After the sorting ceremony, the evening seemed to move forward in hyper drive. They stuffed themselves with food that was almost as good as what Dobby made for them at home, and finally shuffled after the Slytherin Prefect who was to show them the way to the Slytherin Common Room. It was difficult to keep their eyes open, being so happy and full, and they were sure they wouldn't be able to find their way back to the common room the next day as the prefect led them back through the entrance hall and down the stone steps into the dungeons. Eventually the prefect stopped in front of a bare stretch of stone wall, much like all of the other walls they had passed and said clearly "Pure-blood". The wall seemed to slide back to reveal a passage and they all moved through the passageway in silent awe.
The passageway opened up into a large chamber that was decorated in the Slytherin colours of emerald green and had large floor to ceiling windows that Cornelia was astonished to see seemed to look out into the bottom of a lake. Everything about the chamber was ornate and decadent, with green leather chesterfield sofas placed around an enormous fire that warmed what would have otherwise been a freezing common room.
Cornelia was gestured in the direction of the first year girls dormitory and followed a group of giggling witches through a heavy door and down more stone steps into a spacious room filled with large four poster beds.
"We're all in the same room?" A girl with a small face and turned up nose scoffed as soon as they entered.
"Nobody had better touch my stuff." Another large and intimidating girl said as she strode over to the bed furthest from the door and plonking herself down in the middle of it, glaring round at them all.
"Why would anyone want to touch your stuff?" The first girl laughed, choosing the bed beside the second girl. "I'm Pansy by the way, what are all of your names?"
"Millicent." Grunted the second girl.
A blonde girl was lingering by the door with Cornelia and she cast a shy look in her direction. "I'm Daphne Greengrass."
"That's a nice name." Said Pansy in what Cornelia thought was an annoyingly yappy voice.
"Tracey." Said a sullen looking girl who made to start unpacking her things from her trunk, not making eye contact with anyone.
"I'm Sally-Anne, nice to meet you all." Piped up a cheerful looking Black Irish witch who had hopped onto her own bed, smiling broadly as she considered the room around them.
"And you?" Pansy nodded her head in Cornelia's direction after a moment of quiet.
"I'm Cornelia." She said lowly, too tired to engage in too much conversation. She had moved over to the bed closest to the door and began to remove her robes. She could feel the other girl's eyes on her and could sense them silently communicating with each other. Pansy's irritating voice rang out again.
"Lestrange right? As in Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter." She could hear the sneer in her voice and bristled.
"That's right, is that a problem?" Cornelia turned around and looked Pansy straight in the eye who blinked in surprise.
"Not if you don't make it one." Pansy cocked her head to one side, her eyes challenging Cornelia's tone.
Cornelia slowly pulled out her wand and began spinning it in her hands like she had done on the train. Pansy's eyes followed the movement, a flicker of fear passing across her face. The other girls seemed to be holding their breath, Millicent leaning forward eagerly. After a long moment Cornelia put on her best Uncle Lucy dangerous smile and tapped her wand on her hand before placing it on her bedside table. "I'm too tired to play with you tonight. Maybe tomorrow."
Pansy didn't reply to this and Cornelia climbed into bed, her ears pricked to Pansy and Millicent's whispers.
"Did you see her face?"
"I'd sleep with one eye open tonight if I were you." Millicent replied, sounding completely unconcerned.
The next day Cornelia awoke to find that Pansy, Millicent and Daphne had already left, Tracey glanced at her sheepishly whilst Sally-Anne rushed around packing her bag and pulling on socks. Draco informed Cornelia that he had heard Pansy Parkinson telling people that she was as crazy as her mother and pressed her for details when she emerged in the common room. Cornelia's stomach dropped at his words, even though he sounded impressed. She had hoped that people wouldn't know about her mother's antics but it seemed that she had a reputation even amongst children her age. She suddenly remembered the whispers when her name had been called at the sorting ceremony and cringed internally; How many people knew about her mother and were secretly comparing them and judging her? She suddenly became hyper aware of student's eyes on her and wondering if they were looking at her oddly.
Automatically she acted in the way she had been taught, like a noble woman. How many times had Aunt Cissy drilled into her how to act when faced with difficulty? How many etiquette lessons had she had to train her for what seemed like this moment? Cornelia watched her step, head held high, blank expression. "Keep quiet and calculate, the time for action is when you are fully prepared." Aunt Cissy had said, and so Cornelia did.
She stuck close to Draco all day, quietly listening and watching the students mill around her. She kept a particularly close eye on Pansy, who mysteriously always ended up on the other side of whichever room they were in to her. She noticed that she had sidled up with Millicent, who reminded Cornelia of a female version of Crabbe, and Daphne, who was always touching her silvery hair. Pansy kept up a consistent whispering in their ears, her small eyes darting around the room.
