[Chapter Eleven] Gold-Digger
Entering the silent dormitory, Lena crept to her bed, hitting every single unavoidable creaky floorboard. Finally reaching her bed, her eyes wandered to Astoria and Millicent, both in their own dream worlds. As the dim moonlight allowed Lena's eyes to adjust, she took off her clothes and her socks and changed into her pajamas.
She pulled the sheets and blankets down and crawled underneath the covers. Her eyes moved to the window behind the desk. Silhouetted was her jewelry box, opened. She jumped up and raced to the box, searching the inside. Nothing was missing. Nothing important was kept in the box besides expensive jewelry. And Lena certainly wasn't so stupid as to put a locket that she was hiding for Regulus in her own jewelry box.
Making sure each of her expensive necklaces and earrings were still in their places, she closed the box, locking it with a circular motion of her want and a whisper on her thoughts.
Her tired body crashed back onto her bed and under the blankets. And her own fantasy shaped, complete with Louis Flint and a very jealous Draco.
Her heavy footfalls echoed as she raced to Advanced Transfiguration, struggling to control her heavy breathing as she neared the door and slowed to a walking pace.
She was almost twenty minutes late, and it was likely McGonagall had already locked the door at the classes beginning.
Just perfect. Lena groaned silently as she noted the locked door and the students hard at work on their quarterly exams. It was a perfect start to a perfect day, her alarm hadn't gone off, and to make things absolutely horrible, she had hoped in the shower to wash her oily hair from all the dancing the night before, and used only her shampoo.
When she had looked in the mirror she had screamed, stumbled backward, slipped in a puddle of ice cold water and smacked her head against the wall and her butt against the floor.
Somebody had put hair dye in her shampoo. And her gorgeous blonde hair was now a disgusting mix of hideous orange and dingy rust red. Gryffindor colors.
When Lena had tried to get her hair back, the colors only brightened and Lena had burst into tears, putting on a knitted cap, and shoving the majority of the disgusting hair underneath, only a strand near her forehead peaking out, a close shade to her natural hair color.
And thus, a late start to the most important day of the quarter. Not only was it exam week, but it was the big game against Slytherin and Gryffindor. And how exactly could Lena show her support future boyfriend, who was Slytherin Keeper, when she had Gryffindor colors in her hair?
I'll figure out some way to get rid of it.
More determined than ever, Lena headed to the Hospital Wing, hoping she might be able to convince McGonagall after the exam was over. If she even dared to interrupt the class, she was sure to be flunked. She entered the Hospital Wing, finding it full of groaning people, more than usual, she noted.
"Miss Yavari, get out of the way!" Madam Pomfrey rushed by her, her hands filled with a plethora of different viles. Lena jumped back into the doorway, and waited for Madam Pomfrey to be available. After nearly five minutes, Lena realized that that was unlikely, and moved in to help.
"Madam Pomfrey, I've missed my first class, and I am available to help, if you need it." Lena offered.
Madam Pomfrey gazed around the room of full beds and looked back to Lena. "What could you possibly do?" she demanded.
Lena answered quickly. "I'm rather skilled with potions."
The woman gazed around the room quickly and then hesitantly nodded. "Very well, get to it."
Lena rushed to the first bed on the right side of the room and then checked his chart at the bedside, and then rushed to the potions cabinet, and grabbed what she needed. Spending the next hour and a half at a rushed pace, she found that each of the students in the Hospital wing were affected by similar symptoms. About a quarter of the students were suffering repercussions from WWW products, and the over seventy-five percent were muggle-born and half-blood students, all having severe hexation damage, all of which were incurable with spells and counter-charms. They needed the strong potion agents to equal out the hexes.
Finally, she and Madam Pomfrey had helped the majority of the hurt students and took a short break at the desk as the nurse filled out some paper work.
"Thank you very much, Miss Yavari. You said it correctly when you said you're skilled with potions."
Lena nodded, and then dared to ask the question that had been on her mind since she walked in the door. "Why are there so many students in here? What happened?"
"Some pranksters sent out gift boxes, evidently," the nurse said harshly, clearly upset about the situation.
Lena let the long awkward moment pass before she turned back to the nurse. She slowly removed her knitted hat, and Madam Pomfrey looked up slowly. "My goodness, I didn't realize you were routing for Gryffindor, Miss Yavari!"
"I'm not. Somebody tampered with my shampoo. I was wondering if you had anything for it?"
The nurse shook her head instantly. "Absolutely not, I'm more worried about broken bones, not odd hair colors."
"Please, Madam Pomfrey! I can't possibly go to the big game looking like this. Everyone in Slytherin will torment me for the rest of my life at Hogwarts!"
Back to writing, Madam Pomfrey took a long minute before looking up.
"Very well, but as you can see, I don't have much time myself. I know there is no potion of the sort made up, but you might find a potion or some other concoction in one of the books in the bookshelf in my office." The nurse moved away from the desk and went the back of the wing, opening a heavy maple wood door and ushering Lena inside.
