Chapter 5: Pride & Prejudice
Isabella avoided everyone's eye for the good part of Friday's morning after getting ribbed mercilessly by her fellow dorm-mates. And, every time she looked at the magical flower bouquet with the golden butterflies fluttering above it, she couldn't help but cringe a little... What she didn't realise, however, was the fact that, the more she reacted, the more it encouraged her friends to rag her about Ryan's unabashed display of affections for her.
And in all honesty, Isabella was slightly taken aback that he felt so strongly for her, because, never before had someone expressed even the slightest amount of interest in her till Quidditch happened. All said and done, though, she wasn't complaining much—he was extremely good-looking and he wanted her despite being *supremely* far out of her league.
"Nonsense! You never give yourself enough credit, Izzy," Claiborne chided in a hushed voice in Binns' class that afternoon. History was the only time in the day when she and her friends got to relax even a little bit (everyone, except Lily, of course, who was scratching away frantically, hanging on to Binns' every word). "And put that Daily Prophet inside, please, I'm sick of these morbid headlines screaming at us every morning!" she added, looking at it reproachfully. "Coming back to the point though, for what you were to what you have become now," she paused and gestured to all of Isabella, "I'd say you're off your rocker to think that you're not worth it!"
"I'm just saying, there are far prettier girls out there who'd gladly throw themselves at a boy like Ryan and here he is, calling me 'princess!'" she said, even as she opened up a paper rocket that Mary had slyly sent her way a second ago to find a crude drawing of a girl and boy kissing with little hearts fluttering above their heads. Isabella rolled her eyes and crumpled up the piece of parchment a bit more fiercely than required.
Claiborne snorted at the note herself. "Well, I know what you mean, Izzy, the poor bloke doesn't know what he's getting himself into!" she whispered, chuckling long and hard into her hand. Isabella stifled a smirk too and nudged her hard to make her stop teasing her.
"Don't you dare, Clay!" she started, but it was too late.
"You know, I bet he hasn't seen you stuff your face with a whole chicken..."
"...I've never done that!"
"...nor does he know how unbelievably devoid of emotions you are!" Claiborne spluttered, wiping her face from the controlled laughter. "Honestly, if you remove this pretty thing," she said, gesturing to Isabella's thin, small face, "you're really such a boy on the inside!"
"That's preposterous!" Isabella coughed violently, feigning deep hurt.
"Think about it, Izzy, you're reckless as hell, you don't know the first thing about 'dressing up,' you waltz around the corridors wearing that hideous hoodie sweater and trainers..."
"...it's comfortable!" she hissed back.
"...and have you seen the way you shake hands with Malfoy?! That's a red alert, right there! And you're brilliant at Quidditch, meaning more time smelling like Fang and less time in front of the mirror! D'you want me to go on?"
"Oh, do go on, I beg of you!" said someone from the back. Isabella and Claiborne froze in mid-conversation and whipped around to find a very amused-looking Remus eavesdropping on them, her long brown hair swishing over her back. She gaped at his mischievous smile for a second and narrowed her eyes at him. "Why aren't you taking notes like you normally do?" she whisper-yelled, hiding behind her large textbook.
"I was till you two started talking!" he chuckled back, making sure to never remove his eyes off of Binns. "We boys never have such riveting topics to discuss, you know?" he added cheekily, his face oozing with genuine appreciation.
Isabella narrowed her eyes at him. "You know, you're not as innocent as you come off, you're the devil, Lupin!"
"Truer words were never spoken," grinned Peter, crouching next to Remus. "Where do you think all the ideas for our pranks come from, eh?"
Remus winked wickedly making Claiborne and Peter break into silent sniggers. Silence fell once more as the two of them turned back towards Binns and pretended to listen to the dead voice of their History teacher. A moment later, however, Claiborne suddenly pulled Isabella closer to her and whispered something so that no one else can hear them. "Why are you doing this, though, Izzy?"
"Doing what?"
"Going out with Ryan, obviously..." she whispered and graced her with a blank expression. "If I knew you better, I'd say he's probably the last person you would want to be with..."
"Don't be mean, Clay, he's nice."
"That's not a reason to go out with anyone?!" she exclaimed, looking aghast. Shaking her head slightly she said, "I have a bad feeling that you're about to do something for all the wrong reasons..."
"Bavarian Erkling, drop it for heaven's sake!"
"No! D'you even like him?" she came straight to the point.
