Belles Of Slytherin

By the end of September, everyone was once again settling into the Hogwarts routine. Classes were running smoothly and the Quidditch trials were over. Rissa was immersed in her research on Phrenology and her work in Potions on top of her regular classes. She sat a breakfast pouring over a huge red leather bound book called Heads up on Phrenology by Philomina Phillips, idly twisting one of her dark curls around her finger. She barely glanced up as she heard gasps up and down the table as the mail came in. She did however glance up as Medea jerked the book out of her hands as four of the biggest school owls struggling under the weight of a huge box hovered in front of her. They dropped an oversized box on the table where the book had been moments before.

"What in the bloody hell is that?" Draco demanded, dropping his toast. "It's nearly big enough to hold a body."

Medea snorted. "Yeah Draco. You got it exactly right. We took up a collection and got you a new one. Why, the Gryffindors themselves chipped in over ten galleons."

Draco laughed. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with my body. Girls love it... Don't they, Millicent?"

Millicent Bulstrode looked up from her breakfast down the table and fairly simpered at him, nearly knocking a pitcher of orange juice into Blaise Zabini's lap in the process. Blaise yelped and dodged out of her way, shooting a venomous look down the table at them.

Medea looked at Draco as if he had lost his mind. He'd been running from Millicent for years. She found his behavior very odd indeed. "Draco... you stupid git. Sit down before you embarrass the whole family with your vanity."

Rissa laughed, casting him a glance. "There's nothing wrong with it, if you like pale little ferret boys." Not that she was going to admit that she actually did find him quite attractive. He'd probably lord it over her forever, and she still hadn't forgiven him completely for that damned song. If she was honest, he wasn't that little any more either. He was an inch or so taller than she was. She quickly found the return address and grinned. "Ooh, it's the phrenology bust I ordered from Witches' Weekly."

Draco made a face and a rude noise. "You don't actually read that drivel do you? Aren't they the ones that prattle on about how wonderful that phony Lockhart was?"

Rissa ignored him as she looked at the box and sighed. It was an awkward size and weight, just the wrong size for her to carry herself. "How am I going to carry this thing down the stairs?"

As Medea finished her breakfast quickly, an idea came to her and she smirked slightly. She looked over at Draco and winked before she replied. "I'd help, but I have to hurry up and get to Potions and help Professor Snape reorganize his private stores."

Draco took the hint, even missing a perfect opportunity to make a snide remark at his cousin's expense and snapped his fingers at Goyle and Crabbe. "You two, get this box and take it down to our common room."

Rissa blinked as the two grabbed the box and took off with it, muttering under their breath. She crossed her arms and glared at Draco. "Excuse you, but I didn't ask for help."

Draco smiled coolly as he stood and tossed down his napkin. "No, you didn't think of it but I'm offering my help."

"Your help? But you aren't doing anything." She eyed him suspiciously. Draco never did anything out of the kindness of his heart. Hadn't he proved that he didn't even have one over and over?

"No but I got Crabbe and Goyle to do it and you wouldn't have gotten them to otherwise." He pointed out with another smirk. He stood waiting for her to say something, one pale eyebrow cocked.

Rissa couldn't argue with that as much as she would like to. He was offering help and getting nothing in return that she could see at the moment. She also couldn't argue if the two stupid gits didn't drop the box and shatter the contents into a million pieces, then they would be perfect for the job. They were almost enough to make her wish she had lackeys of her own. She drank the last of her pumpkin juice and nodded, grabbing her books. "Well then let's go with them before they lose it."

Draco followed her as she left the hall, following the muttered sounds of curses as Goyle bumped and pushed people out of their way. She tried to ignore Draco but as they climbed down the staircase to the dungeons, curiosity got the better of her. Fatal to cats, she mused as she asked, "All right, what's up with you, Draco?"

Draco blinked and pasted what would have been an innocently looking smile on anyone else. On Draco, it just seemed all the more cunning than his normal one. Probably because she knew there hadn't been an innocent though in his head in years, if then. "Nothing, Rissa, but I thought that this way I might get a chance to see what's really in the box."

Rissa paused at the door to the Slytherin common rooms to mutter the password and give him another probing look. "I told you it's a phrenology bust. It's for a project in Divinations."

