OK, so I rewrote it. Drenched started out as a small test, an experiment, but now I want it to be a proper story. One that has a proper plot.
Hope you enjoy!
Jennie ran her tongue over her teeth, her robes hanging limply off her thin frame. The wind that gusted through the ancient trees and ruffled the grass was pleasantly warm. Perhaps another spell?
She watched as Abbott, Hannah was called up. The girl was almost smaller than herself, with long blonde pigtails and a flushed face. She was Sorted into Hufflepuff and stumbled to the yellow-draped table amid a thunderstorm of clapping.
All Jennie really wanted was a nice dinner and a bed. She didn't even care if dinner was composed of a single slice of bread, or if the bed was a thin mattress. Jennie was used to those. What she didn't want was to sit through a God-boring ceremony.
Though life wasn't really about wants. Jennie wanted to live with her actual parents. She wanted to turn the Dursleys into toads forever. She wanted to stop forcing on painful smiles and snap at everything.
"Potter, Jennie!" A flood of whispering.
Knowing her lip would split and her teeth would be stained red, Jennie smiled and slipped from her place, knowing that every eye was on her. She placed the tatted, worn hat on her head and let it slide over her eyes.
Jennie Potter, a voice said softly, I have waited so long to Sort you.
As long as you wait for any other student, I'm sure, Jennie replied, stifling the shock at having the Hat talk to her mentally.
Oh no, the Hat said, chuckling. You misunderstand me. Albus - that is, Professor Dumbledore - has told me so much about you. Tell me, how are your relatives?
Jennie felt a stab of anger. They're as horrid, spiteful and condescending as ever, she thought back, white-hot fury coiling like an angry snake in her stomach. I hate them. Why do you think I agreed to come to this school so readily? And yes, I know you already know the answer. It's not hard to figure out that you can see our memories.
Silky amusement wormed its way into her head, dampening her anger. Clever girl, aren't you? You would do well in Ravenclaw.
I don't want to know where I'd do well. I want to know where I'd do best.
If you say so, Jennie Potter.
She was brought back to reality when the Hat's booming voice filled the Hall. "SLYTHERIN!"
There was no clapping, no cheering. With a sinking feeling, Jennie saw the horrified looks on every face, even those that tried to mask it.
What have I gotten myself into?
Jennie smiled suddenly, feeling the metallic tang of blood attack her tastebuds. It split her face grotesquely, terrible and knowing. Everybody saw the red trickling from her torn skin, but only a few screamed.
Perhaps she would get her sleep. She wouldn't count on the dinner, though.
Greenish light slipped through the cracks in the thick, damask curtains, pooling on the stone-paved floor. Lake water, Jennie thought distantly, as she rolled onto her side and blinked heavily.
She had immediately been cast out as a pariah in Slytherin House; not that she minded, really. She was still tending to her smile. It pained her to even move her lips. She hadn't had much reason to smile at the Dursleys...perhaps this explained why her grin was more of a snarl?
"Merlin, Potter," a feminine voice groaned, "Stop moving, will you?"
Feeling particularly spiteful, Jennie swung her legs and smacked them down on the mattress, feeling the thump reverberate around the dormitory. The cursing only increased her glee.
Pulling back the curtains that hung from the frame of the bed, she dressed quickly in the black school robe (now adorned with the very telling Slytherin crest), slid into her shoes and slipped out of the door, making sure to slam it hard. The cacophony of groans and colourful swearing only made her happier.
Perhaps she was insane. Someone who couldn't smile tended to be mad. Besides, it was their fault they cast her out. She was going to make life as painful for them as she could - and it all started with the simplest things, like disrupting their beauty sleep.
Especially that girl - was Pansy her name? The pug-faced first year had insisted on calling her a 'mudblood', whatever that was, and the name started to stick with the older Slytherins. Jennie hadn't batted an eyelash. She had been called worse by the Dursleys.
Sighing, she cast a look around the Common Room, a place where she thought she might have liked to sit and read were the circumstances different, before turning and heading out of the entrance and making her way to the Great Hall.
Very few students were sitting at the tables. Jennie raised her eyebrow when she saw Tracy Davies, a fellow halfblood Slytherin girl. She wasn't ostracised, however, only ignored. There were some times that Jennie absolutely despised her title as 'Girl-Who-Lived.'
Perhaps they could bond on that, though Jennie didn't want to get her hopes up. It did seem like everybody was absolutely terrified of her, from how the students from other Houses eyed her warily and muttered.
"Hey," she said, sliding into the seat next to Davies. The other girl didn't look up from her book. "Tracy Davies, right?"
The casualty with which she spoke was almost as painful as the smiles. God, what was wrong with her?
Davies still didn't look up. "Potter."
Jennie tilted her head, before reaching across the table and pouring herself a cup of coffee. She had never tried the stuff before and decided that this was an excellent time to attempt her first sip.
"I am quite sure that we can all agree we all know my name," she said dryly, raising the thick cup to her lips and sniffing the brown liquid, before letting said coffee trickle into her mouth. She let it stay there for a few seconds before hastily gulping it down. "God, that's awful. I'm never drinking that again."
Davies let an amused smile play on her lips. How Jennie envied her! "I don't like coffee, either," she said, thumbing the page of her book. She hesitated. "But my sister can make lovely patterns with foamy milk."
Jennie nodded. "I can, too," she said quietly, the words raspy and dry as she remembered how she learnt. "My aunt...she-"
"Forced you?" Davies asked softly, finally letting her book fall to her lap. She paused. "Mine too."
The other girl's head shot up. "What?"