Isabella went pale all over as soon as the words slipped out of her mouth. She was stumped for words and she knew how stupid she must look to Claiborne right now, what with her gaping nonsensically at her best friend. "Well, what do you expect me to do, lie on my back and hope that one day, just maybe, Sirius would drink a love potion and fall irreversibly in love with me?!"
"Well, no, obviously, but..."
"'But' nothing! I have to move on, Clay... It's high time I did," she whispered, uncharacteristically fighting a painful lump in her throat. "I can't be stuck on him forever! I need to show myself that Sirius really is not all that special...!" she hissed and turned her face away from her friend's penetrating gaze.
Binns' slow drone drowned the silence that fell between them. Before long though, Claiborne flashed her an apologetic smile and said, "I'll be here though, if you ever want to talk, okay?" before comfortingly locking her hand with hers. In the seat before them, Mary leaned back nonchalantly too and parted just the corners of her lips. "Me too."
It was an overcast, murky day and the mood around the castle seemed to match it as well. Wherever Isabella went, she found the Daily Prophet clutched tightly in the hands of her fellow classmates, as the news of mysterious killings of an ancient clan in the Isles of Dorn made its rounds. Apparently, authorities have no idea how more than twelve members of the clan had been found dead in odd places in the middle of the night without even the slightest trace of intrusion. The news seemed to have torn the castle into two since morning and students continued to broil in its aftermath well past lunch.
"And they say this is just the beginning," Mary whispered through gritted teeth as the girls crossed a bunch of Hufflepuffs huddled in a corner, speaking in angry, hushed voices. Lily was walking a little ahead of them alongside Severus while Claiborne had trotted off with Peter and Remus. "Wonder what could be worse than twelve people dropping dead for no reason!" she hissed, walking out of a gruelling Ancient Runes class.
The castle, Isabella noticed, had suddenly sunk into an unwonted quiet, as the girls waded through the student population, warding off tense stares and cold indifference from a group of Slytherins on their right; she had spent five long years here to know right away that, there was definitely something ominous going around her going by everyone's stiff body language. And, despite the warmth that filled her when she spotted Lucius chatting with his group, however, she could not help but feel immensely claustrophobic. Bracing herself a little she nudged Alice on the side and whispered, "D'you also get the feeling that someone's plotting your death right this second?" whilst pointedly frowning at the disagreeable expression on Narcissa Black's face.
"You couldn't have said it better," Alice replied even as Lucius wriggled himself out of the crowd and ambled towards them, sporting a satisfied grin on his face.
"You lot take the whole 'Slytherin Snarl' concept far too seriously, don't you?" Isabella asked Lucius, biting the side of her cheek to keep herself from smirking.
Lucius merely threw his head back and laughed at her comment before slowing down to the girls' pace. "Well, it is precious, though, isn't it?" he spluttered, running his hand through his silky blond hair. "But, no, today, especially, there's a bit of an overdose of 'The Snarl' because some Puffs ticked off Mulciber and Crabbe so much that Mulce actually hexed the lad!" he guffawed and broke into yet another bout of laughter. Isabella's eyes widened in shock as she and Alice gaped mutely at him.
"Oh my god, that's terrible! Where's Mulciber now?! And is the boy alright?"
"Of course!" Lucius casually shrugged and waved off their baffled expressions. "Just an innocent Bat-Bogey Hex… Besides, Béchanac totally had it coming; he shouldn't have called all purebloods 'sappy-eyed, dung-mouthed knobheads'!. Watch your backs, lads, the Puffs are coming!" he yelled at Ted Farley and Adrian Pelleret on the way, his fellow House-mates, who enthusiastically grinned and flashed thumbs-ups at him before ambling back into the castle.
"You say that as if they're a bunch of bunnies waging a war on a herd of hippogriffs!" Isabella retorted, still unable to shake off the shock at how casually Lucius was talking about the incident.
He flashed her a cocky smile. "Well, aren't they?"
"I don't think so..." Alice replied urgently looking straight ahead, her features screaming mad panic all of a sudden. Before Isabella could even wonder what Alice was talking about, however, her scream nearly tore into her eardrums. "LOOK OOOUT!"
There was a blinding flash that had shot out of nowhere and missed Isabella by mere inches! Ducking back instinctively, she swung around to find Vernon Béchanac and several other Hufflepuff boys hurtling towards them and wreaking havoc by throwing about random curses at any and every Slytherin member present in the scene! Confusion and panic set in instantly, as several Slytherins responded by attacking them back with meaner and deadlier curses!
