Edited: 3/20/17
Bailey loved school. She really, truly did. She loved learning new things and impressing her professors in class, watching Granger's face turn all shades of red when Bailey outdid her in again, especially on the days that Bailey hadn't gotten around to studying at all...
She just hated the early mornings associated with going to school. She, like many of her fellow Slytherins, was a definite night owl.
"Good grief, have you yet to learn a simple hair charm, O' Bailey?" Pansy Parkinson said as Bailey twisted her frizzy hair into a messy bun on the top of her head.
"O' course I 'ave." She hadn't. "But I'm brewin' today. My hair'll simply revert to its natural state of unmanageability even if I do something to it."
"Whatever," Pansy said flippantly. "You'll just never get a good wizard to marry you if you don't even try to look decent. As if your… questionable blood status wasn't enough."
Bailey had almost missed the subtle insults about her heritage. The Gryffindors had certainly not had so much finesse when insulting her.
"Who are yeh? Me mother?"
"Not near enough animal print to be Tilly O'Bailey," Amelia said, entering the conversation and the room as she perfectly applied her lip gloss. "And you're wrong besides, Pansy. Blaise never seems to mind the frizzy hair or the questionable blood status."
Bailey's roommates giggled. She rolled her eyes.
"Oh, just use the damn word—Mudblood," Bailey snapped. The other girls stared at her in shock. She muttered quietly, "And don' talk abou' Blaise that way."
"Well, I guess we'll see you at breakfast then, Bails," Amelia said awkwardly after a few moments of silence.
Bailey ignored them. Both Amelia and Pansy ducked out, likely gossiping about Bailey and Blaise's abnormally close friendship as they had been doing since second year. While Amelia was usually the best friend a girl could wish for, the girl could be as shallow as anybody. The girl could gossip better than an old witch with a fast owl.
Bailey tossed on her uniform and robes, casting a quick de-wrinkling spell over them before looking in the full-length mirror and muttering: "This is as good as it's gonna get." She then slung her book bag over her shoulder and ran down the stairs, intent on running up to the Great Hall to at least get herself a nice, big mug of coffee.
That was the plan. However, she had not been expecting to find a crying first-year girl on the Common Room couch. Cursing the fact that Snape had ignored her constant petitions to set up a coffee maker in the dorms, or whatever wizards do for coffee, Bailey sat down beside the crying girl.
The first-year girl looked up at Bailey and seemed somewhat terrified to have an older student, and a Prefect at that, sitting beside her as she had her little melt down.
"Your hair is sticking out all over the place."
Maybe not so terrified.
"How come you're sitting out here crying… Ma..Mac…" Bailey struggled to remember the girl's name from the Sorting the night before. She knew it was something Scottish.
"Macmillian," the girl finished. "My name is Elizabeth Macmillian. My friends… if I had any… call me Beth."
"Alright, Beth," she said with a wry smile. "You can call me Bailey. That's what my friends call me. Now, why are yeh cryin'?"
"Well, I went to breakfast and saw my older cousin, Ernie, a Hufflepuff, y'know?"
Bailey curled her lip. "Prefect? With a giant stick up his ar—I mean—his… behind?"
Beth giggled. "Yup. That would be him. And I already know all the curse words. I am eleven, after all," she said conspiratorially. "Anyway, he said that I was gonna be evil and become a Dark Witch and our family would disown me cuz I got Sorted into Slytherin! I don't wanna be evil!"
The girl was almost hysterical. Bailey put an arm around her. She could already tell that she would not be as good a Prefect as Gemma Farley, her first-year Prefect.
"People will say you're evil—let them. So long as you're not, it doesn't matter," the older girl said to the small group of nervous Slytherins. "And don't worry if you're not some fancy-pants Pureblood—you'll get by and still make friends. I did."
And suddenly, Bailey didn't feel so scared anymore. And, she was veryhappy she had read all those books on Wizard culture.
"Tell me, Beth, do you think that I'm an evil, Dark Witch?"
Beth shrugged. "Well, I don't really know you, but you seem nice. But, that could be a cover up."
Bailey raised an eyebrow. The girl would do quite nicely in Slytherin. Then she got an idea.
"Then tell me this—was Merlin an evil wizard?"
Beth gaped. "No, of course not! He was the greatest wizard of all time!"
"Exactly. He was a Slytherin," she said. Beth stared at her with wide eyes. "Bein' a Slytherin doesn't mean that you're evil. There's plenty o' those in other Houses, too. Maybe a little less powerful in Hufflepuff, but still," Beth giggled at that. "Do you know what being in Slytherin truly means?"
Beth shook her head, looking confused. "Pure ancestry and cunning?"
"Not quite—though good job paying attention to the song," Bailey replied. "It means you have the potential for greatness. So, you should be proud to be a Snake—you'll do great things."