Draco made his way to where Crabbe and Goyle stood sweating and puffing next to the box they had sat on a table. He dug a pocketknife out of his robe and quickly started opening the box. "I don't think I've ever seen one."

"Not all that much to see," Rissa pointed out, pulling a chair over to the table and leaning on the back to watch him. She figured that he was simply after the thing because it might have value or be of some interest to his dark little mind. "It's just a model of a head with the different parts of the scalp marked on it to help study zones of the head."

He tossed aside the packing material carelessly and peered at the plaster model. "You mean you paid good galleons for a fake head?"

Rissa bumped him aside with her hip and lifted the bust out of the box and set it on the table. The model was about two and a half feet tall, and finished with a faux creamy marble finish. The scalp was divided into the thirty-nine different faculties with darker depressed lines. She actually thought it looked nicer than it had in the photograph in Witches' weekly. It had been a little hard to tell with the sculptor hovering around it in the picture and getting in the way. "Yeah. This will help with the visualization and physical placement and what-have-you of learning to read heads."

Draco gave a dirty smirk as Crabbe and Goyle guffawed. Rissa gave him a sharp look. "Don't... just don't say a word."

Draco sighed and crossed his arms. "You are way too serious." He watched her run her hands over the mapped scalp of the bust. "That looks like a butchering map or something"

"And you are serious about all the wrong things," Rissa muttered. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the names of different sections as she felt them and what they represented. She had a pretty good idea of what she was feeling and smiled. She was just about ready to start the next phase of her project.

"What are you going to call this thing?" Draco asked, tracing a finger along the bust's nose. That particular model had a long patrician nose and close-set eyes. A pointy chin too. She wondered if one of the Malfoy relatives had posed for it.

She opened her eyes and blinked at him. "Call it?"

"Oh come on, the thing needs a name." He gestured broadly. "You know... Marshall or something."

She arched a brow as she stared at him. "Name it?"

"He's your study partner isn't he? How about Carl?" He laughed.

Rissa cocked her head and looked at it for a minute. "Henry."

"Henry," Draco replied blankly. "Why Henry?"

Rissa chuckled and shook her head. "Come now, Draco. In all those evil little adages that you are always spouting, have you forgotten Know thy enemy?"

"What do you mean?"

Rissa sighed and shook her head. "The muggles are going to eat your lunch one of these days, ferret boy. Henry the Eighth was a muggle king who killed all his wives because he was impotent or something."

Draco stared at her confused. "Why did he do that? What in the bloody hell are you talking about?"

Rissa sighed. "Oh never mind... two years of muggle studies down the drain. They don't make sense anyway, but his name is Henry, because it's about time the females evened the score."

Draco looked back at the bust with great interest. There was an evil gleam in his eye at the very thought of dark arts being used to enslave muggles. "So this is a curse of sorts? The muggle king transfigured?"

Rissa threw her hands up in disgust. "Never mind... don't you have class or something, Draco?"

Draco rolled his eyes and flicked his fingers dismissively. "Magical Creatures. It's a joke anyway."

Rissa sighed. She should have known that Draco was just using her as an excuse to get out of something distasteful. "Nice to know I rank better than that," she muttered.

"What about you? Aren't you supposed to be doing something too? I can't imagine that you are skipping class for any reason short of someone stealing your bones."

"You know very well that Dia would carry me to class in a washtub till it was convenient for me to grow them back," she replied sarcastically. "Honestly, you make me sound like Hermione Granger." Rissa hated when anyone commented on her somewhat dedication to learning and her marks. It wasn't as if she was all that bad... was she? "And I have a study pass to the library for this morning."

"Restricted section?" He asked, his interest suddenly sharpening.

"Hmmm... yeah, as a matter of fact." She answered cautiously. What was he after in the restricted section? Not that any student at Hogwarts needed a reason. If there was a chance to get in there to look at things you were being protected from, you took it, especially if you were after something that was dark.

"Do you think I could go with you?" He asked sweetly. It was almost mind-boggling.

"Oh I'm sure that Pince would just wave you right in because you are with me," she snorted.

