The Common Room had practically exploded when they heard the news of my
beating Potter. I was the hero of the hour, and all the first years looked
at me with something akin to worship. All except Cain, who just shook my
hand and congratulated me. Odd kid that, but nice to have around.
Everything quietened down after that though, even if some of them would
still come up to me and ask the incredulous "You beat Potter?" every now
and then. It felt a bit uncomfortable, but I managed.
Snape came to see me that Sunday, doubtlessly because of the duel. I was called into his office to speak in private with him, and sat there on a chair in front of his overly impressive desk and waited for him. Sometimes, I think that teachers have large desks just to frighten students into believing they're in trouble. I wasn't, so I didn't feel the slightest bit nervous. If Snape was going to threaten me, I could always talk my way out of it. I was good at talking. I'd been sitting there for about half an hour when Snape finally entered the room and swept up behind his desk. He looked at me with those black eyes of his, with no expression at all.
"You duelled Potter." It wasn't a question.
"Yes." I nodded.
"You won." Yet another non-question. He was good at those.
"Yes." Well, there wasn't much else to say, was there? I'd duelled, I'd won, end of story.
"I would give you detention for duelling Potter," He leaned forward, "But I won't, as Vincent has informed me that it took place in class, by his permission."
"By his choice not to interfere more like," I retorted, "He didn't stop us. Potter went too far, and I asked him to a duel. I won. I felt like I'd been trampled by a herd of wild hippogriffs afterwards, but win I did. Professor Lucas stepped back and let me handle it."
"Hmm. He told me the duelling class was your idea to begin with," Snape raised an eyebrow-
"It was. I shouted a bit at him, or so he says, about how useless what he had been teaching us would be if we were ever faced with a Manticore, and that was that basically." I shrugged. "Was there a point to this conversation?"
"I'm going to give you thirty points for Slytherin," He informed me, "For proving sufficient knowledge of spells and the fine art of duelling. And for beating Potter." He added it as an afterthought.
I nodded, waited for a moment for him to say anything else, but when he didn't, I got up and left. Thirty points. Thirty points for beating Potter. Amazing really; I could've broken twenty school rules and gotten detention, but I'd managed to be cunning and get away with it by following all rules. Sometimes, it was good being a Slytherin.
The duel had left me drained, physically as well as magically. The sheer intensity of Potter's powers was enough to leave me winded, but I knew I was stronger than that. Perhaps not stronger in force, but in capability of using what I had. Most of the pains I'd gotten had faded after about two- three hours, but a persistent headache remained even on Sunday, over twenty- four hours later. It wasn't a big headache; it was just behind my eyes and at the back of my head, and it was constant. That was the annoying part; that it was there all the time. Some more sleep ought to take care of it.
And so I slept my Sunday away.
********'
The week was passed on routine and nothing else. My headache hadn't disappeared, but I didn't want to go to Madam Pomfrey. She'd likely assume it was due to my cold and pitch me out the window. So I wandered through my days with a constant headache, trying to keep away from the evilly glaring Gryffindors who seemed to be hiding behind every corner. Ever since my duel with Potter, they'd been glaring at me and insulting me at every possible time; they didn't attack me though, which I had to credit their instinct for survival for. No one attacks the person who had just out-duelled the Boy-Who-Lived, did they?
Potter seemed to accept it though, despite his put-off expression. No one likes being beaten, and he was no different. Weasley was down-right furious, while Granger took it reasonably. I like reasonable people; they don't kill you without a good reason first. I would have talked to them, if I'd had the energy, which I didn't. I was much too preoccupied with my studies, head-deep into an Arithmancy chart that needed doing before the first of October. Sixth year was, if possible, even worse than fifth when it came to the work-load. And my headache certainly didn't help.
