A/N: Sadly, not JKR.
As for the matter of Regulus Black, I wallowed in misery for the first month of first year and then shut that part of my life away for good, burying it deep down. Of course I couldn't help the odd stab of bitterness I still got when I saw him around the castle, or in lessons. But hopes of rekindling our childhood friendship? Those had been slaughtered the moment he'd run his mouth off at me in front of his cronies. I wasn't surprised when he was sorted into Slytherin. It suited a snake like him.
Thinking back on my previous six years at Hogwarts, they all seem to blur together because nothing particularly special ever happened to me. Yes, there was the time in fifth year when we had a Yule Ball and Typhon Avery sent me a Howler at breakfast listing the reasons why I was "a filthy, undateable wench" for the whole school to hear.
Or when, in third year and we'd been learning about grindylows, our professor had taken us down to the lake for some "hands-on learning" and we'd all had a nice swim in the freezing black waters. Lucky girl that I was, I got to enjoy having an Impedimenta Jinx cast on me on my way back up to the surface, preventing me from breaking free of the water. Fun activity, nearly drowning is. I do so love having to be revived from a blue, comatose state. Never found out who cast that one, either.
Oh, and there's the small matter of having to don gloves every time I open my mail because of the sheer number of letters I've gotten that've been filled with undiluted bubotuber pus. I tell you, it's really thrilling, the life of a social outcast.
So I suppose there are moments that stand out. But none of them are very fond memories. Mostly my time has been filled with Ella, Pollux, Transfiguration, and Ancient Runes. I study hard in every class, of course—Ravenclaw, remember?—but it's Transfiguration I'm best at, and Ancient Runes is my favorite.
It's always been interesting to observe the Slytherins, because so many of them were fixtures in my past life. Bellatrix Black was a seventh when I was a first, thankfully, so I only had to endure a year of her creative—and painful—curses. Simon Selwyn, who we'd often had to dinner with his parents and older siblings, was five years older than me. Only two years of his putting doxy eggs in my pumpkin juice. The boys who had been with Regulus that day on the train had turned out to be Janus Mulciber, who was four years older, Severus Snape, who was in the same year as Sirius, and Pritchard Goyle, in my year.
Sirius, surprisingly, was one of the few people that would nod at me in the corridors on a regular basis. Perhaps he felt some kind of connection to me, because his home life was pretty screwed up too. Or maybe he was just being kind. It was always strange to see him with the Gryffindor crowd rather than the Slytherins, where most of the people I'd have associated him with were. Full of surprises, that one.
By the time we'd reached seventh year, only the usual suspects were left to terrorize me. Regulus, of course, who never missed an opportunity to make my life a misery. It was like, even after all these years of torture, he still felt the need to be mercilessly cruel so no one would suspect we'd once shared cauldron cakes on his bedroom floor. Then there was Goyle, who made up for his lack of brains with his overabundance of muscles and sinew. Not to mention a Slytherin girl called Selma Frint who was A) Regulus's girlfriend and B) a heinous bitch.
Not that there weren't people in other houses that weren't out for my blood. Add a few humble Hufflepuffs championing the cause of blood equality, some infuriating Gryffindors 'defending the weak,' and most of the rest of my own house, and you've got an amalgamation of witches and wizards that, given the chance, would happily Hex Phaedra Into Oblivion (it's a wonder I've still got all my vital organs, let me tell you).
So yes. It's been a scream. Sometimes I wonder if I should "pull a Mum" and really go mental on everyone and do exactly the things they've been saying I will for six years. Just, you know, to spice it up a bit. Clearly, my general dislike of humanity has been misinterpreted as an inclination to go on a murderous rampage. Doesn't that just take the bloody cake.
As for my love life—well. I can honestly say I never expected anything to happen during my Hogwarts years. So it caught me by immense surprise when, in the middle of sixth year, Pollux kissed me one night when we were alone in the Ancient Runes classroom, translating some ancient Greek texts (for fun). Perhaps he never questioned it, and considered it a natural progression of our friendship. But it took him the better part of two months to convince me he wasn't playing a huge prank on me (what can I say, I'm a suspicious, untrusting person—you would be too).
And we've been together since. I'm not sure if anyone else even realizes, since we were already always together, and no one gives a hippogriff's ass about either of us, anyway. Ella knows, and while sometimes I think she feels—left out, I suppose—I sort of get the feeling most of the time that she'd expected it, as well.
Anyway, I guess I lucked out, because Pollux is actually quite good-looking, something I hadn't even noticed until he kissed me. He's tall but not so tall that it makes snogging uncomfortable, with a shining blonde halo of hair and big, chocolate brown eyes ringed with thick lashes. He wears horn-rimmed glasses, and sometimes he doesn't bother to do his tie in the morning so it just hangs, bronze and blue, around his neck until a professor tells him to fix it. His hair is usually messy, I suppose because he's got grander things on his mind than his appearance, and his robes usually a tad crooked.
I think that by now he's the only person in the world, other than my father, that I truly care about. I realize this sounds harsh towards Ella, but our friendship was always more one of convenience than actual like-mindedness or affection. I suppose I've always thought of it as a kind of throwaway friendship, which might be considered horrible, but to me it's just realistic. I honestly don't expect to see her once we finish school. A date which, thank Merlin and Circe and every other powerful wizard or witch, is nearly in my grasp.
A/N: Please review!