"So, Ernie was just blowing hot air?"
Bailey laughed. "Well, what else is he really good for?"
Beth smirked. "One more question, though, Bailey."
"Yes?"
"How in Merlin's beard do you get to Transfiguration?"
With that, Bailey led the first year to her classroom, showing the girl the easiest route to take with the least amount of trick staircases. McGonagall even awarded Bailey points for doing so. Which was great, because Professor Snape generally matched points (allowing Slytherin to win the House Cup fairly often despite Dumbledore's best efforts). She still would have had some time for coffee if it weren't for Fawley.
Bailey was about half-way to the Great Hall when she was suddenly slammed against the stone wall in an unfortunately empty corridor. Everyone seemed to have gotten to class early for the first day. Except, of course, for their fearless Head Boy, Callum Fawley.
"Well, well, well," he said with his usual wolfish grin. "What do we have here? Late for class?"
"I was showing a first year to her classroom. If you don' let go of me, I will be late," she said in a purposely calm voice.
"Now why would I let you go when I have you right where I want you?" he replied. Bailey felt her skin crawl.
"Because if yeh don't, I could easily have you arrested for assault," she said, trying to sound more in control than she felt.
"I doubt anything would come of that," he sneered. "Tides are changing, O'Bailey. Blood matters more than you could ever realize. If you don't start showing proper respect, you might just meet a… sticky end."
And like that, he was gone.
Bailey practically ran to her Double Potions class, nearly ten minutes late. She quickly explained to Snape that she had been escorting a lost first year to her classroom before getting out her Potions ingredients, all the while ignoring glares from the Gryffindors for being able to come in late to class without any repercussions. She was barely able to complete her potion, though, her hands were shaking so hard from her run-in with Fawley. Snape raised an eyebrow at her mediocre work.
"I expect more from my apprentice, Ms. O'Bailey," he said before moving on to an utter mess at Longbottom's table.
Bailey ignored all questions from her friends about her distracted state at lunch, preferring to keep her eyes locked on her plate and away from Fawley. She didn't want him to take it as an invitation for more lewd behavior.
After lunch, the four went down together to Defense Against the Dark Arts with Pinky the Toad. Amelia, Draco, and Blaise were in an argument as they walked in.
"Nott is bad news, Amelia."
"He's a pig."
"You don't—"
"For Merlin's sake, guys, it's just lunch at Puddifoot's!" Amelia exclaimed. "It's not like we're betrothed!"
"No, because you're technically betrothed to me," Draco said. "And you don't need to be running around with a guy who only wants one thing!"
"So, what, you're gonna get all bloody possessive on me? When I know you've been pining over someone else for years!" Amelia said, her face going red with anger. "How dar—"
"Erm, guys," Bailey interrupted. "As cute as your protective jealousy is, Pinky is staring at us."
"Well, good afternoon!"* Umbridge said a few moments later. Bailey ignored her, placing her wand on the table.
"Tut, tut. That won't do, will it?"*
Bailey's loathing of the 'nightmare in pink' was growing by the second as the class chanted: "Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge!"*
"Wands away, quills out please!"*
Bailey resolved at that point that Defence Against the Dark Arts would be a perfect daydreaming class that year.
Even though Bailey was able to spend awhile doing just that whilst pretending to read her dry textbook, Granger soon made that impossible by starting an argument with the rose-colored toad woman.
Bailey looked up as she was saying: "I do not wish to criticize the way things have been run in this school, but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed—not to mention extremely dangerous half-breeds."*
Bailey tensed, jaw twitching, wanting desperately to defend her godfather, but Blaise put a hand on her arm to remind her that now was not the time to lose her temper.
Of course, Potter's friends weren't intelligent enough to keep him from doing the same. They didn't stop him once throughout his tirade about the Darl Lord, Cedric Diggory's murder, and all the things the Ministry wanted covered up in general, until he was sent to McGonagall's office with several detentions under his belt. Bailey didn't even think the Weasley twins had got detention yet. Her godbrother was certainly a Gryffindor, through and through.
"Now, will there be any more questions?" Umbridge asked in a sugary-sweet voice. Her glare was poisoned daggers though. Before Blaise stopped her, Bailey had her hand up in the air.
"Yes, Ms—"
"O' Bailey," she finished. "Will you be teachin' us for long? Surely, you are more needed at the Ministry after the unfortunate events o' both the World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament last year."
Bailey could feel the triumphant smirks of her friends, though she didn't dare look. No one cared for a teacher who didn't allow practicals. Nor for one whose wardrobe was an insult to humanity.
The woman smiled as though she was experiencing constipation of the severest sort.
"That is not for you to worry yourself over, my dear," she said in a simpering voice. "Now, if you would all continue reading in your books."
The class let out a collective groan.