The weeks passed in a blur, and I watched as Draco and Pansy argued more frequently, as Millicent sat in a corner and watched the ever so clueless Gaspar Montague, and as Cain finally seemed to be making some friends of his own age. The duelling championship was on again, although I, as last year's champion didn't have to participate. The finalist would meet me in the final round, some time next term. So I mostly sat curled up in a chair close to the fire and worked on either my homework or read a book I'd found interesting. I wondered, not for the first time, if someone sitting on the wooden beams that criss-crossed the ceiling of our Common Room would notice the pattern that played itself out every day. It was an elaborate dance, with its participants moving along a pattern decided for time. If someone would break it, the whole dance would change. A strange way to look at things, sure, but the only way to understand Slytherin internal politics.
I fled to the library most of the time though; I couldn't stand having Draco and Pansy argue over trivial things that shouldn't have annoyed either of them. It seemed their picture-perfect relationship wasn't going to last much longer. It was odd; I'd always assumed they'd graduate and marry, but that just goes to show that you can't really be certain of anything. The library was a perfect place to escape the insane conspiracies and plots that seemed to thrive in the Slytherin Common Room. I buried myself at the back of it with my nose in a book. It was fiction, just to relax my mind. A story about vampires, and how they struggled to co-exist with mortals, or as they called them; snacks.
I'd been sitting there for quite some time, getting immersed in the mind of Dante, the book's leading character, when I heard someone else approaching. I rolled my eyes and hoped it wasn't a Gryffindor looking for trouble; every time I tried to use magic, my headache would return. Maybe I had over- exerted myself during that duel, and it would take time to return to normal again. Whatever it was, it was annoying.
As it turned out, it was a Gryffindor, but not one looking for trouble. Granger came around a bookshelf, and stopped abruptly. She'd been talking to herself, but in too low a voice for me to hear her properly. Apparently she thought I'd heard her and just stood there, paralysed. I raised my eyebrow before returning to my book. I certainly had more interesting things to do than stare at a Gryffindor. Especially this Gryffindor.
I could hear her move around among the shelves, looking for something and apparently not finding it. She muttered under her breath, and caught odd words here and there but didn't manage to get any sort of sense of them. Annoying little girls who had to come and disturb me when I was reading. The library was there so that the students could get some peace and quiet, goddamn it, not so that they could be disturbed all the time. The only good thing the situation provided was proof that she wasn't scared to death of me. I don't like people squeaking like mice and running away from me because they're afraid. I didn't know why I didn't like granger being afraid of me, but since she wasn't, it hardly mattered.
"Um, Zabini?" Amazing, she dared to speak in my presence.
"What?" I mumbled back, not looking up from my book.
"You don't happen to know what happened to the Muggle fiction they kept here, do you?"
"It's over here, on the lowest shelf," I said, waving vaguely behind me. "Pince moved it since nearly no one reads it anymore."
"Good. Thanks; it's been ages since I read something Muggle," She replied as she walked over behind me and stooped down to peruse the shelf. "Hopefully they keep some essential classics here."
She rambled on, and I could do nothing but listen to her. It was almost funny how she rambled about nothing that I was ever interested in. Maybe it was because she was nervous, or just because she felt like talking. Whatever the reason, she talked about nothing. Or rather, Muggle fictional classics. Apparently, there were many of them.
"Ah, here it is; Lord of the Rings, the best fiction ever written," She stood up again, grinning before sitting down across from me. "It's been over a year since I read it last. It's been too long."
Against my will, I was interested. From the sound of her, it was nothing short of religious the reverence she held for that book. It was a heavy book too; not that I was surprised. Granger was the sort of person who would read "Anecdotes of Great Accountants," which came in twenty seven bands, at about three hundred thousand words, just for a bit of light reading. Whatever book could make her this interested though, had to be a good one.
"What's it about?" I found myself asking.
"Oh, it was written by a Muggle, so his ideas about magic are a little different, although not much," She looked incredibly enthusiastic, glad to discuss the book perhaps, "It's set in a world that doesn't really exist, and is about this group of people who have to destroy a certain object, a ring, to ensure that the world doesn't end. Well, there's a lot more details in the book, and there's these huge wars too, but that's the gist of it."
