Belles Of Slytherin

The next morning over breakfast in the great hall, the girls compared their class schedules. Rissa munched her toast and ran a finger down the classes for the day, brushing a stray crumb off the parchment. "Mmmm... first up, I get to watch first years' Gryffindor-Slytherin double potions."

"Drat," Medea muttered. "That means I get stuck with the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw class. When's that?" She consulted her own schedule and sighed. "It's not until Thursday."

Draco scoffed from the other side of the table. "And just why would either of you want to have to deal with first years? The only reason you are doing it is to moon over Professor Snape and try to look intelligent next to the first years." He popped a bite of toast dripping orange marmalade in his mouth and licked his lips.

"Go stick your head in the lake," Medea replied. "No one asked for your opinion."

"No, but it's the truth," He continued. "The only way you could be interesting to Snape is if one of you actually developed some talent."

Rissa laughed. "Going to show us how that's done?"

Draco smiled coolly. "I could."

Medea snorted. "Only if you could figure it out first. We know more than you do anyway, fifth year."

"I know a few things that you two don't, so I wouldn't underestimate me if I were you," he answered, his eyes lingering on Rissa.

Medea rolled her eyes. "If you were her, you'd never get out of the shower. You'd be too busy groping yourself."

Draco flushed a dull red from neckline to his pale blonde hair. He narrowed his eyes as he said. "Watch yourself, Dia. You'll regret the way you brush me off some day." He turned back to Goyle and changed the subject back to Quidditch

Medea dismissed his remarks with a flick of her fingers in his direction.

Rissa sipped her juice and tapped the table idly with a fingernail. "We both have Divination this afternoon. The best and worst in the first day." She was looking forward to it anyway. She couldn't wait to talk to Professor Trelawney about an idea she had come up with for an individual project.

They both glanced up as the owls streamed in with the morning post. Rissa blinked as her father's tawny owl landed lightly in front of her and presented her with a letter. She quickly ripped the seal open and scanned the contents. "Hey, get this... my parents are going to America to visit my Uncle Roger. They aren't sure when they will be back, but it'll probably be after Christmas."

Draco's head snapped back around. "Roger Covington? The seeker for the Sweetwater All-stars?"

Yes, Draco would know all about him, since he played seeker on the Slytherin team. Rissa nodded absently as she read the rest of the letter. "Yes."

"So I guess that means you'll be staying here for the holidays?" Medea asked, oblivious to the gape-mouthed stare Draco was directing at Rissa.

Rissa blinked and frowned at Draco as she answered Medea. "I guess so. I can hardly go home if my parents are in the states. Oh what is it, Draco?"

He blinked. "Why..."

Rissa sighed. This was not a new reaction. Everyone wondered why she wasn't neck deep in playing Quidditch when they discovered that she was related to the Roger Covington, the seeker that had won the infamous five day game between the Sweetwater All-stars and Quiberon Quafflepunchers. She'd had the same problem with Marcus Flint, the captain of the Slytherin house team, who'd been hoping she would show the family talent. "Why is it that if my uncle is one of the most suicidal seekers that ever lived, aren't I more interested in Quidditch?"

He nodded and tried to compose himself back to his usual cool, disinterested state. "I mean you should be a natural."

Rissa shrugged. "Actually, I am pretty good. Uncle Roger bought me my first broom and taught me to fly, but I just don't really get into it. I break too many nails."

"You are such a girl," he sneered.

Medea laughed. "Draco! You noticed!"

Draco flushed again and muttered something unintelligible before jumping to his feet and striding out of the hall. Medea rolled her eyes good-naturedly and turned back to Rissa. "Well I could always ask and see if you can come home with me. Or I can stay here."

Rissa shrugged and stowed the letter in her pocket. "It's months away. We'll see what's going on by then."

They finished their breakfast and headed back to their dormitory to collect their books for their morning classes. Medea piled her books up and hoisted them up on one hip. "Have fun in Potions. I'm off to Ancient Runes."

Rissa collected up her essay for Professor Snape and a book to read in case she got bored and walked out with Medea. Rissa's eyes slid over Draco and Pansy Parkinson sitting together over a book in the common room. "What does he see in that girl?" She muttered under her breath.

Medea blinked and waved a hand as they stepped through the door to the dungeon hallway. "Her? I think he just hangs around her because his father approves of her family."

Rissa could hardly see Pansy's company worth any amount of parental approval, but then again, she ignored her family as much as humanly possible. Her father wasn't Lucius Malfoy, though and she was pretty sure that nothing amiss went unpunished in that house. "Well, no wonder he's always in such a bad mood then. I think I would be too."

