Chapter 17 – Third Floor Corridor
Monday rolled around and detention with Snape loomed on the horizon.
"I just don't get it... I wasn't even late... I wrote all those stupid essays on time, even Hermione said they were good. Nobody else even had to do them... I got the pleasure for answering some random questions correctly when I KNOW McGonagall already spoke to him... lost all those points when I was doing my absolute best to be cordial," she ranted quietly to Ron at breakfast.
"Preaching to the choir, sister," Ron said with his mouth full shaking his head in reproach for Snape.
"He just hates me..." she said and sunk her head. "I don't know what I did..."
"He's a dark arts nut from what I heard. Maybe he hates you because you brought down you-know-who," Seamus said with a little bit of both sarcasm and seriousness. Lizzie buried her face in her arms pathetically for a few minutes.
"All the Slytherins are saying you told off Professor Snape," Ernie said in Herbology.
"I did not... not even close..." Lizzie groaned. He laughed.
"Careful with that one, once on his hate list you never get off of it from what I hear," he warned.
"Too late for that..." Lizzie mumbled.
Lizzie went down to the Dungeons unsure of what she was in for. Detentions in her book of references were thirty cane strokes and hands where hands ought not go, amongst other things. Even with the nuns it was bruised and welted hands, maybe the taste of soap for a good day or two, or whatever they put in eye drops to make them sting for hours while you wrote lines. Her most detested, aside from Father Matthew, was kneeling on rice with her nose and palms pressed to the wall level with her head. The nuns would put a coin atop each finger to balance and then flipped an hourglass to start the timer. If any coins fell, you'd start over. It was always for fidgeting, because it made it impossible to do so.
It can't be like that here, she thought. Parents would have field day... she reasoned. But I don't have parents... she remembered.
She rapped on the door and Snape opened it looking annoyed as though she was intruding on his evening even though he willingly assigned it for no bloody reason.
"Sit," he said shortly, and she obliged. He stared at her for a few moments until it was obvious that she was confused.
"I read the essays..." he said. She perked up a little to prepare herself for feedback.
"Well written, thorough... I'll award half credit for them," he said begrudgingly. She smiled a little at the slight victory.
"In the meantime, you're here for two hours. The table behind you has raw materials for ingredients I need. The first set will need to be disemboweled, the second, I need the heads removed, and the third need to be soaked in a solution so the skin can be easily flayed," he explained.
"I don't have gloves, most unfortunate for you... I figured your strong stomach could handle the task," he said with snide reproach. Lizzie looked over at the small dead creatures and her insides writhed.
"If you don't finish in two hours, I'll have more for you tomorrow evening, so get to it, illness won't excuse you," he ordered.
Lizzie quickly couldn't handle the disemboweling and threw up in a waste bin about fifteen minutes in. This didn't faze Snape at all, and she continued with any spite she could muster.
"Have you caught up on the reading?" He asked after about forty-five minutes.
"Mostly," she said. "Not for Charms or Herbology yet though, the essays cut in," she added reproachfully, fighting down a wave of nausea.
"Surprising to me you were raised catholic, neither side of your family was..." he commented.
"My mother's sister married one," she said bitterly. He stared up at her for a moment noticeably considering something.
"But they let you come here?" He asked dubiously.
"No. I wasn't supposed to come here, they were burning the letters for weeks," she said.
Heads were surprisingly easy because she didn't need to touch them much, but when she got to flaying, she lost what little was left in her stomach.
He didn't pry any further. She finished with a few minutes to spare and inspected the work.
"You may go," he said. She went to the sink basin first. Absolutely disgusting... but survivable, she thought.
When Ron wasn't hanging out with Lizzie, he was hanging out with Seamus Finnegan. Seamus was close to Dean Thomas, and Dean was nice to Neville. The four made up a sort of a group Lizzie didn't feel she had designated place within but was comfortable around them all, nonetheless. She preferred spending time with Ron but found Neville's company enjoyable too when his nervous guard came down a little. It surprised Lizzie how well she got on with 'the boys,' all those years at an all-girls school gave her mixed feelings about too many 'girlfriends,' boys were cruder, but a little more down to earth. This group was nothing like Dudley or any of his idiot friends.
She decided Lavender and Faye reminded her too much of some of her least liked classmates at Sacred Heart. She also decided that the Patil sisters were nice, they just had nothing in common with her, it was difficult to keep conversation going. She hadn't made even a partially friendly acquaintance with a single Slytherin girl. Susan, Hannah, and some other Hufflepuffs were friendly to her, and Towler was right about Ravenclaw being testy. Lisa Turpin was rather abrasive, Lizzie had her as a Charms partner for a double period and couldn't handle it.
Pansy Parkinson took jabs at her in Potions, and it was no surprise that Snape always let it slide. She obviously had a crush on Draco and liked his looks of approval the harsher she got with Lizzie. When they were studying Potions that could sometimes stopper death, Pansy chimed in with "Couldn't we just make Potter cry, collect her tears in a vile?" the Slytherins burst into laughter and Lizzie swore she saw a smirk on Snape's stone-cold face.
