The following morning, Mallory bizarrely rises early once more.
"Where are you going?" Amara asks, who is rarely seen in bed anymore and curls on a sofa in the Common Room. "It's early for you."
"Owlery," Mallory informs her, with a freshly-written letter for Narcissa to send. "Writing back to Narcissa. Thought I'd inform her about the Goblet of Fire. I think she'll get a laugh hearting about Potter too. Or, at least, Lucius will." This makes Amara chuckle at the memory of Harry Potter's name rising from the Goblet of Fire. "Did you even go to bed last night?"
Amara shrugs, suddenly her smile falling into a grimace as the ends of her auburn hair suddenly becomes more interesting than their conversation.
Mallory takes that as a no.
"Want to join me?" Mallory asks, suddenly feeling much more protective over her best friend. Though she's usually capable of disappearing in the castle and having frequent mood swings, never has she seemed so deflated as she has since returning to school in September.
"Sure."
Well, she seems happy enough, Mallory thinks as she continues to watch Amara. Her friend pulls herself to her feet, wearing the same rugged jeans that Mallory saw her in yesterday.
She even, Mallory notices, seems chipper as they make the long traipse from their Common Room in the Dungeons to the Owlery, at the tops of the towers. So that by the time they reach the Owlery, quite abandoned for a Sunday morning, Mallory puts any concerns about Amara to the very back of her mind.
"I'll be here," Amara tells her from the doorway to the Owlery, as Mallory nears the ladders.
She has to use a school owl, since the Malfoy Owl lives at Malfoy Manor, and Draco wouldn't lend out his own personal owl for merely a favour.
In fact, he'd be unlikely to ever agree to lend Mallory his owl.
Clambering up, she realises that she is not, in fact, alone. Keeping her eyes close to the floor, she finds the nearest owl and begins to tie her letter to Narcissa around the owl's welcoming leg.
"I can't use you. I've got to use one of those," Harry Potter says, pushing away his owl snowy-white owl in favour of one of the more common owls that Hogwarts lends to its students.
"First Ron, then you." He mutters to himself, watching the owl walk off and it makes her realise that he doesn't know he's not alone. "This isn't my fault."
She wonders who he could be writing to that would need a different owl.
She tries not to make a sound, but even as the owl screeches at her for the letter which she holds delicately in her hands, he notices.
Green eyes furiously finding her.
"Sorry," Mallory mutters, turning away now but still she knows he's watching her.
Just as she always notices his glances.
Still, that feeling lingers as Harry Potter looks away from her, concentrating more than necessary on the letter.
Even without his eyes on her she can feel them burning into her cheeks.
Could anyone ever feel so watched even without anyone admitting to it?
She passes by Hermione Granger as Mallory finally leaves the Owlery as quickly as she can. She remembers her as the muggle-born that Draco so detests and still, even as Granger's eyes burn holes into the floor, she feels watched.
She wants to avoid these eyes.
Full of watching even without their looks.
Is Blaise right? Is it all down to their embarrassment from accusing her of being a murderer's daughter?
For some reason, it always feels like more.
"Did you get the letter sent okay?" Amara asks, leaning against the doorway.
"Yeah," Mallory replies and shakes away the unsteady feeling of being observed by both of the Gryffindors. "Hogwarts' least favourite champion was up there too. I imagine he is requesting his first interview since becoming the boy who lived and Hogwarts champion."
14th November, 1994Fourteen days after the champions are announced and the jokes do not cease.
The constant mockery of Harry Potter, Hogwarts' unsavoury champion fuels nights by the fire in the Slytherin common room and with Mallory often creating the most creative of mocks, she becomes Draco's newest favourite pet.
Even so, as she hears of the latest battles of tongues between Draco and Harry each evening, as Draco recaps what he said and how they reacted, he is often having to add on the end 'what you said was too good not to use' or 'your words were just too fantastic, I wanted to see his face when he heard them'.
Though, in spending more time with Draco and his friends, her time with Amara decreases, who complains at every opportunity, to the point where she finally calls in a favour.
"Come to the library with me?"
"The Library? You?" Mallory repeats, barely looking over the top of one of the latest Transfiguration books that McGonagall has lended to her.
Though, tonight is the first tutoring session with her since she labelled Mallory as cold.
She continues reading the book either way, hoping to impress McGonagall with her studies today.
Amara taps the top of Mallory's borrowed copy with her wand.
Mallory is immediately more suspicious. Amara is always least likely to enter the library willingly. So why does she now seem desperate?
"I thought we could do some reading to help us with our Charms homework." Amara replies quickly, shrugging at Mallory's accusation.
"Amara," Mallory warns, closing her book but keeping her finger tucked in the book for a moment's time. "For starters, I have a lesson with McGonagall in about an hour."
"An hour is enough time!"
