A/N – I really hope you like Scarlett and Amber-Rose. I created Scarlett and my bestie Allyse created Amber-Rose. I like them! Also, a little note about why Hermione's in Slytherin…I know it's weird but it will all be revealed later, I promise.
"Hermione!" Professor Singlia's voice rang out the minute Hermione rounded the corner towards her. She was standing right where she had said, at the mouth of the dungeons staircase and beside her stood a most unwelcomed face—Draco Malfoy. He had apparently been engaged in conversation with Singlia only a moment before and his face contorted with he saw Hermione headed his way, towards his territory.
"What are you doing here, Granger?" he sneered, and then he noticed her trunk and a horrified look crossed his features. Hermione placed her trunk on the ground and folded her arms across her chest, glaring at Malfoy.
"Now, now I don't need you two fighting. Hermione is joining us in Slytherin house, Draco" at the look on his face she added "on Dumbledore's orders"
Hermione heard Malfoy mutter something about Dumbledore, a stunning spell and a large cliff.
"Mudblood's aren't supposed to belong in Slytherin" he added, in a louder voice still glaring at Hermione but throwing several daggers towards Professor Singlia too as if this was all her fault. "Slytherin was a believer in the purity of blood; the Sorting Hat said so in his song this year"
Singlia's eyes narrowed at his words and she slapped him on the shoulder.
"Wash your mouth out young man; I will not tolerate that kind of language in my presence. As for the purity of Slytherin house, we are prepared to make an exception. Also, may I remind you that Heidi Fernandez of whom I understand is the Queen of Slytherin is herself a muggle-born which supports my point that blood doesn't matter!"
Malfoy's face turned immediately sour as if he had been sucking a lemon and he turned and descended the staircase angrily. The affect was somewhat ruined when he tripped down three steps and he turned and glared at Hermione as if that too was her fault.
"Excuse Draco, he'll come around" Singlia said quickly, smiling a toothy smile at Hermione and beginning to climb down the staircase after Draco. Hermione assumed she was expected to follow and she did so, lugging her trunk behind her.
"Unforgivable" Professor Singlia stated in a loud, booming voice to the door and it swung open to admit them. Hermione tried to imagine herself saying such a password and shuddered.
The Slytherin Common Room was almost as she had imagined. Darker and more eerie than the warm, comfortable home she was used to. The armchairs were majestic and didn't look nearly as comfortable. The drapes were long, touching the floor and they were black which gave the room an uninviting look. Hermione couldn't see any games of chess or Exploding Snap going on, instead there were groups of Slytherin students huddled in corners and talking quietly to each other.
Sensing the new entrants, the Slytherins turned around. Hermione recognised several of them including Draco, Amber-Rose Height, Cordelia Gold, Scarlett Maddox and Arthur Diggory. To her pleasure, Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy were nowhere in sight.
"Welcome to your new home!" Professor Singlia announced happily, spinning around and landing in a spare armchair with a thump. Hermione shuffled her feet a little and waited for further instruction, trying to look somewhat pleased to be there. Everybody was still goggling at her and it made her feel somewhat uncomfortable.
Professor Singlia surveyed the onlookers, counting them with her index finger.
"Okay, Scarlett I would like you and Amber-Rose to take Hermione up to your dormitory. She will be living with you and Miss Parkinson from now on"
Scarlett and Amber-Rose looked at each other, raising their eyebrows in confusion but they stood up all the same.
"Come with us" Scarlett said quietly to Hermione as they passed and she turned to follow them, getting very tired of lugging this heavy trunk around.
They climbed a staircase, not speaking until they had reached the room labelled "5th Years" They walked inside and then Scarlett and Amber-Rose turned to face her.
"This is the room" Amber-Rose told her, gesturing around at it. It was just as dark as the Common Room but the hangings were of a lacy white, which gave it some purity. "Your bed is the one by the door. Scarlett and I are on the other side and Pansy is in the one closest to you. Scarlett sometimes talks in her sleep and Pansy snores"
"Thanks" Hermione muttered, dumping her drunk on the covers of her bed which were the Slytherin colours. Then she turned back to the girls and they all stared each other in silence. Scarlett's gray-blue eyes were bursting with questions, Hermione could tell but Amber-Rose looked almost bored.
