I don't own Harry Potter. Clearly.
This chapter was such a pain to write. Oh my god, I thought I'll never finish - which is funny, because the chapter before this took less time but went much smoother.
To top it off, this has a whole mountain of stuff happening that is super important and that will be referenced over and over, so yeah… fanfics can be stressful.
Aaaand I'm rambling. Again.
Thank you so much to all the wonderful, amazing readers who reviewed - you are the best. I can go on and on about how grateful I am that you took your time to leave them, and I still won't be able to thank you enough:)
Salazara
She was going to kill Lockhart.
When her test score came back near perfect, and that moron of a teacher actually had the audacity to smile at her and say what good student she was to read all of his books so thoroughly in front of the whole class, Victoria wanted to throttle him right there and then.
Instead she smiled sweetly, lowered her lashes, and murmured a polite thank you.
But the final straw was when two weeks into the year, Lockhart decided to give them a practical lesson. It's not that Victoria didn't want a practical - she did, but coming from Lockhart… she couldn't help but think it would go terribly.
It did.
"Can anyone wager a guess of what is in there?" he asked the class, gesturing widely at the covered cage. Victoria kept her hand down and sunk in her back row sit a little. The problem was, Lockhart actually liked her. Whether it was the test, or he simply was so enamoured with himself that it extended to everyone with golden-blonde hair, but it seemed that she became a favorite.
The ironic thing was that in any other class it would've been a good thing.
"Ms. Savorgnan?"
Damn it. "Fairies, sir?" she answered, doing her best to not sound like she'd rather be anywhere else but there.
"Close. I present to you - Cornish Pixies!" Lockhart said in a tone one would use to announce the presence of a dragon, ripping of the sheet to reveal a cage full of little blue creatures the length of a pinkie finger.
Someone snickered. It set of a chain reaction, but even the sound of the whole class' mocking laughter did very little to affect Lockhart. If anything, he seemed to appear more smug.
Before she had time to dwell on the impossibility of that, the professor spoke again.
"They may seem harmless, but they are pesky little creatures, and they love wrecking havoc. Your task," he said, moving toward the door, "Is to stop them in any way you can. Ready?"
Without witing for an answer, he waved his wand at the cage.
In the thirty minutes it took Victoria to find a large enough time window to cast a freezing charm, five people had gotten concussions, three had broken limbs, and one was sobbing hysterically and had to be restrained by a furious Madame Pomfrey.
Everyone else got away with a pint of ink on their heads, bruises from dozens of thrown copies of "Magical Me", and scratches from the shattered chandelier. Lockhart himself was no where to be found.
He's carrion, Victoria thought as Pomfrey pulled out a particularly long shard of glass from her arm and covered the wound with dittany. She grit her teeth at the sting.
Pomfrey patted her back soothingly, murmuring something that sounded a lot like a string of elaborate death threats directed at the Defence Professor, and waved her wand over the puncture, knitting skin and muscle together seamlessly. Victoria flexed her arm experimentally; it was a little sore but otherwise fine. Almost like it felt after a flu shot.
"Thank you," she said, getting up from the bed.
"You're welcome, dear," Pomfrey said, smiling at her, and rushed off to aid another patient.
…
Next morning in Potions Victoria was working with Draco and his two goons. She knew they were Crabbe and Goyle, but she had no idea which one was which, and frankly, had no desire to find out.
"Get me the ingredients, and for the love of Merlin don't come within a foot of the cauldron," she hissed at them, and handed Draco one of her silver knifes - he made it a habit to forget his every other class.
"Harsh," he said, impressed, as his bodyguards left.
Victoria scoffed. "Don't get me wrong, but it's the only way to deal with them without failing the class, and forgive me if I'm putting my grade over their feelings - and they have to deal with you daily, anyway. I'm pretty sure they've grown desensitized to it."
