~Written for the QLFC, Season 5, Round 10~

Position: Chaser 2 (Reserve writer)

Position Prompt: 1980s - Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes

Title: Riding the Wave

Word Count: 1644

Beta(s): CUtopia

Additional Prompts: (word) arrow; (word) luminous; (dialogue) "This couldn't have happened at a worse time."

Chapter 12: Riding the Wave

When the gossip welled too thick and too fast, there was no fighting it. Some tried, and they fell beneath the overflowing waves, smothered and sinking.

Roberta Davis knew better. She knew it was far better to ride those waves and use them to bolster herself higher that to let herself succumb.

"What the bloody hell does she do to her hair?" the whispers would say. "Do you think she charms it so blonde? And it's so… poofy. She looks like an idiot."

Did Roberta really look like an idiot? Possibly. Or at least a lot of her female classmates thought so. The boys seemed to like her hair well enough; she'd heard admittedly pathetic poems waxed about how it looked like 'spun gold' and was 'gloriously luminous', which was a little ridiculous. Charmed hair was about as far from glorious as could be. If anything, it did barely a better job than manual bleaching.

"Merlin, could she stick out her chest any more?" other whispers would sniff disdainfully. "She's basically shoving her boobs in everyone's faces. Have some self-respect, for Merlin's sake."

So Roberta was well-endowed. She would use that to her advantage. Some people liked it.

"Her lips are so fat. She looks like a duck, pouting like that all the time."

That one was funny. A duck? Well then, Roberta would be a duck wearing bloody red lipstick to make herself stand out even more. Besides, some people liked her lips. And how she smiled. And what else she could do with them that was better explored behind closed doors.

Was Roberta oblivious to the gossip? Not in the slightest. Did it hurt her? Of course not. She wouldn't let it. Not anymore. She would style her hair to charmed-blonde perfection, paint her face so she looked like a doll, and wear a shirt a size too small and her skirt too short. She would drape herself in the simple, cheap jewellery that she'd received as gifts from more passing interests than she could count in the moments that she was adorned before being cast aside. But she wouldn't let it affect her. She would ride that wave of gossip and soar over the sneers and glares and whispered curses flung at her back.

For at the top of that wave, Roberta could see damn far. She had control. She was exactly where she wanted to be - which just happened to be where she needed to be, too.

"Davis, you cow! How could you?"

Roberta paused in step in her departure from the Great Hall. The sounds of breakfast still buzzed behind her, most of her fellow Slytherins still idling over toast and juice, but it didn't trouble her. Roberta didn't have the friends to wait for the company of, or to accompany her from the hall.

Turning, she glanced over her shoulder to a pair of Gryffindor girls in her own year as they all but ran towards her. Or Maria Thimbleton ran, sights fixed and spearing down the aisle like an arrow shot from a bow. The other one, Lily Evans, trailed after her friend, frantically whispering in her ear as she tugged on her arm. She appeared to be attempting to cease her friends' headlong charge, her eyes flashing towards Roberta in something almost like apology.

Roberta didn't want an apology. She didn't like many of her classmates, but Lily Evans was one she particularly detested. It was more than because she was a Gryffindor. More than because Evans was a teacher's pet, and smart, and pretty, and loved by just about everyone. It was more even than that she'd made a fool of Severus Snape, which, despite being a Slytherin, few enough people in their House cared about anyway.

Roberta cared. Severus had been an outcast, just like her. But Evans had ruined what potential relationship - friendship or otherwise - that could have formed between them, and all because he was strung up by his pining. Honestly, Evans had abandoned their friendship months ago; he should move on already.

Not that he's going to. I don't even know why I care, since he's such a miserable person, but…

Shrugging Severus from her mind and swallowing the urge to glare at Evans, Roberta folded her arms across her chest. She pinned Thimbleton with a flat stare and pursed her lips. She knew almost all the other girls hated that, just as much as most of the boys liked it. "What sin have I committed now, Thimbleton?"

"You know bloody well what you've done," Thimbleton spat, hissing like the kitten cousin of the lion she supposedly was. "Don't try to act all innocent."