Medea laughed as they brushed past a group of lost looking Gryffindor first years. "I think you think about my cousin and what he's doing way too much."

"Yeah, thinking about how good he'd look as a ferret again," Rissa snorted, frowning and ignoring the boy asking where the Potions classroom was.

"Suuuure," Medea laughed. "Can I be the maid of honor at the wedding?"

"Only in his demented dreams," Rissa scoffed, though she did have to wonder why she cared whom Draco talked to at all.

They parted ways at the Potions classroom, Medea heading up out of the dungeons and Rissa continuing on into the dungeon where Snape ruled over their Potions classes. She paused just inside the door to look around the classroom and sigh softly. He gaze lingered over the pickled animals in jars lining the walls, the scarred but immaculate work tables, and at the front of the room, Professor Snape's desk, covered in scrolls and books, a set of brass scales on the blotter. The air was almost permanently tainted with the scent of some potion that had been brewing. It wasn't unpleasant, but the acrid scent was distinctive. She looked around the empty classroom for him, but he was nowhere to be seen.

A few of the first year Slytherins wandered in behind her, showing up early for the class, trying to make a good impression on their head of house for the first lesson. They'd need it. Though Snape tended to show favoritism to them in front of the Gryffindors, Rissa knew from experience that he expected just as much if not more from them in the long run. Slytherins would excel. Snape would see to it that they did or else. She returned their timid hellos, noticing the lost Gryffindors following them in.

She walked over to knock softly on the connecting door to Snape's office.

He opened it after a moment and raked her up and down with his piercing gaze. "Miss Covington... ah yes, you are here. Promptly. How very refreshing," He said dryly as stepped back to allow her into his office.

Rissa set her books and the bundle of scrolls down in one of the chairs in front of his desk and glanced around the office that she had been too nervous to notice the night before. There was a portrait of a severe looking wizard behind the desk. He was looking down his very aristocratic nose at her and adjusted his stark robes. He flicked an invisible spot of lint off before disappearing out of the frame. She wondered just who would want to visit with him, but she was sure somewhere in the castle there was a group of just such portrait people that got together and... gossiped about something or other.

Snape left the office door open and walked around the desk to shut and lock a cabinet before turning to regard her. Rissa cleared her throat and picked up the essay scrolls. "Here's the homework that I completed during the summer holidays."

Snape took the scroll from her and slipped the green ribbon off and unrolled the pages, riffling through them and pausing occasionally to read a bit here and there. "Immaculate penmanship as usual." He raised a brow slightly as he reached the bibliography page. "Some of these books are from private collections?"

"Yes sir," she answered softly.

He nodded absently and placed them on the desk. "An informative read, no doubt."

Rissa wondered if that tone in his voice was actual boredom or whether it was just that he used it so much with students that it was stuck there. After all, they were just students and if they had known as much as he did, they would hardly need his class, now would they?

He cleared his throat and straightened his robes. "Now then, Miss Covington, today in class I might call on you to help me with a few demonstrations. Otherwise you can just remain seated at my desk as I lecture."

The first Potions class lecture. Rissa still remembered hers. She wondered if there was anyone that had ever taken Snape's class and hadn't been indelibly marked by the way he spoke of potion making and even more marked by the way he treated his classes. He was a harsh instructor, but in her mind a very good one. Strict, demanding, exacting... One thing was for sure, when you passed his class with good marks, you knew you deserved them, and could probably do twice as much as anyone who had passed the same class at any other wizard school in the world.

At precisely the appointed time, Professor Snape breezed into the classroom and stood before his desk, Rissa slipping unobtrusively in behind his desk and sat down. As he stood silent, taking in each of the students and meeting their eyes, Rissa could see some gulping and looking less sure of themselves. Even the Slytherin students weren't immune to the sheer power of his presence.

"Call the roll please, Miss Covington."

Rissa blinked and pulled the parchment sheet with the list of students closer and began to read the names off starting at Allenton, Ramon and continuing all the way through Yblanski, Elizabeth as Snape peered at each student, committing their names and faces to his memory. She ticked each name off with a quick check using an immaculately sharpened black quill.

After Rissa had finished, Snape lapsed into silence again. She relaxed back into the chair as he started his infamous introduction speech. "I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes..."