"For what?" She wonders why Amara would want to visit the library of all places when she is usually averse to the idea of any kind of extra-curricular study. It is why often it will be Blaise's favourite place to meet up with Mallory.
The library is infamously an Amara-free zone.
"Learning!" Stresses Amara, rolling her brown eyes at Mallory
"I will go to the library with you if you can tell me what our Charms homework is actually about."
She pauses, tugging her lip into her mouth as her brown eyes scan the ceiling for the answers. With a concentrated squint, she finally answers with uncertainty:
"Cheering charms?"
Amara's face breaks out into a wider smile, reaching her cheeks where imprinted dimples shine from her face, beaming.
The smile is due, of course, to Mallory's annoyed silence.
"I'm right, aren't I?"
"Screw you." Mallory scowls, folding down the page she is on, though only sparing one thought to whether McGonagall would mind if she bent down the pages of her personal library, pulling herself to her feet to follow Amara.
"Where are you two off to?" Blaise asks, who sits at the particularly comfortable leather sofas near to the entrance of the common room with other fourth year Slytherins.
"Library." Amara answers cheerfully, even if it's Blaise that she's answering. "I outwitted Mallory and now she has to come with me."
Blaise laughs, letting his head rock back in amusement as his face alights with humour.
"Funny." Blaise says, looking from Amara to Mallory, even though his face now says otherwise. "Now seriously, Black, where are you two going?"
Mallory lets out a soft giggle now, too.
"Seriously, we're going to the library." Mallory says, hitting a playful slap across Blaise's shoulder. "Though why we're going still isn't very clear."
Inside the library, however, and it becomes all too clear why Amara wants to spend an evening in the library. For starters, as they enter, the tables seem fuller than usual. The library's tables are only ever this full during the heat of the summer, when exam season falls upon Hogwarts. Studying students practice wand gestures beneath tables, cry over ancient History of Magic topics and eat copious amounts of sugary treats to keep their spirits up.
In the middle of summer the library is full of study.
Yet on this November day the library is full of an entirety different calibre of student.
Mallory decides that the library is full of girls very similar to Amara. Those who never enter the library unless absolutely necessary.
"Let's sit here," Amara gestures, to a table that is in the middle of the bookshelves, far from any textbooks that they'd be able to find about cheering charms. Though, Amara would never even know where to start looking.
"Are you going to tell me why we're here yet?" Mallory asks, fiddling with the spine of McGonagall's book. "Because I don't believe for a second that you want to work on your cheering charms."
"Okay, but promise not to laugh." Amara says, leaning over the table so that she can whisper to Mallory, without being overheard.
"Sometimes I feel like you don't know me at all…" Mallory sighs in disappointment. Amara's brown eyes narrow. "Okay, I promise to try to not laugh at you."
"Mallory," Amara whines, causing a few Ravenclaws to watch them curiously.
It must be a sight to see; two Slytherins whispering in the library, one even without so much of a quill.
"Fine. But if I laugh it's probably because you're really making a fool out of yourself." Mallory says, already feeling the humour of their conversation building a bubble of laughter in her throat.
"So, I heard from Pansy Parkinson that after dinner Viktor Krum spends a lot of his evenings here. Perhaps it's to avoid all of the stares-"
"I can imagine his disappointment then, when this hiding spot became his worst kept secret." Mallory quips immediately, now beginning to smirk wider.
"Anyway, I thought maybe I could catch him in one of the shelves, perusing a book, and our hands could reach for the same one-" a glazed look appears on her face as her hands mime reaching out towards the shelves. "And then I could introduce myself. Amara Carrow, a pleasure to meet you, and you are? And it would catch him off guard, Mal!" Her brown eyes widen in the midst of her fantastical monologue. "Someone who hasn't heard of Viktor Krum? That would intrigue him more but as he goes to ask me about myself, I pick up that very same book and return to my table, thoroughly uninterested."
"And there ends your love affair?" Mallory asks, trying her best to keep her promise to Amara by keeping the laughter at bay.
"Of course not! That would drive him crazier! Five years down the line and I have replaced Rita Skeeter as Queen of the Columns, since I have an inside scoop on all of the wizarding gossip, wife of Viktor Krum!"
"So…" Mallory begins once Amara finishes her imaginative thoughts. "Basically you're stalking the poor bloke?"
"I call it creating my own destiny." Amara replies with her stubborn optimism, smirking once more before turning her determined gaze to finding the famous Quidditch player.
Mallory, content that Amara is occupied, pulls out McGonagall's textbook once more, continuing to read the chapter on disillusionment.
"Whatcha reading?" Amara asks, just as Mallory begins to immerse herself in the logic behind disillusionment. Just as she imagines disillusioning herself.
"A book on self-transfiguration." Mallory answers, still concentrating as the author explains what your mind goes through to imagine the disillusionment of a body part. "Apparently you have to work on the body piece by piece before committing to disillusioning your entire body. It's fascinating."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. If only McGonagall would let me try." Mallory moans.
