Chapter 3
"Children are arseholes," Aunt Pansy declares. Becky tried to put a good face on things, but Pansy saw right through her. "They are. I was a horrid little bitch. And Draco. Gods, Draco was the biggest berk ever."
"What about Mum?" Becky asks.
"Insufferable, bossy, know-it-all swot. Rubbing everyone's nose in how much smarter she was."
"Daddy?"
"I didn't know him when he was a boy, did I? But I suppose he was as big a git as any."
"Uncle Neville?"
Pansy sighs. "Neville was always lovely. That's why I married him." She grins wickedly. "Well, one of the reasons." Becky blushes without quite knowing why. "You'll have to stop that," Pansy says.
"I know, but I don't know how. Is there a spell?"
Pansy's laughter tinkles. "Wouldn't that be something? You should ask that brother of yours to work on one for you."
"Lucius would never do that for me. He lives to torment me."
"He won't always, pet."
"Next I suppose you'll tell me Cass Malfoy won't always have Gus and the other boys trailing around her like lovesick puppies."
"He'll get over it. Remember, I was blinded by all that Malfoy beauty and blondness at one point, too. Thank all the gods I came to my senses because Neville is…" and here she gets that last bit of pudding look. "Gus will get over it, too."
"Why do you want him to? I'm…"
"You're the daughter of the two most intelligent and powerful people I've ever met. My son was lucky enough to get his father's looks and my personality. If my grandchildren have that plus even half of Severus and Hermione's power and brilliance, well, there will be no stopping them."
Becky thinks about these beautiful, charismatic, brilliant hypothetical children and smiles.
"Now run along and make the best of things with those little bitches in the dungeons," Pansy says. "But let's fix your hair first, yes?"
"Yes, please."
"You do it. I taught you the incantation."
"What if I mess it up?"
"Then I'll fix it. Go on."
Becky runs her fingers through the tangle of curls and murmurs the spell Pansy taught her. She feels the curls relax as her hair hangs longer down her back.
"Perfect!" Pansy declares.
With her perfect hair and imperfect teeth, Becky heads back to the dungeons. For the thousandth time since the Sorting, she wishes she'd listened to Mum. She'd have Hufflepuff Housemates who are nice to her. Gus would still be her friend because he said so before the Sorting and she mostly believed him, but not enough to take a chance. They may be Housemates now, but they're growing apart. She can feel it. He and that stupid Zabini are practically inseparable.
Speak of the devil, she thinks crossly as she enters the common room to find the two of them playing chess.
"If you had a Time Turner," Gus is saying.
"You can only go back a few hours," Zabini says. "And you can't get one anyway. They keep them all locked up in the Ministry."
"Hmpf," Becky says.
"What?" Zabini demands, glaring at her.
"Nothing," Becky says.
"Then bugger off," Zabini tells her.
"She can stay if she wants to," Gus says, giving Becky that grin that can charm even Pansy when she's in a strop with him. Becky watches the game progress. Gus has been playing Uncle Lucius and Uncle Ron since he was a little boy. Though he still loses every time, it takes them a few moves more to beat him with each passing year, so he makes short work of Zabini now.
"Bloody hell," Zabini says as his king dies a gruesome death.
Gus smirks. "Who's next?"
"I'll have a go," Cass says, taking Zabini's place. You'd think she'd have learned to play better from her grandfather, but she hasn't, and Gus finishes her off without breaking a sweat. "What are you looking at, Snape?" she demands, glaring at Becky.
"Not much, Malfoy," Becky replies. They've been Cass and Becky since they were in nappies, but now that they're first years, Cass has started using her surname, so Becky reciprocates.
Before Gus can start looking for his next victim, Becky asks, "What were you saying about Time Turners when I came in?"
"Just talking about how much fun you could have with one of those," Gus says.
"We could," Becky agrees with such a knowing smile—without teeth, just like the Mona Lisa—that Gus's look turns assessing.
"Let's go for a walk," he says. Before they even make it to the stairs, he pulls her into an alcove and demands, "Okay, spill."
"What makes you think there's anything to spill?"
Gus casts a quick Muffliato and tickles her. Becky shrieks and squirms away from him.
"There's no one to hear you scream," he warns with a feral grin, making for her again.
"All right," she gasps. "I'll tell you." Well played, Snape, she thinks smugly. She tells him about how she found Mum's Time Turner last summer. Ever since the Sorting she'd been thinking maybe she should use it to go back to get herself re-Sorted into Hufflepuff where she so obviously belongs, but she came up with a better idea while watching Gus annihilate his Housemates at the chess board.
"Blimey, Becky," Gus breathes. "What couldn't we get up to with that!"
Becky lifts a brow. "What indeed?" she asks, sounding rather gratifyingly like her father.