𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝐸𝓁𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃
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Theodore eyed his schedule from where it resided in Iris’ hands, grumbling when his eyes landed on Ancient Runes, “First day back, and he will throw a book at us to translate in a week.”
Iris hummed with a smile, handing back his schedule, “Should have taken Muggle Studies. We have a double class because we are supposed to be getting into forms of entertainment this year. An entire class about movies and music.”
Jane didn’t seem as relaxed about their double Muggle Studies class, her frown almost sad as she stared down her own schedule, “I should have switched over to Divination.”
Sally-Ann and Tracey laughed, “Witnessing firsthand how Trelawney talks to Harry makes all the work worth it.”
Valeria, who was skimming through her Charms book in preparation for the Slytherin’s first lesson of the day, looked up with a face, “Sorry, but what work are you doing, Sally? Because usually you just copy off me.”
And so began a round of bickering. A very common thing with the stronger personalities of the group. Tracey and Jane, the calmer ones, always shared a smile when bickering began… it was both their responsibility to cut in if things went on too long and also to sit back and enjoy the show. Healthy, nonsensical bickering between friends was always a more heartwarming form of drama to experience.
The group, in just about every way, was an interesting study. They all fit together as one big group, the six of them. They could exist together, have fun, and look to one another for company in class. But there were still smaller dynamics in the larger group.
Valeria, Tracey, and Sally-Ann could feel more like sisters at times. The three their own tight-knit group since they met on their first day in the dorms. Three outcasts from the greater pureblood population of their house, but also outcasts from the greater population of the school for being Slytherin. They made up 3/4ths of this perfect dynamic… and when Jane joined them in their second year when she had been outcasted… they were complete.
Tracey, Sally-Ann, Valeria, and Iris were all roommates. They shared a bathroom, fought over the morning alarm, and had a level of comfort between them that only came from living in such close quarters. Iris was shoved in at first… but, over time, had earned a role as maybe at least an extra to the complete group. She mattered and had been able to find a support system and even could be the one turned to. She found friends in the girls… but not really her “dynamic.”
Theodore was Iris’ dynamic. A duo that… was forced together at first. Iris was a leech that liked the ease and lack of secrets between her and Theodore Nott. He knew her and, at the same time, cared little about her. She overlooked things about him that should have made them tense strangers at best. And he was just too passive to chase her away from ruining his solitude. And over time… something real did grow between them. Iris stopped seeking him as easy company, and he started liking the company. With time she began seeing him as a real friend to lean on, and he saw her as someone who improved him as a person and his life as a whole.
Iris acted as the link between Theodore and the other girls. It made his relationships with them the most fragile, but he was still a friend. He took more of a backseat, rarely butting into conversations… but he still had a voice. And he could still connect to the girls, sharing a love for learning with Valeria and understanding Jane’s family problems in ways only those two could. He could be friendly with Tracey and could roll his eyes at Sally-Ann.
An odd group. Comprised of two different stronger bonds of friendship. Iris and Theodore separate from the rest in a way. But the smaller bonds that existed could hold them all together. And it was beautiful to see all the different personalities and backgrounds. Maybe they bickered and fought, but… it was a great system. One that added a needed support in the adventures of being a teenager. And one that forced such differing personalities to look beyond the bubbles of their own lives.
A group that together could help each other through the troubles. The big and… as they would that day, the small. Having friends to complain with about the first day back at school is very important.
~~~~~~
“What are we looking at right now?”
Right now was Care of Magical Creatures. The speaker was Iris Blackwell, and the question was directed to Theodore Nott. And the what was what Hagrid had proudly announced as Blast-Ended Skrewts.
Theodore and Iris both stared down at them blandly, neither of them quite sure what they were looking at or what to really think.
Which was… understandable.
The students had been led to a bunch of crates… and inside were hundreds of the… things. They looked like scorpions… pale, slimy, little scorpions. Except these scorpions had no discernible faces. Instead, what looked like would grow to be tails on both ends. And instead of those cute little scorpion pinchers… these just had an extra set of nubby little legs. They were… well, they were a mess.
