A/N: Slight trigger warning for hints at domestic abuse at end. Longer author's note to follow.
At lunch, Evanna deliberately slid into the seat beside her brother before Parkinson was able to.
"Thank you for saving me a seat, Parkinson," she said.
"I was going to sit there!" the other girl whined.
"And you're so gracious as to allow me to speak with my brother," Evanna replied coolly, doing her best impression of her mother. "Now, if we could speak privately for a moment, I am sure you'll be understanding."
Parkinson made a noise and flounced off. Draco turned to Evanna.
"You know, Parkinson is not exactly the sharpest quill in the pot, but she's still not a pleasant enemy," he said dryly.
"I'd be more worried about making an enemy of myself, brother dear," Evanna all but cooed.
Draco scooped some green beans on his plate, carefully keeping them from touching his lamb chops. "I have no idea what you are talking about, sister dear."
Evanna narrowed her eyes, choosing the direct approach. After all, her brother was a rubbish liar-she would certainly be able to tell if he tried.
"Did you or did you not owl Father about who I was spending time with?"
Draco looked at her out the side of his eye. "You know that our father is a powerful man who you shouldn't ever make angry, correct?"
"Draco-" Evanna warned.
"Ev," Draco said. "You are my baby sister. I've told you before that I will always have your back."
I won't let you be trapped in the manor forever.
"But, Father has eyes in this school. Whether you or I owl him, he knows what his children are up to at Hogwarts."
Evanna frowned. She had not quite got the answer she had wanted, but she would accept. She had another question she wanted to ask before afternoon classes.
"So have you received any owls from home?"
"I did the day after the Sorting," he said. "But not since. Why?"
"Father says Mother is ill-I wondered if he had told you?" she said as nonchalantly as she could. Draco's fork paused for a moment on the way to his mouth, before he smoothly took a bite of his green beans and chewed it slowly. He looked at her.
They are fighting.
"No, I had not heard," he said. "Did he say what was wrong?"
Evanna shook her head. "No, but I asked Professor Snape to check in on her, bring our love and whatnot."
This time, Draco dropped his fork. It took him a moment to recover. "You did what?" he hissed in a low voice. Evanna frowned.
"The professor is Father's friend, yes?" she said. "I figured he ought to be able-"
"Evanna, you can't do that. It-it's-"
Dangerous.
"Not the done thing!" he sputtered lamely.
"Excuse me for caring about our mother," Evanna said tartly.
"If Mother is sick," he said in a low voice, "then it is a family matter. Father won't appreciate anyone poking their big noses in."
Evanna knew what her brother was saying made sense, but she would never admit it. Still, she felt better knowing that someone was checking on her mother.
"Fine then," she said. "I've got Transfiguration."
She climbed out of the bench, deliberately smacking Draco in the face with her robes and left for the lesson. As usual, she sat next to Luna, who again thanked her for the shoes. Evanna's stomach clenched with the thought of what those other Ravenclaws were doing, as if any of those questionable low-borns were as good as Lovegood…
"Here," Luna said cheerfully as they were packing up. "I owled Daddy and he sent this to me. I thought you would find it interesting-it's all about the léitheoir aigne."
Evanna frowned as the girl handed her a tome-it was bound in worn purple cloth with silver markings. The title looked to be in runes of some sort-they looked vaguely familiar to Evanna, though that was unsurprising. The Malfoy family library held vast amounts of all kinds of books, tomes, and scrolls, including some that Evanna knew spanned millennia.
"Thank you," Evanna said somewhat trepidatiously. Luna just beamed at her as they filed into the corridor.
"C'mon, Evanna," Elin was calling for her. "It's at least a ten minute walk to the greenhouses and Turpin said that Peeves set up some dungbombs on our usual way."
Evanna quickly said goodbye to Luna and scurried to catch up to her Housemates. "Are we sure it was Peeves and not those Weasley twins?"
"Does it matter? These are new robes!" Eva replied.
"What did Lovegood give you?" Elin asked.
"Some old book," Evanna replied. "I'm sure it'll tell me all about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and the like, but she wanted to thank me for making her shoes."
"You made her shoes?"