"Why not try on your own?"
"Yeah, a sixteen year old casually tries disillusioning parts of her body," Mallory reports sarcastically. "That sounds like it would be successful!"
"Exactly."
"'Exactly'? Amara. What?"
This breaks Mallory from the current paragraph to look at Amara, who had turned her body away from Mallory, whilst still replying. Mallory quickly realise that Amara hasn't been paying full attention to what Mallory has been saying.
Her hands mess with her hair, straightening the strands of auburn as her attention becomes occupied elsewhere.
But, Viktor Krum, the subject of Amara Carrow's undivided attention does not return her gaze. His hands are spread on the table in front of him, as he talks to someone who, like Mallory, is reading a book. Bushy curls frame her face and almost cover her eyes. She continually looks up while Viktor Krum tries to trap her into a conversation.
"That mudblood." Amara curses in a whisper, meaning only Mallory hears. "Why is he talking to her?"
Amara whirls back to face Mallory again, clearly waiting for an answer as Mallory shrugs, wanting more than ever for Amara to leave her to her studies.
Mallory suddenly remembers why she always goes to the library with the quiet Blaise, rather than the chatty Amara.
"She's not that pretty, though, is she?" Amara reasons, continuing as if Mallory is replying to her, rather than desperately continuing to throw her attention to disillusionment. "Plus, there's the mudblood part. Why would anyone want to go out with one?"
"Draco says she's smart."
"He does?"
"Well," Mallory pauses, "he'd never compliment her in such a way. He probably prefers 'know-it-all' or 'smart-arse'. But, the point remains, that she's smarter than the average student."
"Smarter than you?"
"Me?" Mallory repeats, laughing as she sneaks another look at the Gryffindor, Hermione Granger. It's not very often that she's looked at her, since for the last twelve months Hermione has spent her time surreptitiously or obviously staring at Mallory. "Why me?"
"Well, you're top of the year in Transfiguration."
"And dreadfully average in all other subjects, Mar." Mallory reminds her, though feeling warmth spread across her cheeks at such a compliment. Even from a dreadfully uninterested student like Amara. "So, she's probably a far better witch than me."
"Still a mudblood though."
And even though Mallory can feel her heart squeezing as her best friend remains continually ignorant, Mallory remains quiet, allowing the sentence to remain in the air between them.
She's unsure if she'll ever understand why that word makes her squirm when it is always thrown around in conversations.
An hour later, Amara is walking Mallory to McGonagall's office, still conconcting her own insults about Hermione Granger, despite Mallory's obvious lack of interest.
"Do you think this is why Viktor Krum is hanging around the library? Because of that bucky-toothed freak of nature?"
"Maybe." Mallory agrees, hoping this would quieten her friend.
"No! He surely can see through the fake studious act!"
"I don't think it's an act, Amara." Mallory reminds her, using her own limited knowledge of the Gryffindor to calm Amara down. "Now, be quiet unless you want McGonagall to hear you insulting one of her Gryffindors."
"Maybe there's a way that I could intercept them…" Amara continues, twirling her auburn hair around her fingers in thought. "Get in there before he gets too attached?"
"Why don't you go up and introduce yourself?" Mallory sighs with exasperation, wondering if Amara has even considered the most obvious option. "He may like a forward woman."
"Could you introduce me?"
"I will consider it." Mallory answers, stopping at the door of McGonagall's office. "Only if the next time you decide to drag me into the library, you actually tell me the reason why we're going to the library."
"Okay, but that just means we'll need a code-word." Amara replies, brown eyes lighting up to show off emerald flecks of colour in the endless possibilities for their shared 'mission'. "For now, it can be called 'practising charms homework'."
"Imagine how fantastic your Charm-work would be if you actually applied that time to your work." Her hand is on the door knob, concocting an image of McGonagall pressing her ear to the door to hear the Slytherin gossip, something that she must lack so much of the time.
"Mallory, it's Viktor Krum!"
"I know, Mar! Now, let me go so that I can convince McGonagall to let me disillusion a toe or two!"
Amara finally relents and pauses in her footsteps to eye the door to McGonagall's Transfiguration classroom warily. Amara is always averse to any professor that doesn't show an open preference to the Slytherin students, which just means that Amara makes the most effort during Potions. And even then, she remains an average student with adequate effort.
She turns the door knob, half-expecting the door to be locked. After all, it is the first time seeing McGonagall for a tutoring session since Mallory had been labelled as cold. Besides, hasn't she been right all along? Surely now, McGonagall realises that Potter has tricked his way into the tournament. It can't be only the students who see what he has done. Even the ever-warm Hufflepuffs have shown a cold apathy towards Harry Potter, the unwanted fourth champion.