"Bella, GET BACK!" yelled Lucius and pushed her behind him before getting into an amateurish duel with Gerald Clarilli, a sixth-year Hufflepuff. Isabella held on to Lucius's cloak and frantically looked around for Alice only to find her crouching on the floor in mortal peril. Several spells screeched and clashed all around her as Lucius moved about violently, trying to ward off the attackers as best as he could. Trembling feverishly, she realised the longer they fought, the hotter it got!
"That your best shot?!" Albert Crabbe's irritating voice was heard over the screeches and clashes.
"YOU WISH!" growled back Peter Morse, slashing him with a _ jinx. Adrenaline was raging all around her and the situation steadily slipped out of control with every passing second.
Still holding on to her dear life, Isabella frantically looked around to find a way to wriggle out of this mess when her eyes fell on a fellow fifth-year Hufflepuff named Lance Whittaker, who had latched on to an unsuspecting Lucius and triumphantly took aim with his wand.
"Lance, NO!" she yelled before screaming, "Expelliarmus!" making his wand shoot out of his hand, much to his utter disbelief. Lucius threw a punch at Gerald and sent him howling to the floor before swinging around to see what had happened with Isabella. "You lot must be out of your MINDS, pulling off a stunt like this in broad DAYLIGHT!" she screamed at Lance, over and above the noise of screeching spells, punches and grunts still resounding all around them.
"STAY OUT OF THIS, WILLIAMS!" Lance growled back, looking daggers at her. "You don't know what these tossers said to Vernon and unlike popular belief, we're not a bunch of sissies who'd bake a cake while we get our backsides whupped!" he glared so intensely, Isabella almost doubled back a little. "This is just us sending out a clear warning. Let us be and we shall let you LIVE!" he snarled particularly at Lucius and the rest of the Slytherin roughies, even as Alice scabbered up to Isabella's side and glanced around looking flustered.
"'Let us live' was it?!" leered Crabbe from Lucius's side, looking delighted at being provoked. "Time we turned the heat on a bit more then, eh, mate?!" he laughed meanly and clapped Lucius loudly on the back even as the blond put a protective arm around Isabella and Alice and attempted to usher them away to safety.
"Don't push it, Crabbe!" Lance warned, his wand at the ready.
"I'd listen to him!" Alice offered out of nowhere, throwing Crabbe a look of pure disgust.
"Shut up, Parker," Lucius snapped at her over his shoulder.
"Sod off, Malfoy!" she snarled back and looked just as murderous as the rest of the heaving and raging Hufflepuff boys around them.
"Alice, shut UP!" Isabella muttered and clenched her teeth for emphasis, but Alice merely retaliated with a, "NO, Izzy, it's about time! Someone needs to stand up to these blood-obsessed bunch of morons!" Lucius's expression changed instantly, hardening as ice Isabella was almost losing it now as she envisioned this tiny spat turn into a communal war of the Houses!
"Oh, you are SO going to pay for that!" yelled Rabastan Lestrange and almost threw his hand up to hit her with something Isabella could only imagine to be one's WORST nightmares when someone called out, "NOT likely!"
Almost instantly, ALL of their wands shot out of their hands and clattered noisily on the floor behind a furious Dumbledore. Isabella quickly noticed that he was surrounded by a horde of other extremely angry-faced staff members, including McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, Slughorn, Elanor Elfbough (their DADA professor), Madame Lorraine Abolet (their Divination professor), Filch (and Mr. Belphegor at his heels), and finally, Lily and Severus who looked a little triumphant, suggesting that they were the ones who had called on the professors. Isabella's embarrassment knew no bounds, her whole body going numb with every passing second.
There was a long silence when no one spoke, or dared to move, while Dumbledore stood there staring silently at the lot of them through bridge of his cooked nose.
Then he said, "What is going on here?"
His stance was deceptively calm but the look on Dumbledore's face was so fierce and so beyond deadly, it almost made Isabella's blood run cold. Fear and panic set in almost instantly and her heart hammered against her chest. Turning her head just a fraction, she noticed that everyone had frozen on the spot too, just like her, and looked equally fearful as she felt.
"They started it, professor..." mumbled a forlorn-looking Crabbe, pointing shamelessly at the Hufflepuff boys.
