5. The Quilt of Many Colors
The Christmas break was growing ever closer, and Callie was anxiously counting down the days. Not only did she miss her parents something terrible, but she simply wanted to get away from her housemates for a while.
All the taunting and hostility from Slytherin house as a whole had died down, and Callie drifted back into obscurity. But the antagonism between her and Pansy, as well as her and Malfoy, was still going strong. The two purebloods seemed quite friendly with each other, no doubt bonding over their shared statuses as wizarding "royalty," so to speak. Plus, they each had their little minions to join in the Callie Warbeck Hate Club - Crabbe and Goyle for Malfoy, Millicent and Daphne for Pansy.
Of course, when it came to adolescent cattiness, boys had absolutely nothing on girls. And at least Callie didn't have to sleep in the same room as Malfoy and his cronies. She'd gone up to the dormitory one night after a long, exhausting day, to find that her bed had completely disappeared.
"Put it back!" Callie ordered.
But Pansy replied with an innocent face, "I didn't move it. Millie, did you see what happened?"
"No, of course not," Millicent said. "I haven't been up here all day."
That little incident had ended with Callie going to Gemma Farley, who went to Snape, who had all the girls wait in the common room while he went to conjure up a new bed. Though the pureblood pack had snickered amongst themselves while he was gone, they all fell silent when they saw their head of house wasn't quite so amused.
"If I ever have to come in here again over idiotic pranks," he warned, "you'll all be spending a night in the Forbidden Forest."
Callie wanted to argue that she'd done nothing wrong, but she was tired and knew it would be useless.
Then one day she walked into the most frequented girls bathroom to find a group of Ravenclaws giggling before a toilet stall. Written on the door were the words:
Warbeck loves her Gryffindor boys!
Five galleons for a look up her skirt.
Only two for the Boy Who Lived!
That had earned her a lot of weird looks from her classmates - as well as a few ogling eyes.
"Ugh!" she groaned, seeking solace in the empty second-floor bathroom one day after Charms. Standing over a sink in the center of the room, she tried to get a hold of her anger, studying the rise and fall of her chest in the mirror. Deep breaths, she told herself. Don't let them get to you.
Still, it was hard not to get upset when every other day, boys were coming up to her with five galleons in hand.
"God dammit!" she yelled, slamming her hands down on the sink.
"Watch your mouth!" a voice suddenly called from behind, startling her.
She turned to find a pearly figure floating in the air, a ghost girl with glasses and pigtails, who looked barely older than Callie herself.
"Who are you?" Callie asked.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my lavatory?" the ghost girl replied.
"Your lavatory?"
"Yes, my lavatory!" The ghost had shot across the room and got right up in Callie's face. "Come to poke fun at the dead girl, did you?!"
"No! Just needed somewhere to hide, is all."
The girl suddenly looked interested, rather than offended. "Hide from what?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
Callie nodded in the direction of the exit. "All of that," she said. "Everyone."
There was something sad about the girl's expression, before it turned more bitter and angry. "Buggerers, the lot of 'em," she said defiantly. She looked about as miserable as Callie felt, and whatever her story was, Callie was sure she could sympathize.
"Sorry," she said, "but... who are you?"
"Myrtle Warren."
Callie nodded. "Good to meet you." After a pause, she asked, "So, were you a student here?"
"Back in the forties," Myrtle replied, and then wailed, "Oh, it was awful."
"How so?" Callie asked.
"Nobody liked me. Said I was ugly and weird."
"Buggerers."
"Hmm."
"Nobody likes me much either. I don't really have any friends, except one."
To Callie's surprise, a great smile spread across Myrtle's face and she bounced up and down in excitement. "I'll be your friend!" she said. "You can come in my bathroom any time you want!"
Callie regarded the girl in bewilderment. How was it the only person who cared to have her around had been dead for fifty years?
"Well," she said after a moment, "thank you, Myrtle. I'm Callie, by the way. Callie Warbeck." She held out her hand for a shake, not entirely sure if ghosts could do that. But Myrtle threw her arms around Callie, attempting a hug but going right through her instead.
"Oh!" Myrtle squeaked. "Sorry. Forgot I was dead for a second."
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Later that night, Callie returned to her dormitory, walking in on a giggling Pansy and Millicent. The two fell silent at the sight of their roommate, but glared at her with contempt.
"Make any money today?" Pansy asked after a moment.
"Shove off, Parkinson, you slimy wench," Callie replied.
"Oh, let us bury the hatchet, eh?"
That stopped Callie in her tracks, and she stared at the girl in surprise.
"I have something for you," Pansy went on. "A peace offering." She stood up and pulled a large package from her trunk. Callie hesitantly took the gift, wrapped in brown paper, and tore it open.
"What the hell?" she said, unfurling a large sheet of cloth and holding it out at arm's length. It was colored green and silver, with a serpent embroidered in the middle. Callie's mouth dropped open as she recognized it as the Slytherin quarter of the quilt her mum had given her, only resized to take up the entire quilt. The Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw portions were gone.