The Quidditch team seemed to like her, but she was a lot younger than most of them. The twins self-proclaimed one day that they had adopted her because she was a lot like their younger sister, Ginny, whom she hadn't met. Oliver had taken her under his wing too, but she knew he was just excited for the season and sure-fire cup win, but Lizzie wasn't confident she could live up to it.
In all, Lizzie was much better liked than she was all those years at Sacred Heart. Lonely days are over at least, she reasoned, even though the stigma around her name had started to really get to her.
When she wasn't with the team, and Ron was with 'the boys,' Lizzie gravitated toward Hermione. Hermione noticeably hadn't made many good friends. Parvati was the closest one she had aside from Lizzie and even Lizzie didn't feel like she'd fully broken the barrier. Hermione was extremely off-putting to most people at first with the self-righteous attitude and a knack for somehow knowing everything, but Lizzie could easily tell it was a guise for feeling inadequate... Lizzie could relate. They both felt the need to live up to something, but Lizzie knew she got the benefit of the fame boost. At the same time, she sort of envied Hermione because at least if she messed up it wouldn't be in the limelight. The downside was that it was difficult for Hermione to make friends. Lizzie didn't feel like she had a Melody-like friend yet, but that was alright, she didn't feel right about replacing her anyway.
Lizzie went to Quidditch practice on Wednesday and Sunday mornings before what she referred to as the 'arse crack of dawn.' Her body got used to it, only took five cups of coffee that the twins took to bringing up to the common room from the kitchens so she could avoid getting scolded by Oliver for being late.
She got really good marks on her first round of assignments to her surprise, even in Potions. Though she couldn't help but notice when Snape handed out the scores on a quiz, he claimed Draco Malfoy had the highest grade of a 96/100, when Lizzie had scored a 98 and Hermione a 100. The professors, aside from Snape, all seemed to like her. It was a breath of fresh air compared to the nun and lay teacher situation, and Lizzie had never gone this long without being strapped or caned for something. Up until now, she didn't know a life that didn't involve waking up sore and defeated. It felt like a high-alert version of herself had been sedated and she could finally poke through the surface and experience a life free of constant fear and apprehension. She even slept a little better and tried to take half a pill every other night instead of one a night. When she discovered a spell for replicating them, however, she impulsively reverted back to using them as a crutch.
By the third week of term, Hermione and Lizzie were assigned a report on metal object transfiguration properties, it was group effort to cover all the metal elements, and Hermione picked Lizzie because she claimed not to trust anyone else to help her. They subsequently spent a great deal of time in the library together working on it. Ron meanwhile was trying to help Seamus stop inadvertently lighting things on fire.
Hermione talked a lot about her life in the muggle world and her parents, she felt comfortable doing so with Lizzie because she wasn't clueless like the others to her references. She just didn't pick up on the increasing sense of melancholy Lizzie was getting from realizing her life would have been much of the same if A, she hadn't lost her parents, or B, she was raised by an even semi-normal muggle family.
"You liking it here?" Lizzie asked one afternoon.
"Of course, it's brilliant," Hermione said. "Sometimes homesick though," she admitted.
"Yeah, it's hard to leave friends and life behind for something like this..." Lizzie said.
"Not really. There was nobody I was particularly close to... more superficial really," she said. "What about you?"
"I had a friend. Just one friend. Nobody liked me. My name had a much different stigma... everyone knew I was a charge child and nobody's daughter. Easy to spot when nobody shows up for games or performances..." Lizzie rambled.
"Do you miss your friend?" Hermione asked.
"I do, yeah. She's gone... her mum killed herself a couple years back and she followed suit last April..." Lizzie explained.
Hermione looked horror stricken. "I'm so sorry! She -" Hermione said.
"She hung herself from the banister outside the church cathedral at the school. It's the worst thing I've seen... or that I remember I've seen. I know I was in the house with my parents for a while after they... you know...but I don't recall much," she said.
"Lizzie..." Hermione said sympathetically. "They weren't good to you, were they?" She asked.
"They weren't good to most of us. I got expelled actually... My uncle enrolled me a Catholic Detention Academy called St. Catherine's, but I dodged that coming here...him and my aunt hate me…" Lizzie admitted.
"What did you get expelled for?" She asked.
"Well... I watched one of the marriage ceremonies after graduation a few years back... all of the girls were way too young, not even fully of age, and all of the men were at least two-three times their age. The girls left the cathedral in shock, and I just couldn't shake the look a girl named Daisy Cline gave me as she left with her husband. She didn't make it a month. At her funeral he called her selfish and was upset he'd have to wait almost a year for the next graduation. So, I marked my mental calendar that I wouldn't get there, by whatever means. I got in trouble for everything, wasn't hard since I was already blamed for everything anyway. If not for a nice choir voice for the Christmas and Easter Ensembles and a good tennis record, they would have ousted me way beforehand. I just couldn't give those up. Bought me some time away from home..." Lizzie explained. Hermione nodded apologetically.
At lunch the following day, Hedwig swooped in with the first package Lizzie had received to date. She picked up the note and examined it for who sent it, happy she did, because it told her not to open it yet. Oliver caught her attention and cocked his head to go out into the corridor.