And when Iris Blackwell… the girl who risked failing a final exam to not artificially create life, the girl who could play a game with a Grindylow… when she looked disgusted with a creature. Well, there was a problem.
“You are supposed to be the one who knows all about various beasts.” Theodore jumped when one of the… things had sparks burst from one of its ends, propelling forward.
Iris and Theodore were pulled from their own disgust by the booming voice of their professor, Hagrid, the half-giant groundskeeper, “Only jus’ hatched, so yeh’ll be able ter raise ’em yerselves!” His… excitement was admirable but was not winning him any points. Several students pulling faces… and one speaking for all.
The drawling voice of Draco Malfoy called out as he and his two goons approached, finally joining the class, “And why would we want to raise them?”
Hagrid seemed stumped by the question… and well, once more, he was not earning any points.
Draco tried again, “I mean, what do they do? What is the point of them?”
And as Hagrid rambled about it being a lesson in trying to learn how to handle new creatures, how to learn how to find your own answers… on what to feed them and what their purpose could be… Hagrid was really just not starting on good grounds. And… this was one of those rare moments where you did just have to agree with Malfoy. This blunt question the same that everyone had.
And as Hagrid had begun handing out different types of food to attempt feeding these… things… Iris just watched them. Studying everything she could about the creatures. How some had stingers. How some had suckers on the bottom of their stomachs… and a question jumped to mind.
Looking to Hagrid as he neared her and Theodore, she asked perhaps the most important question, “How exactly are these things bred?” She quickly clarified as his head tilted, “What are these a hybrid of?”
Hagrid had gone a bit red, avoiding the question entirely as he started rambling some more about the different food options he wanted to try. But with the way Iris’ face froze… well, the answer had at least crossed their Professor’s mind. Somehow looking more put off by the creatures, Iris muttered under her breath, “How do you even get those to breed….”
Theodore chose to just not ask. Besides, he had to stop himself from retching when Hagrid dropped a frog liver in his hands. Theodore wanted to quickly dispose of it, waving it above the Skrewts, trying to catch their interest. An act that he would quickly give up on as Dean Thomas had his hand burned from one’s end shooting off a fiery blast.
So giving up, Theodore just dropped the liver into the crate, staring at his hand as if it held some long-lost disease. Grabbing for his wand, Theodore mindlessly waved it as he glanced at Iris, raising an eyebrow when he found her staring at the Skrewts, hands still held out in front of her from when Hagrid handed her ant eggs.
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Before he could spur her, she looked at him, completely monotone, “How did we go from a Hippogriff to feeding illegally bred scorpions that don’t even have mouths?”
Theodore shrugged, turning to listen to Hermione Granger try and defend the creatures and thus Hagrid from Draco’s insensitive remarks on their uselessness, “I should have signed up for Divination… at least that disaster is amusing.”
A smile jumped to Iris’ face, the girl finally dumping the ants into the crate as Theo did with the liver, “You say that, but then I just mention when thirteen dine—”
“It’s a crazy superstition that—”
Iris raised her voice to finish her statement, eyes dancing as she slipped her hands into her robe pockets, “You lose your mind.”
He scoffed as he looked back at her, “Well, how can I not when people like you walk around saying things such as, ‘Only a Blackwell can kill a Blackwell.’ If I had a knife and lodged it into your heart… You will die. So it is just incorrect.”
“Okay, but would you? Because if you never do, then you just increase my chances of dying of old age someday.”
Theodore looked increasingly more likely to go and search for a knife as the conversation continued. “Dying of old age does not count towards that saying.”
On the other hand, Iris smiled wider with every word. “Old age is your body failing… so in a way, your body is giving up and killing itself.”
“You are just bending reality to fit what you need it to. When I do finally lodge a knife into your heart, they’ll spin it that you egged me into doing it, so it was technically you manipulating me into killing you.”