Rissa let her eyes wander over the class as they watched him intently, her hand straying into the pocket of her robes, where her rat Issy was stirring restlessly. She was starting to wake up after her post breakfast nap. She fed the rat the crusts of bread she had filched from breakfast for just such a case and smiled slightly as Issy licked the last crumbs from her fingers. Her head jerked back up at Snape's next question.

"If I gave you Jobberknoll feathers, what sort of potion might you be making?"

The students look around uncomfortably and shifted in their seats. One or two hands went up hesitantly among the students. Snape pointed to one of them. "You... Mr. Allenton?"

The dark, rather fey-looking Slytherin boy blinked and put his hand down. "Truth serums?"

"Five points for Slytherin for a correct answer. Anyone else?"

Hands shot up among the rest of the class. Rissa wondered whether it was the lure of points for their house motivating them or if the first answer had jogged something in their memories. If it were the former, they'd earn quick enough that Professor Snape usually took more points than he gave, excepting Slytherin of course. Snape pointed to a girl from Gryffindor. "Yes, Miss Smythe?"

She looked hesitant for a moment. "Wit sharpening?"

Snape smiled coldly. "Five points from Gryffindor for merely guessing. Miss Covington, the correct answer?"

"Memory potions," Rissa replied.

"And another five points to Slytherin if you can name two potions that contain Jobberknoll feathers. One of each type."

"Veritaserum and Remembrant," She answered easily.

"That," Snape said turning back to scan the class. "Is what I will attempt to drill into your thick little skulls this year. If you prove intelligent enough to absorb the information I will offer you, some of you will one day be adequate in the field of potions." He went on stressing the safety and need for strict discipline in the Potions classroom at all time.

Rissa's mind wander back to the previous year when half her class had been in the infirmary for a week from inhaling toxic fumes caused by an idiot Gryffindor had dropped half a bag of Bertie Botts Everyflavor Beans in a Scintillating Solution. Those students that hadn't been knocked out immediately by the fumes had been hysterical because of the wild colors the potion had begun to change the splashed areas.

The rest of the class had gone smoothly, Rissa listening as Snape went of the procedures and rules the students would be expected to follow in the potions lab at all times, emergency procedures and a few stories to illustrate what would happen to those students that broke them. When the bell rang and they were dismissed, everyone scattered out of the classroom in a hurry and Rissa began collecting up her things.

"I will see you tomorrow afternoon, Miss Covington," Professor Snape said. "Be sure to bring your equipment and gloves with you."

"Yes sir, Professor Snape."

Rissa quickly left the dungeons and grabbed a quick lunch before collecting her books and hurrying toward the Divination classroom. In one of the long hallways Peeves looked up from trying to draw a mustache on a painting to look at her with glee.

"Oooh... if it isn't one of the Belles!"

Rissa groaned. Peeves was a never ending source of pain. If everyone else had forgotten that dratted song, then Peeves could be counted on to revive it. "Please go away, Peeves."

Peeves cackled and floated over to her and circled around her. "To good to talk to the likes of me? And here I was just going to ask if you had been flying on your broomstick lately."

She crossed her arms and stared at him stonily. The thought was if you didn't let him get to you, then he would give up and go find someone else to annoy, even if it was just Filch, the caretaker.

Clicking his tongue, Peeves looked thoughtful, or as thoughtful as a Poltergeist could look. It was common knowledge that they weren't all that intelligent, after all. "I heard a song that made me think of you the other day. What was it now... Ah yes! Slytherin belles, Slytherin belles, They go all the way! Oh what fun it is to watch'em ride broom sticks the wrong way! "

"PEEVES!" Rissa shouted. "Would you like me to have the Bloody Baron after you?" It was the one threat that worked on him with any great effect. Though Rissa didn't converse with the Baron on a regular basis, he was their house ghost, and Rissa and Medea always made a point of being polite and courteous to him. Besides that, almost anyone could use the threat on Peeves and it would work.

The Poltergeist stuck out his bottom lip in a pout and sighed. "But it's a perfectly nice song and I hadn't even gotten to the second verse! That's my favorite part, where you..."

"OH BARON..." Rissa said loudly in a singsong voice.

Peeves let out a startled yip and disappeared with an audible pop.

After the climb through the castle, and the confrontations with Peeves, the climb up the silver ladder to the classroom, was the last straw. She sat in one of the chairs at the tiny tables in the classroom and tried to catch her breath. The heat of the room was chasing the last of the chill from her bones and she closed her eyes and signed, breathing in the smoky incense laden air. Sandalwood and rosemary. She could feel its relaxing effects creeping through her. By the time the rest of the class had filed in and found their seats, she felt relaxed and peaceful. When Medea plopped down across the tiny table from her muttering about stupid runes and the intricacies of deciphering them Rissa opened her eyes and smiled.