Lena waved her wand to light the candles and headed to the bookshelf. After a few rushed minutes, she grabbed several books to look through and shoved them in her messenger bag, and then rushed out of the office, knowing that it was only a few minutes away that McGonagall's class would be out. She thanked Madam Pomfrey profusely and promised to return the books by the end of the weekend, and then she ran back to McGonagall's, and found herself panting outside the room as soon as the door opened and the entirety of the class exited- Her knitted cap was no where in sight.
Parkinson and Daphne were the first people to exit, along with their team of goonies behind them, and close behind—Draco. Lena groaned silently in horror as Parkinson began to laugh. "What happened to your hair, Yavari? Let me guess, you couldn't afford to color it, it's sad really, girls. We should start a donation fund for her—she is pureblood after all." All of the girls laughed cruelly, and Draco pushed passed them, angry at the long wait. And causing the girls to split, the rest of the class exited, and the interested students looked at Lena and began to laugh. Before anyone could see her blush, Lena entered the room and approached McGonagall's desk, where the professor was already busy grading the tests.
"Professor," Lena began and she looked up from the papers.
"Miss Yavari, I was shocked that you decided to fail this quarter, you were well on your way to becoming Head Girl next year."
"Please professor, is there any way I could take the test during lunch? Somebody sabotaged me, turning off my alarm, and then putting hair dye in my shampoo, and a hundred other things this morning that I don't want to go into." Lena rubbed the back of her head at the thought, and felt tears coming to her eyes. "Please."
After a long moment of Lena's pity party, McGonagall nodded. "Very well, Miss Yavari, but know it's only because I have no desire to see Miss Parkinson as Head Girl. She's positively vile."
Lena gave a quick smile and rushed to Potions. Glad that it was the one class she could see Draco without Parkinson's interference.
"Who does she think she is?!"
Parkinson's voice always seemed to put Lena in the worst moods.
"Uh, Yavari, you know you can't sit over here with those hair colors right? You need to be on the other side, to support Gryffindor."
"You would know, don't you have a thing for Potter?" Lena hummed as she moved further away from the girls.
"Afraid of the truth, Yavari? I can't help it that I'm a model and you're just a some trailer trash with a bad hairdo. Hope you did well on your Transfig exam."
"Oh, well you know, on my way to Head Girl next year, so well, obviously."
"Can't be Head Girl with a T on your Tranfiguration exams. How're you planning on getting out of that?" Parkinson asked, her voice actually panicked.
"Oh, honey, you're not pretty enough to be that stupid."
Lena turned back to the game as the Captain's shook hands and the players took off around the field. Louis Flint passed the Slytherin towers more slowly than the rest of the players, and enjoyed the long applause. Securing her knit cap that was Slytherin colors, he passed by her and winked. She blew him a quick invisible kiss, and he smirked as he zoomed away, heading to the Quiddich hoops. Lena noticed Draco, already in a heated search for the snitch. He wasn't about to lose to Harry without a fight.
Lena found herself watching the Quiddich hoops. Louis blocked every single attempted throw, and by the end of the game, Lena was unsure of the score, and didn't care. Louis Flint liked her. Not Parkinson, not Daphne Greengrass, not some other girl. Her.
Her smile was wide as the game ended and everyone on Slytherin's tower began to cheer. Lena stood up and cheered for Louis, being that he was the only reason Slytherin had won, along with a few chance chasers. Harry Potter caught the snitch.
Lena rushed down the stairs before the crowd and headed off to find Louis near the locker rooms.
"Hey gorgeous," he said as she approached, putting his broom in the broom cabinet. "Let me get changed, and well head to the after party."
Lena nodded and waited as he headed into the locker room. Mere seconds later, a gaggle of whores approached, complete with "Slut" sneezing, directed at Lena.
Parkinson stopped when she was in front of Lena, and her groupies swarmed. "You know, Daphne and Louis dated for a long time, Lena. It's really kind of you to take out the trash."
Lena ignored them, and continued to wait, begging Merlin that Louis would hurry up.
"No clever come backs saved up? Sad that you have to steal other people's boyfriends to get attention, wasn't that what got you into trouble in the first place? Sleeping around?"
"It's really adorable when you scrunch your nose up, sweetheart, you remind me of a dog," Lena snapped, though she had been determined to ignore the spawn of Satan.
Louis had impeccable timing, and Parkinson turned to him. "Careful, Louis, she's damaged goods. And a known Gold-Digger. She's only interested in your money, since her own family fortune is dwindling-"
"Lena," He smiled, extending his arm to her. And she gratefully accepted as he pulled her away from them.
"Thank you," She whispered when they were out of earshot of Parkinson.
"You don't deserve to be treated like that. Are they the ones that fucked with your hair?"
Lena shrugged, "Probably." Her thoughts drifted to a cauldron in the broom cabinet, bubbling with the antidote to her hair's disgusting demise. "What goes around comes around. I already have the antidote brewing."
"Glad you're not one of those crazy chicks that wants revenge," Louis said as they entered the common room, Lena thankful for the distraction as everyone cheered and she blushed. Suddenly a million hands were pulling Louis away and Lena was left in the dust.
"Yeah, me too." Lena insides laughed at her pathetic lie. He doesn't know how wrong he is.