"Professor?" She shuts the door behind her. The room is dimly lit, only being sourced from two candles and stools resting on top of the desks, not leaving a place for Mallory to sit. At the front, McGonagall's desk is not lit up with its usual warm glow. She shuffles her feet, lurking in the doorway, waiting. But, by the doorway she scans the shelves that decorate the back of McGonagall's classroom.
The shelves are filled with an assortment of small instruments, all enabling students of all years to practice their Transfiguration; tea cups that perform tricks and cartwheels, candles transfigured into cat-like rodents with whiskers or even, Mallory's favourite objects, the plump pillows that McGonagall once turned into a pig in front of her very eyes.
Her eye lands on the shelf of mirrors; some small vanities, others larger, able to encircle Mallory's entire face as she steps four small steps forwards to face them entirely. Her grey, storm-like eyes search from mirror-to-mirror, searching for something within her own reflection.
Yes, her eyes match Narcissa's and Draco's, perhaps the only link other than Narcissa's former surname that helps Mallory to feel at home with the Malfoy's. But, where were those other links? They are not present in blushing cheeks, her slightly upturned nose or even in her rounded chin. Especially, not to be found in the root of her black curls, where she has always felt so opposite to the pale, slender and blonde Malfoys. Perhaps, then, it is somewhere deeper where their familial link lies. After all, Mallory has ended up in Slytherin along with every other Malfoy to have attended Hogwarts. That must count for something. Even Lucius had been proud of her the day that she'd been sorted into Slytherin.
"Mallory. Please come and sit." McGonagall's voice makes her jump, though she's quickly calmed by the familiar warmth of her voice. No longer is McGonagall speaking frostily to match Mallory's so-called 'apathy'. "And you can bring a mirror with you, actually, whilst you're standing over there."
Mallory has begun to walk towards McGonagall, which causes her to awkwardly skid in her tracks, quickly grabbing the nearest mirror before continuing on with her destination.
"I trust you've had a good week, Mallory?" She asks as Mallory lifts a stool off the desk, placing it down onto the floor as lightly as possible so as not to make any sound.
She nods, feeling unnerved by the tactile way McGonagall speaks to her.
Perhaps Mallory would prefer open dislike, now.
"Have you?" She asks after a moment, wondering if McGonagall will now think she's rude on top of apathetic and cold after not asking immediately.
"Quite well, thank you." Finally, the top of her mouth shifts into half of a smile, sitting comfortably in her desk chair. "You may be wondering why I've turned out most of the candles in here," McGonagall starts, gesturing around her dimly-lit office. "I thought it may be time to start the strand of magic that I know you are ambitious to try."
Mallory's heart jumps a beat and begins to erratically thrum in her chest as she pictures the many different ambitions that Mallory has vocalised to Mcgonagall over the past year, once she had begun to take their tutoring lesson as her top priority.
"Animagus?" She barely breathes as she whispers her highest ambition and McGonagall immediately throws her head back in a laugh.
"Mallory, at least wait until you leave Hogwarts before beating my record as youngest animagus. No, I'm thinking of a more recent ambition that you mentioned to me… you Slytherins and your ambition, always jumping to their number one goal."
Mallory chuckles at the mention of the Slytherin trait that Mallory respects the most.
"Speaking of your Slytherin traits, I'm still not convinced that you deserve to start learning disillusionment because of your mockery of Mr Potter, but, I'm also not going to hold you back from something that you're ready to do."
"Disillusionment?" Mallory repeats, feeling her mouth extend so widely into a smile as she shuffles excitedly in her seat and drums her fingers against the desk in front of her.
She realises now why McGonagall had lent that particular Transfiguration book from her personal collection.
"Yes." McGonagall confirms after a beat, leaving Mallory in agony waiting. "Of course, it's going to be a long process building up to total-bodily disillusionment. Today, for example, I thought we might start on your eyebrows before moving onto toe or a foot, depending on your success."
"Amazing!" Mallory gasps, realising now why McGonagall asked her to bring a mirror over with her.
It is to help her.
"And we're starting with the eyebrows?" She asks with uncontrollable excitement. Now, she watches her face in the mirror as she wiggles her eyebrows. She imagines her face without them and laughs when McGonagall bristles at her excitement.
"I must first say, Mallory, that disillusionment will require you to be calm. It will take lots of effort and concentration to disfigure any part of your body. We start with your facial features as these will be most familiar to you." She gestures slowly to Mallory's face, Mallory's eyes automatically return to glance over her own face. "The mirror is to help you to imagine them disappearing along with to track your progress."
"Okay. I'll be calm. I promise." She grins, raising her shoulders up and down as she continues to watch her eyebrows dance above her eyes, waiting for McGonagall's instructions.
"Take some deep breaths. Watch your eyebrows, the way they move, the way they exist on your face. Imagine you without-" She pauses when Mallory snorts with laughter.