Lizzie rounded a dead end and opened the package to reveal a beautiful Nimbus 2000 broomstick. She had never held anything nicer, at least not that belonged to her.
"Nice, isn't it?" Oliver asked having caught up to her.
"Yeah, I reckon so... who do I pay for this? McGonagall?" She asked.
"Nobody! McGonagall footed it," he said with a laugh.
"She did not! No, my dad had money, I'll pay her back," she said incredulously.
"She's not going to let you..." he laughed again. It suddenly dawned on her who bought her the extra clothes she found in her trunk.
"I better take this up before-" Lizzie said heading to the stairwell but was stopped short by Draco Malfoy and his two gargoyle-looking friends.
"Really? You're really pushing it aren't you? About to go tell my head of house a first year has a broomstick," Draco sneered.
"Go ahead. This isn't a broomstick it's pure perfection," she said still gaping at it. Oliver chucked from a few yards away. He didn't want to make anything obvious.
"I don't think you heard me, they could expel you for that, and Snape won't hesitate," he said bitterly.
"I heard you, but they won't expel me. I can promise you that. Bye!" She yelled and followed Oliver up to Gryffindor Tower.
"What a little shit," he said.
"Suits him to wear green, can't mask his jealousy," Lizzie jabbed and giggled victoriously.
Lizzie headed back from dinner that night with Neville, Ron, and Hermione. They were up on the third-floor stairwell when it shifted over in a different direction.
"Stupid that they do this," Lizzie grumbled and went to head back down when she saw Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson coming toward them.
"This is your tribe then, Potter? Really? Everyone here lining up to be your friend and you pick a useless oaf, a know-it-all, and a poor boy?" He laughed.
"Shove off, Draco. What is it to you?" She snapped harshly.
"Well Azalea, we were going to ask if you wanted to reconsider. We can make an exception for a Gryffindor who sees reason," he said.
"Why would I want to do that?" She asked incredulously.
"I could get Snape off your hide," he offered.
"How? Do you two cuddle up and play board games after class?" She retorted sarcastically. Ron chuckled but Neville and Hermione looked amazed by the nerve.
"That a no?" He asked.
"Actually, it's not a no... it's something in between a no and I'd rather be flayed alive," she snipped.
"Careful what you wish for," Pansy laughed.
"She's right, your parents were no heroes, they were fools whose righteousness got them murdered," Malfoy said contemptuously.
"Take that back!" Neville shouted. Malfoy laughed at him.
"Shut your trap, he's worth twelve of you," Lizzie jabbed at Malfoy.
"Whatever you say, Azalea," Malfoy waved still sniggering.
Lizzie scowled and turned to leave, heading through the doors at the top of the stairwell while the others followed. The door shut behind them and locked. Lizzie whipped her head around and then back around at the corridor.
"We're not on the third floor, are we?" She asked.
"Bloody git locked us in," Ron said. He listened at the door. Hermione was getting ready to unlock it when Ron stopped her.
"I think I hear Filch," he said in a panic. The four of them booked it down the hall and hit another locked door.
"Alohamora," Hermione whispered and they slipped through. Ron continued to listen until the footsteps at the base of the hall retreated into the distance completely. Lizzie felt a strange prickle on the back of her neck and a warmth to the surrounding air she couldn't place.
"He's gone," Ron whispered. Neville was tugging on Ron's shirt aggressively until they turned around and saw the most frightening thing any of them had ever been in the room with. They screamed collectively, except for Lizzie who had no air in her body to do so.
Lizzie lunged at the door to open it as loud growling and barking was emitted from three separate heads of the largest and most vicious dog they'd ever seen.
The others ran ahead of her out of the room, and she ducked out right as one of the heads viciously snapped at her from overhead. They pushed the door closed on the feral heads and locked the latch before running at top speed down the corridor and up to Gryffindor Tower, not minding a potential run-in with Filch.
"WHAT-DO-THEY-THINK-THEYRE-DOING?!" Ron panted. "Why is that IN A SCHOOL?!" He added. Lizzie was swallowing back her breathlessness, Hermione was collecting her disheveled self, and Neville looked like he might have died of shock.
"Did you see what it was standing on?" Hermione panted.
"NO! I WAS A LITTLE PREOCCUPIED WITH THE HEADS!" Ron shouted incredulously. Lizzie was concerned by Neville and tried to tap life into his face while she caught her breath.
"It was standing on a trapdoor, it must be guarding something," Hermione said. "Lizzie, bed," she ordered.
"Why?!" Lizzie asked a little childishly, still flushed and shaking.
"Before we get into some other situation that'll get us killed, or worse, expelled," Hermione shot Lizzie a reproachful look.
"How is that worse?" Ron asked.
"Just ask Lizzie, are you trying to end up like Daisy? Or in that detention school?" she asked indignantly and spun around to head upstairs. Lizzie clenched her jaw and shook her head evasively at Ron because she didn't want to explain.
"Get Neville some water and into bed," she said quietly, rubbing Neville's arm, and followed Hermione up to their dormitory.