What had Roberta done? Well, there was a plethora of things, naturally. She'd sweet talked her way out of a detention with Slughorn the previous week. She'd cheated on their Transfiguration exam last term. She'd been out after hours only two nights before, and it mattered little that she hadn't been alone in being out. If anything, the scandal of being with someone would make it only worse.

Thimbleton, the proud Gryffindor that she was, could have a problem with any one of those things. Or all of them and more, for that matter. Roberta didn't really care. Just as she didn't care that heads were turning her way and staring with open interest, conversations dying to watch their argument as though it were a stage performance. She'd long ago shrugged aside embarrassment for being the object of disdainful fascination.

"I've never feigned innocence in my life, Thimbleton," Roberta said, smiling just so in a way she knew would make just about any boy blush. "But pray tell, what have I done that offends you so greatly now?'

"You know," Thimbleton began, pointing an accusing finger, only to have Evans interrupt her.

Evans interrupted her, reaching for her outstretched arm to tug it down. "Maria, please," she murmured.

"No, Lily, I'm not going to let this go. It's wrong." She shot a venomous glare towards at Roberta that only made Roberta smile wider. "And she's a Slytherin to boot. She shouldn't be sullying a Gryffindor."

Sullying? Roberta thought to herself. She had to bite back a laugh. Then she shook her head. And I've never had a Gryffindor before. Where'd she hear that nonsense from? What fresh gossip is this that I've yet to encounter?

"Maria," Evans reattempted.

"Lily, she's a tart who hasn't had her legs closed since the day she stepped into Hogwarts."

"Thank you, Thimbleton," Roberta said, cocking her head coyly. "I appreciate that you've noticed my efforts."

Thimbleton scowled do fiercely her heavy brows seemed set to fall into her eyes. "Shut up! Just shut up. Go and take yourself somewhere else and stop trying to ruin other people's happy relationships."

"Gladly," Roberta said, turning on her heel to start from the Great Hall once more. The markedly quieter Great Hall, she noticed absently. Most of the students in the surrounding tables had fallen into watchful silence. Roberta didn't care. Just as she didn't care what it was that had really gotten Thimbleton's panties in a twist -

"You stay away from James Potter, you hear!" Thimbleton burst out before Roberta could fully escape the hall. "Stay away from him. He's interested in Lily, not you and your - your -"

"Maria, please," Evans said once more, and as Roberta glanced once more over her shoulder, surprise welling, Evans met her gaze with open apology. "I'm really sorry, Bette. Please, don't take it to heart. She's just upset because of what she heard from the girls in class, and… and with her own boyfriend being such a sleeze at the moment… this couldn't have happened at a worse time, and -"

Roberta turned sharply on her heel and strode from the room. She was scowling before the sudden clamour that followed her departure had even erupted. Understanding chased her, and she cursed Maria for the blame. She was clearly stinging from her own stupid boyfriend seeking satisfaction elsewhere. Why was it solely Roberta's fault that the stupid Ravenclaw boy had tried to slip into her bed?

But that wasn't the worst part. Not by half. Roberta could handle the gossip and the hatred from a fellow woman spurned. She could handle the sneers of disdain and the open leers of those who eyed her so directly she could practically hear their hungry thoughts. She could even handle being treated like a toy by the foolish boys and occasional girls of their year who just wanted to 'try it' and sought her out because she was, so the rumours went, the school bike.

Roberta could own that. She could ride that wave, and in riding it, she didn't get hurt when those same boys and girls who stared at her with awed, adoring eyes in the privacy of darkness and closed doors, their hands tentative and wondering as they touched where their blissfully immature minds had only ever imagined, turned their noses up at her the following day.

What Roberta couldn't stand was people who treated her differently. Those few who looked upon her with pity, and maybe even sympathy. She couldn't stand the Lily Evans' of the world who looked like they truly cared that she might be upset by offhanded words and spitting, shunning dismissal.

Roberta hated Lily Evans. She detested her, and she almost wish she had jumped James Potter just to make her cry. But worst of all was that she thought she thought she might understand what Severus Snape saw in her. Why he wanted her back so badly, even if only as a friend. She knew why Potter was interested in her, and why he'd been pining after her for years.

Worst was that, even though Roberta hated her, she kind of wished that she had a friend like Lily Evans too.