A/N: READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS!
ok so I feel like I have a lot of explaining/ clearing up to do. First of all with the Vanessa-Harry relationship: I don't think I did a good job depicting it, and 15hearts sent me a message asking why Harry didn't take Vanessa with him on their hunt for Horcruxes, & I'm just going to copy and paste my response here.
well basically he didn't tell her for the same reasons he didn't tell anyone else about the horcruxes besides ron and hermione. dumbledore told him only to tell ron and hermione. harry isn't really all that close with vanessa anymore either. they used to be almost inseparable because the only thing that was keeping them from going insane while they were at the dursleys the first 11 years of their lives was each other. but ever since they went to hogwarts and got sorted into rival houses, then there's been a kind of rift between them and they just continued to drift apart. the last summer they spent at the dursleys together there was hardly any contact between them.
ok... yeah, I feel like I have more to say but it's two in the morning and I really just want to get this posted. Oh, & I was re-reading some of my old chapters and sorry that my writing style is so different now. They're in a completely different situation than they were in before though. I had a lot more room to make jokes and be stupid. Okay, anyway enjoy!
Blaise and Draco sat across from each other on the floor of the dormitory, where various textbooks lay open and forgotten alongside their unfinished Transfiguration homework. Though Blaise had long ago forgiven Draco for his dishonesty the previous year, the only time they had friendly contact was when they were alone in their room, which was where they were forced to do their homework, seeing as how Vanessa had claimed the common room and Ashley the library. Blaise's marks were indeed suffering from his lack of having somebody to copy off of. And also due to the fact that Blaise and Draco spent more time gossiping than actually studying.
"I still don't see why you haven't even tried apologizing to her," Blaise was saying for the fifty-second time.
"It's hard to apologize to someone who runs the other way when they see you coming," said Draco bitterly.
"Well I still say you're not trying hard enough."
"What about you and Ashley, then?" retorted Draco. "I don't see you trying to apologize to her."
"I'm not the one that needs to apologize."
The two boys sighed at the same time. There was a silence in which each of them were lost in their own thoughts. Draco broke it at last, picking up his quill and saying,
"We better get started on this. It's due tomorrow, and you know McGonagall has no queries about reporting us to the Carrows."
Blaise snorted. "As if they'd ever punish you."
"Yeah, but you might be in trouble if your marks don't improve," Draco pointed out.
"Aw, see you do care about me!" Blaise gushed. But then he said, "I don't see why it matters, though, honestly. It's like you said last year, isn't it? It doesn't matter anymore how many OWLs or NEWTs anyone's got. It's all about your service to Him; He's won. Even Potter and his mates are on the run."
Ashley was sitting alone at a worn desk in farthest corner of the library, scratching out random phrases on a piece of parchment and occasionally glancing at her open Herbology textbook to give the impression that she was still working on her homework despite the fact that she had completed it two hours ago. It wasn't enough, however, to distract her from the stares and whispers of the others in the library; they weren't even bothering to try and hide the fact they were all talking about her. It was driving her insane. She wondered if they had a death wish.
However, the library was indeed preferable to being in her dormitory, trying to tune out Parkinson and Bulstrode and waiting for Vanessa to come storming in, or spending the night wandering the corridors, or listening to Aiden and Carrows in the staff room (not that she was allowed to go in there anyway).
Ashley sighed, slammed her textbook shut, and rose from her seat, deciding that she might as well spend this time to get ahead in History of Magic. She sighed again; she didn't know how much further she could go in History of Magic—she was already studying stuff that they weren't supposed to cover until May. History was the best way for Ashley to distract herself, though. As she rose from her seat, the whispers escalated in volume, and Ashley chanted to herself,
"The goblins rebelled in 847, 1248, 1508, 1748, and again in 1895. Emeric the Evil was defeated by Barnabas the Barmy in 1467..."
Ashley was cut off abruptly as she realized there was someone ahead of her, scanning the bookshelves and muttering, "Flesh-Eating Trees... Flesh-Eating Trees..."
It was Vanessa, diligently scouring the shelves for a Herbology textbook that was on the other side of the library. Before she could stop herself, Ashley had said,
"You do know that you're looking in the History of Magic section for a Herbology book, don't you, Vanessa?"
Vanessa's head jerked upward at the sound of Ashley's voice, and her eyes narrowed. She seemed to hover on the edge of speech, decided it wasn't worth her time, and continued her fruitless attempts at finding her book. Ashley sighed; she supposed she ought to find it comforting that Vanessa hadn't changed her pigheaded ways. She went back to her table in the back of the library, picked up the textbook that Vanessa had been searching for, and set it down beside her before leaving the library and deciding to wander the corridors for a couple hours before retiring to bed.
