As soon as she had sent Harry, Hermione, and Ron on their way, Professor Rose slid back into her classroom, shutting the door gently behind her and leaning against it as Snape had done only minutes before. She stared at her desk, it's surface littered with papers to be graded, knick knacks, a tiny, centimeter high pixie in a globe, flitting around its' habitat carelessly, and a model of an ancient looking castle among other things.

Slowly, almost measured, she approached the cluttered piece of furniture and with a sudden angry energy, swept all the papers onto the floor, her entire body rigid as she watched them fluttered like feathers in the air. As the last one hit the floor, she crumbled, folding in on herself, hugging her legs to her chest and shaking her head, shoulders and body heaving.

"He doesn't love me. No one does. No one can. No matter what he thinks he's feeling… he isn't. It's just my glamour, just my charm. Just the fact that I'm a veela."

After sitting there for a few more minutes, she slowly brought herself to her feet and walked swiftly over to a corner cupboard and threw open the door. Inside the cupboard was an ornate, shallow bowl, filled with a shining, silvery liquid. She stared into the liquid and was drawn back…

"Ophelia!"

She turned suddenly to find herself in a shop of some sort. A bookshop. It took the veela a moment to realize where she was. She was inside her memory.

Before her eyes she watched a young man with a goatee and mustache hurrying towards her younger self who was crouched, staring intently at the bindings of the used books.

Tackling her from behind, the young man caught her in an embrace. Her younger self blushed and smiled, obviously pleased at the attention and affection she was receiving.

"Are you ready? Have you picked out a book yet?" the man queried, ticking her sides briefly before letting her go.

"Yes. I have. Are you ready then as well?" she watched herself ask, still blushing furiously.

"I certainly am! Let's pay and then be on our way," The brown haired man offered her his hand as he stood, which her younger self gladly, almost too gladly, took.

Then the memory faded

But another appeared.

It occurred mere hours after the first, Ophelia recalled, seeing that her other self was dressed exactly the same. The scene, however, was a basement family room, lit with a soft yellow light. There was brown colored furniture littering the room rather randomly and an old, beat up armchair had been thrust into the corner, with Ophelia and the young man curled up on it.

As Professor Rose watched them, she saw their faces inch closer and closer to one another, before they pulled away, almost embarrassed. This silly, obvious act was repeated close to ten times before their lips touched, tentatively at first, then more assured, and soon, Ophelia was watching herself do things she would have rathered she didn't have to see.

As the embarrassed veela turned her face away from the kissing couple, the landscape shifted into a cold attic room where her younger self sat, sobbing on the floor, little bony shoulders heaving. Looking closer, Ophelia saw cuts on her legs and arms, finally realizing

*He had hurt me… We fought and I didn't know how to stop hurting…* She stared at the razor cuts on the young veela's legs, her legs and shuddered, remember what she had done, what her philosophy had been. As if on cue, her younger self murmured breathily

"Physical pain numbs emotional pain."

She wasn't sure where she had heard it first, but wished she hadn't.

Again the scene shifted, this time to her and the boy Ophelia had seen herself with earlier, sitting on a log at the crest of a green, grassy hill. It was autumn and the wind nipped at their noses, making them red.

She was crying.

He told her that he couldn't be with her any more, that she made him do things, stupid things he would never do if she weren't around, that he wasn't sure if he even loved her, that she was still beautiful, that if he were choosing a woman based solely on looks, she would be his very first choice, that the sex had been great, that they were not right together, and then back to the fact that her presence made him do things that he didn't want to do.

She cried.

She begged him to stay.

She threatened to kill herself.

She cried some more.

He simply shook his head.

Ophelia watched herself in such a hopeless display, almost ashamed. *I should never have given him such power over me, over my feelings. I should have known he only wanted me because I was a veela. I was a fool.*

Slowly now, the scene shifted again, this time to her young self and another young man, this one tall, well built, handsome, well groomed, and very much obsessed with her body.

They were kissing. He was saying he loved her. Clothing was being shed slowly, bodies were moving erotically.

Ophelia turned away.

*I could watch a million more scenes from my life like this. I did it to myself a million times. I fell in love, I worked my charms, they told me they loved me, I believed them, I got hurt. End of every single one of those stories.* she thought bitterly, her mind now wandering to Snape and how he too would become one of another thousand if she let him. It would be very easy to gain his companionship in any way she desired. Any way but in real love. He would never love her. No man would ever really truly be able to love her.

Being a veela made it impossible.

She sighed and drew herself out of the pensieve, back into her office and the mess she had created. With a disgruntled sigh at her own temper, Professor Rose began gathering up the papers she had scattered in her tempestuous burst of emotion.

Finding the last paper hiding under her tank of exotic tropical mini- nymphs, Ophelia laid the stack gently on her desk, straightened the old ink blotter she had bought in muggle London, where she had lived a good bit of her life despite her veela heritage, and seeing that the office was in order, retired to her room without getting any of the work done that she had wished to.

********

Later that afternoon the trio of Gryffindors headed to Professor Rose's office rather than dinner, as ordered.

"You know, Rose really did let us off a lot more lightly than we deserved," Hermione noted, seeing both Ron and Harry's shoulders slumping lower and lower as they neared the office they were to clean.

"No, it's not that. It's just, well, we've got this great dirt on Snape and we can't even talk about it!" Ron moaned, shaking his head sadly.

Hermione seemed as though she was about the give Ron a good smack, when Draco Malfoy stepped around the corner on his way to dinner.

Sneering, he pointed in the direction he was headed, "Oh look, it's Potter, the Weasel and Granger. The Great Hall is that way you stupid gits, or aren't you going to dinner? You might want to get some free food while you can Weasley. I hear your mother doesn't have all that much to spare, what with your family being so poor and all."

Before Ron could leap on Draco and rip out his throat or his testicles (whichever seemed more readily available), Harry grabbed him by both of his arms, muttering "We're already in enough trouble as it is. Do you want to make things worse?"

Despite the low tone of Harry's voice, Draco must have heard them, because he leaned forward. "You're in trouble? Really Potter? What kind of trouble? Does Dumbledore know?"

"Look Malfoy, Harry and Ron just need a little extra studying time for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Rose said we could use her office during dinner tonight. Do you have a problem with that?" Hermione took a menacing step towards Draco, drawing herself up to her full height.

Luckily, Draco backed down.

"Fine, Granger. But just you wait until the Triwizard Tournament. I'll be in it and I'll win and then we'll see who the professors around here take a liking to. You won't be so perfect any more Potter! No one's going to die because of you this year."

Harry practically growled, "No one died because of me. I didn't kill Cedric. Voldemort did."

"Oh fine, you can see it your way and I'll see it mine," Draco replied flippantly, waving them away with his hand as he proceeded to dinner.

Hermione continued to scowl long after the Slytherin boy had left their sight. "I really really hate him."

**********

A/N: Yeah, short, dumb chapter, I know. I just wanted to explain why Ophelia is being, well, a bitch, kinda. I promise that the Triwizard Tournament is coming up soon! I just have to write the different challenges. That is not going to be easy, mind you, but I got myself into it, eh?