Thanks so much to sarafine-ecleips for adding Slytherin's Seven Deadly Sins to Favorites!
Next Chapter: Lust, starring Draco Malfoy.
