"Ahh, and a new student," a peculiar-sounding voice said dramatically. "I foresaw your entrance. Welcome to Divination, the art of parting the threads of fate and peering into the future. A difficult class for someone who has only begun to learn magic- but then again it has never been about silly wand-waving; no, this class will be very difficult if you lack the inherent talent."
Verity blinked and stared at this speech. A weedy-looking woman was standing a few meters away amidst the fog of perfume and cloying fumes. She was draped in about ten thousand scarves and throws and wisps of fabric, by Verity's estimation, and she stepped back a little nervously. No one human could both stand such horrible fumes and wear such heavy clothing. It was stifling in the room.
Embarrassed, she flopped down beside Draco on a pouf and tried to ignore Pansy Parkinson sneer at her and whisper something mean about her to Millicent Bulstrode, but it seemed that the professor wasn't finished.
"Over this past summer, I divined deeply into the knowledge of the Seeing Eye... I sensed something important about this new student... something deadly..." Trelawney's voice raised nearly an entire octave as she quavered, "By your hand will come either the purest of gifts or the most evil of curses!"
Verity squeaked and flinched away, but Draco yawned loudly, startling her and making a few of the other students snicker. Trelawney looked affronted. She shook out her drapey sleeves and glared at Draco for one moment before she continued crossly, "Now, you will find on the tables copies of the Dream Oracle..."
Verity edged farther back into her pouf.
"Don't worry," Draco muttered. "She's always like this. Her class is complete rot. You just need to make things up and you'll pass it easily."
"Okay," she whispered back. She glanced around the room, bored with Trelawney's talk of dreams; she was mostly angry about Trelawney's singling her out from the rest of the class. All the Slytherin girls hated her already. The only thing Trelawney had done was make it worse. But now she had another doubled class; they were there for an extra amount of time, but she could talk to people from Ravenclaw, which was an interesting change. A few seats away was a pretty Indian girl with a highly focused expression upon her face. A little further back was a nice-looking young man with dark hair, styled and cut in such a highly precise way as to look as careless as possible. It was quite obvious that he spent time on his hair, but he ruffled it back to make it stick out all over the place as he did so. Sitting beside him was another brown-haired boy, but his hair was lighter and shorter; altogether he looked much more plain than the one beside him.
Verity narrowed her eyes a little at them. She'd heard Draco sort of scoffing about Ravenclaws; evidently they were liked much more than Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, and that made Verity uneasy. She'd quickly learned not to trust the Slytherin opinion of anything. Especially not their opinion of shepard's pie. They made it weird here at Hogwarts. Maybe it was something in the sauce.
It was her third day at Hogwarts, and Verity was feeling horribly guilty. Not wanting to upset her mother with stories about what the other Slytherin girls were doing to her, she still hadn't written a letter to her, even though she'd already sent one to Voldemort last night. If her father deserved a letter, then her mother definitely did. But what was she going to write?
Dear Mum, Charms is alright, Herbology is okay, Transfiguration is hard, and Potions is... okay.
That was honestly the nicest thing she could think of to say about Snape's class. She still could hardly believe how rude he'd seemed. No teacher back at her old school would ever be that mean.
I found a staff.
Oh, that was what she could tell her mother about! Finding the staff! She brightened immediately. It was cool and it was pretty and the Slytherin girls hadn't tried to steal it from her yet or even to break it, like they'd done to her hand-mirror earlier that morning.
Verity straightened up, happy to have yet another issue taken care of, and tried to struggle through her classes.
She could definitely understand a Muggle-born having a few issues adapting to wizard life, but it was nothing like what Verity faced. By this time all the teachers had stopped explaining the various wizard-y concepts to students who might not know or fully grasp it; they were now at the age where even the most Muggle of all of them could have rattled off any kind of wizard custom or history. Verity was having so much trouble trying to understand everything and to keep from going absolutely barmy from everything that was going on.
The next class was one Verity looked forward to with just as much curiosity and dread as the others. Care of Magical Creatures. It was probably going to be terribly exciting and hideously hard, kind of like Transfiguration or Charms or any of the other classes she'd had so far. The only boring ones seemed to be History of Magic and maybe Astronomy; she hadn't had either of those two yet.