“Well, only a Blackwell can kill a Blackwell, after all.”
“Lunatic.”
A laugh slipped from Iris… one of those rare, quiet… airy ones… one of those ones that never failed to catch Theodore’s attention. She bumped him lightly with her shoulder, “Relax. That one in particular is one I’ve always found more silly. The history behind was one of my favorite lessons though….” She trailed for a moment, smile dropping from her face as she thought back. Her face seeking of memories.
“Goes all the way back to when my ancestors were rising to power…. It took three generations for the war to end. Father, son, and grandson. No one could get close to stopping them. The grandson realized how wrong it all was and betrayed his father and grandfather, killing them both and preventing more damage. Many tried, but in the end, only their own blood could kill them….”
Her face scrunched, head tilting, “The family name was something silly back then… Polliwog, maybe?”
There was a sound. One that startled Iris as she looked around with a jerk. It was a familiar sound but also deeply foreign at the same time. Something that could have only come from a person… but no one was near enough to have been eavesdropping on them… and that is when her eyes slowly dragged back to the boy next to her…
“Did you just snicker?”
Theodore didn’t really even attempt to hide his smile, “At the thought of you being Iris Polliwog? Yes. Only your ancestors would strive for all the world’s power and allow their name to go down in history as a Polliwog.”
Iris pulled a hand out from her robe pockets, whacking Theodore once before pushing him away with a laugh of her own, “Fuck off.”
He rubbed his arm as he tried to fight back his clear amusement, mind no doubt racing with more thoughts of the word Polliwog.
And as Iris calmed down and settled her eyes back on him, her hand returned to her pocket… she didn’t seem to be paying all that much attention to his thoughts. Part of her hung up on the way that snicker was the closest to a laugh she had heard from the boy… it was just a curiosity that was all… seeing the apathetic Theodore Nott making noises that pointed towards genuine joy.
But it was just a curiosity, nothing more… so Iris tore her eyes from Theodore and back to the crates of Skrewts, “Polliwog is another word for tadpole, right?”
That bit of information certainly had not quieted Theodore’s mind with his teasings.
~~~~~~
Jane and Iris had been left alone after lunch. Valeria and Theodore off to Ancient Runes, and Tracey and Sally-Ann up in Divination. Their Muggle Studies class was Tuesdays… something the faintest bit annoying as it created an odd difference from their friends. But everyone in the group this year had some odd day and time difference, as was expected to be fair.
So, Jane and Iris retreated to the dorms. Jane, already getting ahead on the Charms assignment, sat on the floor with her textbook and papers of notes around her. Iris sat atop her bed, humming along to the song on the radio as she painted her toenails. Iris’ wand was next to her, ready to perform a Growth Charm on as many objects as Jane needed to be satisfied with whatever the assignment was about.
Iris had gone with red… a bright, violent sort of red. A red that you saw everywhere when Valentine’s Day rolled around in February. A red of Snow Whites Poisoned Apple…. Funny how that same red is both love and poison.
But whether the color of love or poison… was the last thing on her mind.
Iris just really did not like the color red. Something she was reminded of every time she impulsively painted her toes that same color. But toes are hidden behind shoes and socks most hours of the day. Really painting them that color was just a constant reminder for the next few months that she should not buy those ruby red earrings that called to her from one of many magazines in the room.
Closing her polish as she finished up the last nail, Iris pulled back, frowning as always at the color. But as always, it would be a waste to wipe the color away. So she would just let them be until the color faded on its own… but as everyone knows… toenail polish is about as indestructible as roaches.
Sighing, Iris dramatically fell back onto her bed, stretching out her legs and lifting them in the air to look at some more from further away. The red almost laughing at how it would be there for the next few months.
Dropping her legs back down, Iris rolled over to her stomach, letting her feet hang just off the bed as she laid her head on the edge of the side of the bed, watching Jane.
“So are you going to ask Valeria to the ball… cause I promise she has absolutely no clue you would be interested in her.”