"Sorry. I'm sorry." Mallory apologises, pressing her fingers onto her lips to soften the giggles. "I'll concentrate. I promise. Sorry, Professor."
"We continue, Mallory. Deep breath in."
Mallory follows every instruction given to her by Professor McGonagall without her usual sarcasm.
Even as Mallory yearns to ask McGonagall if she, too, had practiced ridding herself of her eyebrows or to ask if she'd ever disillusioned herself incorrectly, Mallory pays special attention to every word spoken by McGonagall, determined to get it right.
"We'll focus on the left, there seems to be more movement there than the right."
"Are you calling me wonky, Professor?" Mallory quips, holding her eyebrow up with her wand.
"You said it, Mallory, not me." McGonagall continues to analyse the features above Mallory's face, though Mallory swears she sees the twitch of a smile on the Professor's lips.
"So, I focus on the left eyebrow?"
"Well, now that you mention it, Mallory," McGonagall adds, watching her in deep thought. "I'd say that the right eyebrow is actually considerably lower than the left. Perhaps this may make it easier, since it's so close to your eye-line."
"What?" She gasps, leaning close into the mirror now to analyse what she has always believed to be an ordinary pair of eyebrows.
McGonagall begins to laugh at the sight, pulling on Mallory's shoulder to pull her away from the mirror, where she practically presses her nose into the glass.
"I'm joking with you, Mallory. See, it's not fun to be on the other end of the jokes, is it?"
"Well, not when I thought there was something wrong with my face!" Mallory reasons, still using her hands to feel around the shape of her eyebrows.
"They're perfectly ordinary, Mallory. You have nothing to worry about." She claps her hands with impatience. "Now, start focussing on that left eyebrow. I'm determined to have a disillusioned foot by the end of the evening."
Though it takes time, and is by far the most challenging piece of magic that Mallory has ever faced, and her hand aches as it traces her left eyebrow, patiently waiting for it to blend into the rest of her skin, as if invisible, Mallory doesn't relent. With her grey eyes fixating on only her eyebrow, her mind is filled with desire to accomplish the very piece of magic that McGonagall believes her capable of. Her magic courses through her.
Finally, the eyebrow disappears, as if it has been a sleeping chameleon lying in wait for all of this time.
"It's gone!"
McGonagall, who half-chomps on a biscuit, coughs as she attempts to swallow the crumbs and begins to clap with half of a biscuit still remaining in her fingers.
She points at the eyebrow in wonder as Mallory claps her own hands, gawping at the sight of her face, perfectly as ordinary as usual, minus the left eyebrow.
"Fantastic, Mallory! Well done!"
"It's actually gone!" She says in wonder, reaching out to where she knows the eyebrow exists, can feel the bristles of the hair but, removing her hand, ceases to exist on her face.
"You should be very proud of yourself, Mallory. And you can take twenty points for Slytherin in congratulation."
"Thank you," Mallory blushes at the praise, still feeling about on her face for the missing eyebrow as she pictures writing letters home to Narcissa and Lucius.
Will they be equally as proud?
How will they verbalise their pride when they write their reply?
She continues to imagine the reaction of her foster parents as, with concentration broken, the eyebrow quickly appears. She almost pouts at the ease with which it returns, after such long, arduous concentration.
Still, that ambitious Slytherin trait lays dormant in her belly like a dragon, roaring for more satisfaction.
"Do we still have time to try my foot?"
McGonagall turns to her clock and as she does, Mallory looks too, already knowing that she's taken too long on the eyebrow.
"Unfortunately not." McGonagall tells her with a sad smile. "But I'm confident in your ability that you can try this in your own time. Let's just see you reappear that eyebrow first, though. Then, next week we can start to be more ambitious."
Feeling high off her own success, Mallory skips back to the Slytherin common room, barely shivering as she enters the dungeons, feeling the glowing warmth of her own pride cocoon herself in a bubble of happiness. Even as she enters the common room, which is still abuzz with students, who gather in a circle, laughing and cackling and Mallory feels their amusement further her own giddiness.
"What's going on?" Mallory asks Blaise, who, as always, is on the outskirts of a Slytherin group, observing.
"Some seventh years made a present for Diggory and Potter," Blaise tells her, not hiding the humour in his face as he smirks down at Draco, who is glowing from his audience.
"Okay, we're going to pass them around at breakfast to the Hufflepuffs, and I'm sure there are plenty of Ravenclaws who are pissed off too about Saint Potter breaking the rules. Maybe some Gryffindors too, but unlikely."
"What have you done, Draco?" Mallory asks, feeling as if Draco likes her enough at the moment to answer.
"Mallory! Just in time, look what's been made." He tosses something to her from a pile of brightly flashing buttons. In her hands, she watches as the badge shines a bright gold, and in burning red letters a message shines: Support CEDRIC DIGGORY - the REAL Hogwarts Champion!