"Béchanac?" Sprout asked curtly, making his skin burn red in embarrassment.
"I—" he began before hanging his head in shame. "It's true, professor..." he muttered, looking at his shoes. "I let myself get out of control. I'm sorry..."
"It doesn't just end with accepting blame, Mr Béchanac!" McGonagall spat out tersely, looking at the group of boys and girls like they were filth. Isabella nearly jumped out of her skin when McGonagall spoke again. "You have broken at least eight school rules in just the last thirty minutes and, thanks to you, the consequences of it will be borne by ALL..."
"...but, professor!" Lance spluttered, looking bewildered beyond expression at the unfairness. "The Slytherins... They... They did this on purpose! They said things about us muggle-borns JUST so that they could get us to retaliate...!"
"Irrelevant!" McGonagall silenced him, looking daggers at the company. The other professors nodded in full agreement, looking grimmer than ever. "I expected more from you, Vernon, especially because, you're also a prefect! This kind of behaviour is unacceptable and, I propose to strip you off the position effective immediately!"
"Consider it done," Sprout said without even batting a eyelid, sending out a collective gasp from the students around them. A loud murmur broke out all around them at once, as the shock wave hit them all in large ripples. Vernon was, hands down, one of the most favorite of all the prefects that walked the corridors of Hogwarts this year, because of his lively sense of humour and his good nature. Isabella knew that this step would come as a terrible shock to everyone (she even secretly hoped that the decision would cause a mutiny-like situation in the school as she silently fumed to herself).
"Fifty points will be deducted for every student involved in this racket!" squeaked Flitwick, prompting a second even bigger round of gasps from the onlookers. It was gut-wrenching to think that she had managed to lose fifty points all at once for Gryffindor THIS early in the year! She looked up and caught Lily's apologetic eyes and thought Lily looked like she might faint any second now.
"And detention for all for a month!" McGonagall concluded, triggering loud cries of disbelief from the students around them. Isabella gritted her teeth in pure frustration because, she knew not all of them truly felt sorry for the bunch; more than half of them were here merely for entertainment. Twitching her hands nervously, she looked up with pleading eyes. "Please, professor, Alice had nothing to do with any of this. She was merely a bystander who got caught in the middle of it..." she trailed off.
Dumbledore still didn't say anything while his eyes continued to scream out his disappointment in her.
"Very well, then," he said, not taking his eyes off of Isabella even for a second. "Miss Parker shall be excused. The rest of you, however, will face punishment," he stated plainly.
Everyone shuffled uncomfortably on the spot while he continued. "As the Headmaster of this school, it is my duty to let everyone know that for as long as I am in-charge, I will not tolerate any kind of loathing towards any class of students, irrespective of what's happening outside these four walls. No student shall be spared, no matter their Family names or blood statuses," he said calmly, but a fire was burning in his eyes. "I must also warn you that if any one does anything like this again, I will have no choice but to expel them. Off to classes now, everyone," he said.
Everyone jumped on the spot and immediately started to scramble about, shoving their backpacks over their shoulders and scampering out of the corridor at once. Filch, Isabella noticed, graced them all with one more look of pure disdain before filing out of the hall himself, making everyone let out the breath they all held in for so long.
"What in the world is wrong with you, Alice!" Isabella chided even as Lily came running towards them, her features etched with worry. "That was mighty reckless, what you did back then!"
"I agree," Lucius leered, peering at the girls through the bridge of his nose. "You have NO idea what you've attracted for yourself!"
"Yeah. I bet you'd know all about it, won't you? You're like their cult LEADER after all?!" she snapped back, glaring murderously in his direction. "Don't feign innocence, Malfoy, you're just as much a threat to us muggle-borns as the rest of them are!"
"Alice!" yelled Isabella, looking gobsmacked beyond expression. Alice merely glared back at her, almost as if challenging Isabella to prove her wrong.
Of the four dorm mates that Isabella was friends with, the one person that she found it hardest to get along with was Alice, because she often found it difficult to deliver her blows without entirely mutilating the person at the receiving end and Isabella detested this trait of hers with a burning passion.
Lucius looked at Isabella, his jaw tightly clenched in hurt.
"What in the world is the matter with you?" she hissed into Alice's blood-red face.
