Chapter 4: A Howler and My Jerk of an Uncle
So my revenge plan was very simple. It wasn't too mean, because I hate making people feel humiliated. I put a green hair dye into their shampoo. The amount they gossip, I assumed they were the type to care about their hair way too much. It wasn't very creative, but my creative pranks all end up with someone either in the Hospital wing, or were too mean. I did have one that included a zebra, olive oil, and a giant troll, but that might take some time to acquire. And how would I explain me sneaking in a zebra and a troll? "Oh hey Dumbledore I need this troll, so I can teach this snooty girls a lesson by almost killing them. Okay? Good."
Anyway, Harry was soaking up the attention he was getting from the students here. He was flirting with a group of girls who were giggling no stop. I groaned at this. His head did not need to swell up like a balloon. He already had an ego the size of a house. Ron was also over there flirting with them too. Well trying to flirt anyway. He was very awkward when it came to girls. Well, all girls except for me, anyway. I rolled my eyes and decided that enough was enough. I grabbed both boys by their ears and dragged them away. The giggling idiots gave me an angry look, but I didn't care.
"Ouch!" Both boys said as I dragged them towards the great hall for breakfast.
"Well you should have listened to me earlier." I scolded them.
The hall became quiet when I walked in dragging the two boys by their ears. I rolled my eyes; it's not like they haven't seen a girl dragging two boys way bigger than her, by their ears before. Well... maybe not. I sat down and let go of their ears. They began to rub them; the back of the ears on both boys turned red. I almost felt bad for them... almost
"Bloody Hell woman." Ron grumbled.
I just laughed while I put jam on my toast. Harry flicked me behind the ear in retaliation. I rolled my eyes and flicked some of the jam onto his face. Ron was laughing at his best mate's fate (that totally rhymes!^_^). Before Harry could do anything, the owls came in delivering everyone's mail. Good thing too, knowing Harry and I, we would start a food fight. Ron's poor old bird barely made it to the table before collapsing in front of him. Both Harry and Ron got the newspaper: The Daily Prophet.
"Guys! Look Gringots got broken into!" Ron gasped.
"The bloke who did it is probably in a lot of trouble." I said shocked that someone would even try breaking into the wizarding bank.
"That's just it. No one knows who did it. The Witch or wizard that did it got away. Apparently they tried going into a vault that was already emptied earlier that day." Ron said.
"That's very strange." Harry said.
Then my family's owl began to fly down next to me. It handed me a flying letter that was red. I immediately gasped when I realized what it was.
"Athena's got a Howler." Seamus Finnigan said looking at me with sympathy.
"What's a howler?" Dean asked confused.
"I got one from my nun once, it was awful." Neville said before looking at me. "It is better to open it now before it explodes. It just gets louder."
I sighed before grabbing the envelope. I just opened it slightly before the letter jumped up. I braced myself for the yelling.
"Athena Malfoy," I heard my father's voice yelling through the letter. "Your mother and I are absolutely disgusted. How dare you get into the house of Mud-bloods, and Blood-traitors alike? You disgrace the Malfoy name. Why can't you be like your brother? I hope you like your room, because you aren't leaving it when you are home. And don't bother coming home for Christmas; we don't want to see you."
The Howler tore itself up before burning the pieces. I stood up and ran out of the grand hall. I put my head down so no one could see my tears.
~~~~~~~~~ Third person point of view~~~~~~~~~
After Athena left both Harry and Ron tried running after her, but a hand stopped them. Sirius looked at them and shook his head.
"I know you guys want to help her." Sirius started, "But I know more about what she is going through. It might be better if I talked to her." He said giving the two eleven year old boys a squeeze on the shoulder. They nodded and sat back down, both worrying about their friend.
Truth be told, when Sirius met Athena, she reminded him of himself. She acted so much like him, plus was going through pretty much the same thing he was as a child. Sirius walked out the hall and looked everywhere for her. Finally he found her outside underneath a tree near the lake.
She had her head buried in her knees, trying to hide her tears. He sat down next to her. Either she didn't realize that Sirius was next to her, or she didn't care at the moment.
"You know when I was upset as a kid; this is where I would come." Sirius stated trying to get the girl to talk. "Something about the lake and the tree put me at peace."
"Why can't they just accept that I don't believe in the same stuff as they do?" Athena mumbled so quietly that Sirius barley heard her.
"They don't like anyone different. They think that if you are not rich in money or rich in magic blood, you are not worthy of speaking to." Sirius stated speaking from experience.