"Interesting," I mumbled.
She smiled, somewhat nervously. Talking to a Slytherin wasn't part of her normal behaviour, even if she'd spoken to me before. I scratched my wrist absently, returning to my own book. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Granger jump slightly. She gathered up her things and stood up, before heading for the door. I stared after her. One second she'd been talking to me about some Muggle book, and the next she's heading out the door as if the devil's after her. All I'd done was scratch my arm; what was she, afraid of skin diseases? Odd. Definitely odd. I'd have to look into that some other time. Maybe Granger had a phobia I didn't know about.
I packed up my things as well and left the library, nodding to Madam Pince. I turned down the corridor, heading back to the Slytherin Common Room. It was now the second week of October, and All Hallows Eve was coming up at the end of the month. It had always been an important day at Hogwarts, as the ghosts felt it was their time of year. Even the Bloody Baron livened up around the end of October, though not by much. He didn't growl when you approached, and that was about as much as you could expect from him.
Tomorrow, it was time for another Defence lesson. It seemed that after my duelling of Potter, Lucas had decided that I wasn't as bad as I was made out to be. Apparently, he could tolerate me now. We weren't best friends, and we never would be, even if I lived long enough to graduate, but I didn't spend my afternoons arguing with him. I didn't want to argue with someone who had weird abilities. That appearing-out-of-thin-air trick he'd pulled on the first lesson wasn't half of it. There's the freaky eyes, the almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the Dark Arts and Defence, and that frightening little smile he's got going. I had wondered more than once where he'd learned it all. Too bad he refused to talk to anyone outside class and sat by himself even at meals.
****'
The Common Room was just as I had left it. Millicent and Gaspar were now playing chess, or attempting to, while Draco and Pansy had another of their blazing rows. I listened to it with half an ear as I came in through the entrance. It appeared to be about ties. Pansy using Draco's tie without permission, or something like it. Forcing myself not to scream out loud at them, I put my book down on a nearby table, and headed in their direction.
Cain, who was sitting next to a small girl and a boy with glasses, looked at me as I passed. He looked nervous. Who wouldn't be when the two most infamous members of the Slytherin House in modern time were having the row of the century? Confronting Draco when he was upset was generally considered a bad move, but at the moment, I didn't care. I had a headache, and their screaming wasn't making it any better. Besides, I hadn't gotten my normal dose of caffeine that morning, and wasn't in a good mood. The other Slytherins stepped out of my way as I walked up to Pansy and Draco, who were still shouting at each other. I stood there for a moment, neither of them noticing me, before I took a deep breath and screamed.
"Shut up!" I roared.
Both of them jumped and spun around to stare at me. Then, both of them started talking at once. I clapped my hands over my ears, and shut them out. I took another deep breath, trying to calm down, before replying.
"Shut up!" I shouted again, "Just shut up! Why are you two standing in the middle of the Common Room, screaming your heads off at each other?"
"She took my tie without asking," Draco snapped, glaring at Pansy.
"He said yesterday I could!" Pansy snapped back, "So he shouldn't come here and tell me I can't!"
"Are you two seriously fighting over ties?" I asked in disbelief. I couldn't believe it; even though it had sounded that way when I entered the room, it was just too childish for either of them. "I can't believe you! If you start picking fights over something so petty, why are you still dating? Getting along is a big part of it, you know. But, of course, knowing the two of you and your cursed pride, I guess I shouldn't be surprised you can't apologise and admit you were wrong."
Both of them had the decency to look embarrassed. Sometimes, I wondered why it had fallen to me to look after them like some kind of nanny. Maybe it was because Millicent is distracted at the moment, or maybe it was because I ran out of patience. Whatever it was, I was now standing there with the two of them looking like little children who were being blamed for the missing cookies. I turned on my best You-Shall-Burn-In-Hell glare and crossed my arms for better effect. Draco actually cowered.
