"Tell me how I knew you'd end up here." Is the first thing I hear as I enter the Slytherin common room, Daphne at my side.
"Bugger off, Malfoy." Daphne hisses at him.
He clearly only sees this as a challenge, as his eyebrows jump up in a silly sort of dance that almost has me laughing. I probably would've laughed, if I wasn't currently preoccupied with swarming thoughts about dead professors and dead boyfriends and dead men with knives in their necks.
In one day, I've seen three dead people. In one day, I've gone from a sort of typical Scottish girl, to someone who's completely and utterly mad.
"I knew you'd be here." Malfoy continues, taking a step towards me with a smirk sliding onto his lips. "Here or Ravenclaw, anyways. They're all loons, and you're clearly a bit mad, since you talk to yourself."
"What's he on about?" Daphne looks at me.
I shake my head, waving a hopefully dismissive hand. "Doesn't matter. My sister is in Ravenclaw, so I wouldn't say they're all loons."
"Her sister is Cho Chang." Daphne adds, just as she had done at the sorting, and Draco raises an eyebrow.
"Chang? She's shit at Quidditch. I beat her nearly every time."
"Nearly?" Daphne's eyes meet his, alight with mischief. "Chang is a thousands times of a better seeker than you ever will be, Draco Malfoy."
"Can you be annoying somewhere else, Greengrass?" Draco folds his arms over his chest, not taking
"Can you be Draco somewhere else?" She retorts with the cock of her head.
This time, I do laugh, a weird sort of snort escaping me that winds up sounding absolutely ridiculous, and I'm surprised when the two don't laugh at me, though they are eyeing me with what seems to be concern. Fair enough. People probably should be concerned about me. After all, I'm bloody seeing dead people. Yeah, that will never sound normal to say.
"As I was saying," Draco continues, fixing his attention on me. "You should sit with me in class tomorrow. My father works with the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, apparently she's actually decent at what she does. Unlike that werewolf freak we had a few years back, that's for sure."
"Why would Meiqi want to sit with you?" Daphne scrunches her petite nose in a cute gesture I know I could never pull off. "Sit with your goons, Crabbe and Goyle instead. Leave my new best friend alone."
Best friend? I raise my eyebrows, heat filling my cheeks. That is certainly sudden. I've never had a best friend before - all my friends are from St. Mungo's, and most of them are dead now, killed from the various ailments that plague us. The ones that survived, or even got better, like me, don't keep in touch anymore. It's too painful, remembering our pasts, remembering the friends we've lost.
"She wants to sit with me because you're bloody insufferable, Greengrass."
"Actually-" I attempt to cut in to the conversation, to defend Daphne, but before I can finish my sentence, the girl has a grip around my wrist, and begins to tug me away from Draco. Physically dragging me towards a staircase, I make no attempt to resist her as I climb up the stairs behind her, following Daphne into a room with four beds lining against a wall.
"Wow, they added a new bed for you and everything." Daphne says as we step inside, shutting the door behind us. The other two girls from the sorting, Pansy and Millicent, are already inside, Pansy laying in her bed, nose in a book, and Millicent chewing on her hair. Both of them turn to look at us.
"Hey." Is all Pansy says, before returning to her book. Millicent doesn't even bother greeting me.
"Tough crowd." Daphne shrugs, her hand still wrapped around my wrist as she drags me towards the bed furthest from the door. "This is your bed, since no one else has claimed it. It's right next to mine, see?"
"Brilliant." I give her a wavering smile. Her enthusiasm is unlike anything I've ever seen before - daunting and enticing, yet anxiety inducing at the same time. "Er…I suppose I'll go to bed now, then."
"Already?" Daphne pouts. "It's so early! We need to get to know you!"
A bright pink blush grows on my face, spreading all the way to my ears. "There isn't much to know."
"Nonsense." She waves a hand, and I can tell she isn't one to take no for an answer. "Come on, you two, let's play a game. How about truth or dare?"
"Bugger off." Is all Pansy replies with, not so much as looking up at us. Per usual, Millicent says nothing.
"Pansy, if you don't play, I'll tell Draco Malfoy that you don't shave your armpits."
At this, she looks up, face contorted into a scowl. But to my surprise, she doesn't insult her, or refute this claim, but instead rises from her bed, and makes her way over to us. "Bloody hell, you could've just said please."
Millicent, shockingly, does the same, releasing the clump of hair from her mouth as she steps over to us, sitting down on the floor. The three of us do the same, forming a circle of sorts in between Daphne and I's beds.
"Millicent, truth or dare?" Daphne asks.
Pansy sighs. "Truth, I suppose."
"Alright. Who at Hogwarts is the most shaggable, in your humble opinion?"
"Draco, duh." She rolls her eyes, as though it is obvious. I find myself nodding in agreement alongside Daphne and Millicent, without meaning to. Yeah, Draco is attractive, I suppose, though his personality somewhat takes away from what he possesses in physical attributes. Maybe I just don't know him well enough yet…
Pansy turns to Millicent. "Millie, truth or dare."
"Dare." She grunts.
"I dare you to stop eating your hair for a whole day."
"No thanks." She says, before continuing to go ham on her hair. "New girl, truth or dare?"
Back at St. Mungo's, when I'd play truth or dare with the other sick kids, I always picked truth. But now, I had too many things to lose with picking truth, such as having the question of my sanity breached. While I suppose no one is going to ask me if I've seen any dead people lately, you can never be too careful. "Er…dare."
"I dare you to…dye your hair." She finishes after a long pause.
"What?" I blink, certain I hadn't heard her right.
"Dye your hair." Millicent repeats, while eating her own hair. "The black is awfully boring."
A bit hypocritical, I think, since her hair is a poop brown, but I don't voice my thoughts.
"I agree." Daphne says with the tilt of her head. "You would look good with like…orange. Or pink."
"Yes, pink!" Pansy enthuses, the most energetic I've ever seen her. Though, I suppose I've only known her for a couple hours, so maybe this isn't as out of character as it feels. "I know a spell. It'll be perfect, trust me. Come here, sit in front of me."
While on one hand, I don't particularly want pink hair, I don't want to let down my dorm mates and be a party pooper by refusing their dare. Besides, pink can be badass, if used in moderation. Right?
So, I obey her words, shifting myself over so I'm seated in front of Pansy, with my back turned to her. I hear a rustling, assuming she's grabbing her wand, and with a gentle swish of it and a mumble of a spell I can't understand, the stray strands of hair that hang in front of my face are now a dull shade of pink.
"Oh my God, you look amazing!" Daphne exclaims, reaching out and running a hand through my hair, accidentally yanking it when she reaches a knot. "One moment, let me get you a mirror!"
Jumping onto her feet, Daphne rushes across the room to grab a hand mirror off of a dresser, before coming back over to us and thrusting the mirror into my hands.
Part of me is unsure if I should look - pink might look absolutely horrible on me, after all. But with shaking hands, I manage to raise the mirror so I'm looking at it and…I look alright. Nothing to write home about, of course, but it isn't as terrible as I had just been worrying about either. It certainly makes me look less like Cho.
"Do you like it?" Daphne leans over my shoulder, staring at me through the mirror.
A smile slides onto my lips, one of the first smiles I've worn since the day began, with a dead man in my room. "Yeah, I think I do."