Athena stayed quiet.
"Your family doesn't like that your eyes are opened and you know the truth. That everyone deserves to be treated the same." Sirius continued.
She just continued to look down and played with the grass.
"Look I'm not going to lie to you and say it gets better." Sirius said making Athena frown. "If your family is anything like mine was, they are so stubborn, that they won't see the truth."
Sirius pulled Athena's head up, her eyes were red and her face was puffy.
"But I found friends, who became my family." Sirius told her. "They accepted me when my family didn't."
Athena just looked at him.
"And you found that in Ron and Harry." Sirius finished. "They were so worried about you. The only reason they aren't here right now is because they know that you need some space to think."
Athena just looked at him and smiled.
"By the way you are missing your uncle's "wonderful class." Sirius said sarcastically making her laugh.
"Look I'm going to leave you to your thoughts. Just remember you aren't truly alone. You can come to me anytime you want when you need to vent." He said before handing her an excuse slip.
"That way your uncle doesn't kill you when you're late." He said before leaving.
~~~~~~~Athena's Point of view~~~~~~~~~
After a few more minutes I made sure I was no longer crying, before leaving for my class. I loathed my father so much at the moment, that there was no other emotions that I could feel at that moment. When I got to the Potions class, I almost began to laugh. My uncle was asking Harry questions he obviously wouldn't know the answer to. I knew them, only because Uncle Severus taught me everything I know about potions. I decided to put Harry out of his misery and answered them for him.
"The first answer is Draught of Living Death, which I may remind you is a fifth year potion." I began drawing attention to myself. Finally everyone realized I was here. "You would find a Bezoar in the stomach of a goat. And the last is a trick question, they are the same thing."
Uncle Severus looked annoyed. He turned back to the class and said "Why aren't you writing that down?"
The whole class scrambled to get out a piece of parchment, quill, and ink. Uncle Severus looked back at me.
"Athena, even though you are my Goddaughter you will not get any special treatment from me." Severus scolded. "Ten points from Gryffindor for your Cheek, speaking out of turn, and for being late."
I walked up to him and held out the signed note. "I have a note."
He looked aggravated and swiped the late excuse out of my hand. He read over it at least three times to make sure that there wasn't anything tricking him.
"Very well grab a seat." He said emotionally.
I went to the back, and sat in front of Harry and Ron. I gave them a smile before turning around. I was sitting next to Hermione. Although she was annoying, at least I knew she was smart enough not to mess me up. Potions class was the class I'd probably be the best at. After he began to talk about the potion we were making. It was a simple boil cure. I stopped listening because I must have made this potion a hundred times with my uncle already; it was truly really simple. Hermione wrote down everything he said, making sure there wasn't a single flaw. Ron looked like he was in la-la land.
After we started the potion, the class for the Gryffindor students did not get easier. He would come around and criticize everyone. Except my dear twin, which he gushed about how he stewed his slugs correctly. I rolled my eye and continued on. When he came near Hermione and me, he struggled to find something wrong with it. Finally he just said "Your slugs aren't in proportion to one another."
I rolled my eyes knowing that that wasn't important for the potion to work. Hermione looked upset that there was a flaw in her work. And looked furiously through her notes to see if she had missed anything. Before anything else could happen, a loud explosion bombed throughout the room. I looked up to see that Neville and Seamus's potion blew up. It hit Neville in the face causing him to get some nasty boils. His messed up potion burned a hole through his cauldron, and was crawling on the floor burning through people's shoes.
"Idiot boy!" Uncle Severus yelled, before turning on Neville. "I assume you added the Porcupine quills before you took it off the heat?"
Neville just whimpered as a response.
"Take him to the hospital wing." He said to Seamus.
Then he rounded on Harry again.
"Potter why didn't you tell him not to add the quills?" He asked, "Think it would make you seem better if he got it wrong? Five points from Gryffindor."
Harry looked up at him. "Umm excuse me, I was paying attention to my own potion, and wasn't looking at anybody else's."
"That's another point for your cheek." He said before cleaning away everyone's cauldron with a swipe of his wand.
We were enraged when we got out of his class. Even though I do like my Uncle, sometimes I wish I could strangle him with his cape.
"Don't worry Fred and George lose loads of points from him too. And everybody seems to love them." Ron said trying to cheer Harry up.
"What the heck is wrong with your uncle?" Harry asked me.
"A better question is what is wrong with my entire family." I commented dryly.
