"I need a drink." I mumbled a little too loudly. Ma heard and shot me a look. Woops, I'm not supposed to drink. I also wasn't supposed to drugs. What a bad child I was. Oh well...can't change the past. Remus was yet to close his mouth and I was starting to wish a bug would fly in there. A big bug. Maybe a bee. Bleh.
"Fine, I'm going in. Following would be a bad idea." I fumed, and then walked as calmly as I could to the Great Hall. It was dinner time, I just went there on impulse. The first thing I did was sit down at the first seat available at my house table and examine the food. Icky, all of it. I just laid my head down where my plate would have been and tried to analyze the situation. I couldn't. I ended up chewing on the band of my watch so as to keep my sanity a tad bit longer. I never understood the loveliness that is leather until I did this. I must have looked like a hamster. At least I would have been a happy hamster. I would have been content to do that for hours if someone hadn't started tapping me on the head. I looked up to see none other than Ginny Weasley looking at me with more than a little confusion across her face. "Are you okay?" she asked with wonderment.
"Oh, I'm fine." I said in a fake voice, waving my hand as if to say 'pish posh' to the very thought of not being wonderful at that moment.
"What happened to your eye?!" she cried out, astonished. I immediatly put my hand to my eye, but then remembered. It was the nasty cut I had had since school started, before actually. I had been in a fight against some chick. She started it. Filch ended up breaking it up when he arrived to drag me to the horrid school. He had ended up laughing at me for fighting. "It's just a cut...I got in a-nevermind. No need to worry. No one else has even said anything...even though I was just with my family...and none of them even noticed..." realization hit me like a brick right then. Ginny Weasley did not even know my name but she had cared enough to ask about the horrible claw mark in my face, my own flesh and blood hadn't even noticed. Oh, if I was a person who cried, I'd be bawling at that moment. Oh, how I'd cry. Instead, I stayed in character and got incredibly pissed off. I slammed my hands down on the table without even meaning to and raised myself up off the chair. I let my legs decide where I was going, all the rest of my body knew was that I needed to be alone and that would be a difficult task where I was.
My legs decided that I should hide out in the common room. I don't know if I told the password or the Fat Lady just saw my mood and let me in. I really wanted to punch somebody, which was ironic since that's what had gotten me in the whole cut position to begin with. I realized that I was in the common room after a few minutes, and looked around. The room seemed huge when it was empty. I had the choice of any couch or chair in the whole room. That was too much to think about right then. I just let my legs give and set me on the floor. I felt as if someone had used the Cruciatus curse on my brain. I hadn't felt that bad since...well, a while.
Life would have been easier if I had been left to sit on the floor, but for some reason the school insisted that I go to class on Monday. I wore my aviators. Those glasses were meant to be a warning sign of 'don't mess with me' and it worked. Remus wasn't in DADA, probably avoiding me. A smart choice. In Care of Magical Creatures I purposely let one of the meaner creatures loose. That was funny. Hagrid got it contained right away, and since I was a Gryffindor no points were taken away. Teehee. At dinner another Daily Prophet was released, another attack had happened. It was disturbing. I didn't understand. Why would someone do that? And why wouldn't they kill anyone? Not that I wanted anyone to die, but that's what was expected to happen. It was all very illogical. I did not and do not like the illogical. More than that I did not like the nervousness that the whole situation put in my stomach. I especially did not like not knowing why this was happening. Why? Who? How? How could someone or some group of people being attacking in broad daylight and no one ever seeing a face? How could the mother's all miss that? It wasn't right.
The next day I escaped the Great Hall a few minutes early, looking forward to a few minutes alone. That didn't work, as soon as I was a few feet from the Great Hall and lost in my mind, a hand grabbed my arm. Not tightly, but still I instinctively ripped it away as if I was in pain. "What was that about?" the grabber, better known as Draco, asked. "I don't like being touched." I responded coolly.
"I saw Weasley tap your head and you didn't flinch like that." he retaliated.
"Fine, I don't like it when guys touch me." I told him back. His eyebrows shot up and he looked rather amused, "Oh, you're one of those girls." he emphasized the word those, as if those girls were the reason for the amusement in the world.
"No, I just don't like to be grabbed. So don't do that." I kept the emotion out of my voice, but for once in his life Draco figured out that he really should keep his mouth shut. I was grateful, but would have been actually happy if he hadn't insisted on following me.
"So, Webb, where are we going?" he asked casually, as if he had planned on taking this minitrip with me all along.
"We?" I was hoping the tone in which I had said that would scare him off, but he just grinned. Draco really wasn't a bad guy to me, but he also wasn't what would be called 'friend-like.' Our hanging out wasn't because we wanted to, or at least not for me. It seemed to just be conveniant more than anything else.
Remus was waiting for me when I finally made my way to the Fat Lady.
"We need to talk." he immediatly insisted.
"No, I need food, shelter, and clothes. Talk is not one of those things, therefore I do not need it, and I am going to go. I have homework." I was cold, I ignored him when he protested and I ignored the way people muttered "Shame of Gryffindor" when I came in. The news that I was wandering the grounds with Malfoy (the horror!) spread like wild fire. Wild fire with the help of several tanks of gasoline. I kept my head down and my aviators on. Those sunglasses were my security blanket. With those on, no one could see into my eyes, which are the windows to the soul. I didn't want anyone peering in the windows and examining my soul. Bad people! Shoo! Away from the windows! I never actually said those words, those people were looking for a reason to commit me, I just pulled my fingers across my scalp to move my hair around. Another hand landed on my shoulder, it tried to pull me around, but I instinctively pulled away, this time with more force than before. My aviators fell down on my nose so that my eyes were exposed as I looked at the owner of the hand with big eyes. I knew it wasn't Draco this time, and I also didn't want to have to deal with anyone else badgering me on why I hated being touched. "Sorry, it's just that Lupin wanted"
"I know what he wanted!" I cut Harry off in a tone that was sharper than I had intended, but I didn't bother to apoligize. I doubted that Remus had told anyone, he was ashamed, I could see it in his eyes. He heard the way I was called "Shame of Gryffindor" and didn't want me to be his daughter. It was a mutual feeling. The only thing that made sense to me was to avoid him, ignore him, and never accept him. Harry was rather offended by my attitude, and his wand, which had before been hanging loosely at his side simply because hadn't bothered to put it up, was in my face. Before he had a chance to say anything I ripped the wand right out of his hand and stuck it up his nose. He was too surprised to do anything, and I just giggled childishly and walked away.