"That bad?" She asked.

Medea snorted. "Tell me again why I take that stupid subject?"

"Because your grandmother taught you your first runes when you were three and she wanted you to be good at them," Rissa answered.

Medea sighed. "Only for Granny would I put up with them."

"You might need them some day."

"Yeah, and it's bound to come in more handy that reading stupid tea leaves and I do that."

As if on cue, Professor Trelawney entered with a flourish of her garish robes and shawl, her eyes bright behind her glasses. "Ah, another year with my dear Slytherin students." Her eyes probed the room and she nodded. "Ah I see you all made it through the holidays and returned. So glad that the portents were wrong."

Rissa wondered just who it was that she had seen as not returning. She was constantly seeing someone not making it. It was common knowledge that she saw Harry Potter's demise everywhere and so far she had been disappointingly wrong every time.

As Professor Trelawney made her way through the classroom, she paused to lay a hand on Edward Fawlkes' shoulder. "Dear, don't take it too hard when you lose the Galleons on that Quidditch match in February. You'll make it all back on the world cup."

She settled on her stool and regarded the class with one of her smiles. "Now, I thought we would all have a nice cup of tea and read the leaves as a review and sort of a welcome back before I discuss the plans for the year and we get started. So everyone choose a cup."

Medea groaned softly as she went and grabbed cups for herself and Rissa. She handed Rissa the cup patterned with purple forget-me-nots and sighed. "Why... why me? I swear I can never see anything in this! It's all smoke and mirrors."

Rissa poured their tea and shrugged. "You were right last year about the Yule ball. We did wind up having a little fun with those Durmstrang boys."

"And you did wind up with a sore foot," Medea mused.

Rissa sipped her tea and nodded. "Because that oaf stepped on it half a million times. But the point is you were right."

Medea laughed and drank her tea quickly. "Well hurry up and let's see what I can predict this year."

Rissa finished her tea off quickly and turned the cup over on her saucer and turned it clockwise three times. "Have at it now."

Setting her cup aside, Medea picked up Rissa's and peered into it. "Mmmm..." She squinted and nodded as she tried to make heads or tales of it. After a long moment of silence she smiled. "Well Riss, I see quite a bit here. Good fortune and a trip. After the trip your views of some things will change and in the spring, I see.... Love."

Rissa snorted and cocked her head. "You don't see all that in there!"

Professor Trelawney made her way over and looked over Medea's shoulder. "Oh my... What a perfect cup!" She frowned and looked again. "Not a hint of disaster or hardship."

Rissa wanted to cheer. Finally she had gotten one up on the Divination professor who specialized in doom and gloom, but it was a short-lived victory.

"No... look there." She gestured to something, pointing it out to Medea. "See there. Difficult choices." Professor Trelawney looked up at Rissa sadly. "You will have to choose between things that will ultimately change the course of your life."

Rissa blinked and looked back at Medea who nodded and shrugged as she sat down the cup, Professor Trelawney already fluttering off to another table to spread her own brand of cheer. "Honestly," Medea sighed. "I would have missed that one."

Rissa picked up the cup and glanced into it before setting it back on the saucer. "Eh, she's wrong eight times out of ten anyway. Drink up. Let's see what you get."

They spent the next twenty or so minutes muttering over the vagaries of tea leaves and giggling at the strange and somehow funny portents of Medea's leaves and trying to out do each other in dreaming up gloom and doom predictions. Then after the cups had all been stowed away, they listened to Professor Trelawney's plans for the year interspersed with her own predictions.

After class, Medea waiting for her at the bottom of the ladder, Rissa talked to Professor Trelawney about her interesting Phrenology.

"Alas," the Professor sighed. "That is a field that I have no real experience in. It's a rather more complicated subject than I can teach in class here."

Rissa nodded earnestly. "That's why I was hoping I could do some independent study on it and just sort of take off into it on my own."

The Professor beamed at her. "Such initiative. I couldn't dream of squashing such enthusiasm. Whatever help I can be, please let me know, and of course, I'll be glad to offer whatever insight I can."

Rissa headed back to the Slytherin common room, already making plans for her studies in Phrenology, all thoughts of any possible Earth shattering decisions in her future pushed right out of her mind. Already she was planning on ordering the life-sized phrenology bust she had seen in Witches' Weekly just last month.