"I have had it with you two screaming at each other over something as small and petty as ties, or shoes, or who gets to go to dinner first," I continued my rant. I was working myself up, and this time, I wasn't going to be stopped. "Either you stop it right now, or you break up. It's that simple. I won't stand by and watch as you destroy each other, one bit at the time. If you end it now, fine, if it continues, and I hear you fight over nothing one more time, I'll personally pitch you out the bleeding window!"
At the end of my rant, I was screaming at them. Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing just to watch the spectacle. Three parts of the Slytherin Four in a fight wasn't something that happen every day, and so it was entertaining to watch. I tried to ignore them and the deafening silence that ensued, and concentrated on Draco and Pansy. By the time I was through with them, they would be crawling on the floor, begging for forgiveness.
"I have a headache, and your shouting is only making it worse. I haven't had nearly enough coffee today, and if you even breathe loud in my presence, I won't be handing out any warnings." I threatened them, which was often the only thing that worked, "Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes." They mumbled in chorus.
"Good." I gave them a final glare before I walked away, and headed up the stairs to my dormitory.
During the rant, my headache had escalated, and was beginning to get unbearable. The whole day had been unbearable. First, Draco and Pansy not talking, and then the confusing flight that Granger had done from the library, and then having to scream at Draco and Pansy when they fought, and then the people constantly congratulating me on beating Potter. No matter how much I enjoyed having beaten Potter, the attention was getting a bit too much, and I really rather they'd leave me alone. I needed sleep.
I pulled the curtains of my bed shut, and curled up under the covers. My bed was cold, and I ran my hands up and down my arms, trying to work up some warmth. That's one of the flaws of living in a dungeon; no matter what the time of year, it's always cold. And not just average cold, but freezing. At night, when I wasn't close to the fire, or moving around, I was cold. In the winter, if I wasn't careful, my fingers turned blue from the cold. I envied the Hufflepuffs, who have the cosiest Common Room in the castle and the most secret entrances. Unfair, that's what it was. The Ravenclaw Tower wasn't too bad either, from what the few Ravenclaws I spoke with said. It was totally unfair that I should be stuck with the coldest.
I lay there for a while, staring at the curtains, before my eyes drifted shut and I wandered off to sleep.
Snape came to see me that Sunday, doubtlessly because of the duel. I was called into his office to speak in private with him, and sat there on a chair in front of his overly impressive desk and waited for him. Sometimes, I think that teachers have large desks just to frighten students into believing they're in trouble. I wasn't, so I didn't feel the slightest bit nervous. If Snape was going to threaten me, I could always talk my way out of it. I was good at talking. I'd been sitting there for about half an hour when Snape finally entered the room and swept up behind his desk. He looked at me with those black eyes of his, with no expression at all.
"You duelled Potter." It wasn't a question.
"Yes." I nodded.
"You won." Yet another non-question. He was good at those.
"Yes." Well, there wasn't much else to say, was there? I'd duelled, I'd won, end of story.
"I would give you detention for duelling Potter," He leaned forward, "But I won't, as Vincent has informed me that it took place in class, by his permission."
"By his choice not to interfere more like," I retorted, "He didn't stop us. Potter went too far, and I asked him to a duel. I won. I felt like I'd been trampled by a herd of wild hippogriffs afterwards, but win I did. Professor Lucas stepped back and let me handle it."
"Hmm. He told me the duelling class was your idea to begin with," Snape raised an eyebrow-
"It was. I shouted a bit at him, or so he says, about how useless what he had been teaching us would be if we were ever faced with a Manticore, and that was that basically." I shrugged. "Was there a point to this conversation?"
"I'm going to give you thirty points for Slytherin," He informed me, "For proving sufficient knowledge of spells and the fine art of duelling. And for beating Potter." He added it as an afterthought.
I nodded, waited for a moment for him to say anything else, but when he didn't, I got up and left. Thirty points. Thirty points for beating Potter. Amazing really; I could've broken twenty school rules and gotten detention, but I'd managed to be cunning and get away with it by following all rules. Sometimes, it was good being a Slytherin.