Callie lowered the quilt to stare at Pansy. "Where did you get this?" she asked.
"Oh, I made it!" she replied. "Just for you! Quite an improvement, I say, without all the other house colors."
Callie returned her attention to the quilt, studying the exact design and comparing it to what her mother had done. It was identical. She tossed it aside and ran to her bed, looking for the original quilt that she'd brought from home. That morning it had sat atop her emerald-colored sheets, and now it was gone. She checked on either side of the bed as well as under it. Her mother's quilt was nowhere to be found.
"Where is it, Pansy? Where's the real one?"
"How should I know?" Pansy shrugged. "Last I saw, it was in a rumpled mess on your bed."
Callie grabbed up the Slytherin quilt. "Is this it?" she asked. "Did you change it?"
"Now how could I do that?" Pansy said innocently.
"A charm of some sort," Callie suggested. "Look at this, it's exactly the same as my mum's quilt. You either conjured a copy or charmed the original."
Pansy shot up from her bed to face Callie. "And what if I did?" she asked. "Nobody wants to see those colors in our quarters. These are the Slytherin quarters. And you can wave your little Gryffindor flag on the Quidditch pitch, but you're not going to desecrate our space with that trash!"
"Change it back," Callie growled.
"Piss off!"
Callie gave the girl a hard shove, pushing her back onto her bed. "Change it back or I'll hex you!" she warned. And at that, both girls reached for their wands.
Both of them were on their feet, hurling curses and hexes, illuminating the room with sparks of magical energy. Millicent had run off, presumably to get a prefect, while Callie and Pansy continued to duel.
Neither girl was skilled enough to work a hex non-verbally, so at least Callie knew when an attack was coming. She was also quite quick on her feet, physically avoiding Pansy's curses without having to deflect them magically. And then it hit her - if Pansy couldn't do non-verbal magic, her attempts to hex Callie would be useless. Recalling a silly little hex an older cousin had shown her once, Callie aimed her wand a final time, and Pansy's mouth was suddenly replaced with a big metal zipper.
"Mmm!" Pansy moaned, grabbing at the spot where her lips should have been.
It was then that Gemma Farley showed up, Millicent trailing behind her.
"What's going on here?" Farley demanded, taking in the scene before her.
All Pansy could do was moan, so Callie replied, "She ruined my quilt!"
"What quilt?"
Callie picked it up to show her. "This quilt!"
Farley looked it over and said, "What's wrong with it?"
"She changed it. It's supposed to have all the Hogwarts house emblems, but she jinxed it to only have Slytherin."
Farley eyed her, then turned on her heel, gesturing for both Callie and Pansy to follow. Pansy gave Callie a hard shove on their way out, which Callie returned.
"Enough!" Farley called over her shoulder. She led the girls out of the common room, through the dungeon corridors, to Professor Snape's office. "Good evening, Professor," she greeted coolly when he permitted them entrance.
From what Callie had seen of the man, he was rarely caught off guard. But the sight of Pansy's zipper mouth gave him pause, before glancing at Callie and rolling his eyes.
"What is this?" he asked Farley, annoyance already clear in his face and tone.
"Something about a quilt, I don't know," the prefect replied boredly.
Gesturing to Pansy's face, he turned to Callie and asked, "Did you do this?"
Unapologetically, Callie said, "Yes. She was trying to hex me."
Pansy moaned in indignation, then grabbed a quill and parchment from Snape's desk and wrote, SHE was trying to hex ME!
Snape looked from Pansy to Callie. "You seem to have a bit of trouble playing well with others, Miss Warbeck," he said.
"She destroyed my property," Callie explained.
"'Something about a quilt?'" he repeated, glancing at Farley, who nodded. To Callie he said, "Bring it here."
Callie ran back to the dormitory to fetch the quilt. When she returned, Snape looked it over and remarked, "I see nothing wrong with this."
She explained how it originally looked, and how Pansy had tampered with it. With a tired sigh, Snape said, "Change it back, Miss Parkinson," and then pointed his wand and removed the zipper.
Pansy took a big, dramatic breath through her mouth - even though she'd been able to breathe through her nose the whole time. "I can't," she said after gathering herself. "I don't know how."
"Then return to the common room and try to keep your hands off other people's things," Snape said. "And I'll see you for detention this Saturday."
Pansy was fuming, but knew better than to argue. She turned to leave, and Snape dismissed Farley as well. Callie turned to follow them.
"Not so fast, Miss Warbeck."
She paused, facing him.
"You seem to have forgotten that dueling is strictly forbidden on school grounds," he said. "Particularly for a first year with only a rudimentary understanding of offensive magic."
Callie bowed her head and said, "No, sir, I haven't. But what was I supposed to do? She came after me too."
"And you did nothing to provoke an attack?"
Callie remained silent. Truthfully, Pansy had fired her wand first. But Callie had made the initial threat.
However, that wasn't what Snape had been getting at. "Do you think it wise to be waving a flag for the opposing team during a Slytherin Quidditch match? Nonetheless displaying emblems from the three other houses in your common room?"