As the days went by, I felt myself being wound tighter and tighter. I didn't have any clue what was going on outside. I hadn't heard from Harry in weeks and weeks. I didn't know where he was; I didn't know what he was doing... I didn't even know whether he was alive or not.
It. Was driving me. Completely. Insane. I've never gone so long without contact from him.
Add that to the fact that Draco hadn't so much as looked at me the entire year—I mean, not that I pay that much attention to him. I couldn't care less actually. I hardly even notice him.
"Will you please stop staring at him, V?" hissed Blaise, sounding half irritable, half amused. We were in the middle of a History of Magic, and I was vaguely aware of Binns droning on about the medieval giant population in Bohemia. "If you want to talk to him that bad, then just go talk to him. It's actually quite simple."
"But I don't want to go talk to him. It's actually quite simple."
About the only thing that could potentially cheer me up is the fact that the Death Eaters in Hogwarts aren't having it easy either. Dumbledore's Army was keeping up a consistent string of pranks/ attempted-sabotage (that I was very cruelly not invited to be a part of). Although a blanket ban had been placed on everything from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and anybody found to be in possession of their products was at risk of expulsion at best and imprisonment at worst, Ginny seemed to have an endless supply of them.
It was almost like having the Weasley twins back again. Scratch that, if they were here they would be too busy being crying with pride at their little sister stepping into their shoes and wreaking havoc to be of much use to anyone. During one memorable dinner, someone—three guesses who—had slipped an incredibly powerful love potion into Amycus Carrow's pumpkin juice (who knew Death Eaters drank pumpkin juice) and everyone in the Great Hall spent the rest of the evening snorting into their pudding as Amycus Carrow had to be restrained by his sister to keep from molesting Snape as he worked on an antidote.
It was a wonder that Ginny was never caught. For some reason, the Carrows' main suspect was Neville—possibly because he was the one that always spoke up in class—but they had a hard time proving he had anything to do with the stunts. Ginny was very thorough, leaving little to no evidence against them. In fact, the only reason I knew her to be the perpetrator was because of the countless hours I had spent at the Burrow watching her, Fred, and George; I recognized their style. That, and the fact that she took every possible opportunity to brag about it.
"You could hear them shrieking halfway across the castle," Ginny had cackled after running into me on my way to Herbology. "And then Michael Corner had this idea to..."
And then she divulged some top super secret plan to flood the Carrows' chambers while they were sleeping.
"But what if they drown?" I had asked.
"Who cares?"
One day, as I was walking along a corridor on my way to Potions with Blaise—just happening to be trailing behind Ashley and Aiden—there was a flash of orange behind a tapestry, and Aiden's robes caught fire. Through Aiden's hysterical screams and Blaise's equally hysterical laughter, I could have sworn I heard Ashley snorting with suppressed laughter as she attempted to douse the flames. (What was up with her? I had already resolved myself to the belief that she was an evil witch—no pun intended—but now she goes around helping me with homework and laughing at other people's misery as if... as if nothing's changed. Which is completely ridiculous—everything's changed.)
And it was all fine and dandy that Ginny was having so much fun with Dumbledore's Army—at least some people were enjoying themselves. Until they got caught trying to steal the sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office (I don't know which bonehead suggested that idea, but I sure hope it wasn't Ginny.) And they seemed to lose their touch. Lavender Brown and Parvarti Patil got caught releasing nifflers in the Carrows' office, and Michael Corner got tortured for releasing a first year that was chained up in the dungeon.
And you know what the most infuriating part was? If I had been there, I could've stopped it from happening. It was complete and utter insanity for Neville, Ginny, Luna, and Terry Boot to break into Snape's office without Decoy Detonators at the very least. They needed me, and I was going to prove it to them.
Just don't ask me how, I haven't quite figured that out yet.
A/N: okay, before you start thinking like "omgggggggg, Vanessa's so stuck up, who does she think she is Dumbledore's Army doesn't need a stupid Slytherin like her". Well you're kind of right. They don't need her. But Vanessa hasn't had anything to look forward to in months, and although what Dumbledore's Army is doing could hardly be counted as fun, that's what she sees it as. And she basically deluded herself into thinking that she could do it too, and is going to completely ignore Ginny's warning in the previous chapter, which will either get her into a lot of trouble in the next chapter or...
sorry guys, gotta wait a few days to find out.
Oh yeah, check out my new fic called Separate Paths. It's pretty depressing but, I don't know, maybe you like that stuff.
Please review! Really, don't be afraid to criticize my stuff. I don't exactly like my writing style right now, but I don't know how to improve it. And feel free to ask any questions you have involving the plot or the characters or anything in general really.
