The weekend after exams, Draco was in the best mood he had been in all year, but then, so was the entire house. Gryffindor had lost the Quidditch match against Ravenclaw thanks to Potter being in the hospital wing. Slytherin was going to win the House Cup, and everything seemed right with the world. Well, almost everything.
"Did you guys hear why Harry's in the hospital wing?" Theo asked at breakfast with a mouthful of ketchup and potatoes.
"Mouth closed, please," Blaise responded. He grimaced and handed Theo a napkin to wipe the ketchup dribble off his chin.
Theo swallowed his food and put down his fork. "There's this rumor going around that he fought Professor Quirrell in a secret corridor of the school. Well, the corridor isn't exactly a hidden secret, just forbidden. You know that corridor Dumbledore told us to avoid at the beginning of the year? That's the one."
"Potter fought Quaking Quirrell? I don't think that would send anyone to the hospital wing," Daphne snorted. "Did the stench of Quirrell's turban knock him unconscious?"
"I heard that too," said Tracey Davis from the end of the table. She had an awful habit of joining conversations and frightening the people there, since no one ever saw her walk up to them. This time was no different, and Theo jumped. "Except Quirrell wasn't alone. He had help from You-Know-Who. Apparently, he was attached to the back of Quirrell's head."
"Impossible! Potter killed him. You all know the story."
Avalon reached over Draco sitting next to her and grabbed the jug of orange juice. "I believe it. I mean… I don't know. The Dark Lord, he was a super powerful wizard. It seems unlikely that a year-old baby would be able to kill him."
Theo nodded in agreement, but Daphne shook her head. "However it happened, You-Know-Who is gone for good. Even if he wasn't before, somehow, Potter seems to have a lucky streak when it comes to dark wizards."
The others murmured in response, and resumed eating breakfast. They could feel Draco's good attitude deflating as they had talked about Potter. He soon forgot all about Potter, however, when he remembered that it was the day of the end-of-term feast, and Slytherin would be taking home the House Cup. Metaphorically, of course, since it would spend the next school year sitting in Professor Snape's office. They ran off back to the dungeons to begin packing. The train would be leaving a week from Saturday, and even though it was only Monday, they didn't want to wait until the last minute and stay up all night. While in the dormitory, the girls started packing up their books, parchment, and quills. It only made sense. There was no use for their school supplies anymore since they had finished exams and were just waiting for the results to come back on Wednesday.
"I wonder how much Blaise is still freaking out over the Charms exam," Avalon said. She clambered under Daphne's bed to find The Standard Book of Spells. "He probably got at least an 'Acceptable.' Have you seen my lucky quill?"
"Do you know where anything is?" Daphne asked, smiling.
At that moment, Pansy sauntered in from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her damp hair and a scowl on her pug-like face. "Congratulations, girls. You both probably managed to get 'Troll' marks on all your exams. Which is fitting, since you're both trolls. By the way, Avalon, I wish you had done a better job of cleaning up after the Christmas holidays. The place still smells like dungbombs."
"You're right, as usual, Pansy. It sure does," said Avalon, flopping onto the bed with the latest edition of Teen Witch Weekly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" When she didn't get a response, Pansy rolled her eyes in Avalon's direction and went to her trunk. Once the lid was off, she visibly recoiled. An awful stench—an awfully familiar stench—filled her nostrils. Daphne grinned at Avalon, both girls wearing nose plugs suddenly. The expression of pure horror was evident on Pansy's face. She stared down at the contents of her trunk and her face crumpled. "Y-you ruined it!" she cried, whirling on Avalon and Daphne. She pulled out her wand and aimed it at them, her eyes flickering dangerously between the two.
Avalon pulled out her wand as well. Daphne, on the other hand, held out her hands to Pansy and began to walk towards her. "What's ruined Pansy?" she asked, using the same voice Avalon remembered hearing whenever Daphne tried to reason with her nine-year-old sister Astoria.
Pansy reached into the trunk—not caring about the dungbombs strewn in there, apparently—and pulled out a book, soiled by the dungbombs. She cracked it open carefully and removed a creased picture. The people in the portrait were smudged, all of them grimacing at being covered in the mess. She held out the picture to them.
"I'm good," said Avalon, taking a step back instinctively.
Daphne glared at her, and gingerly took the picture from Pansy examining it. There were two girls in it, one was obviously a much younger Pansy. The girl with her arms tightly wrapped around Pansy shared the same harsh features and dark hair. There definitely was a family resemblance. "Is this your—"
"My sister."
No one spoke for a few minutes. Surprisingly, Pansy was the first to do so. "She would have been a fifth year now," she said finally. "But when we were younger, she caught a bad case of Dragon Pox."