The water was boiling by the time the two retarded products of inbreeding got back. Victoria couldn't bring herself to feel bad for them - they weren't good people, and whether it was nature or nurture, she was dreading them getting older. They were like two volatile bombs, and anyone who has the mind to, can decide when, where, and how they will go off.
The potion was coming along well, even with Snape breathing down their necks and causing Crabbe and Goyle to shift, and drop things, and stammer, and act like two shifty rats - scratch, that, jellyfish, they were due to finish on time.
Victoria entrusted them with stirring the cauldron while she prepared bat spleen and Draco chopped dead spiders. She put the ingredients on one cutting board, noticing somewhere in the back of her mind that the potion was not quite the right shade of lilac, but proceeded to gingerly swipe them off the board anyway.
And then the cauldron exploded. Not like Longbottom's explosions, no, this thing set on fire, and set the table on fire, and set them on fire.
Victoria had a funny reaction to flames. When she was younger, and her parents weren't in immediate vicinity, she would sometimes light a match, literally pick the fire off its tip, and hold it, making it grow bigger or smaller. It always, always, turned green when her fingers touched it, and it didn't burn her.
This time wasn't any different.
As Snape doused the fire with his wand, and Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle were screaming, their hands and faces pink and raw, Victoria stood there, unharmed, wondering if she put out her flames fast enough or if the professor noticed them.
As their eyes met, she saw something so strange, so foreign, pass over his face for a moment that she was reluctant to trust her eyes. It was fear.
But then his face was back to its usual dispassionate mask, and he was yelling at them, before promptly shoeing Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle to the Hospital Wing.
"I'll escort them," Victoria said.
"No," Snape barked roughly, and as Victoria glanced between him, herself, and the three retreating wizards, part confused, part scared, the bell rang shrilly.
"Savorgnan, stay," the professor said coldly.
She reluctantly tore her sights from the door, and turned to face him, getting a nightmare flashback to all the times spent in the counselor's office.
"Yes, Professor?"
Snape folded his hands behind his back and began pacing, never going more than three feet in one direction. "Were there any magical ancestors in your family? Wizards, squibs, anyone strange?" he asked, staring into her eyes as he kept pacing.
"No, sir. None" Victoria answered quickly.
"Are you quiet sure? Were there perhaps any… stories you've heard?"
An unexplained headache was blossoming in her temples, and the pacing didn't help. "No, Professor. Everyone is muggle, everyone has perfectly clear backgrounds. Check the ministry records, sir."
"Records can be falsified."
"Oh, and a twelve-year old's testimony is the most reliable thing ever," slipped from her tongue before her mind caught up.
"Savorgnan!"
"I… apologize… sir," she said snidely. Merlin, her head was going to burst. "I just don't see the point of this questioning."
"You don't have to. Your job is to answer."
"You don't like my answers. What does my family have to do with… whatever this is?"
Snape stopped pacing. "Do you know what you just did?"
"Saved myself a trip to the infirmary," Victoria said flatly.
"Don't sass me!"
That, for once, was not her intention. "What do you want me to say? I don't understand what's going on - is something wrong with me?"
"The truth, Savorgnan. I want the truth."
"How am I supposed to tell you the truth when I don't even know what I should be thinking of? Why don't you tell me what's happening?"
This was turning into an interrogation. Victoria was fighting back angry tears, and god, her head was killing her - it was as if someone was burrowing through her memory, and she didn't know what was going on - not with the questions, and not with the phantom pain that greatly resembled what happened in Dumbledore's office a year ago.
And Victoria hated not knowing above all else.
…
It was the very next day that the precarious, half-crumbling balance in her life came crashing down abruptly, and in a cruel twist of fate, it happened when she was in the library - her sacred place.
"You aren't, are you?"
Victoria's head snapped up so quickly it hurt her neck, and she crumbled the letter in her hand into a tight ball, accidently making shallow cuts along the tips of her thumb and index finger with the parchment edges.
"Orphaned, I mean," Theo clarified.
Victoria, heart beating fast as a hummingbird's wings but appearing as chill as ever, arched an eyebrow.