"That's not all they do, either, Black." Continues Pansy, who reaches past Malfoy to press the badge that decorates his chest. "Watch this."
The message upon it vanishes to be replaced with another message, which glows green: POTTER the UNWANTED Hogwarts Champion!
Again, the Slytherins around her laugh and even Mallory emits a polite chuckle, so that she can fit into the group.
"Bit of a mouthful, though." Blaise points out, lazily rolling his eyes.
Mallory doubts she'll ever see Blaise wearing such a badge.
"Just go for Potter Stinks and be done with it." Mallory agrees, causing the Slytherins around her to giggle.
But, on a further glance she's still unable to see Amara hanging around her fellow Slytherins. Mallory doubts she'd return to the library on her own, too.
"Potter… stinks?" Draco repeats, looking with uncertainty at the badge with the many, many words to describe Harry Potter.
"Mallory has a point. It goes right to the heart of the matter." Blaise agrees, shooting his best friend a smile.
"Well, we can try it, can't we, Draco?" Pansy agrees, seeming uncertain too, but still grabs one of the badges from Draco's hand to change the charms.
As the two Slytherins get to work, Mallory crosses the group to sit beside Blaise, leaning her head onto his shoulder as he smiles at her.
"How was the library?"
"Good. The library was all a ruse, though. Amara wanted to stalk Viktor Krum."
Blaise chuckles quietly beside her as Draco and Pansy begin to argue over the best way to change the wording on all of the badges that have been made.
"Was it a successful mission?" Blaise asks, thoroughly uninterested in the spat between the two.
"She made visual contact," Mallory agrees, "I didn't have to see her actually try to talk to him though, thank Merlin. He was busy speaking to the muggle-born, Granger."
Blaise's eyebrows quirk up in surprise, nodding thoughtfully. It's a stark contrast to the reactions that many other Slytherins would have to the gossip shared by Mallory. Even still, Blaise's brown eyes narrow slightly, still ever-silent as whatever initial reaction to the mention of a muggle-born in the heart of the Slytherin common room, remains unspoken.
"So you've spent the last how-many hours stalking Amara stalk Viktor Krum?"
"No. I had tutoring with McGonagall." Mallory explains and once more, Blaise proves himself to be her more supportive best friend, listening with rapt attention as she describes the different nature of her evening with Professor McGonagall. From grabbing the mirror, to McGonagall promising to help her with her ambitions to finally, after hours of practice, seeing it pay off.
Blaise, ooh's and aah's at the right moments, laughs at the imagery of an eyebrowless Mallory and by the end of the story, as Draco Malfoy hands around the newly-edited badges, where he personally pins Mallory's to her robes, Blaise is looking for any imperfections of her recently-disillusioned eyebrow.
"You did a good job." He says, leaning forward to poke the brow and laughs at the scowl on Mallory's face. "I'm kind of hoping that you'd miss a part and you'd be left with half an eyebrow until McGonagall could fix it for you."
"Careful, Blaise. Your Slytherin is showing."
At this, he smiles a wide, bright smile, pressing now at the Support Cedric Diggory badge upon Mallory's robes.
Upon pressing, yellow turns to green to match the interior of the common room and Potter's face, which now whirrs around the accessory alongside stinks and easily blends into the velvet cushion beside Mallory and the hysterical laughter of the Slytherins.
"Is it a toe next?"
Mallory considers it. Knowing that McGonagall told her that features she is most familiar with will be the easiest to disillusion first.
Perhaps she should be cautious.
But, she imagines being able to receive a reply from Narcissa in the next few days, and be able to respond to her with the news that since Mallory's last letter, she has learnt disillusionment. Plus, that Slytherin nature within her knows that when it comes to Transfiguration, she'll never be able to take an easy option out.
"I want to try the whole foot, actually." Mallory replies to her best friend, and feels her heart rattle in her chest, wondering his reaction.
But Blaise, ever the stoic, quiet one nods with mild admiration.
"Left or right?" Mallory shrugs in answer to his question. "Can I watch you do it?"
Mallory nods, with the support of her friend driving her further towards her current ambition, and grabs his hand to pull him up from his favourite position in the Slytherin common room.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Draco asks the moment that his grey eyes focus upon Mallory and Blaise's hands connected.
"For a walk." Blaise responds easily. "Mallory has a bit of magic she wants to show me."
The boys laugh, apart from Draco at the way that Blaise has of wording his sentences. A red blush creeps up Draco's neck but does not reach his cheeks.
"Really, just a little spell." Mallory adds, where the blush does reach her cheeks as Draco's hard eyes narrow at the girl he repeatedly claims is not his sister.
Is this what it's like to have a brother?
Receiving judgement for showing a boy some magic?