It was really too bad that Hogwarts was so amazing; she kind of wanted to run away and live in a cave, maybe in the wondrously mysterious Forbidden Forest, but the teachers were mostly lovely and the classes were just too wildly exciting to forget about.
Following closely with Draco, his two cronies (Verity couldn't remember their names), Millicent, Pansy, and the other Slytherins, she allowed them to lead her outside.
"The class is out here?" Verity asked doubtfully. But Draco, the only one who ever spoke to her, was too busy listening to Pansy, and no one answered her. She sighed and looked away. At least it was Care of Magical Creatures, yet another class she had with Gryffindor. Maybe she could make friends with them, since the Slytherins didn't like her very much.
She wondered what they'd be like. Harry Potter was a Gryffindor, she knew, but she wasn't sure what that meant. Were all Gryffindors Voldemort-haters? Were they nice? Were they just as cruel and cold as the dark, angry gleam in her father's eyes?
"So, yet another Care of Magical Creatures class," Draco drawled up ahead. "It's a good thing Hagrid isn't here to feed us to hippogriffs. What do you think we'll be working on?"
"Dunno," one of his goons rumbled.
"Probably something small and wimpy," Millicent said, shrugging.
"Oh, you mean like Harry Potter!"
The Slytherins erupted into laughter just as they came to the group of Gryffindor students. Verity smiled uneasily.
Ahead of them was a long, low trestle table with bunches of twigs. Verity glanced it over with interest as the rest of the students arrived; the other Slytherins kept snickering and Draco stood tall, looking proud of himself; maybe they would use those twigs to feed something. Would they be feeding anything? After all, it was Care of Magical Creatures...
Verity sighed. She was a little frightened by how vicious Draco's description of hippogriffs was, but she still sort of wanted to see one.
"Everyone here?" the teacher snapped gruffly. "Alright, who can tell me what these are?"
A girl with incredibly bushy hair raised her hand in an instant. Draco shot a quick glance at the Slytherins and then leaped up and down in imitation of the girl, sticking his teeth out obscenely far.
At that moment, Verity wanted to sink into the ground in complete mortification. They were fifteen. She thought she'd left behind idiots like him years ago. Still, Pansy shrieked with laughter and then screamed.
The twigs on the table had reacted. Evidently angrily, because their tiny glittering eyes seemed to be glaring. They looked like tiny woodland elves, like miniature tree people. They were kind of cute, but a little creepy as well. Verity could completely imagine them being in a horror movie.
"Will you please stay quiet?" the teacher asked in exasperation. She quickly scattered something over the creatures, which made them fall over immediately. Dead? Stunned? Verity couldn't tell.
"Bowtruckles," the eager girl was saying. "They guard and live within wand trees."
Verity gave her willow wand a surreptitious glance. She wondered if bowtruckles had ever laid their fingers on her wand in particular.
"Good, yes, bowtruckles," the teacher went on, but Verity wasn't really paying attention. She took in the information, but she was also glaring at the back of Draco's head. He was whispering something to Pansy. It was nice that he liked to talk to Verity; no one else did; but she'd have to talk about his behavior. He was being a tool.
The group of students broke apart; evidently they were supposed to take a bowtruckle and create a diagram of it. As usual, Verity was last in line to pick one, having been shoved to the back of the line by Millicent Bulstrode, and was forced to watch Draco make inane comments to Harry Potter, who looked flustered and worried by the time Draco was finished with him.
Everyone else was seated when she finally picked out her bowtruckle, a slender little creature with a particularly malevolent gleam in its beady eyes. Glancing around, she noticed that Draco was seated across from Pansy and in between his goons. No, thank you. But Harry Potter and his two friends were sitting in a tiny, closed circle. It looked a little intimate, but Verity felt sorry for the poor girl who Draco had made fun of. She seemed really smart, and nice, too; Snape seemed to dislike her, along with the other Slytherins. No one deserved to be hated so much.