"Don't we need to get to class?"
The girls made took the long route out of the castle, making it to the greenhouses just in time. Several of their Hufflepuff classmates were still trickling in themselves, though . Evanna was only mildly surprised when Bridget Travers slid into the seat beside her.
"Ginny told me what was going on," she said. "I had thought that Lovegood was just trying to better sense the Blibbering Humdingers or something."
"The what?" Evanna replied.
"Never mind," Travers waved her off. "Any way, the people you are looking are a couple of fourth year girls-Tulip Karasu and Eliza McLaird. They are Ravenclaws, so I would be careful. They know their way around a wand."
"How did you come by this information?" Evanna all but demanded. Travers smirked in a way that made Evanna wish she had been Sorted into Slytherin.
"Hufflepuffs can find most anything, you know," she said then seemed to pause. "And I'm sorry. You seem a rather decent sort."
At that, the other girl moved away to some of her other friends and Evanna found herself rather surprised by the interaction. She filed it away for inspection at a later date. Evanna didn't speak much during the lesson, mind whirling with thoughts about her mother and her new friend, as well as what she would write back to her father. At one point in time, the groundskeeper came in to talk to Professor Sprout, warning her to ward the greenhouses as something had been killing his roosters.
"Ugh, I can't wait until we no longer have to take that class," Eva said as they left. "I hate dirt under my fingernails."
"Maybe it would help if you remembered your dragonskin gloves?" Evanna said wryly.
"I am not taking clothing advice from someone who dresses like my grandma," Eva replied, sticking her nose up in the air. Evanna bumped her hip as they made their way to the Common Room and the dorms, intending on cleaning themselves up before dinner. As they walked in, however, a silky voice came behind them.
"Ms. Malfoy, a word," Professor Snape said, emerging from the shadows. Her two dorm-mates gave her worried glances then scampered off.
The older years had warned them all that the Potions Master was just about as far away from a hands-off Head of House as one could get. Though he turned a blind eye to a few quidditch after-parties, and typically allowed them to learn whatever kinds of magic they wanted to in the Common Room, Professor Snape made sure his Snakes were of sound mind and body, always the picture of decorum. That meant he made frequent visits to the Common Room, met with his students regularly, made sure they adhered to curfew and on and on. Though, the beginning of term must have been wearing, for this was the first time Evanna had noticed the man in the Common Room.
"Have you checked on my mother already, sir?" she said, somewhat surprised. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly.
"Your mother is not ill," he said slowly.
"Then what is wrong with her?"
Her husband.
Evanna blinked as the thought seemed to wash over her with the strength of it. Though she knew very well that her father had never treated her mother very well, she also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the thought had not come from within her.
"She had an-" Snape's lip curled, "accident. She has been recovering at St. Mungo's."
Evanna's heart thumped painfully in her chest. "But why didn't-is she going to be-sir, please, can I floo her?"
"For now your father is limiting visitors and he does not wish to worry you or Draco." There was still a sneer planted on her professor's face. I would kill him if I could.
Evanna chewed her lip, an uncomfortable feeling settling in her stomach. "Sir…" she began slowly. "Was it… was it really just an accident?"
The professor looked at her with those fathomless black eyes and Evanna thought, just for a moment, that the man seemed to soften.
"Of course," he replied, "what else could it have been?"
A/N: Sorry for the delay, had to move from my aunt's to my grandparents' rather suddenly and have had neither time nor energy to write the past few days. But, I'll do my best to get back to at least a chapter every 2 days until I head to grad school. I make no promises for the semester.
Things will be getting a bit darker as we head further into Chamber of Secrets, though I will be doing a small time jump for the next chapter because honestly, I want to get to later years where things are more interesting and romance is more likely to happen (if romance thoroughly interrupted by war, espionage, and opposite sides. MWAHAHAHAHAHA). I'm trying to let more and more of Evanna's Malfoy upbringing come through-she is not unprejudiced or entirely good, though she is still only in first year. There will be time to grapple with her warped world view as she gets older. Sorry that there's not much of her and Harry right now-there will likely be next chapter.
Anyway, please read and review! Hope you enjoyed.