How would Draco cope if Amara was not his sister too? He'd have something to say about his not-sister stalking a Quidditch player in the library.
"Make sure no one sees the badge." Draco warns, pointing at Potter stinks that glows proudly against her Slytherin-green robes. "Or it won't be such a surprise for Potter tomorrow."
Mallory doesn't respond, following Blaise as the two of them begin walking through the corridors. Portraits tut at the sight of them for wandering the corridors after dark but still, the two continue, as they are often walking around Hogwarts after particularly long hours in the library.
"I can't believe you're actually wearing that thing," he finally says as the two reach the top of the staircase.
For, Mallory and Blaise are always predictable, moving as far upwards in the castle as possible.
"Well, it is factually correct. Cedric is the real Hogwarts champion. Potter snuck his way in." Mallory reminds him, pressing the badge now so that it glows in support for Cedric Diggory.
"They're lame. No one will be wearing them."
"I disagree." Mallory tells him, looking down at Diggory's face who smiles quietly at the praise from her.
They pass the library doors, where the last of the students are beginning to file out for the night.
"Zabini, did you finish Snape's essay?" A pretty brunette Ravenclaw blushes a furious red as she calls out to Blaise, tucking locks of her hair behind her ear whilst simultaneously batting her eyelashes towards him.
Blaise stops in his tracks at the sight of her.
"What essay would that be, again?"
"Antidotes." She practically purrs, wafting a long piece of parchment in his view, showing off her wares. "Due tomorrow. Remember?"
But Mallory could've sworn that Blaise has Potions with the Gryffindors.
"You're joking." Blaise, caught up in the imagery of Snape's reaction if he turns up empty-handed to Potions the next day, does not notice the hungry look in the Ravenclaw's eyes.
Mallory wonders if the Ravenclaw girl has even had dinner, since Blaise is not a snack.
"I'd forgotten. Salazar, Snape's gonna kill me."
"Pince hasn't fully closed up yet. I can help you get a start on it, if you like?" And just like that, Blaise closes the gap between the two groups, as the brave Ravenclaw's friends giggle and walk away, looking over their shoulders all the while as Blaise falls for her every word.
"Is that alright, Mal?" Blaise asks, looking between the two girls. "I can't turn up to Potions empty-handed tomorrow."
"Course, Blaise." Mallory shoves his arm, as if proving that of course you can ditch me for a pretty Ravenclaw.
Whilst Blaise's attention focuses on Mallory, the Ravenclaw smirks in victory.
"I'll catch you later." She reminds him, taking her first step away from them. "I can't wait to disillusion my whole foot," she says quietly to herself as she begins to storm away, taking herself higher and higher in the castle as she winds up the steps. "He'll be regretting not joining me then."
Her footsteps echo against the marble staircase, letting her know that she's not in danger of crossing any prefects anytime soon. She begins considering her options to practice the disillusionment, knowing she'll need somewhere private but well-lit.
As she rounds the bannister, in order to rise up towards the fifth floor corridor where there's an especially cosy corner of the castle that few know about, a familiar creak of the stairs shifts the staircase from its current home.
With frustration at Blaise, the Gryffindors, since these stairs were now heading their way and her wistful longing for that cosy hideaway that she has set her heart on, Mallory hits her fist into the bannister.
"Stupid castle. Just take me where I need to go!" She curses, hitting her fist once more even though the marble material hurts her fist more than she hurts the castle. But, just as she decides that maybe she could find a new hiding spot up in the Gryffindor side of the castle, her foot remains in place.
"You've got to be kidding me." She groans, looking down as the Hogwarts castle casts its revenge, by sinking her foot into the very steps of the castle.
With both hands on her hidden ankle, she begins to pull at it, wondering if the castle has any intentions of letting her go.
"Touche, castle. I reckon I deserved that." She says, almost hoping that the castle could hear and let her go. "Okay. Looks like I'm playing the waiting game."
She sits herself down on the steps, in a position so that her back is facing the tops of the stairs, whilst her foot remains frozen in place.
Wand in hand, she begins studying her free foot more closely, desperate to make this trek worth the steps she's taken. She feels down the edges of her calf, circling around her ankle and then slips off her shoe and sock so that her toes wiggle in greeting to her. Her wand then traces against the toes first, hoping that McGonagall's guidance will help her, even as her trapped foot aches in calling to be freed.
Grey eyes narrow on the foot, watching as slowly but surely, her toes begin to disillusion themselves, blending within the stairs themselves and her giddiness allows her to get distracted for a quick moment. It becomes whole again.
Glee pushes her on as she reaches the heel of her foot, watching with satisfaction as it continues to disappear before her. She remains calm this time, returning to her ankle and preparing to disillusion the toes.
They become as transparent as the ghost of Hogwarts, before they blend totally into the white, marble staircase.
"BLACK IS NIMBLE. BLACK IS QUICK.