The duel had left me drained, physically as well as magically. The sheer intensity of Potter's powers was enough to leave me winded, but I knew I was stronger than that. Perhaps not stronger in force, but in capability of using what I had. Most of the pains I'd gotten had faded after about two- three hours, but a persistent headache remained even on Sunday, over twenty- four hours later. It wasn't a big headache; it was just behind my eyes and at the back of my head, and it was constant. That was the annoying part; that it was there all the time. Some more sleep ought to take care of it.
And so I slept my Sunday away.
********'
The week was passed on routine and nothing else. My headache hadn't disappeared, but I didn't want to go to Madam Pomfrey. She'd likely assume it was due to my cold and pitch me out the window. So I wandered through my days with a constant headache, trying to keep away from the evilly glaring Gryffindors who seemed to be hiding behind every corner. Ever since my duel with Potter, they'd been glaring at me and insulting me at every possible time; they didn't attack me though, which I had to credit their instinct for survival for. No one attacks the person who had just out-duelled the Boy-Who-Lived, did they?
Potter seemed to accept it though, despite his put-off expression. No one likes being beaten, and he was no different. Weasley was down-right furious, while Granger took it reasonably. I like reasonable people; they don't kill you without a good reason first. I would have talked to them, if I'd had the energy, which I didn't. I was much too preoccupied with my studies, head-deep into an Arithmancy chart that needed doing before the first of October. Sixth year was, if possible, even worse than fifth when it came to the work-load. And my headache certainly didn't help.
The weeks passed in a blur, and I watched as Draco and Pansy argued more frequently, as Millicent sat in a corner and watched the ever so clueless Gaspar Montague, and as Cain finally seemed to be making some friends of his own age. The duelling championship was on again, although I, as last year's champion didn't have to participate. The finalist would meet me in the final round, some time next term. So I mostly sat curled up in a chair close to the fire and worked on either my homework or read a book I'd found interesting. I wondered, not for the first time, if someone sitting on the wooden beams that criss-crossed the ceiling of our Common Room would notice the pattern that played itself out every day. It was an elaborate dance, with its participants moving along a pattern decided for time. If someone would break it, the whole dance would change. A strange way to look at things, sure, but the only way to understand Slytherin internal politics.
I fled to the library most of the time though; I couldn't stand having Draco and Pansy argue over trivial things that shouldn't have annoyed either of them. It seemed their picture-perfect relationship wasn't going to last much longer. It was odd; I'd always assumed they'd graduate and marry, but that just goes to show that you can't really be certain of anything. The library was a perfect place to escape the insane conspiracies and plots that seemed to thrive in the Slytherin Common Room. I buried myself at the back of it with my nose in a book. It was fiction, just to relax my mind. A story about vampires, and how they struggled to co-exist with mortals, or as they called them; snacks.
I'd been sitting there for quite some time, getting immersed in the mind of Dante, the book's leading character, when I heard someone else approaching. I rolled my eyes and hoped it wasn't a Gryffindor looking for trouble; every time I tried to use magic, my headache would return. Maybe I had over- exerted myself during that duel, and it would take time to return to normal again. Whatever it was, it was annoying.
As it turned out, it was a Gryffindor, but not one looking for trouble. Granger came around a bookshelf, and stopped abruptly. She'd been talking to herself, but in too low a voice for me to hear her properly. Apparently she thought I'd heard her and just stood there, paralysed. I raised my eyebrow before returning to my book. I certainly had more interesting things to do than stare at a Gryffindor. Especially this Gryffindor.
I could hear her move around among the shelves, looking for something and apparently not finding it. She muttered under her breath, and caught odd words here and there but didn't manage to get any sort of sense of them. Annoying little girls who had to come and disturb me when I was reading. The library was there so that the students could get some peace and quiet, goddamn it, not so that they could be disturbed all the time. The only good thing the situation provided was proof that she wasn't scared to death of me. I don't like people squeaking like mice and running away from me because they're afraid. I didn't know why I didn't like granger being afraid of me, but since she wasn't, it hardly mattered.