"What happened?" Scarlett burst out at last, apologetically for she couldn't help herself. Hermione drew a breath and sank down onto her bed, eyeing the two of them. Scarlett Maddox with her long, curly blonde hair, dazzling smile and height that would loose her in a crowd of average sized people and Amber-Rose Height with her chocolate brown hair, intense eyes and frame that towered over Scarlett's. They didn't seem evil; in fact Hermione could have mistaken them for Ravenclaw's or Gryffindors.
"I don't…really know" she said, bitterly. "It was Dumbledore's idea, or so says Professor Singlia but –"
"She's weird, isn't she?" Scarlett exclaimed, grasping onto the subject. "So…intense, if you know what I mean?"
"She actually tried to sit me down for a 'cup of tea' this morning" Amber-Rose told them, scrunching up her nose in disgust. "But I told her I didn't like tea and escaped, it's like she's trying to make friends with us or force us to like her"
Hermione nodded along with all of this, smiling every so often as Amber-Rose and Scarlett launched into a whole conversation about Singlia. She began to wrack her brain for any memories of either of them doing any harm to any Gryffindors she knew and she couldn't seem to remember anything. In fact, the only memory that came to her was that Scarlett's brother, who had committed suicide in their second year, had been in Gryffindor. That ought to explain a lot.
In the comfort of the dormitory with two girls engrossed in conversations that weren't foreign to Hermione, it was easy to forget that she wasn't where she really belonged. Every once and a while she would have a fleeting thought of Harry or Ron but she tried to push it out of her mind for the moment. She would undoubtedly see them later, they weren't on different planets.
"Ew! So it is true!" said a high pitched, nasally voice from the doorway. "Mudblood, Granger come to join our house!" The three girls turned to see Pansy Parkinson surveying them with her squinty brown eyes. By the looks on Scarlett and Amber-Rose's faces it seemed they liked Pansy about as much as Hermione did.
"We're very sorry Hermione" Scarlett said, frostily, although the frost was obviously intended for Pansy. "Sorry that you have to share a dormitory with Pug-Faced Parkinson that is, at first we thought the look might be contagious but after five years we figure we're safe." Amber-Rose smirked and Pansy looked outraged.
"I think I'm going to ask to change rooms! Wouldn't want to catch anything from a Mudblood!" she huffed, turning on her heel and stalking out the door.
"Don't think you have to do us any favours!" Amber-Rose called and then she settled back onto her bed. "Fuck, I hate her!"
An hour later the three girls were heading down to the Great Hall for dinner, Scarlett talking their ears off about the upcoming Quidditch match against Ravenclaw. Hermione had fallen silent when the topic arose, unsure how she felt about being expected to support Slytherin this time. Ron and Harry would probably hate her.
They took their seats and Hermione, realizing how hungry she suddenly was began to load her plate feeling a lot like Ron. The moment she thought of him, her eyes started to scan the Great Hall. She found him sitting with Harry at the end of Gryffindor table. They seemed to be talking in low voices and kept looking over towards the Slytherins. Harry caught Hermione's eye and smiled, managing an awkward wave.
"Hello Rose!"
"Draco" Amber-Rose greeted as Malfoy sat down across from the group. Hermione's eye's widened. She hadn't known that Amber-Rose and Malfoy were friends, if she had…
"What in the name of Merlin are you doing hanging out with our new Mudblood scum?" he asked, glaring coldly at Hermione who simply glared back and continued eating her corned beef.
"What are you doing hanging out with Crabbe and Goyle?" Amber-Rose fired back and Malfoy seemed to know it was time to drop it. Scarlett smiled a half smile at Hermione, it was probably meant to seem comforting but it just looked like she didn't know what to do. Of course she didn't, she was obviously on speaking terms with Malfoy too.
"Draco!" called Pansy Parkinson from the other end of the table. Her tone was impatient and she was glaring at Hermione again. "What are you doing? Come sit with us" she was surrounded by Malfoy's cronies—Crabbe, Goyle and Blaise Zabini.