"And what, prey tell makes you think that?" she asked, her tone so confident and mocking that Theodore almost, almost believed it.
"You're reading a letter from your parents. Not what I would expect from someone who doesn't say a word about them."
Victoria stood up, and although he was a good five inches taller, she stared him down.
"Careful, Theodore. No one will believe you - and I'll make them turn their backs on you, bloodtraitor."
He took one step back and held his hands up in a gesture of peace.
"Do you always assume the worst of people?"
Victoria's eyes glittered with something dark and chilling. "I have to," she said simply and walked off, head high.
Theo stared after her for a long time.
…
Bloody hell.
She should've known. Nott was smart, observant, quiet - exactly the kind of person who missed nothing, exactly the kind of person to nose around the library. And now he knew, and she bluffed - because, really, what are the odds that any blood puritist would think she was muggleborn after all was said and done?
But what are the odds that they'll take her word over his?
With a groan, Victoria leaned her forehead against one of the sinks. It hadn't been two years yet, and her future was already hanging in someone else's power - and she had no idea where he stood.
Sometimes she wished she could influence people's minds like she did with animals.
"Whatever happened to you?" a nasal, annoying voice spoke, seemingly out of nowhere. Victoria jumped a foot, hitting her head on the edge of the sink with a muffled "omph".
The girl - or rather the ghost - giggled. "You know, you look terrible," she said cheerily. "Like you've just seen a boggart."
Victoria's jaw fell open.
"Who are you?" she asked flatly, rubbing the back of her head.
The ghost huffed. "Myrtle Warren, for your information. Dis someone say something to you? Because when I was in school this girl, Olive Hornby, was so rude to me, I came here to cry every day!"
"Does it look like I'm crying to you?"
The ghost burst into loud sobs. "Of course you just came here to be - hic - awful! You're like all of them - here to laugh at the ugly Moaning Myrtle, with her pimples and her pigtails - hic! You, mean, mean girl!"
"Bit dramatic, aren't you?" Victoria asked, eyebrows arched high.
With a particularly loud shriek, Myrtle dove into one of the toilets, crying loudly all the while. Victoria stared after her, bewildered by all the effort the ghost went through to make herself miserable.
"Myrtle?" she asked, but only received sobs in response.
Bloody hell.
…
Theo didn't talk.
Dinner that day, and meals for the rest of the week were absolutely normal, even if Victoria's muscles were a little too tense, and she spent a little too long cutting her steak into perfect cubes trying to hide it.
That is, until Friday.
"'Toria?"
"For the love of Merlin, Blaise, stop calling me 'Toria!" she said, setting down her fork and knife with a clang, and glaring pointedly at him.
"You've been staring at the wall like it held all the universe's secrets. It's freaky. And you'll chop off your fingers by accident if you keep doing it."
Victoria rolled her eyes. "No, I won't."
"You will."
"I won't."
"You will."
"Seriously?"
With a sigh, she got up, told the group she was going to the library before it closed at eight. To her surprise, Theo got up too.
"I'll go with you. I have to finish Flitwick's essay."
They walked together in silence until, when they were in the empty library corridor, Theo spoke.
"I'm not going to tell anyone, you know. Heck, I never bought into the blood status crap in the first place. I mean I see why you would lie, but just - look, you can trust me. I know it's hard for you, and -"
"You're rambling."
"Am I? Sorry. I… I just want you to know that I won't tell anyone."
Victoria turned on him sharply.
"I want to. I really want to. But try seeing this from my perspective for a moment. There is one thing that keeps me from being trampled by the people I live with for most of the year, and that one thing is now in your hands. And there is nothing solid that keeps you from talking. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even in the next year, but someday you can."
Theo sighed. "I'm not trying to win any favours here. If you can't trust me - fine. But I won't tell on you. I thought that's something you should know."
"We'll see."
But despite her chilly attitude that night, by the time she went to bed, Victoria breathed a little more easily.
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