BUT PEEVSIES GIVES HER QUITE THE KICK."
"Peeves!" Mallory calls out as Peeves kicks at her head from above. "I'm trapped. Can you get someone?"
"Peeves? Help?" Peeves cackles, glowing gleefully at the sight of Mallory Black stuck on the staircase.
"Come on, Peeves. You know Filch will enjoy himself too much if he catches me." Mallory says, attempting to trick Peeves into helping her. "Don't let him get his way, Peeves."
Peeves strokes his half-formed chin, all the while floating above Mallory as though a God that is her only hope.
Above them, footsteps echo signifying another person entering this quieter part of the castle.
"Help me out, Peeves!" Mallory shouts, reaching up to grab onto his foot.
Even as she holds on and Peeves howls at the action, floating higher and higher, she realises it's not helping Mallory to dislodge her foot. It does not work.
She'd definitely need the help of another witch or wizard to escape from here, she realises sadly.
"Mallory Black?" She twists her head at the sound of a familiar voice, her hands still holding her trapped ankle while the other remains fully disillusioned from view. "What have we here?"
"My foot's stuck," she answers, unable to hide her smile or even pretend she is not happy to see the friendly Weasley twin. He wears blazing red Quidditch robes and his hair appears slightly damp. Mallory can't help but feel her heart flutter at the sight of him. "I thought Quidditch was cancelled for the year?"
"Just wanted to have a bit of practice," he answers, not fully looking at her and quickly changes the direction of their conversation. "Foot's stuck, huh? Must've really pissed off the castle."
"It's all Blaise's fault, really. Actually, the Ravenclaw's fault with her batty eyelashes and pretty hair," she rattles, feeling entirely nervous that she's managed to get herself into a conversation with Fred Weasley once again. "Maybe it's actually Rowena Ravenclaw's fault for co-founding Hogwarts in the first place."
Fred chuckles, reaching her foot and sitting beside her on the stairs as he begins to pull at her foot too. He doesn't even notice the lack of her other foot.
"Yes Mallory, please insult one of the co-founders of Hogwarts in the presence of the castle. That'll really let them show you mercy."
Mallory cackles at this, shaking her head as Fred continues to tug at her ankle.
"You mock, Mallory. But it's not me that's stuck in the staircase. Have you tried saying sorry for whatever you said?"
"I'm not apologising to a castle, Weasley."
"I'll make sure to bring you a lovely slice of cake on your 100th birthday then, as I'm assuming the location of the party will be this exact step?"
"Stop mocking me and pull."
"I am pulling, Black, damn!" He responds, and the two of them side by side, hands both wrapped around her ankle continue to pull at her foot as the castle continues to hold her in place.
"I don't think you're leaving until you apologise, Black." He finally says, removing his hands and sitting back. He leans against the stairs, looking up at the ceiling of the castle as he mockingly jokes, "maybe get some cushions and it could be quite homely."
"I'd need a horde of house elves to cater to my every need." Mallory replies, laughing as she leans back too, enjoying the sensation of their arms resting against one another.
"Best get an owl so you can write to everyone. It might get pretty lonely once everyone's gone. You'll only have Filch for company. Mrs Norris might -what's that?"
For some reason, Mallory believes that Fred has finally noticed that despite one foot being trapped in the very building, her other foot is completely disillusioned.
She doesn't take much time to marvel that in the company of Fred, her concentration didn't seem to break as easily as before.
"It's why I needed the fresh air. Pretty good bit of magic, isn't it?"
She's being modest about the fact that, at just 16 years old, she is able to disillusion an entire body part.
"Not my style." He turns away. "I'm not sure why I thought you were different, to be honest."
"Oh." She looks down, where Potter STINKS glares at must've knocked into it, shifting the sight from a support of Cedric Diggory to a childish mock of Harry Potter, Fred's fellow Gryffindor. "No, no, I meant my foot." She explains but Fred is pushing himself to his feet, shrugging and doesn't look at her invisible foot. "This is just a silly prank by some other Slytherins. I only wore it because everyone else was."
"Lovely to see that at the end of the day, you're nothing more than another mindless clone."
"Wait, hang on," Mallory shakes her head in order to gain clarity on their conversation. "It's just a prank."
"I had no idea that pranks could be so…" he pauses, seeking the words out from the walls around him and shakes his head.
The words die on his lips.
"Maybe the castle is getting your own back on you, Mallory. I'd really hate to piss the castle off too." He laughs. "Maybe I'll catch you here in the morning for breakfast?" He laughs loudly again, smirking as finally, she realises that he won't be helping her anymore.
He's laughing still as he returns to the top of the stairs, probably to continue his original destination back to Gryffindor Tower. His name emblazoned on the back of the Gryffindor Quidditch robes further pushes Mallory into her petty dislike of Gryffindors as she vows:
"Game on, Weasley."