"Sorry girls, duty calls" Malfoy announced, standing up with an air of pride and striding to the other end of the table to sit with his 'friends'.
"You're friends with Malfoy?" Hermione asked, turning to Amber-Rose immediately and trying to hide her distaste but somewhat unsuccessfully.
"I have been for years" Amber-Rose replied, airily. "Our fathers were friends, still are except that it's impossible for them to keep in contact now what with my father in a cell in Azkaban. But Draco's alright, just a bit judgemental and that's just how he was brought up. His parents taught him that blood is everything which naturally isn't exactly true. But you were brought up to believe that wizardry didn't exist and that wasn't true either"
"Point" Scarlett muttered, finishing off the last of her buttered roll and joining the conversation.
Hermione couldn't find the words to argue. Amber-Rose brought up some valid points but it didn't stop Hermione loathing Malfoy—nothing ever could.
"Just don't expect him and me to become best friends or anything" Hermione shuddered. Amber-Rose and Scarlett just laughed and promptly turn and become engrossed in conversation with their friend Cordelia Gold.
Left to her thoughts, Hermione began eating the pile of food on her plate, watching Ron and Harry across the hall talking to Fred and George. While she had managed to feel less awkward in conversation with her two Slytherin roommates, the table still felt foreign to her. There wasn't anybody she could just turn to talk to if something happened to her. In moments like these she felt completely alone, not to mention she had to share a dormitory with Pansy Parkinson.
"How's it going?" Hermione jumped at the sound, spilling the contents of her booking over her bed. She was packing it for the day, delaying going to breakfast with her new housemates for as long as possible, the girls in her dorm had already left a few minutes earlier.
Even before she turned she knew who the voice belonged to—Professor Singlia. Turning wearily, Hermione looked her in the eye and shrugged, which felt a very informal gesture for Hermione. It was just that she blamed Singlia somewhat for what had happened to her. Since Hermione hadn't discussed the matter with Dumbledore it was hard to blame him.
"I'm looking for more than a shrug, missy" Singlia said, making her way into the room and sitting down on Pansy's bed. "Have you made any friends? Adjusting well? I need details to report to the Headmaster."
Hermione remembered Harry saying that Dumbledore wasn't looking him in the eye this year. Was the Headmaster just not communicating with his students in general? Hermione remembered dismissing Harry's comment in her mind, but now it made some sense.
"Why doesn't Professor Dumbledore just talk to me himself if he wants to know how I'm doing?" Hermione asked, irritably. It didn't feel like being disrespectful to a teacher, Professor Singlia felt more like a frustrating student.
"Hermione, I'm sure you of all people know that our Headmaster has much more important things to be getting along with" Singlia rolled her eyes as if this was obvious. "He doesn't have time for matters such as this, so trivial. He can delegate the tasks that fall short of importance to others"
Previously Hermione had been leaning over her bed, pushing all her books and quills back in her bag but when Professor Singlia started speaking she drew herself up to her full height, indignant.
"Professor Dumbledore doesn't think that moving a student into another house for the first time is important? He doesn't even have the decency to discuss the change with that student? If it's not important then why move me? I don't understand. The Sorting Hat sorted me, it's not up to Dumbledore to decide I've changed, I haven't. I'm the same Hermione I was when I was eleven!"
Throughout Hermione's speech, Professor Singlia listened patiently, smiling a sickeningly serene smile. The moment Hermione finished however, she took on a more serious look.
"I didn't say it wasn't important-"she began.
"Yes, you did!" Hermione insisted, sinking to her bed in frustration. In the back of her mind she couldn't believe she was acting this way, so selfish and moody but this was all just so unfair.
"All I meant was, from what Professor Dumbledore tells me, its importance will be discovered over time. Be patient, Hermione. But I can tell by your outburst that you are really not happy here, am I correct?"
Hermione hung her head.
"If there was a way I could change the Headmasters mind I would" Singlia said, the sickening smile returning. "But I can't and we're all just going to have to live with what we've been given. Now, I must be going…enjoy your day" she finished briskly and left the room, colourful robes flying behind her.