Someday, I will own something of great value. This will not be Harry Potter, as J K Rowling already owns it.
Start of Term
"So, do you think we'll get into the Triwizard?" Lucius had mentioned earlier that summer that the Triwizard Tournament would be reinstated at Hogwarts that year. Ryua, consequently, had done some reading to find out what it was. Although she considered taunting Draco with the information, or making him do the research on his own, she was too excited to wait. He'd never read the books on his own, or do anything suitably humiliating to get it, he'd probably just hold Parsyl as hostage or something.
"Of course!" Draco crowed, "We're Malfoys, after all."
"Yeah." Part of it was just pure family pride, of course, but the twins knew an awful lot of offensive magic for their age, and were uncontestably skilled mages. "Unless Father decrees females can't compete..."
"Like that would stop you?"
"Well, maybe not. Anyway, I'm going to go talk with some of my Arithmancy classmates, I want to review some stuff." Draco made a revolted noise, and poked Crabbe in the back. He and Goyle had just finished loading Draco's bags onto the train, and shuffled off after him. Pleased that he so agreeably left, Ryua wandered off to find the Gryffindor Trio. Well, Hermionie's in Arithmancy...
She came in to a dreamy-looking Ron, talking about shoving Malfoy off a glacier at Durmstrang. "I hope you're not talking about me, Weasley!"
Ron spun around, a sheepish grin on his face. "Er, no, Draco actually. We probably couldn't get close enough to push you anyway."
"True. It would be fun to push him off, wouldn't it? And Father likes Draco, mother likes us both." They spent a fun two hours talking about the Quidditch Cup with various Gryffindors cycling through, and daring each other to eat suspicious Bertie Botts.
Of course, it couldn't last forever. Ryua heard all-too familiar steps coming down the corridor, and during the distraction of Seamus eating a wasabi-flavored bean, slipped out, just missing Draco and friends. The last thing she needed was Draco catching her spending full time with them. She went off to find little Ashley Snape, who was also talking animatedly about the Quidditch Cup, and joined their conversation for the rest of the ride.
"I've never seen weather like this!" Ashley complained as they ran to the horseless carriages. Ryua agreed. The rain was absolutely insane, and she pitied the first years in the small, open boats crossing the lake. It didn't actually look to get a whole lot drier inside either.
Peeves had found a bag of water balloons somewhere, and was getting ready to bombard the students below. Sure enough, he hit Ron full on, and narrowly missed Hermionie. Not at all in the mood to have water balloons hurled at her by an irritating poltergeist, Ryua sent a hot jet up at the one aimed at her group. The rubber turned to ash and the water completely evaporated, much to everyone's joy. McGonnagal came and threatened Peeves enough that he finally left through the wall, dropping the rest of the balloons on the students. Ryua evaporated another coming in her direction, and filed calmly into the Great Hall.
The sorting, of course, came before food, although they did get a handful of decent looking students this year. Ryua privately wondered if anyone noticed how their house was consistently ten or more students smaller than the rest of the school. We're running out of slimey purebloods...
This year, however, Dumbledore let them eat before he made announcements. After the students stuffed themselves thoroughly, he stood up to start talking. It started the same as usual, notes about illegal items, the Forbidden Forest is forbidden, blah, blah, blah... and then, much to the horror of Ryua and Draco (the only two people left on the Slytherin team) he announced the Quidditch cup wasn't taking place. He spoke into the appalled silence, explaining that there would be something else happening instead, when the doors opened with a crash.
There stood one of the most worn looking people Ryua had ever seen. He was almost completely covered by a sopping wet traveling cloak, but she could hear a wooden leg clunking as he walked. One eye was obviously a replacement magical one, but the most disturbing thing... "Draco, most of those are curse scars!" Ryua hissed. She'd never seen so many on one person, and only Harry had one on his face. That man must have been in a lot of fights, and probably tortured too...
"May I introduce our new DADA teacher, Professor Moody," Dumbledore's voice rang out over the stunned silence. He and Hagrid clapped, then stopped quickly when the rest of the stunned crowd failed to join in. Instead, he continued to explain that the Triwizard Tournament would be held here. This was no big surprise to Ryua, although the addition of an age line was.
"Too bad about that restriction, eh?" Ryua asked Draco on the way downstairs.
"I still think I'll try for it."
"You really think you can get past Dumbledore's own age line? Good luck." Ryua skipped down the stairs, then stopped dead with a groan as she saw Blaise Zabini walking toward her.
"Ryua! So good to see you!"
"What do you want, Zabini?" Ugh! She thought, He's even worse now...
"Oh, I'm hurt, Ryua," he said, with a puppy dog expression on his face. "I just wanted to talk..."
"We're talking now. What's so important that you have to say, come on."
"Okay, come here," He pulled her out of the main flow of Slytherins and turned to face her. "Just because our fathers came up with some bizarre, outdated plan doesn't mean we have to become enemies overnight, okay?"
"We weren't exactly best friends before, Zabini."
"True," he looked down at her with startlingly dark eyes, eyes that even now held a deep, mocking glint to them. "But we're going to have to get along."
"I doubt it. Get out of my way." He reached out an arm to stop her. "Listen, just relax and give me a bit of a chance, okay? You don't have to fall all over me, just don't be quite so automatically rude."
She glared up at him, hand twitching to either hit or curse him. Unfortunately, one of the prefects was walking past, and she didn't quite dare. "Fine. I'll behave if you will. Now get out of my way. Please." I am going to kill Father for this...
