Vienna lay under the silk sheets shivering, the velvet comforter pulled high over her head. She sneezed, then coughed, and sneezed again. To top it off, she'd gotten a cold. What a wonderful night.
"Vienna? You coming to Potions?" Asked her room-mate, Crystal.
Vienna adamantly shook her head in refusal.
Crystal walked out, leaving her alone there. The silence was unbearable, so Vienna brought her battery-powered boombox out, which worked because it didn't need to pick up any signals. She put in a C.D. of rap, listening to the heavy beat as she drifted in and out of a nightmarish sleep, constantly caught in the dim, hazy fog of indescision and confusion that she was so unused to.
----
As the cold faded, it seemed to take her vitality, her spunk. Her teachers, while relieved, were worried that she no longer had full-contact karate battles with the boggarts, or attacked the potions with screams and curses. She did everything right, staying out of notice.
Rumor had it, she had told Draco to get another date, because she wasn't going to the dance.
She refused to speak to her old friends and stared into space continuously, looking out windows until someone had to pull her away due to the freezing cold, her beautiful eyes pale and watery, her skin horribly white. She let her hair lay in it's natural loose spirals, soft and black, on her shoulders, never bothering with the neon colors or anything else.
No one saw her speak unless she was called upon in class, and then her voice was soft and whispery, like the wind through the reeds on a dark river.
"Vienna...?" Harry asked during Care of Magical Creatures.
No response from the kneeling girl, working on the project given to them, feeding the animal apathetically.
Draco made a snide comment across the paddock and Ron growled, Hagrid blushing.
Harry knelt next to her, and touched her hand. "Vienna..."
"Please go away." She said, yanking her hand back, shivering again at human contact. She couldn't look at him, the Boy Who Lived.
Draco came, standing over her, the soft fabric of his cloak brushing against her in a swirl of chilly air, then the heat that came from his body. "Vienna. We need to talk. Be in the common room at five." He said, walking off again to her submissive, quiet nod.
"Vienna, what's WRONG with you?" Ron demanded.
Vienna started to crack, shivering badly, and stood up, her recently meek façade dropping slowly. "What's wrong? WHAT'S WRONG?! MY PARENTS ARE FUCKING DEATH EATERS, THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG! THEY WANT ME TO JOIN THEM, TO KILL HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE IN THE NAME OF PUREBLOODS! THEY WANT ME TO BE WHORE TO VOLDEMORT, JUST TO EARN THEM POWER! I'VE BECOME A PAWN IN A GAME I SWORE NOT TO PLAY, THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? NOW YOU KNOW! NOW JUST STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME, ALRIGHT?!" She screamed at them.
Everyone watched her, and a few whispers broke out. Hagrid raised his hand. "Maybe y'should go talk ter Dumbledore..."
"Make me, you useless oaf." She hissed, spinning on her heel and sweeping off towards the castle, leaving her supplies sitting on the ground.
She could feel the Dream Team's eyes on her back, angry, confused. She hunched her shoulders against the wind and started to run again to the castle, bursting through the doors, and quickly into her common room with a choked sob, falling in front of the fire, shaking, trying to hold back the tears.
"Hello." Whispered a near inaudible voice from a couch, full and sweet, with the slightest edge of a rasp on it.
"Go away..." She sobbed, starting to cry.
"Alright." Was the response, and she heard a page turning.
Curiously, she looked up at who spoke, the tears glimmering in blood-red tracks down her cheeks, the firelight kissing them sunset-red.
A boy sat there, skin a delicate porcelain white, hair falling to his shoulders in hair an indefinite shade of black, almost grey, soft and wispy, delicate curls, the tips of which brushed his shoulders, loose, not anything like spirals...just, loose. He looked up at her, and his eyes were a gleaming turquoise, the firelight flecking it gold in the light. He watched her quietly, not saying anything, just looking.
Vienna stared at him, taking in his lean body, and his beauty, doll-like, his thick lashes settling on his cheeks each time he blinked, the slightest sprinkling of silver freckles across his nose. He was beautiful, that was the only way to describe it. Like a doll, fragile, yet ever so delicate to look on, the perfect picture.
"I've never seen you before."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't. I try not to be seen." He responded.
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"But why?"
"Oh...because I don't want irritating friends, people I don't like, and those who I don't like yet find attractive somehow to bother me."
"What year are you in?"
"Sixth." He said.
"I'm in fifth."
"Interesting. How do you like it?"
"...What's your name?" She asked, avoiding answering the most questions she could.
"Jagaer Rion-Maul. And you? You must be the famous Vienna Lestrange."
"Yeah, lucky me." She said.
Slowly the drifted in and out of conversation, two now-anti-social students bonding together with gleaming smiles and secretive glances, playing a game to see who could get the other to reveal the most information, as the hours sped by, bourne on the bright wings of time.
A/N: Short chapters, sorry. My brain has been slowly disintegrating...not fun. lol. This chapter goes out to my darling Prince Patrick, from whose bedroom ceiling I would be hanging by my toes had I not updated, ;), and to Lizard, Xandra, and of course, as always, my bestest friend in the whole wide world, Bambi.