Daphne's brow furrowed. "There's a cure for that."
"I know, but my parents would spend months at a time away, in meetings or on vacation, it was all the same to me. I used to make up excuses in my letters, lies to get them to come home. The cat was pregnant, my sister was pregnant, the house elves were sick, the house was on fire. After a while, they stopped coming when I called. I thought that when they heard that she had Dragon Pox they would come rushing home, but…"
"They didn't believe you," said Avalon quietly.
From across the room, Tracey added, "The boy who cried wolf." The other girls looked at her with confusion etched across their faces. She shook her head, waved them away, and went back to the picture she was drawing.
Pansy nodded. "By the time they finally came home, it had gotten too far. We took her to St. Mungo's, but there wasn't anything the mediwitches could do. Sometimes when I miss her, I have to remember it was my fault she died. It was my fault my parents didn't believe me when I told them she was sick. I keep the picture in my trunk for safekeeping, and as a reminder."
"And we ruined it," Daphne finished. "I'm sorry Pansy. We're sorry."
"I'm not," mumbled Avalon, but she had a strange look on her face, one that Daphne had never seen before, and she had been experiencing Avalon's odd facial expressions for nearly her entire life. Fortunately, Pansy didn't hear her.
"Look, this doesn't change anything," said Pansy. She wiped her misty eyes and straightened up over her trunk. "We're enemies. We hate each other. I don't want you to treat me any differently than you would have otherwise. No mushy stuff, all right?"
Avalon nodded and made her way to the door. "Trust me, I still hate you. A lot."
And Pansy grinned widely, her tears forgotten.
But Pansy's story had affected Avalon more than she would have liked for Pansy to know. She ran out of the common room and began the familiar path throughout the corridors. She chuckled to herself as she remembered the early days of first year, when she and her friends would get lost just trying to make her way to breakfast.
"How may I help you, dear?"
Avalon skidded to a stop at the portrait of a fat lady. "I need to get into the Gryffindor Common Room."
The portrait laughed flamboyantly. "First things first, I don't let anyone into the common room without a password. And besides, silver and green? You seem to be wearing the wrong house colors to use this entrance. Move it along, Slytherin girl."
"But please, I—"
"Come on then, Dean," said a voice from around the corner. "I need to get a new tie."
Finnigan and his best friend Dean Thomas joined Avalon in front of the portrait. He was holding a tie decked out in scarlet, gold, and whatever color you would call scorch marks, but his eyes didn't leave Avalon's face. "Steele."
"Listen, Finnigan, I know we're not exactly the best of friends, but I really need to talk to my sister, and the portrait won't let me in," Avalon said, her eyes pleading with him. "It's important."
Something that could almost be considered the ghost of a smile flickered across Finnigan's lips. "You need to talk to Lucy?"
"Stuff it, Finnigan."
"Are you going to apologize for being such a twat? Are you going to tell her you forgive her? And how much you love her?" Finnigan folded his hands under his chin and batted his eyelashes at Avalon.
"I said, stuff it!"
Finnigan shrugged. "Suit yourself. Let's go Dean. Maybe you'll get lucky, and Lucy will just wander out. Although, I believe she's reading a book in the common room. Or maybe she's fulfilling her Head Girl duties and stopping the Weasley twins from doing something dangerous. I'm not sure, but it could be hours before she—"
"Okay, okay, fine," said Avalon with a growl. "What do you want?"
"To torture you."
Well. At least he was honest about his intentions. But after a few more moments of agony, Finnigan and Thomas whispered the password to the fat lady and disappeared into the hole that Avalon imagined led to the cacophony of scarlet and gold that was the Gryffindor common room. It couldn't have been five minutes later when the portrait moved out of the way once more and Lucy stepped through gingerly. She looked surprised to see Avalon standing there waiting for her with a sheepish look on her face.
They looked at each other for a few long moments. "Lucy," Avalon began. "I'm sorry I've been so awful to you. If you want to spend time with Charlie, I'm going to learn to be okay with that. It's not my place to be upset that you want to be happy. And I loved the boots you got me for Christmas. I never threw them away. I would never do that to you."
"No, I'm sorry," Lucy interrupted. "You had every right to be cross with me. I was really looking forward to a Hogwarts castle Christmas with you, and I let a boy get in the way of that. No matter what, you'll always be my sister. I love you."
"I love you too."
They hugged. From behind them, there was a sniffling sound and a honking as someone blew their nose. The two girls turned around and saw the fat lady portrait crying at the sweet moment. Lucy laughed first, and Avalon joined in. It was nice. It was just like old times.
