CHAPTER THREE: More Weasley's
Annabel Malfoy's Pov:
I pushed an isolated apple seed around my plate with my forefinger, wondering how it was, that only this one seed came to be separated from the apple core chamber. With a sigh I transferred more of my weight to my left arm's elbow, which was leaning on the table next to my plate propping my head up. I'd survived three days. That's really more than I had expected, but now, thanks to Ginny, my attempt at invisibility and distance from my fellow classmates, Gryffindor's in particular, would surely be up. My name and family, were not the only things sure to be openly hated from now. I was too. I deepened my slump and dragged my clenched fist across from the side of my head to the middle of my forehead. As I did this my long ponytail of white blond gently swayed into view. It did look quite lovely against the scarlet and black. Most of the other Gryffindor girls had brown or black hair. Greatly so I was noticeably different too. Soothingly I remembered that next I had double potions, with Snape. Snape an old family friend, and of whom I'm sure I would find a friend, regardless of which house I lay sorted into. I contently sat back up and straightened my slump, finally I was in for an enjoyable class.
With shock, I noticed that there was a boy sitting no more the two metres from me, on the opposite side of the table, munching on an apple. I think this was the closest someone had intentionally come near me, since the train on Monday. He looked like he was on a mission. He was slightly slumped and had eyes only for the paper for which he was furiously writing, no, drawing on.
"Oi You!", growled a voice from behind me, "leave my sister alone!"
I curtly spun in my seat and surveyed a shaggy red headed boy, with a freckled and furrowed face.
"What were you thinking, trying to bump my sister off like that, in broad daylight…literally, bump her off", accused the boy.
From my now side-on view of the Gryffindor table, I sickenly saw that most heads were turned in interest towards us, but curiously, the apple boy's head remained down.
"I'm sorry I don't follow you", I blankly responded.
"Enough with the manners Malfoy!", spat the boy, with evident disgust on the last word, my surname. "You tried to push my sister off her broom today!" screeched the Weasley. To my horror now even the apple boy snapped his head up, freezing halfway through a bite. "Or have you forgotten so quickly, guess you try all the time don't you!".
"Ginny", I surmised quietly. "Ginny Weasley!", I now growled, accompanied by a glare directed at the Weasley boy.
"Yeah who else were you told to try and hurt by your brother? Yes my sister!", yelled the boy, now flaring with his arms.
"My brother?", I questionably probed.
"Yeah your brother! He only jeered about you keeping an eye on my sister this year, for the whole of last term!", exclaimed the reddening boy. "Never thought your family would go to this extent though, seems a tad extreme", mumbled the boy.
My face was blank as I slowly digested that this, this myth created by my brother, could be a contributing factor in Ginny Weasley not even acknowledging my presence, let alone conversing with me. My moments silence portrayed my confusion.
"You know, to have you daddy drown the sorting hat in dark magic and confund it to place you Gryffindor, so that you could personally make my sister, and her whole houses life, a misery…extreme!", continued the Weasley boy.
For a second I could do nothing but blankly stare back, but then I stole a hushed snicker.
"Think it's funny do you!", accused the boy. "Everyone's been saying it. The whole school too, not just Gryffindor", added the boy now with his voice only slightly raised. "No wonder the hat took so long with you, it was fighting off the dark magic".
"Idiot!", I suddenly screeched, finding my voice and wasting no time to raise it. "For your information I was trying to help your sister this morning!", I spat, fighting to control my volume and managing to lower it. "She happened to pick a particularly nasty old school broom for our lesson, and it was jerking furiously", I explain through gritted teeth. "I was next to her and after a violent jerk I pushed her shoulder over so that her weight would rest over the center of the broom and stabilize her flight.
"Do I look Like I was bor…", started the boy.
"Come on Ron", piped a boy standing next to him. I hadn't seen this boy at first and I hastily took in his appearance. His clothes were well tailored but he had curious glasses and scruffy hair that hung down over his forehe!… Harry Potter. "We said we'd help out Hermione in the library, remember", added the Potter boy. The Weasley boy didn't move though, and with one last murderous glare directed at me, he was shunted off by his friend out of the hall.
Still staring at the hall doors, where the two had just left, I slowly turned back to the table, only to stop in mid turn. The apple boy was staring at me. I would have expected a disgusted or scornful glare, but his was…curious?
"That wasn't a very smart thing for you to try, Annabel", soothed the boy, with a strong Scottish brogue.
"Excuse me?", I blankly responded.
"I'm Oliver wood – the Gryffindor Quiddtich captain", he quickly stated. "As I was saying, wasn't the smartest move, literally", he added with a smirk. "If your broom had jerked while you'd had your arm out, pushing Weasley, you could have easily fallen off yourself", he explained, with much enthusiasm and a quick re-enactment with his arms.
"I hang on pretty well", I responded with a sure smile. "And besides just one more jerk and I'm sure Ginny would have been bucked right off", I honestly continued.
The boy sat there for a moment and then his face broke into a small but bright smile. The sight warmed my insides and sent the space in my throat weak. Someone was smiling at me, and not disdainfully. Suddenly two boys planted themselves on either side of the still smiling boy. The Weasley twins.
Glaring at me all the while, they both lilted with precision in both rhythm and pitch, "El Capitano".
"Boys", answered the boy, who had yet again returned his attention to his drawings? They looked to be anyway, there was certainly lines everywhere and different colours. I looked up defiantly into the twins matching, fiercely protective, glares.
"Arrr, I didn't do it", I growled.
"You know you'd better be making tracks Annabel", announced the boy bent over his, diagrams I thought now.
"What do you mea…", I started.
"The bells gone, I suppose you didn't hear it", he calmly explained.
I quickly started to organise my books and blurted out, "Well why aren't you three moving!"
The boy looked up again seemingly frustrated by something, "I have a spare", he curtly responded.
"And we have divination", chorused the twins.
"She predicts that we'll be late to the next class every lesson", one of them explained.
"We'd hate to disappoint her 'inner eye'", the other continued.
I stole a grin and dashed out of the hall.