"Aah! You little . . ." Envy barely managed to escape a dragon bite, which was fortunate, seeing as Ron was in the hospital because this exact hatchling had bitten him.
He dropped to the floor and a stream of flames made its way over his head. Hagrid just chuckled and continued to peel his potato while Envy frantically patted out the the smoldering coats behind him.
Why had he signed up for this? No, more specifically, why had he ever wanted to see the dragon? He didn't have his regenerative powers anymore, if he got burned, he would stay burned until he was healed. Did dragons burns take longer to heal than normal ones?
In his distraction, he nearly got burned again. He was sick of this already, and he'd been here for half an hour. "Hagrid, I'm really tired," Envy started, barely noticeable sarcasm lacing his tone. "So I have to be getting to bed. Good night!" He plastered a fake smile on his face, waved, and left through the door before Hagrid could get in a word.
Once outside the cabin, he hid out of sight of the window and slowly shifted his appearance—he was not going to be given detention for wandering the halls at night.
He transformed into a classmate, Theodore Nott, removed his name tag*, and started back up to the castle with an air of sneakiness (it was a little late to be wandering the grounds).
Sure enough, he had barely entered the castle when Mrs. Norris came running up, hissing her disapproval.
Envy growled in annoyance. "Get away, you stupid cat!" He gave the despicable creature a kick and it flew a few feet down the hall, whereupon it leapt to its paws and sprinted away, presumably to fetch Filch, who would then give Theodore Nott a detention.
The caretaker came shuffling over before Envy could get away, but he didn't care much—the look on Nott's face when he found out he had a detention that he didn't know about would be priceless, and besides, he didn't like fighting.
The trip was short and to the point. Snape looked to be in a foul mood when Filch dragged him in, but he covered it quite well.
"Nott," he hissed. "What are you doing up at this hour?"
Envy put on a facade of slight fear. "Um, well, I was—"
"Nevermind!" Snape snapped. "Fifteen points from Slytherin and detention tomorrow evening. I will send you details with the morning post."
Ha, he couldn't wait to see Theodore's face when he found out he had a full evening tomorrow. But, looking past that to why Nott had a detention . . . he would have to give Harry and Hermione a little chewing out later.
'-'
"You should have warned me about how vicious it is," Envy snapped at breakfast the next morning.
The two Gryffindors had the decency to look guilty.
"We just, um . . ." Harry glanced around. "We just wanted a small break from it. Sorry." He looked truly apologetic.
Envy sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "Whatever. I probably would have gone even if you had told me."
Now they looked relieved.
"Well, we're getting rid of it tomorrow," Hermione put in conversationally.
Envy raised his eyebrows. "Getting rid of it how?"
"Ron's brother, Charlie, is sending a few friends to pick it up at midnight on the Astronomy tower. They're dragon tamers."
"Don't you think the weekend is a bit of an obvious time for students to try something?"
Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again. "W-well, we already have it scheduled and everything, so—"
"We can't back out now," Harry finished for her.
Envy yawned. "Good for you, because I am not involving myself with it anymore." He turned around after snatching up a piece of toast and wandered to his first lesson early. When he reached the doors, however, he turned back in time to see the horrified and bewildered expression on Theodore Nott's face as he stared at the detention slip he had just received by owl.
'-'
After thinking it through, Draco wasn't quite so sure Envy belonged with Slytherin.
'-'
On Sunday morning, Envy woke sometime between 'bright and early' and 'oh no, I'm going to be late for class!' (although there were no classes that day), which is to say, a bit earlier than everyone else (taking into consideration the day of the week). He took his time getting dressed and such, so by the time he made it into the common room, his dorm mates had already gotten out of bed, and several students were up and milling about.
He had made it only halfway across the common room before Malfoy's drawling voice filtered through the crowd. "Hey, Novus, it must be pretty nasty for you—hanging around with us Slytherins, I mean."
The students fell silent. Draco made his way to the center of the room, and a space was cleared for him so that he could stand a couple yards away from his quarry.
Envy let his confusion show only for a moment before he pasted a bright smile over it. "And what do you mean by that?"
"Well." The blond folded his arms. "You've been hanging around with those Gryffindors quite a bit, haven't you?"
"So what?" Envy was starting to feel a little uneasy.
"You don't seem to mind that Granger is a Mudblood, either," Malfoy continued.
Since he had no idea what a "Mudblood" was, Envy chose not to answer that and instead left the common room, Malfoy's last words following him out the door.
"What's your blood status, Novus?" he said mockingly. "Or are you a Muggle lover?"
'-'
He received several stares and whispers at breakfast and while traversing the halls, so Envy decided it would be wise to stay outside until lunch, despite the need to study for the impending exams.
There were also a lot of glares being sent Harry's way by his housemates, and many cheers from Envy's own house, due to the the points Gryffindor had lost. He snorted when he saw the Gryffindor hourglass—he had told them it was a bad idea to go out on Saturday, but no, they just had to go ahead with their plan anyway. Stupid kids . . .
When the midday meal at last arrived, Envy chose to sit somewhere other than the Slytherin table. So it was quite a surprise to the Gryffindor trio (Ron was finally out of the Hospital Wing) when he claimed a seat right next to them.
Hermione let out a startled, "Oh!", Harry glanced up from his plate dejectedly, and Ron glared, which, though disappointing, was explained when he spoke.