Alice merely raised an eyebrow. "Are you honestly siding with him?!" she yelled, pointing at Lucius as if he was a blood-sucking, two-faced acramantula. "How daft could you get, Izzy?!"
"ENOUGH!" Lily screamed, staring between Isabella and Alice. "We all have a class to get to, so I'd rather we put an end to this nonsense this instant and start MARCHING!" she yelled, as the two girls continued to glare at each other.
Eyeing Alice most unforgivingly, she hissed, "You're the last person I expected this from, Alice." And with that, she mutely held Lucius by his forehand and dragged him as far away from her friends as possible, trying her best to not let her angry tears roll down her face. What Isabella could not understand was that for some reason, everyone always looked at him in the bad light and she wasn't sure if it was because of the haughty expression he sported all the time or the slimy blond hair that sat on his head. Either way, it was frustrating, even for her, to see him get blamed for all the wrong that happens around them All. The. Time.
"Bella, slow down," said Lucius and held her back by her hand.
"We're late to class, Lucius!" she spat out, and tried to wrench her hand out of his hold, still fuming on the inside.
"Exactly, we're VERY late to class, there's no point going all the way down there now. Might as well just cool off before Potions!" he said decidedly and brought her to a halt. The two of them ended up staring at each other, Lucius looking mildly disgruntled while Isabella was practically breathing fire.
And just like that, all of a sudden, his face cracked into a teasing smirk. "Merlin's beard, why do you look like you ate a dragon?" he grinned, cocking a teasing eyebrow at her.
Isabella ground her teeth even more. "Stop it, Lucius!" she grated, still trying to wriggle out of his grip.
"Stop what? I am not doing anything!" he chuckled even more, clearly doing EVERYTHING under the sun to tickle her further.
"THIS close to hexing you too, Lue!" she said, through clenched teeth, making him break into full blown laughter now.
"Alright, fine!" he gave in, still laughing uncontrollably. "It's just very rare to see you this riled up about nothing."
"It's not nothing!" she shot back. "I just... I hate it when she does that! Why does she always DO that?"
Lucius was still grinning lazily, eyeing her flushed cheeks. "What does it matter if she does?"
"It matters because she's my friend and you're my friend too... She cannot talk to you that way!" she said, grinding her teeth and turning a deep shade of red around the ears at the same time as he watched her quizzically, clearly confused by her sudden ferocity. "I won't allow it..." she mumbled shyly whilst fully ignoring the baffled expression on his face. She couldn't blame him though, because her openly citing her emotions about someone was only rarer than sighting a UFO.
An expression that was a mixture of wild bafflement, mild embarrassment and that of winning the jackpot broke out on his face, making her wish he'd get struck by a lightening right that instant.
He bent down dramatically as if to get a better look at her apple-red face. "Whoa! Excuse me?! I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't quite hear you...!" he laughed and cupped his ear mockingly, making her roll her eyes coyly at him.
"You know what, Alice is right. You ARE hateful," she spat out scathingly over and above his mad cackle.
Wiping the tears off his face, he threw his hand over her shoulder and led her out of the third floor corridor and towards the dungeons. "Anyway," he started. "It really does not matter because, I don't give a rat's arse about what Parker or anyone else thinks of me," he said solemnly whilst giving her a sidelong look. Despite the smile on his face, Isabella could not help but notice the arrogance that was etched on his features. "Thank you, though, for being my Iron Lady."
Isabella beamed at him. "Oh, you've NOT a clue how much broccoli I had to eat for your sake!" she joked, and the two of them broke down laughing.
"So, I heard something in the grapevine..." Lucius began, looking at her curiously. "You and Evantrap...?"
Isabella sighed at the mere mention of his name. "Blimey, you heard it too?!" she said, rubbing her face in annoyance. "I... It's nothing big, I swear. It's just an invite to Slughorn's party tonight, that's all," she said, speaking really fast. "Although, honestly, he genuinely seems to like me and he does seem like a really nice boy, so I still don't think it's a bad idea yet..."
"Oh, no. No, it's not a bad idea at all!" he said quickly, cutting into her guilty reasoning. For some reason, Isabella thought he also looked a bit relieved at the thought. "If I'm being honest, I'd say, it's about time you saw other people, really. Anything that will take your mind off of that blockhead, anyway!" he added darkly, giving her a knowing look. She merely rolled her eyes at him and walked on; Lucius and Sirius's 'love' for each other was world renowned, and there was nothing she could do about it except glare and huff.