She couldn't fight him on the flag thing, but the quilt had been perfectly harmless. "My mum made that quilt before I came here and got sorted. She did it all by hand, without magic."
Thinking about her mum's hard work and the thought behind it, Callie had to stifle her devastation that it was now ruined. She was shaking with anger at Pansy, God damn her.
"You appear to have some sliver of intelligence," Snape went on. "Yet you insist on drawing negative attention to yourself. Tell me, why do you take pleasure in antagonizing your housemates?"
Because they're arseholes, Callie thought. However, she censored herself.
"Because I hate them, Professor."
He seemed to be waiting for her to elaborate.
"They look down on me for being half-blood. They don't even want me in Slytherin. And they're mean. Somebody started a rumor that I..." She was too embarrassed to go on, and thankfully, Snape didn't pry.
He studied her for a long moment, before finally saying, "Well, you might receive better treatment if you didn't instigate them. Plenty of half-bloods belong to our house. I've yet to have any complaints from them."
Callie's shoulders sank. They don't have to share a room with Pansy Parkinson, she thought.
"Meanwhile," Snape continued, "You'll receive a week's detention for the hex on Miss Parkinson."
Callie couldn't help herself. "She only got one day. I get a week?"
"Physically assaulting a classmate is a tad more severe than fouling up a blanket," he said.
"But she tried to get me too," Callie argued. "I was just better."
Snape glared at her, and said, "One week, Warbeck. Keep up the sass and it'll be two."
She forced herself to keep quiet, watching as he grabbed up the quilt and looked it over. "Something else you have to say, Miss Warbeck?" he asked when she continued to stand before him.
In a small voice, she said, "Can I have my quilt back?"
"Why would you want it?" he asked. "It's destroyed." He then shoved it into a drawer and went back to whatever it was he'd been doing before the girls interrupted.
Callie wanted to demand it back, but felt that anything she said would only get her into more trouble. And now her eyes were stinging with tears, and she didn't want to cry in front of him or anyone. So she simply stormed out and returned to the dormitory. It was all she could do to block out the sound of Pansy regaling their roommates with the events of the night, painting herself as the victim of "crazy wand-wielding Warbeck." She pulled her bedcurtains closed, held a pillow over her ear, and silently cried herself to sleep.
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Only one more day until the Christmas break, and Callie had actually considered feigning sickness so she could avoid everyone and stay in bed all day. It was Friday, and that meant Potions with the Gryffindors - and of course, Snape.
She was so mad at him for not returning her quilt, and was planning to demand it if he didn't give it back by the time she had to leave. Even if it was ruined, it was still her mum's gift, and it meant a lot to her.
Callie hadn't said a word to Pansy since their fight, though it killed her to have to keep her mouth shut every time the girl made some ignorant comment or tried to provoke her. But Callie was so on edge that she didn't trust herself to remain calm and rational; she was liable to hex Pansy into oblivion if she tried to respond.
In fact, she'd almost lost it when a Ravenclaw boy caught her coming out of Charms class the day before, five galleons in hand.
"So, you wanna go somewhere else or do it here?" he asked conspiratorially.
She simply stared at him for a moment, before knocking the coins out of his hand.
"Next guy to try that is getting a knee to the groin," she told Tracey as they worked on their potion together.
"Just grab the money and run," Tracey suggested. "May as well make a little profit off this."
They managed to get through the class without any explosions, and Callie was glad to be rid of Snape for the next few weeks.
"Warbeck!" he called as she was halfway out of the room. Rolling her eyes, she returned to the front of the room and stood before him. To her surprise, he presented her with a large, folded piece of cloth. "Professor Flitwick was able to lift the spell," he informed her.
She had to see for herself, and unfolded it to find the original design, with all four emblems, just as her mum had made it.
Callie had really thought it could never be fixed, and for the millionth time this week, she felt tears forming in her eyes, but fought to hold them back.
"Thank you," she said quietly, not meeting his gaze.
"You'll do well to thank Professor Flitwick also," Snape said. "You're going home for Christmas, I take it?"
"Yes," she said, surprised at the change of subject.
"In that case, seeing as how you cherish it so, I believe you'll want to bring it home with you." He paused. "And leave it there."
Callie understood that as a not-so-subtle warning. "Yes, sir," she said.
"Very well. Then I'll see you in detention after dinner."
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"Happy Christmas, Warbeck!" Pansy called out as Callie stepped off the train at platform nine and three-quarters. "Give my regards to your muggle - er, mother!"
Not caring who saw, Callie stuck up her middle finger in Pansy's direction, before turning to look for her dad.
"Darling!" his unmistakable voice called out, and Callie threw herself at him so hard, her nearly lost his balance.
"Dad! I've missed you so much!"
"Me too, love," he replied with a smile, holding her out at arm's length. "Been too damn long." He took her by the shoulder and they started off. "Perhaps I'll be homeschooling you from now on. Don't think I could stand to bring you back here in three weeks."
Though she knew he was joking, Callie couldn't help but think how nice that would be.