A/N: Its been forever, but I finally have college stuff (pretty much) out of the way for next year, and my English research paper is due Friday, which means after that I PROMISE I'll finally be more active. Okay, so this chapter is one of a few I've been looking forward to since Avalon was a first year, so I'm glad to finally share it with you guys! Once you've finished it, let me know what your thoughts about it are. The next update will definitely not be that long. I hope you enjoy this.
The week before the Christmas holidays, Avalon was in a worse mood than she had been in all year. All of the first years—and even some of the older students—knew to avoid her in class, the library, or the Great Hall if you didn't want your head completely chewed off.
It had even reached the point where, although cordial, her friends tried to limit the time they spent in her presence. The five of them would eat meals together and walk to and from class, but whenever they had free time Avalon would either close herself up in the dormitory or go down to the library, and her friends would play in the snow or hang out in the common room.
There was only one time Daphne tried to coax Avalon down to sit with them instead of in isolation. She never told the boys what exactly went down in their room, but when Daphne returned she was sporting awkwardly drawn on eyebrows and no one knew what had happened to her real ones.
Yet another person no longer on speaking terms with Avalon.
The bright side came only a few days later, when a sign was posted on the notice board by the entrance hall informing students that Duelling Club was going to start. Avalon felt the corners of her mouth turn up in what Theo swore was a smile but no one else could verify. Really, she was just thinking about how nice it would be to hex Finnigan in front of their classmates.
After dinner, Avalon was sitting in the Common Room with a silent Blaise. They were both working on a Transfiguration paper, Blaise because he liked to get his work done ahead of time, and Avalon because she had detention with Sprout and Duelling Club later and wouldn't have time to truly procrastinate. She had no clue where Theo or Daphne were, and knew that they didn't want to see her either.
"Is everything all right?"
Avalon's head shot up and she squinted at Blaise. Then she looked around the Common Room with a confused look on her face. "Are you talking to me?"
Blaise rested his quill gently in his inkwell before continuing to speak. "Well, yeah. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were all best friends. Now you're not even talking to us anymore, and you did Merlin-knows-what to Daphne's eyebrows. What did he say?" Blaise asked. "How did you let Finnigan get to you that badly?"
"It's not just that," Avalon said. "People just keep leaving me, Blaise. Lucy was bad enough, but now Neville too?"
"I'm sorry."
"Lucy had to interact with me, you know. I'm her sister. So maybe it's only natural that we would drift apart or she'd rather be with Charlie. But what about Neville? He chose to be my friend, and suddenly just kicks me to the curb because someone is petrifying muggleborns? I had nothing to do with that." Avalon hated the fact that she always wanted to cry, and struggled to stem the flow of her tears.
Blaise moved across the room so that he was next to Avalon and gently patted her back, gentle circles. "I know."
After a few moments of silence, Avalon turned to face Blaise. He never said much in moments like this, but he was a better listener than her other friends. Theo would have cracked at least seven bad jokes by this point. Daphne would have told Avalon how much she didn't need Lucy or Neville, which was empowering and all but sometimes you need someone to just hear your problems and agree with you. Like Blaise. If she had chosen to confide in Draco, he probably would have turned the tables and she would have ended up giving him a pseudo-therapy session instead, because he had a tendency to only talk about himself, even when other people had things that they wanted to…
"Oh."
Like she had done to Neville in the year that they had been friends. She was his Draco Malfoy, minus the bullying Draco actually put Neville through all the time.
Unknowingly, Blaise had made her feel like an even worse friend.
She stood up and said a quick goodbye to the boy before rushing up to her dormitory to put her books away before detention with Sprout.
When Avalon reached the greenhouses, Finnigan was already there, sitting with Professor Sprout. She was only a few minutes late, but had you seen their faces you would have assumed that they had been waiting for hours in the greenhouse. Avalon pulled on her dragonhide gloves and avoided eye contact with the boy.
"Are we doing more planting, Professor? Or tending to the mandrakes again?"
Professor Sprout started tugging on her dragon hide gloves and slipped her arms into her cloak. "Actually, we won't be in the greenhouses today. Hagrid asked if he could borrow the two of you, and I feel it's the perfect way to give you both a real life application for what I've taught in class. You both could use it, if the Bowtruckle incident is any indication." She began to lead the pair down to the hut by the edge of the forest.
With a firm hand, Professor Sprout knocked on the door.
"'ang on a second!"
A series of clatters and crashes could be heard from inside the hut before the door opened. The large man who appeared in the doorway was Rubeus Hagrid. Avalon remembered from her first evening at Hogwarts, over a year ago, when he took the first years across the lake in boats and she met Neville, Granger, and Terry Boot.
"Hello Hagrid," said Professor Sprout cordially. She nudged Finnigan and Avalon forward and they stumbled towards the man. "This is Avalon Steele and Seamus Finnigan. I promised you two helpers, and these rule breakers are yours for the next hour and a half. You can send them back up to the castle about fifteen minutes before eight o clock, in case they want to go to Duelling Club this evening." The witch turned to leave, but stopped and peered over at the pair. "If I find out that you two were misbehaving, I'll add more detentions to your sentence, understand?"
"Yes, professor."