Verity wasn't one to fear social situations, but she found herself swallowing down fear as she approached the group. Maybe Harry would sense Voldemort's genes within her. Maybe he'd try to kill her for what Voldemort tried to do to him...
"Hi," she said, and beamed at them. All three looked up in surprise. "Can I sit with you?"
They all sort of scooted away, making space for her, but without saying much. She held the bowtruckle nimbly between her thumb and forefinger as she seated herself. Its brown, cracked face was still looking a little stern, obviously unhappy about being held but not infuriated enough to attack.
"I'm Verity Webb," she added. The 'dazzling' meter on her smile turned up to near maximum.
"I know," the red-haired boy said.
"I'm Harry Potter; this is Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger."
"Alright." She smiled at each of them. "It's looking a little tight with the Slytherins, so I've decided to sit here. That's okay?"
The group mumbled again. Verity was sure they didn't want her, but she was determined to make friends.
"Perfect!" she squealed, gave her bowtruckle a once over before she started to draw her diagram. The creature squirmed once or twice, but made few other movements. Malfoy was saying something loudly about Hagrid, but Verity was concentrating too hard to really listen to it. She did, however, notice Harry grit his teeth and pale.
"So," she said. "Is Snape always kind of... uhm..."
No one offered any phrases. Verity gesticulated a little more, then completed, "An arse? Is he always an arsehole?"
All three stared at her, then at each other as if they weren't quite sure what to think.
"Yeah," Ron said slowly. "But never to the Slytherins, you know."
"Hm." Verity quickly sketched the bowtruckle's legs and then replied, "Well, that's kind of unfair, isn't it?"
There was a noise like a small explosion. Ron had snorted in shock. Verity was sort of surprised that the contents of his skull were splattered everywhere from the sheer force of the snort, but she didn't say anything about it.
"Of course it isn't fair," Hermione said earnestly.
"Snape hates us," Harry added.
Verity shrugged, feeling disappointed. She supposed it was to be expected.
"Verity- Hey, Verity, what are you doing, sitting with them? Get over here!"
Malfoy. He was glaring at her, and Pansy was making a hideous sneer of dislike, from a few yards away in the dewy grass.
"Thanks, but I think I'll stay here for now."
"No! I don't want you sitting with Mudbloods," he said contemptuously. "Who knows what diseases you'll catch."
Ron flushed crimson. "You take that back!"
Harry didn't speak, but whipped out his wand, his face bloodless with anger. Hermione looked rather aloof, but she looked furious as well.
"What's a Mudblood?" Verity chimed in innocently.
They all looked at her.
"Back off, Malfoy," Harry snapped, and focused his attention on her. "It's a really foul word for someone who's Muggle-born."
Verity frowned. So Draco had actually cursed out that poor girl? He really was a jerk!
She looked back and forth between the escalating situation. What could she do?
Nothing. She was bound to Draco Malfoy and the other Slytherins. They knew more about the situation that she did, and her father was working to kill Harry. She had to side with them, and yet... yet it almost hurt her to watch Hermione and Ron and Harry be made fun of and put down. She wanted to help them, but what would that do? She would only be asked to do something to hurt them later, she just knew it. Lord Voldemort didn't have her going to Hogwarts for a little vacation. He would expect something out of her.
Something soon.
"Get back over here, Webb," Draco snarled. "I don't want to ever see you sitting with those blood traitors again. Come. Here. Now."
Verity sighed, hanging her head, and obeyed. How on earth could she argue with words like those? She wondered where he learned to be so authoritative. Probably Lord Voldemort, she thought glumly, or maybe a Death Eater. His father is one, isn't he?
"If you ever want to be a true Slytherin, you had better not be seen with them," he said in softer but crueler voice. "Or you'll find more than wayward curses slithering into your life."
Was that a threat? Draco's wording made Verity cringe as well. Did he mean that he would do something personally? Did he hate Harry that much? Or was it a warning that Voldemort, who owned the enormous snake Nagini, wouldn't be pleased? Would he send the snake after her? Like an attack snake? Could he actually do that?
But Verity only looked at the ground. "Yes, Draco," she murmured.