"Um, Zabini?" Amazing, she dared to speak in my presence.
"What?" I mumbled back, not looking up from my book.
"You don't happen to know what happened to the Muggle fiction they kept here, do you?"
"It's over here, on the lowest shelf," I said, waving vaguely behind me. "Pince moved it since nearly no one reads it anymore."
"Good. Thanks; it's been ages since I read something Muggle," She replied as she walked over behind me and stooped down to peruse the shelf. "Hopefully they keep some essential classics here."
She rambled on, and I could do nothing but listen to her. It was almost funny how she rambled about nothing that I was ever interested in. Maybe it was because she was nervous, or just because she felt like talking. Whatever the reason, she talked about nothing. Or rather, Muggle fictional classics. Apparently, there were many of them.
"Ah, here it is; Lord of the Rings, the best fiction ever written," She stood up again, grinning before sitting down across from me. "It's been over a year since I read it last. It's been too long."
Against my will, I was interested. From the sound of her, it was nothing short of religious the reverence she held for that book. It was a heavy book too; not that I was surprised. Granger was the sort of person who would read "Anecdotes of Great Accountants," which came in twenty seven bands, at about three hundred thousand words, just for a bit of light reading. Whatever book could make her this interested though, had to be a good one.
"What's it about?" I found myself asking.
"Oh, it was written by a Muggle, so his ideas about magic are a little different, although not much," She looked incredibly enthusiastic, glad to discuss the book perhaps, "It's set in a world that doesn't really exist, and is about this group of people who have to destroy a certain object, a ring, to ensure that the world doesn't end. Well, there's a lot more details in the book, and there's these huge wars too, but that's the gist of it."
"Interesting," I mumbled.
She smiled, somewhat nervously. Talking to a Slytherin wasn't part of her normal behaviour, even if she'd spoken to me before. I scratched my wrist absently, returning to my own book. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Granger jump slightly. She gathered up her things and stood up, before heading for the door. I stared after her. One second she'd been talking to me about some Muggle book, and the next she's heading out the door as if the devil's after her. All I'd done was scratch my arm; what was she, afraid of skin diseases? Odd. Definitely odd. I'd have to look into that some other time. Maybe Granger had a phobia I didn't know about.
I packed up my things as well and left the library, nodding to Madam Pince. I turned down the corridor, heading back to the Slytherin Common Room. It was now the second week of October, and All Hallows Eve was coming up at the end of the month. It had always been an important day at Hogwarts, as the ghosts felt it was their time of year. Even the Bloody Baron livened up around the end of October, though not by much. He didn't growl when you approached, and that was about as much as you could expect from him.
Tomorrow, it was time for another Defence lesson. It seemed that after my duelling of Potter, Lucas had decided that I wasn't as bad as I was made out to be. Apparently, he could tolerate me now. We weren't best friends, and we never would be, even if I lived long enough to graduate, but I didn't spend my afternoons arguing with him. I didn't want to argue with someone who had weird abilities. That appearing-out-of-thin-air trick he'd pulled on the first lesson wasn't half of it. There's the freaky eyes, the almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the Dark Arts and Defence, and that frightening little smile he's got going. I had wondered more than once where he'd learned it all. Too bad he refused to talk to anyone outside class and sat by himself even at meals.
****'
The Common Room was just as I had left it. Millicent and Gaspar were now playing chess, or attempting to, while Draco and Pansy had another of their blazing rows. I listened to it with half an ear as I came in through the entrance. It appeared to be about ties. Pansy using Draco's tie without permission, or something like it. Forcing myself not to scream out loud at them, I put my book down on a nearby table, and headed in their direction.