Jane nearly dropped her quill in shock, eyes wide and color flooding up her neck as she looked at Iris like a deer caught in the headlights. But meeting the uncharacteristically gentle look in Iris’ eyes… Jane relaxed at least enough to find her voice, “Does everyone know?”
Iris adjusted to move her arm under her head, “Just Sally and I caught how nervous you got last night… from what I could guess, she has caught a few hints since you wrote your page-long confessional in The Notebook.”
Jane groaned a bit, eyes darting away from Iris’s momentarily, “She pays too close attention to everyone.”
Iris hummed, beginning to play with one of the necklaces that never seemed to leave her neck, “Just has that instinct to protect you all.”
There was a moment where neither spoke. Where Jane glanced back down at her work. Where Iris just fiddled with her necklace chain. One building up to the trust needed to spill her thoughts… the other willing to be patient.
“I would love to be able to fully embrace what I feel… but right now, she would be a secret… me and anyone would be a secret,” Jane took a breath, looking at Iris again. “Since they told me about the ball, there has been this expectation that Theodore and I would go together, and so I am stressed about finding someone that would distract them enough for a time so I don’t have to beg Theodore to just put on an appearance with me.
“I still submit to my parents in so many ways… they still control my life, even as I am rebelling in these small ways. I am not yet at a point where I could look my parents in the eyes, retract everything about them, denounce the name, and tell them… that I want nothing more than to love a girl.”
A weak smile pulled at her lips… a defeated one, “They are my parents, and some part of me wants their love still. But I know they never will love me. Our views are too different. They could never love me. Not unless I continue to play as their little princess. And I know they align with… people who would want Sally dead.” Jane cringed, almost looking ashamed as she went on, “But they really aren’t bad parents. They could have been worse—”
“But they should be better.”
Jane didn’t agree verbally, but you could see it in how she flinched and in how she seemed so conflicted. She knew it, deep down… it was just a lot for someone who was just barely fourteen to handle.
But this was a mental battle she had been having for years… so she knew how to push through. So once again, she let that strained smile return, and she looked to Iris, “Your father was better?”
And it was Iris’ turn to drop her gaze. It was always a mixed bag on how she would react when her father was mentioned… but no matter what it was, the underlying sadness always took over.
“He did his best,” her fingers pinched tighter at her necklace. “And he deserved better.”
Jane’s eyebrows had pulled together, the beginnings of a thought crossing her mind… but Iris killed it before it could go further.
Dropping her necklace, Iris jumped off the bed, reaching to drag her own schoolbag over as she plopped onto the floor next to Jane, “So what exactly was the Charms assignment.”
Iris Blackwell was very good at avoiding.
~~~~~~
A crowd had formed just outside the Great Hall, shouts coming from the center of the students who all seemed to be trying to gain a better view. Sharing a glance with Jane, Iris flashed her a quick smile before heading in.
Iris didn’t hold back as she slowly inched through the bodies. Shoving and pushing as much as she very well pleased to reach the front. And she had absolutely no regrets as she finally broke through the crowd to join the front line, Sally-Ann just to her left.
At first, Iris was just lost. Because there in front of her was their new Dark Arts professor, using magic to make a pale ferret dance around in the air as he shouted at it. And Iris really just had to stare for a while… but then, “Is the ferret—”
“It’s Draco Malfoy.” The response was from none other than Harry Potter, he and his friends were just two people over in the front of the crowd.
Iris nodded as she turned back to the scene, still quite shocked, “And how exactly did we get here?”
Harry had attempted to explain, but was promptly shut down by Ron Weasley, “Shush, I am trying to remember every second of this.”
And so, no one spoke. Everyone committing this… astonishing thing to the most solid parts of their memories.
And when McGonagall finally came rushing into the scene to stop Mad-Eye Moody… Iris leaned over to Sally-Ann, “So, any new updates to how attractive Draco is?”
“I have officially decided I am no longer into blondes.”