Cornelia was also interested to observe how Draco acted now they were around other people. Similarly to Pansy he was never more than 3 feet away from Crabbe and Goyle, and Cornelia noticed that he had adopted an expression very similar to one Uncle Lucy sported, one of haughty disdain. He seemed to be doing his own sizing up of the people around them, noticing the weaker looking students and pointing them out to her, Crabbe and Goyle, the boys snickering darkly.
As Cornelia listened to his comments she was shocked to discover that he already knew of a surprising amount of students, reeling off information about their families. Familiar jealousy curled in her stomach as she remembered all the times Uncle Lucy had taken Draco with him to network either at dinners or the ministry, parading him around and introducing him to his contacts. Cornelia had meekly asked to go with them once, only to be laughed at by Lucius and patted on the head before being left staring at the empty fireplace where they had floo'd to the ministry.
She clearly had a lot of catching up to do, and she quietly asked Draco about their fellow Slytherin first years at breakfast. Draco puffed his chest out proudly before proceeding to give her the breakdown of what he knew.
"So that guy there is Blaise Zabini." He gestured his spoon in the direction of a very pretty dark-skinned boy that sat further down the table to them. Cornelia could spot from one glance that Blaise had had some kind of etiquette training by his straight back and the way he neatly applied jam to his toast. "His mother's Rosalind Zabini, have you heard of her?" Cornelia shook her head. "Well she's known as the black widow, she's had like 7 husbands who've all died "mysteriously" and left her all their money."
"So he's well off?" She murmured, throwing side glances in Zabini's direction as often as she could whilst still being discreet.
"Oh yeah, super rich. Not as rich as father of course, and it's all new money but still. And next to him is Theodore Nott, his father wrote The Pure-Blood Directory."
Cornelia knew of The Pure-Blood Directory of course, they had studied it in their magical history classes. Although the author hadn't penned their name, it seemed Uncle Lucy must have known who it was and disclosed that information to his son. Her eyes travelled over Theodore who was a skinny runty looking boy.
"And what about Pansy?" she asked noncommittedly, not needing to look at the girl in question. Draco smirked at her, his eyes flitting over her face.
"You're mad aren't you?"
"Not as mad as my mother." She replied, her tone was clipped but she knew that Draco would be able to read between the lines. Yes, she was mad. Draco laughed before continuing.
"Well they're the Parkinsons from the twenty-eight." Cornelia nodded, she'd assumed that would be the case from how cocky Pansy was. "I think it would be her great grandfather who was the minister of magic for a while. Tried to pass a law against marrying muggles. Didn't go through obviously, plenty of blood traitors and mudbloods in here."
"Any that I should know of?"
Draco's face twisted meanly and he glared across the room. Cornelia followed his gaze but couldn't pinpoint who he was looking at in the sea of students. "The Weasleys, they're the biggest blood traitors going."
Cornelia had heard Lucius mention the name Weasley a couple of times as they ate together in the evenings. His face was often contorted in the exact same way Draco's was now, as if the name tasted foul in his mouth. She had gathered that the Weasley he spoke of worked in the ministry and loved muggles.
"They're here?" She couldn't remember the name Weasley being called during the sorting ceremony, but she hadn't been paying an awful lot of attention to anyone besides herself and Draco.
"Oh yeah, there's tons of them, their mum's like a bitch in heat."
Cornelia let out a low whistle at the spiteful insult, not sure whether to be shocked or impressed.
"Any red-head you see is probably a Weasley. All in Gryffindor of course."
She cast her eye across the great hall towards the Gryffindor table and sure enough there were flaming redheads scattered across it. "What's the story?"
"Their dad works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office at the ministry, he's the biggest muggle lover going, supported loads of pro-muggle bills and started a few petitions. Father says he's…"
"A disgrace to the name of wizards, I know. But they're pure-bloods?"
"Unfortunately." Draco started to stand. "Best get going though, we've got to find the Transfiguration classroom."
Transfiguration was taught by Professor Mcgonagall who had been the one to greet and sort them into the school. She was a strict unsmiling woman who demanded respect even from a room full of excited first years and who took no prisoners whilst delivering a very complicated and difficult introductory lesson. She was especially displeased when 10 minutes into the lesson the doors burst open and two boys ran panting into the room.
"Ha!" whispered Draco at the sight of them. "That's Potter and Weasley." He explained to Cornelia. Sure enough one of them had bright red hair and a face smattered in brown freckles, the other boy had black messy hair, thin face and spectacles. They both cowered beneath Mcgonagall's reproval before sheepishly taking their seats. Cornelia glanced at Pansy as she returned to look at her book and noted the look of grim satisfaction on her face at the two boys getting in trouble, it was the same expression that Draco was wearing.