That night at dinner, the Slytherin table was rowdier than ever. They were all so excited to have won the House Cup. They pointed eagerly at the decorations. Everything was decked out in silver and green, and there was even a huge banner with the Slytherin serpent on it covering the wall behind the staff table.
Blaise, who was normally cool and nonchalant, was practically bouncing up and down in his seat like a little kid on Christmas Eve. "The eighth year in a row that Slytherin's won the House Cup. That's just so impressive. What a great lot we are, huh?"
A hush fell over the Great Hall.
"Okay, don't all agree with me at once," he said, his voice a bit miffed.
"It's not you," said Draco. He nudged Blaise and pointed towards the door. "Look!" Potter walked in, late as usual, and made his way to the Gryffindor table and Granger and Weasley. Everyone lost interest in the boy-who-lived-and-then-defeated-Voldemort-again-and-also-a-stuttering-professor-with-a-turban and went back to their own conversations.
Dumbledore stood up and began to speak. "Now, as I understand it, the House Cup here needs awarding, and the points stand as thus: in fourth place, Gryffindor, with three hundred and twelve points; in third, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two; Ravenclaw has four hundred and twenty-six and Slytherin, four hundred and seventy-two."
The Slytherins banged their fists on the table, stomped their feet, high-fived each other, and cheered loudly. Draco began to bang his goblet onto the table and screamed. Avalon put her hand on his shoulder to calm him, but the noise was infectious. Unless you were Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or a staff member, of course.
"Yes, yes, well done, Slytherin," Dumbledore continued. His eyes twinkled. "However, recent events must be taken into account. Ahem, I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes."
"Oh no," muttered Draco. "Oh no, no, no, this is not happening."
The room was extremely still. They didn't dare to move. The smiles at the Slytherin table had already begun to fade, but by this point, Crabbe and Goyle were practically sobbing, and no extra points had been awarding yet.
"First, to Mr. Ronald Weasley, for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."
While the Gryffindors began to holler, Theo placed his head onto the table with a thud, moaning loudly. Daphne, on his right side, put a hand on his back and rubbed it soothingly, even though she was barely managing to maintain her composure. "That's not a real category for points. What's happening?" Millicent Bulstrode hissed from the down the table. For once, Avalon agreed with her.
"Second, to Miss Hermione Granger, for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."
Draco stood up and waggled his hands in Dumbledore's direction. "What does that even mean? 'Cool logic in the face of fire?' Is that a metaphor? Some sort of inside joke? Was there real fire? Stop awarding vague points to the Gryffindors! My father will hear about this." The last part was said to his friends as a quiet pout as Blaise yanked him back into his seat, a look of horror on his own face.
Daphne leaned into the table, her voice a frantic whisper. "Gryffindor's up by a hundred. They're only sixty points behind us, now," she said. "But there's no way Dumbledore would—"
"Third, to Mr. Harry Potter, for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor House sixty points!"
Jaws dropped as low as the Slytherins' hearts. Draco popped out of his seat again and glared in the direction of Dumbledore. "But Gryffindors are supposed to have nerve and courage. That's their whole thing! Why don't you award points to me for being cunning, or give Susan Bones some loyalty points? Yes, let's assign Terry Boot a couple hundred points for his wit. This is a great idea. Oh wait, it isn't!" Once again, Blaise pulled Draco back down, but it was no use.
"I just don't get it," mumbled Theo. He furrowed his brow, deep in thought. "He awarded Gryffindor so many points that Gryffindor and Slytherin are tied now. We can't have a tie for the House Cup, right? Why would he do that?"
Avalon could feel tears welling in her eyes. "Because it's not a tie. Gryffindor's going to win."
"No way."
Dumbledore raised his hand to silence the room. He smiled broadly at the students. "There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom."
The Gryffindor table was a din of chaos. Students were on the floor, and Avalon couldn't see Neville beneath the crowd of people hugging him. She wanted to be proud of her friend, to congratulate him for finally winning a point since she remembered him lamenting about how he did nothing but lose points for his house, but she was furious at him for standing up to anyone. After all, every other time, Neville was a pushover. What was different about that time? Even the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables were celebrating the downfall of Slytherin while the latter house mourned.
"We need a little change of decoration."
Theo screamed in pain as the silver and green became scarlet and gold, and the snake became a lion.
"How sad, an adder crushed under the heel of a lion," said Tracey Davis, who seemed to have appear out of nowhere. "It's almost ironic, since we're silver and they're gold, and silver is traditionally second place while gold is usually first. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. That's us," she added. "We're the mighty. Or at least we were before Gryffindor won the House Cup."
The students around her glared, and Tracey shrugged and animatedly began talking to Millicent Bulstrode. Pansy stared blankly off into space with an empty look in her eyes.
