Someday, I will own something of great value. This will not be Harry Potter, as J K Rowling already owns it.
Athena Diagon Cat made an excellent point yesterday: Ryua uses some charms very well, although she has difficulties with the class. The answer is that a charm like Silencio can be used for nefarious purposes, or even a purpose that you can actually see. Subconsciously, Ryua learns 'useful' magic (namely anything useable in a duel or similar situation) easily and willingly. Deep down, she sees no real purpose in making spoons perform a ballet, for instance, so her magic refuses to waste itself.
The Buttons and The Prophet
When Ryua made it into the common room that morning, she was rather astounded to see Draco. Not only was he awake well before he needed to be, he was downright chipper. He was bouncing from person to person, handing out something in great quantities. "Morning Ryua, here you go..." he said, dropping something metal and round in her hand, skipping off to ambush a bunch of sleepy second-years coming out of the dorms.
She looked down at the object and groaned. Looks like Draco's managed it... How did he get so bloody good at charming things? The little black button sitting so calmly in her hand spelled out in glowing red letters: Support CEDRIC DIGGORY- the REAL Hogwarts Champion. Ugh, he is so immature. She briefly considered trying to spell it to say Harry's name instead, but aside from getting her into trouble with certain people, it probably wasn't something she could do anyway. Ryua contented herself with dropping it casually in the fireplace on her way up to breakfast, where Draco and entourage handed them out to whoever would take them (a surprising number).
DADA wasn't actually too bad, mostly because there were no Gryffindors present, they being off in Charms. And no one seemed to thing Moody would find the buttons amusing, so they didn't make an appearance. Even though Ryua knew most of the spells Moody lectured on from her readings of dusty old tomes at home, this was the first time she'd had a chance to discover why they worked, how they could be modified, blocked, strengthened... altogether a good class.
And Potions in the afternoon! Ryua was cheerful about that for a few seconds, considering it was her best class, but then remembered it was with the Gryffindors. Oh well, Harry's fairly mature, it shouldn't bug him that much...
Of course, she hadn't betted on Hermionie being more upset than Harry. "Oh, very funny, really witty." She said sarcastically. Ron, being as sullen as ever, didn't comment, although he didn't join in the laughter either.
"Want one, Granger?" Draco asked, "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, see, don't want a Mudblood sliming it up." Of course he'd bring that up... And it was that which finally goaded Harry into action. He pulled his wand, ignoring Hermionie's protests. "Go on then, Potter, Moody's not here to look after you now – do it, if you've got the guts..." Draco said, quietly teasing, drawing his own wand. Ryua ducked behind Goyle just as they set off curses.
With a freak occurrence, both spells managed to ricochet and go spinning off wildly to hit Hermionie and Goyle, narrowly missing Ryua who fit nicely behind his bulk. He was covered in ugly boils, which probably stung horribly. Nice curse, Harry... And poor Hermionie appeared to be growing an impressive set of fangs. Of course, when Snape showed up, things only got louder as the entire Slytherin house tried to say what had happened. Not one to miss a chance to get Harry in trouble, Snape pointed at Draco for an explanation. He sent Goyle off to the hospital wing, but rather unfairly passed right over Hermionie. She left on her own, sobbing now. Since Goyle, her partner this week, was in the Hospital wing, Ryua hung back to the end of the queue, so she could sit with Harry with the excuse that he was the only one open. He was fuming, naturally. "That little arrogant, biased, slimy- haired..."
"Harry, don't. He'll hear you." Ryua tried to calm him down as much as possible without arousing suspicion. Oddly enough, Snape seemed to do it for her, announcing he would be poisoning someone at the end of class. Harry blanched slightly, knowing perfectly well that Snape planned to poison him, likely with something no one had an antidote for. "Why does he hate you so much anyway?"
"He and my dad were pretty bad rivals in their day, as bad as me and your brother. Apparently, I look almost exactly like him."
"Seems a dumb reason to hate you. He's got a lot of hate built up though, I guess you're just the most accessible outlet." Harry was just about to ask what she meant when Creevy (the elder) edged into the room, saying Harry was wanted by Ludo Bagman. Luckily for Harry, he not only got to leave, he wasn't even supposed to come back later for testing.
It turned out that life wasn't a lot better for him up in the photography room. Rita Skeeter, bane of anyone famous, had written a rather horrid four-page piece of drivel for the Daily Prophet on Harry. It was probably supposed to have been about all four Triwizard Champions, but their names (Flour Delicur and Victer Krum, there was no mention of Diggory) were squashed into two lines at the very end. The rest was completely blown out of proportion, and completely out of character. Ryua couldn't help laughing with her fellow Slytherins at it, although probably for different reasons. Of course, Draco was the one who waved it in Harry's face.
She felt really sorry for him after a while. Everywhere he went, people quoted '...I still cry about them...' and '...has at last found love..." and similar bits and pieces, offering him tissues, jeering about his 'top marks'... Needless to say, he was rather on edge. So when Ryua scooped up his quill and handed it to him, he started in on a rant about going off to cry about his dead mum if no one minded. "Well fine, if that's the way you really feel about it..."
Harry jumped. Apparently, all he'd noticed was the Slytherin green on her robes and hadn't bothered to even try to identify her. "Oh, sheesh, I'm sorry Ryua... I didn't know that was you..."
"Meh, you're allowed to blow up, considering all this crap you've been going through. And even if you actually did feel sad about your parents, it's none of their business, right? We've all got perfect families..." Ryua trailed off at that. She couldn't actually imagine feeling much sorrow about her Father... "Anyway, good luck on Tuesday!"
"Er, thanks." Harry seemed rather at sea, hearing the first nice words he had in days.
At least Hermionie seemed to be holding up. She was much more secure about herself, and had only been mentioned for one paragraph as Harry's first true love anyway. In fact, the two of them had had a rather excellent giggle about it during Arithmancy, imagining wedding plans, ridiculously long, sappy love poems (your beautiful bushy hair... exquisitely ink-stained fingers...), and what the children of Harry and Hermionie would look like (eurgh! Could you imagine? They would never have a good hair day in their entire lives...). When they separated for lunch, in fact, both Ron and Harry recovered from their animosity to ask what was so funny, and Ryua bulled her way through with a slightly edited version of the truth for Pansy and co.
