Cruel Beauty

Chapter Six
Kryptonite

I took a walk around the world to
ease my troubled mind
I left my body laying somewhere
in the sands of time
I watched the world float to the dark
side of the moon
I feel there's nothing I can do—Three Doors Down

I discovered the next day that Hogwarts' classes proved to be nothing that could even resemble a challenge to me. I could do the assignments that my professors gave me in my sleep.

I remember my first class, Potions. I entered the room with my usual cool and looked for a place to sit. The only place that was unpopulated was the front row. I shrugged and headed for that table, the horror stories of this teacher must have traveled fast if no one wanted to sit in the front of the room.

I observed the other students in the class while waiting for the professor to arrive. The Gryffindors, who I found out that I had practically every class with, looked almost sick with fear. The Slytherins were looking pretty arrogant, being that this was our Head of House and all. But that confidence still wasn't enough to get any of them to join me in the front row.

Professor Snape entered the classroom with a quickness that you wouldn't think possible for a man his age. His outfit and overall presence screamed evil villain—I supposed that he was simply trying his best to confirm Gryffindor fears.

His black eyes scanned the room and stopped on the lone figure in the front of the room, me. "Miss Evansole, most of the potions that we brew in this class require you to work in pairs. A Gryffindor student is currently in the Hospital Wing for falling off a staircase—typical Gryffindor insolence. You will be partnered with him."

I looked Snape in the eyes, "I prefer to work alone."

"I was not offering you a choice Miss Evansole. However, I can sympathize with your apprehension to work with a Gryffindor, you may work unaccompanied. But do not expect easier assignments or more time to finish that which is required."

I could hear the Gryffindors angry whispers about Slytherin special treatment. "You do not have to worry about my completion of the work. I'm sure that you will find it satisfactory." With that finished with Snape preceded to lecture on the precise art of potion making until the period was over.

My next class of the day was Herbology, which I can safely say is one of the most boring things that I have ever experienced. Honestly, who cares about plants? And Professor Sprout is a little too into the whole plant thing, it's just unnatural.

After a grueling few hours in Herbology the school was all dismissed to lunch, which proved to a punishment in itself.

I sat down at the Slytherin table and waited for the food to magically appear. I looked up at the head table and saw Dumbledore waiting for all students to settle down and get to their respective tables before providing the food. Draco sat down across from me with a bodyguard on each side. "Hello, Draco…" I paused and looked to Crabbe and Goyle, "Draco's shadows." However, they were too busy glaring at the Headmaster, as if trying to will him to clap his hands together and make the food appear to acknowledge my greeting.

I found that watching Crabbe and Goyle eat caused me to lose any appetite that I had. I looked in disgust as they mindlessly shoveled the food into their mouths as if they had not eaten in weeks. I sat down my fork and thought of Velena for the first time. When Velena ate it was graceful and synchronized. I remembered the first time that we ate together; I was amazed at how she ate so elegantly. I attempted to copy her every motion and wished that I was as sophisticated as her.

I almost laughed at the bitter irony of it all. I saw myself as a confused six year old, seeing the beauty of my aunt. I was no exception to her hypnotic powers, it took me years to see underneath her exquisiteness and spot the hideous soul that resided there. I was now a "mature" eleven and I knew that I was becoming the same way. Good lord, just look at how I treated my own blood relatives. But I held no remorse; it didn't matter to me that I was everything that I despised about my aunt. This was the person that I was expected to be, who was I to disappoint?

After lunch I had Transfiguration, but I was in a very poor mood. I was always bad tempered after I had been thinking about Velena. She tends to have that affect on people.

I discovered that I truly did not like Professor McGonagall. That woman is a Gryffindor to the heart. I constantly hear other students complain about Snape's favoritism within his own house, but they have obviously never been a Slytherin in McGonagall's class. She may not be as openly hostile as Snape, but you could see the resentment in her eyes every time she looked at a Slytherin.

I subjected her to my cold stare throughout the entire class. She refused to look me in the eye and once, while trying to ask me a question she stuttered horribly. It amused me that I could make a grown woman so unnerved by my stare. I suppose that it would have startled me also if I had been receiving such a detached glare from an eleven year old. I only hoped that she had was subjected to it from Draco as well.

After that I only had History of Magic, which I didn't find quite as horrible as most. The majority of students here are not intellectual enough to appreciate history lessons. They are all too caught up in their own petty worlds to care about what happened years ago. That is one of the major problems in the world today; people are too incompetent to learn from the mistakes of the past, so they simply repeat them again. Granted, the not-quite-alive professor was rather boring…but after the tutors Velena hired and the lessons from Velena herself, I could stay awake through anything.

After dinner, which proved to be a sad repeat of lunch, I went to the library to read in the one place that I could be sure to find empty on the first day of classes.

I sat at my table absorbed into the dark world of Sylvia Plath, my current pleasure reading—Velena approved, of course. Velena had luckily gotten more lenient in my allowed readings. Plath was the first American I had been permitted to experience, and one of the few muggles. She, however, would not be the last. I already had a trunk full of novels I wished to read before the break, including Hemingway and Tolstoy.

I was torn from my bliss of reading when I heard someone clear their throat beside me. I looked over and saw the black Hogwarts robes with a lion embroidered on the chest. My gaze continued upward; black unruly hair, glasses, lightning bolt scar—Harry Potter.

"Hello Ginevra," he greeted nervously.

"Harry." I said impassively. He took my response back to him as an invitation to join me. He sat down in the empty chair to my right and began to play with his fingers, an anxious habit no doubt.

He proved his Gryffindor courage and looked up at me. "I wanted to talk to you about your brothers. I just wanted to let you know that you really hurt them with the things that you said, you have no idea how much they were looking forward to seeing you again."

"Their injured feelings are none of my concern, and certainly none of yours. Who are you supposed to be, their martyr?"

Harry's green eyes darkened, "Your brother Ron is one of my best friends, and it is my place to help him when I can. Your family has provided what my own never could—a real, loving family for me to take part in. What you did today hurt them, and I just thought that you should know that."

"How gracious of you," I drawled while my gaze slipped down into my book. "But, in my opinion, if my 'brothers' were truly so concerned with my well-being and so wanted me to be a true Weasley and whatnot, then they should not have waited five years to even speak to me."

"They tried!" Harry argued. "I know that they wrote you and that they tried to visit you. You have no idea what your family went through, all that they suffered and sacrificed just to keep a place to live while you grew up in some mansion, ignoring them."

"Harry, how I grew up is completely over your level of comprehension so I suggest that you stay out of things that you do not understand." I gathered my things and stood up, "Do not seek me out again."