As the five first year friends sat with dejected faces and folded arms, Draco sighed. He opened his mouth to say something, but his friends all finished his sentence. "STUPID POTTER!" Avalon caught Neville's eye across the room, and he waved wildly, both a grin and a look of complete and utter shock plastered across his face. She waved back, with much less enthusiasm. He turned and went back to his conversation with Weasley, who looked as though he could have kissed Neville at any moment.
Usually they all loved feasts, but for this one even dessert tasted sour.
"You know, there's always next year."
"I doubt it'll be any better."
Avalon stared down at Neville's Potions grade as she stood in front of his compartment on the Hogwarts Express. She had chosen not to go inside since he was sitting with Potter, Weasley, Granger, Thomas, and Finnigan. He was the only person she encountered who had gotten a Dreadful mark on an exam, but at least he wasn't disappointed since he had been expecting a Troll.
"Although I feel a bit better since your Herbology exam grade leaves a bit to be desired as well," Neville said. He laughed awkwardly and they handed the final papers back to the rightful owners.
"Well it would have been a thousand times worse if you hadn't helped me this year, you know. So, thanks for that," she told him. And it was true. By the end of the term, although her Herbology score was 'Poor,' it would have been Dreadful without his help.
"Same to you. After all what are friends for?"
"Take care of yourself this summer, yeah Nev?" Avalon said.
He nodded. "You too, Avalon." They hugged in the quick, chaste way that eleven-year-olds of the opposite gender tend to hug, and Avalon tried to ignore the retching sounds Finnigan was making from inside the compartment. She returned to her Slytherin friends and he returned to his Gryffindor ones. It was going to be a good summer.
The ride back to King's Cross was extremely similar to their first ride to Hogwarts, except Draco was with them instead of sitting in a compartment Crabbe and Goyle (he made the wise decision to switch in the middle of their farting contest, and had asked Pansy to keep an eye on them when he left), Blaise had finally finished the first book in the Enchanted Encounters series and spent the ride reading the second one, and Theo was boring them all with bad jokes he had found in a book behind a couch in the common room.
"There's a reason someone abandoned that," Daphne said, plugging her ears after the seventh consecutive pun.
Avalon fiddled with her robe sleeve. "You know, it's okay that we didn't win the House Cup. After all, we're going to think back on this moment when we win next year and it will make it that much sweeter."
"Tripe," Draco scoffed. "I would still enjoy next year's victory even if we had won this year."
Theo agreed with his roommate. "Me too. Anyway, guys, listen to this next joke. It's a really good one."
Fortunately, no one had to listen to Theo's "good one," because right then the Hogwarts Express pulled into King's Cross Station and everyone was hurrying about to gather belongings and give out their last-minute goodbyes.
"Thank Merlin," Blaise whispered to no one and everyone.
Lucy had already found their parents when Avalon stepped off the train. She continued talking to some of her seventh-year friends but pointed in the direction of the Steeles so Avalon could locate them as well.
Avalon turned to her friends. "You're all going to write over the summer?"
"Right," said Theo.
They groaned, and Draco punched him in the arm—hard. Then he smiled and shook the other boy's hand, as if this action made up for the throbbing pain in Theo's arm. Daphne shook her head and hugged Avalon tightly. "You're coming over this summer, aren't you? I'll need all the help I can get to prepare for Quidditch tryouts next year."
"I'll help, but my feet are staying firmly on the ground, thanks." They laughed.
After saying goodbye to the boys, and waving to Neville and the stern-looking woman she assumed to be his Gran that she spotted across the train station, Avalon joined Lucy and their parents. Mrs. Steele enveloped her in a bear hug. "My precious darling! You've gotten so tall. I want to hear all about your school year. Tell mummy everything," she cooed.
"Hello, Avalon," Mr. Steele said, his voice as welcoming as ever.
"All right there, Father?"
He nodded, then apparated away without another word to his wife or his daughters. Lucy shrugged and did the same after a moment. Mrs. Steele held out her arm to her daughter. "You mustn't mind your father, dear. You know he loves you." And Avalon nodded because it was the right thing to do, but her mind was elsewhere as she felt the familiar tug behind her navel.
She couldn't wait for the summer to begin.
A/N: Well, this is the end of Avalon's first year. This chapter is a little bit long. It was originally going to be split but I couldn't find a fitting place to cut it since the contents of this chapter all focus on the end of the year. Anyway, there will be a chapter (or two, it depends) chronicling her summer vacation and then second year will begin. New faces, new friends, new teachers, and new problems. Thank you for following me this far on Avalon's journey, but this is not the end. Please leave a review if you enjoyed it, and an update will be on its way soon! Love you guys!