Cain, who was sitting next to a small girl and a boy with glasses, looked at me as I passed. He looked nervous. Who wouldn't be when the two most infamous members of the Slytherin House in modern time were having the row of the century? Confronting Draco when he was upset was generally considered a bad move, but at the moment, I didn't care. I had a headache, and their screaming wasn't making it any better. Besides, I hadn't gotten my normal dose of caffeine that morning, and wasn't in a good mood. The other Slytherins stepped out of my way as I walked up to Pansy and Draco, who were still shouting at each other. I stood there for a moment, neither of them noticing me, before I took a deep breath and screamed.
"Shut up!" I roared.
Both of them jumped and spun around to stare at me. Then, both of them started talking at once. I clapped my hands over my ears, and shut them out. I took another deep breath, trying to calm down, before replying.
"Shut up!" I shouted again, "Just shut up! Why are you two standing in the middle of the Common Room, screaming your heads off at each other?"
"She took my tie without asking," Draco snapped, glaring at Pansy.
"He said yesterday I could!" Pansy snapped back, "So he shouldn't come here and tell me I can't!"
"Are you two seriously fighting over ties?" I asked in disbelief. I couldn't believe it; even though it had sounded that way when I entered the room, it was just too childish for either of them. "I can't believe you! If you start picking fights over something so petty, why are you still dating? Getting along is a big part of it, you know. But, of course, knowing the two of you and your cursed pride, I guess I shouldn't be surprised you can't apologise and admit you were wrong."
Both of them had the decency to look embarrassed. Sometimes, I wondered why it had fallen to me to look after them like some kind of nanny. Maybe it was because Millicent is distracted at the moment, or maybe it was because I ran out of patience. Whatever it was, I was now standing there with the two of them looking like little children who were being blamed for the missing cookies. I turned on my best You-Shall-Burn-In-Hell glare and crossed my arms for better effect. Draco actually cowered.
"I have had it with you two screaming at each other over something as small and petty as ties, or shoes, or who gets to go to dinner first," I continued my rant. I was working myself up, and this time, I wasn't going to be stopped. "Either you stop it right now, or you break up. It's that simple. I won't stand by and watch as you destroy each other, one bit at the time. If you end it now, fine, if it continues, and I hear you fight over nothing one more time, I'll personally pitch you out the bleeding window!"
At the end of my rant, I was screaming at them. Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing just to watch the spectacle. Three parts of the Slytherin Four in a fight wasn't something that happen every day, and so it was entertaining to watch. I tried to ignore them and the deafening silence that ensued, and concentrated on Draco and Pansy. By the time I was through with them, they would be crawling on the floor, begging for forgiveness.
"I have a headache, and your shouting is only making it worse. I haven't had nearly enough coffee today, and if you even breathe loud in my presence, I won't be handing out any warnings." I threatened them, which was often the only thing that worked, "Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes." They mumbled in chorus.
"Good." I gave them a final glare before I walked away, and headed up the stairs to my dormitory.
During the rant, my headache had escalated, and was beginning to get unbearable. The whole day had been unbearable. First, Draco and Pansy not talking, and then the confusing flight that Granger had done from the library, and then having to scream at Draco and Pansy when they fought, and then the people constantly congratulating me on beating Potter. No matter how much I enjoyed having beaten Potter, the attention was getting a bit too much, and I really rather they'd leave me alone. I needed sleep.
I pulled the curtains of my bed shut, and curled up under the covers. My bed was cold, and I ran my hands up and down my arms, trying to work up some warmth. That's one of the flaws of living in a dungeon; no matter what the time of year, it's always cold. And not just average cold, but freezing. At night, when I wasn't close to the fire, or moving around, I was cold. In the winter, if I wasn't careful, my fingers turned blue from the cold. I envied the Hufflepuffs, who have the cosiest Common Room in the castle and the most secret entrances. Unfair, that's what it was. The Ravenclaw Tower wasn't too bad either, from what the few Ravenclaws I spoke with said. It was totally unfair that I should be stuck with the coldest.
I lay there for a while, staring at the curtains, before my eyes drifted shut and I wandered off to sleep.