With that, she was gone.
Hagrid led them inside his hut. It had only one room, with pheasants and hams hanging from the ceiling. He walked over the table and grabbed a kettle before suspending it over the fireplace. "Are you hungry?" he asked.
Finnigan eyed the gray lumps on a plate that Hagrid was more likely than not going to offer if they said yes.
"No thank you. We came from dinner not too long ago."
Normally, Avalon would detest Finnigan speaking for her, but she was grateful for it. She had no clue what the lumps were—or at least what they were supposed to be—and there was absolutely nothing in her that wanted to find out.
"Suit yerself."
Hagrid sat down and began eating, while Avalon and Finnigan stood above him sharing awkward glances.
"Umm… Hagrid?" Avalon said after a few moments of silence. "What should we be doing?"
"Oh right! My bad, let's go outside and get to work. We need to build a higher fence for the roosters. Somethin's been attacking 'em, I already lost three last week. If this keeps up they'll all be gone before Christmas," said Hagrid. He cleaned up his lumps and put some in his pocket for later before exiting the hut, Avalon and Finnigan moving their legs twice as fast to keep up with Hagrid's. He went out to the roosters and showed them the pieces of wood he had set aside for the fence they were building. "Seamus, there's a hammer to your left. Avalon, if you'd just grab the nails over there…"
Finnigan looked at the tool in his hand with a confused expression on his face. "Why are we using these tools? Can't we just use magic?"
Hagrid's face was momentarily upset. "You need to know how to do things with your hands, too, not jus' with magic."
Avalon elbowed Finnigan in the ribs—hard. He glared at her and rubbed his side, but quickly turned back to Hagrid and listened to the instructions that the large man was giving them.
By the time Hagrid dismissed Avalon and Finnigan, they had completely rebuilt the fence and they had only twenty minutes to change out of their sweaty robes before the Duelling Club started. They said goodbye to him and began the trek back to the castle.
"What do you think's been attacking Hagrid's roosters?" Avalon said after they left his hut.
"There are lots of things that live in the forest. Apparently there's a herd of centaurs. I heard about it last year afte Harry, Hermione, and Neville got back from detention," said Finnigan. He didn't seem to notice Avalon's reaction to his words, and kept talking. "Although from what I know about them, it's pretty unlikely that they'd come out of the Forest and kill a bunch of birds."
They continued walking in silence until Finnigan finally spoke again. "Today I hated you marginally less than I usually do."
"Thanks."
"Do you think that whatever's attacking students is the same thing killing the roosters?"
Avalon turned to him and scowled. "Why are you asking me, Finnigan? Do you still think that because I'm a Slytherin, I'm evil and behind the attacks? Grow up already. I'm just as vulnerable as everyone else here."
"Yeah right," Finnigan said. "Even if you're not the one doing this, I wouldn't call you 'just as vulnerable as everyone else.' On Halloween, the message said 'Enemies of the Heir beware,' and Malfoy said, 'you'll be next mudbloods.' And who's been attacked so far? Colin Creevey. A muggleborn. And a cat, but I don't know the connection there. My point is, you Slytherins pride yourselves on your 'pure' blood. You're not vulnerable, you're sitting prety."
"Just shut up, Finnigan, for once in your life!"
The rest of the walk was tense until they finally reached the castle. They remained silent until they approached the 'splitting point' in their journey, where Finnigan would turn right to go to the Gryffindor Tower, and Avalon would exit left to reach the Slytherin Dungeon.
"See you at Duelling Club," Finnigan said smugly, twirling his wand between his fingers. "Let's hope I get the chance to hex you."
"You'll probably blow up the Great Hall in the process."
With that, they went their separate ways.
There were only five minutes until the start of Duelling Club, Avalon mused, so she'd have to do the fasted changing of clothes in her life. She was so busy rushing to her house, that she didn't see Justin Finch-Fletchley—a Hufflepuff boy in her year—until it was too late. They collided and his books and papers went flying.
"Sorry about that."
Without a word in response, Justin gathered his belongings and ran off. Avalon didn't let herself feel annoyed at this, since he was also late for Duelling Club.
She was about to leave, when a portrait a few meters down the corridor spoke to her. "Miss! Your companion seems to have dropped his textbook. It's under my frame."
The woman in the portrait was regally dressed and posing dramatically on her chais, in front of a large floor length mirror that took up the left half of the picture. She set down the bowl of fruit she had been holding/pretending to eat and waved her arms around.
"Oh thanks," said Avalon. She picked up the book and turned it over in her hands. 1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi. Neville's favorite too. "I'll give this to him at Duelling Club."
Suddenly, the portrait woman's face turned as white as a sheet, and she made a small 'o' with her mouth before rushing out of the picture and running down the corridor through the frames of her neighbors, who Avalon noticed had also disappeared. She thought she saw a flash of green in the corner of the mirror, but wasn't actually paying atteniton.
"What the…?"
Avalon leaned closer to the frame and stared at the mirror, wondering if whatever it was would come back again. And what had made the portait subjects vanish so quickly? Was it something in the picture?
Suddenly, the green thing slithered through the mirror again, and Avalon felt herself tense up. Everything went dark.