Cornelia couldn't bring herself to be concerned with Harry Potter at that moment as she was still reeling from the beginning of the lesson when Professor Mcgonagall had taken the register. She didn't know how she'd missed it during the sorting ceremony, obviously being more distracted than she'd thought, but when Mcgonagall called out the name "Neville Longbottom" it was like an electric current ran through her. She spun in her seat searching out the owner of the name and quickly clapped eyes on a short stout boy who had nervously glanced in her direction at her sharp movement. Their eyes met and Cornelia automatically shrank away, shock rippling through her as she quickly sent her gaze down to the desk in front of her. Neville's eyes had been wide and his emotions were clear – he loathed her.
Cornelia had gone 10 years without meeting her mother, and yet it was as if she were in the room with her that day. She was sure her and Neville were seeing the same thing for the rest of the lesson; Bellatrix Lestrange torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom into insanity.
She tried to shake off the feelings of shame and guilt when the lesson ended and they made their way to their first charms class, but she couldn't ignore the sick feeling in her stomach that felt like it was bubbling and building. Draco asked her twice if she was feeling okay but she just brushed him off, it made sense that he didn't remember the names of the people her mother had tortured and she wasn't going to remind him. She really, really didn't want to talk about it.
Despite that though Charms was an easier experience than Transfiguration. It helped that they took the class with Ravenclaw rather than Gryffindor and that the theory was much clearer. By lunchtime Cornelia was able to focus on her mission of information gathering again, using it almost as a defence against the isolation and detachment she felt from the rest of the student body; Plus it was much easier to feel the rage towards Pansy than the sick shame towards Neville.
That being said however, the respite wouldn't last long as they made their way onto the castle grounds for their first flying lesson after lunch. Cornelia tried to brace herself having seen in her class schedule that the flying lesson was to be with the Gryffindors again, and she resorted to not looking in Neville's direction at all. She orientated herself so that Draco was an extra body between the two of them as they all took their places beside the brooms that lay on the ground.
She forced herself to listen to what Madam Hooch was saying as she realised that the woman wasn't someone to beat about the bush and was already instructing them to begin. "Stick out your right hand over your broom and say 'Up'!" She barked at them all, patrolling up and down the middle of the rows they were in.
Cornelia did as she was told, and even to her own ears her voice was meek in comparison to Draco's confident "Up!" And sure enough, his broom defied gravity, zooming up into his waiting hand whereas hers weakly twitched on the floor. He was grinning tauntingly at her, so she jutted out her chin, focused all her attention on the broom and repeated "Up!" in an authoritative voice. This time the broom left the floor by a couple of inches before flopping back to the ground. Draco let out a peal of laughter at the furious look on her face.
"With feeling!" Madam Hooch instructed and Cornelia repeated herself with feeling alright. This time the broom did the same as Draco's and zoomed up towards her hand, but in her surprise she forgot to catch it. She stumbled forward and grabbed it before it hit the ground again. Draco was bent over laughing at her now and she stood straight, shoulders back and chin high. "That counts!" She snarled.
"S-sure!" Draco giggled. It wasn't often that he got to see Cornelia struggle with something.
Next Madam Hooch told them all to straddle their brooms and hold onto them tightly, and that was when it happened. Further down the line a boy started calling in a panicked voice "woah…wooooah….ahhhh!" Sure enough, there was Neville rising unsteadily into the air on his broom, apparently completely out of control.
"Mr Longbottom! Mr Longbottom, come down this instant!" Madam Hooch yelled, running towards him, but it was too late.
As Neville panicked the broom began to buck, looking as if it were trying to throw him off. Neville started screaming, as did a few of the others on the ground, and was clutching onto the broom for dear life before sliding sideways and falling to the ground with a sickening crash. Cornelia was amongst the rest of the class that rushed forward to where he lay groaning on the floor to see if he was alright.
Madam Hooch knelt beside him and attempted to help him up, he cried out when she touched his arm and she cooed "There there, it's a broken wrist." before turning to the rest of the class and shouting in a booming voice that made Neville wince again "Everyone is to stay on the ground whilst I take Mr Longbottom to the Hospital Wing. If I see a single broom in the air the person riding it will be expelled from Hogwarts faster than they can say 'Quidditch'!"
As soon as they were out of earshot, Draco fell about laughing. "Did you see his face, the great lump?" he cried and the other Slytherins joined in.
Cornelia looked down at him and around at the other Slytherin's, she couldn't have found anything less funny. If it had been somebody else flailing around in the air perhaps, but as it was Neville she couldn't bring herself to laugh at his misfortune.
"Shut up Draco." Said a Gryffindor witch called Parvati Patil. Cornelia who would have usually bristled at anyone speaking to Draco like that was pleased someone had said what she was thinking, and she subconsciously took a step back from Draco.