"Come to make fun of Harry too, have you?"
Envy helped himself to a bacon sandwich. "Nope. But—" he turned to Harry and Hermione, "—things would have gone better if you had listened to me."
Ron looked from the Slytherin to his two friends. "What is he talking about?"
Envy answered before Hermione got the chance to open her mouth. "I told them it would probably be a good idea not to sneak out over the weekend—that's when the professors expect students to try something."
"What are you doing here, anyway?" Hermione asked quickly. "I mean, you wouldn't come over here just to say 'I told you so' . . . actually, I think you would."
Envy laughed, loud enough that a few people looked in his direction, but seeing who he was sitting with, they soon went back to their own conversations. "Well, in case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of an outcast in my own house."
On cue, the trio turned to look at the Slytherin table (Harry had temporarily dropped out of his funk). A few students were whispering to each other and glancing at Envy suspiciously.
"See?"
They turned back to the boy himself.
"Malfoy started spouting something about me hanging around Gryffindors, called you—" he jabbed a thumb at Hermione, "—a mugblood, or something like that, then asked me about my blood status and whether I'm a muggle lover."
Ron gaped in outrage, and for a second Envy thought it might be for him. "He called Hermione a-a Mudblood?"
Envy only nodded, since his mouth was too full of sandwich for him to speak.
Hermione looked very confused. "What's—?"
"It's a horrible insult," Ron fumed. "A lot of pure-bloods think they're better than Muggle-borns, and they call them that. It's really foul, worst thing you can think call someone."
Envy swallowed his mouthful of sandwich. "So that's what it means!"
Ron dropped his fork in shock. "You didn't know? But you're in Slytherin!"
Envy raised his eyebrows. "Well, I was raised in anoth—um, an orphanage, so I don't really know that much about this place."
"Oh . . ." Hermione looked down.
"Sorry about your parents," Harry mumbled. "Mine are dead . . . but you probably knew that already."
"Why the hell would I know something like that?"
The jaws of the members of the trio dropped, and they stared.
Envy stared back. "What?"
The ensuing explanation was interesting, because really, it wasn't every day that a powerful sorcerer was defeated by a toddler—Envy would be pretty shocked if, say, a baby Edward Elric destroyed Father. But he was a bit skeptical about the idea of a one-year-old defeating a well-trained adult, and also didn't know the full extent of said adult's power. "So, who is this . . . 'all the more' person?"
There was a little more gaping, although Harry seemed a little less surprised, and another explanation.
It turned out the Gryffindors didn't really know that much about their Dark Lord—just that he was evil and killed a lot of people.
Envy stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth before answering them. "Okay, good for you. You're famous for something, you have good friends and go to a good school. Happy ending."
"Being famous is really annoying," Harry mumbled, but it was barely hear over Hermione's, "Actually, we have a problem. Somebody might be after the—"
Ron interrupted with a "SHH!", and Hermione fell silent. Unfortunately for them, they had Envy's interest peaked.
"Someone might be after what?"
"Erm, well . . ." Ron fumbled for a few moments for something to say before finishing whatever sentence he was starting with, "We can't trust you just because everyone in Slytherin doesn't like you, m-maybe you're just lying and they're really afraid of you, for-for being worse than You-Know-Who, or something."
It was a terrible excuse, and Envy knew that Ron could tell, but he relented. "You would be pretty stupid to trust me right away. You don't even know me that well."
Ron nodded. "Exactly."
"And since I'm not trustworthy, I might as well get going." He stood up and yawned, then turned and started toward the doors to the Great Hall.
"Wait!" Hermione called.
"It's fine," Envy said, looking at her over his shoulder. "I need to study for the exams, anyway."
The doors soon closed behind him.
'-'
Full Name: Envy Novus
Birthday: 7 May 1980
Wand: Hawthorn and Dragon Heartstring, ten and a quarter inches, flexible.
House: Slytherin.
Parents: Connor Novus (half-blood) and Lucy Novus (muggle).
Skills: Good at Transfiguration and offensive spells.
*It's stated in the Hogwarts school list that all uniforms must carry name tags. I've also discovered that Muggle is capitalised, and pure-blood and Muggle-born have hyphens. Ugh, this is driving me up the wall. :P
I stopped writing just so I could research British sandwiches and choose one for Envy. XD It didn't take long, fortunately.
Next chapter, or the one after that, shall be the end of first year. Hooray! Personally, I'm very excited to get to book seven, but that will come at a much later date.
Anyway, sorry this took almost twenty days . . . the usual, of course, being lazy the first couple of days, getting writer's block after the first few paragraphs, struggling to write for a week or two and getting very little onto the page, then suddenly being given a gift in the form of flowing words and writing until midnight, when the chapter is finally finished. I'm starting to notice a pattern . . . of course, this time I got a little sick (still have a bit of a stuffy nose and a cough), so it's kind of different.
AND YOU GUYS. 83 FOLLOWS. 50 FAVORITES. AND 35 REVIEWS. *falls over* This is by far my most popular story. I also think it's better than all the others. XD I mean, it has more favorites than Happy Birthday, which isn't saying much when you look at more popular stories, but still . . . thanks. C:
Please leave a review! If you don't feel like it, I understand. Everyone does, actually . . .
-Quiet Leaf