Davies let her head fall back, a wry grin on her lips. Jennie didn't smile. "I think there's one thing we can agree on. Aunts are absolute bitches."
"Agreed. Shall we drink to that?"
Tracy lifted her glass of pumpkin juice mockingly. "Cheers."
Jennie sipped more of the dratted coffee because anything was better than accidentally smiling and scaring away her potential first friend. "Cheers."
Tracy leant back, tracing her fingers over the grain of the wood. "You know that we're going to be absolutely loathed for being friends?"
Jennie smiled. Again. She wasn't sure why. "Between our aunts, Tracy, I think we can handle this."
She didn't know if it was a friendship. Friendships shouldn't be built on hate. But it was inevitable. Fate was unavoidable.
Jennie hugged her arms tighter around herself, the flimsy fabric of her robes doing nothing against the natural chill of the dungeons, which she couldn't get used to. The corridor outside the Potions classroom was a particularly drafty one, bare and stripped of the grandeur most of the other rooms wore. There were no paintings encased in intricately carved frames, no spectacular carvings on the ceiling, nor any fancy columns stretching high.
They were soon allowed into the classroom, which held an odd assortment of peculiar ingredients in glass jars. Tracy shivered.
"Are those eyeballs?" she asked disgustedly. Jennie fought down a flinch.
"I hope not," she replied uncertainly.
Professor Snape swooped in. Ever since their brief eye contact upon entering the Great Hall, Jennie had the feeling that he didn't like her very much. It soon changed with his 'welcoming' speech in the Common Room the previous night, and Jennie knew that he loathed her. It was just her cursed luck that he was her Head of House.
Absentmindedly, she sketched out an imitation of Uncle Vernon on her page, smirking as she added in the vein that often throbbed in his forehead. It only served to make the drawing even uglier - a fact that she relished.
She jolted upright, hand automatically sweeping over her drawing as Snape called her name.
"Ah yes," the professor said quietly, black, emotionless eyes piercing into her own. "Jennie Potter. Our new...celebrity."
"I would hardly call myself that, sir," Jennie replied, ignoring the sniggers. "Especially since I've been cast out by my own House."
Snape's expression didn't change as he began talking. Jennie continued drawing, even when Tracy nudged her sharply in the ribs.
"Potter," the professor said suddenly, once again. An unquenchable fire lit in Jennie. What did he want? "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"I'm not sure, sir," Jennie replied politely. Snape sneered.
"Clearly fame isn't everything. Let's try again, Potter. Where would I find a bezoar?"
"I wouldn't know," she ground out, the fire blazing harder. Ice hardened her eyes, thickening and growing colder.
Snape made another disparaging remark, much to the Slytherins' sadistic glee, before asking a final question. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Jennie closed her eyes. "Professor," she started, rage lining her words, "How do you expect me to know when my darling relatives locked my books away right after I got them?"
Finally, Snape seemed surprised, though more dangerous than ever. "Pardon me?"
Tracy shot her a warning look, but Jennie was too caught up in her fury. "If you so wish to know," she whispered, "Perhaps look at the Cupboard Under the Stairs. You might find a very interesting scene."
She was tempting Fate, and she knew it. Slowly, another terrifying, bloody smile splintered across her lips again, and everybody flinched back. She gathered up her drawing, stalked up to Snape's desk and slammed it down, hard. The sound echoed across the deathly silent classroom.
"Have a look, Professor, at my uncle. Does he look like one to spoil me, like you so obviously think?"
She slung her bookbag over her shoulder and stomped out of the classroom, letting the door snap shut behind her.
"You know," Tracy commented, appearing suddenly next to Jennie, "Everybody's talking about how you stormed out of Snape's classroom."
Jennie dabbed at her lips again, wincing. The tissue came away a silky red. "Let them talk," she said bitterly. "I'm used to it. The neighbours at Privet Drive are far worse."
"Tell me about it," Tracy muttered. Jennie started when she felt the other girl take a gentle hold of her arm, steering her from the bathroom and onto one of the sofas in the Common Room - a plush one heaped with pillows in front of the simmering fire, one usually reserved for the seventh years. They sat down, Jennie drawing her knees up to her chest in a rare show of vulnerability.
"Do your relatives treat you so harshly?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"My relative," Tracy corrected. "Only my aunt. And yes. My sister escaped her a few years back...I had - have to stay."
"What do they do?"
A dry smile flickered over Tracy's face. "Oh, you know, the usual. Spiteful comments, starvation, the attic to sleep in. Chores. Cinderella-esque life."
Jennie nodded slowly. "You don't have a cousin who turns every friend away from you, though." She remembered Chelsea Gray, who once sat with her at lunch and offered her a strawberry jelly. The next day, Chelsea gave her fearful looks and never talked to her again. Dudley had looked particularly smug.
Tracy grinned. "Oh, believe me, Margaret Saunders is worse. She's the perfect antagonist in those teenage romance books - wealthy, beautiful, with a simpering posse of starry-eyed girls."
The other girl laughed, though the sound was cracked and painful. A second later, Tracy joined, both staring into the fire.
Maybe they weren't so different, after all. Perhaps a friendship built on the foundation of hate could work?
Oh, you're tempting Fate there, poor girl. I feel so much self-loathing when I think of what I'm going to do to these two ;-;
Nevertheless, it must be done. I think I may cry during the final, angst-ridden chapters!
(And yes, that's my way of telling you that I have the story planned out. Woohoo.)
Here's a special little emoji for all of you: (╹ڡ╹ )
-Bluish Moon