Pansy's yappy voice rang out across the grounds as she sneered "Oooh, sticking up for Longbottom? Never thought you'd like fat little cry babies Parvati." Cornelia's resolve to wreak some kind of havoc on Pansy solidified in her mind at that.
"Look!" Draco suddenly darted forward and snatched something off the ground before holding it up and exclaiming "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."
"Give that here Malfoy." Said another voice and everyone turned to see Harry Potter step forward, his expression dark and full of dislike. Despite her discontent at Draco's behaviour, Cornelia stepped up beside Draco and she heard Crabbe and Goyle do the same. Bolstered by their support Draco sneered back at Harry.
"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to collect – how about – up a tree?"
Cornelia couldn't help herself, her hand whipped out and she snatched the Remembrall from Draco's grip.
"Wha-" He stared open mouthed at her along with everybody else on the grounds.
"I've always wanted one of these." She lied coolly, looking Draco in the eye. His face had flushed like he was about to argue but quickly twisted into a smirk at her words.
"Give it here!" Harry yelled moving towards Cornelia, but she was prepared, her right hand had been in her pocket touching her wand the entire time and she whipped it out pointing it at Harry's face.
"I won't." Was all she said and Harry moved as if to scrabble for his own wand before Ron put a hand on his arm and shook his head.
"Don't mate, she's mental."
His words felt like a punch in her stomach but she just borrowed the same dangerous Uncle Lucy smile she had used on Pansy the night before. "I'd listen to your friend if I were you Harry Potter."
"You shouldn't fight, you'll get us all in trouble!" Another voice piped up from a bushy haired Gryffindor girl who had stepped up beside Harry and was scowling deeply at Cornelia.
Actually Cornelia had no idea how to even use her wand yet, the only classes she had taken were theory, but she remembered what she had done to the train window and supposed if she repeated the gesture something would happen. She hoped that it wouldn't come down to that though. She kept a steady gaze on Harry's green eyes as he struggled against the urge to grab the Remembrall from her, and finally he turned away from her with a frustrated growl.
"Clever boy." She murmured, pocketing the Remembrall but keeping her wand held tight by her side.
"You should be ashamed!" Spat the bushy haired girl who Cornelia recognised as Hermione, a girl who had seemed to have had her hand in the air perpetually in Transfiguration that morning. Cornelia just shrugged and watched as the Gryffindors separated themselves from the Slytherins all throwing dirty looks in her and Draco's direction.
Draco turned to her and gave her an impressed grin which she didn't return just as Madam Hooch came stalking abck onto the grounds. As the class commenced and Cornelia distractedly attempted to kick off the ground and join Draco in the air, Hermione discreetly moved over to Madam Hooch and muttered in her ear.
When the class ended and Cornelia went to leave with Draco, Madam Hooch called her name. "Lestrange, stay behind please."
Waving off Draco's worried expression and taking a deep breath, she returned back to Madam Hooch who was looking at her sternly. She had expected someone to snitch on her, had been relying on it actually, as it would save her figuring out how to get the Remembrall back to Neville without being found out.
"Yes Madam Hooch?"
"Would you mind explaining to me what happened whilst I was at the hospital wing with Longbottom?"
"I took his Remembrall ma'am." Cornelia replied without hesitation. Madam Hooch looked taken aback before quickly collecting herself.
"Why would you do that?" She snapped. Cornelia wondered whether to tell the truth or to keep up the act she had with her classmates. After a moment of hesitation she decided the former.
"I wanted to keep Draco from taking it."
"So you stole it yourself?"
"With the intention of giving it back ma'am."
Madam Hooch didn't look like she believed her and this wasn't a new situation to Cornelia. She had been looked at in that manner her whole life by her aunt and uncle. She braced herself for the inevitable punishment.
"If that were the case then you should have handed it straight to me. 5 points from Slytherin and detention tomorrow evening in my office."
"Yes ma'am." Cornelia said dully, bowing her head obediently.
So this is when I really started to enjoy exploring Cornelia's character a little more. Whilst I have a loose story plan with what I want to happen I love it when a character writes themselves. There were a good few times during this chapter where I was like "oh so she did that?" or "niiiiice" at Cornelia's reactions to the world around her. I had no plan for her to take the remembrall from Draco and yet here we are! What knock on effect will this have on Harry's quidditch activities as I assume he won't be caught pulling any stunts in front of a professor? But then again, this is Harry we're talking about! It was nice to see more of her and Draco's friendship as well as the conversations are really when that shines I think - what do you think?
Also I'm imagining that there are some super fanatics out there that might get a little annoyed by my awkward combining of the book and the films with the script and the class timetables? It just feels too nitpicky and breaks the flow of writing too much to be obsessed with getting it technically perfect. Maybe it's just me being paranoid that people will care about that but that's just the way it's gonna be!
Until next time.