Confessions Of A Fat, Ugly Slytherin

Millicent set down the parchment she had been reading and stared at it with disgust. This wasn't happening. It couldn't possibly be happening.

"Pansy," she called, trying not to sound too desperate, "can I borrow Iris?"

Pansy looked up from her diary. Millicent had never really seen the merits of writing down your thoughts where they could be read by anyone with either the time or the inclination to browse through them, but Pansy seemed to enjoy it. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Well, so much for not sounding too desperate. "I need to owl St. Mungo's. My parents have gone insane."

Pansy looked amused. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. Remember that conversation we had after the Yule Ball? How I said that I'm not engaged yet because my mother couldn't find anyone who'd have me?"

"You mean..."

"Yeah," Millicent said grimly. "You're looking at the future Mrs. Crabbe." She closed her eyes, wishing that her sudden headache would go away. "I already pity our children."

"Honestly, Mil, you're not really that bad," Pansy said, sounding exasperated. "You're not the prettiest girl in the school, but you're not hideous either. And anyway, you're the smartest person I know. I swear, sometimes I think you should have been a Ravenclaw."

"Oh, so I'm not a proper Slytherin, either?" Millicent knew that Pansy hadn't intended the words to sound that way, but she felt like picking a fight. Anything to get her mind off marrying that... that... Australopithecine.

Pansy's face went cold. "I'm sorry if I offended Your Highness," she snapped. "Since you obviously don't want company, why don't you go off somewhere and try to punch a hole through the castle wall? It won't work, but it'll be so therapeutic. Think of it as practice for when you're married to Vincie darling."

Millicent got up and curtseyed sarcastically. "Thanks for the suggestion, Your Magnificence." She stalked toward the door and slammed it shut with a satisfyingly resounding whack!, then walked toward the common room door, taking a childish pleasure in the unmistakable sound of a diary being thrown at one of the walls.

A bad mood was so much nicer when it was shared.

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"...So then she called the Ministry on me for haunting her, and that was the end of that," Myrtle finished with a gloomy flourish.

"That's awful," Millicent said automatically, trying to force her face into a modicum of sympathy. Having let her mind wander for the past hour or so, she actually had no idea what the sad-faced ghost's story had been about, but knowing Myrtle, it had probably been something depressing and/or doom-filled. They really got rather repetitive after awhile, but Myrtle seemed grateful that someone was taking the time to listen to her, even if the person wasn't listening very hard.

Actually, it wasn't a bad way to spend three hours.

"So what happened after that?"

"Well," Myrtle said impressively, "when the Ministry finally managed to exorcise me - oh, I put up such a fight I'm surprised it only took three years! - I..."

But she was cut off by the sound of footsteps outside the door, and someone fiddling with the knob. After a moment's thought, Millicent muttered a hasty Invisibility Charm and slipped behind the row of stalls for good measure; discretion, after all, was the better part of not having someone beat the crap out of you. Oh, it was remotely possible that Whoever-It-Was might have simply come to use the bathroom, but then again, it was also remotely possible that You-Know-Who might decide to give up his career as a Dark Lord and open a restaurant. Nobody ever went into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom without an ulterior motive - and even if they simply wanted some place to be alone, Millicent wasn't about to interfere without a damn good reason.

Besides, you could learn all sorts of fascinating things when people thought they were alone.

The door opened, followed by the sound of footsteps and the soft thump of a bag being set down. And then - was that the sound of a pair of scissors being used? Curious to see who was cutting her hair at eleven o'clock at night, Millicent peered around the row of stalls.

Her eyes widened.

On her knees before a small, portable mirror, shoulders and back set rigidly, Cho Chang was cutting her hair one strand at a time, her face frozen in an expression of terrible concentration. Strand after strand after strand. Each fallen piece of hair no more than an inch long. She had obviously put some sort of Evening Charm on the scissors, but even that safeguard didn't diminish her concentration in the slightest.

Strand after strand after strand.

Shaking, Millicent ducked back behind the row of stalls. An Invisibility Charm didn't so much make you invisible as it made you part of the scenery, meaning that it could be broken by calling to attention to yourself, and she didn't want to blow her cover by being sick to her stomach. Because she recognized the look on Cho's face. Oh yes, she recognized it.

Having been in Slytherin for four-and-a-half years gave her ample experience in recognizing someone who had been tortured. Whether by herself or by other people was irrelevant.

Oh, it was subtle. Probably would seem unimportant to most other people - why make a big fuss if someone wants to cut their hair late at night? But it wasn't just about the hair. It wasn't even about the obsessive way she was cutting the hair. All the evidence Millicent needed was in the awful, set expression on Cho's face, as though cutting hair barely veiled a desire to cut flesh, as though in seeing the faint tracery of hair that fell on her arms was the way she imagined crimson lines of blood, vivid against her golden-brown skin. Millicent had only seen an expression like that a few times before, but each time stood out in her mind as she watched Cho cut her hair, strand by strand by strand. On Blaise's face, hearing that her parents had been killed by Aurors. On Draco's face, coming back after the Christmas holidays with the Dark Mark peeking out from under the left sleeve of his robes. On Narcissa Malfoy's face as she poured tea with a sweet, lifeless smile. On Snape's face, addressing the Slytherins at the end of fourth year. And on Millicent's own face, when she was seven years old and promised herself, after the boy next door called her a fat pig and pushed her face in the mud, that she would never cry again. All these faces passing through her mind, but none standing out as much, at this time and in this place, as the face of Cho as she cut her hair.

Strand after strand after strand.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Cho finished cutting her hair and swept the small pile of hair into the corners with a quick Banishing charm, where it would mingle with the dust. She then crept out the door, but not before Millicent had bolted into one of the stalls and was quietly, but thoroughly, sick.

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It was much later before Millicent finally made her way back to the Slytherin common room.

It was mostly empty now. A few people still lingered, most of them sleeping face-down over neglected homework assignments, but nobody took any notice as Millicent discreetly entered the common room or walked in the direction of the fifth-year girls' dormitories.

Inside, Blaise was sleeping peacefully, but Pansy looked up as Millicent entered and wryly said, "Feeling better now?"

Millicent flushed slightly. "Yeah... Look, I'm sorry I was being so difficult. I just needed to let off some steam and since you were convenient..." She trailed off, looking sheepish. "I'm sorry."

Pansy, however, waved off the apology. "It's all right," she said with a shrug. "I mean, if I just found out that I was going to marry Crabbe, I probably would've done a lot worse than you did. Besides, you've spent the past four-and-a-half years watching me and Blaise storm out of the room, so I guess you're entitled to do it once or twice."
Millicent flopped on her bed, grinning. "Just once?"

Pansy grinned back. "Yeah," she said mock-severely. "So don't let me catch you doing it again, young lady!"

It would be all right, Millicent thought as she got into bed. No matter how distasteful being married to Crabbe would be, she would be all right. She could live with it. She would be all right. Now, if she could only erase the image of Cho cutting her hair...

Millicent was asleep before she finished the thought.