She pulled out her wand and flicked it at Henry, setting a protection charm on it. "Vindico." It was a nice little charm that would give a nice electrical jolt to anyone who tampered with it and each time you tried the jolt got stronger. While not precisely something that a student should be using on objects in the common room, it would serve meddlers right and besides that, getting away with the unethical was the Slytherin way.

Draco blinked at her in surprise. "Remind me never to mess with anything that belongs to you."

Rissa chuckled and grabbed her books and blank scrolls. "That would be exactly the point."

~~*~~

After a long morning in the library, doing research from the restricted section and taking five scrolls worth of notes, for both Divinations and Potions, Rissa collapsed at the Slytherin table next to Medea for lunch. Arithmancy all afternoon would almost be a blessing after pouring over dusty old tomes all morning. Even more so because the pictures in the Potions book she had been reading had wanted to tell her something she was quite sure she didn't want to hear and had nothing to do with the research she had been doing. Their wild gestures had given her a headache.

"And how goes the quest for the secrets of the universe through the bumps on someone's head?" Medea asked as she took a bite of spotted pudding.

"Ready for the second phase."

"What's that?" Draco asked as he plopped down across from them.

"What is that smell?" Medea waved a hand in front of her to clear the air and glared at Draco. "You reek."

He narrowed his eyes at her as he hastily put together a sandwich for himself. "Yes, I imagine I do. Hagrid had me mucking out the Crup kennels for being late to class. One of the bloody little bastards raised his leg on me."

Rissa chuckled, even though she felt a tiny pang of guilt. He'd been helping her instead of hurrying to class, though chances were he would have found some other excuse to be late anyway. "Did you tell him you were helping someone else and that's why you were late?"

"My name's not Potter. I can't get away with excuses. What the hell difference should it make if I was being abducted by Voldemort himself?"

Rissa started to say that if anyone including herself found Draco in the company of Voldemort, abduction wouldn't be the first conclusion, but she bit her tongue.

"Anyway," Medea continued on. "Have you got a list of volunteers yet?"

Rissa nodded and chased the last bite of treacle tart around her plate with her fork. "Actually I have a pretty good start. The whole divinations class volunteered, so I have enough Slytherins. I was hoping to get at least half the study group from other houses though." She paused to sigh and eat the last bite, tossing down the fork. "I figure I can convince some of the Ravenclaws to do it on the grounds of it's for class and the sake of research, but the Hufflepuffs and the bloody Gryffindors are going to be the hard sells."

"Hey, what about me?" Draco demanded.

"Sorry, ferret boy. I have no idea what that big point on the top of your head means. It's not in any of my books."

The tips of his ears turned red. "Must you insult me constantly?"

Medea nodded and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Yes, you are good practice. Now don't you have to go plot against Potter or something?"

Draco's eyes narrowed and glittered with malice. "I don't plot against him."

Rissa grinned and tilted her head. "Hmmm, you think I could convince Potter that he should be part of my project? I bet there are some interesting lumps under all that scrambled hair of his." Anything pro-Potter was bound to send Draco fuming.

Medea laughed. "He won't do it though. He's bound to think you are collecting hairs or something for some dark plot."

Draco wolfed down the rest of his sandwich, studiously ignoring them as they went on talking about Potter in the most glowing of terms to annoy him. Neither of the girls particularly saw why everyone liked him so much or made so much of him, but they made a habit of bringing him up just for Draco's reaction.

"He could have been a damn good Slytherin," Medea mused.

Draco nearly choked on the last bite of his sandwich causing Rissa to look at him in alarm. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well he would have!"

"Sure," Rissa answered. "Look at it objectively." She ticked the list off on her fingers. "He does exactly what he thinks he should whether it breaks the rules or not. He's stolen, done spells that he ought not be doing, sneaks around all over the place, consorts with convicted criminals, believes that the ends justify the means..."

"You are deluded. He only does those thing for... well out of..." Draco sneered. "Loyalty and because they are right. He's Gryffindor down to his bones. Now if you are done maligning our house, I'm going to get a quick shower before Potions."

Medea watched him stalk out of the great hall toward the dungeons. "Well that pissed him off right enough."

"I think the Crup started that for us." Rissa propped her chin in her palm and sighed. "Oh, did you see that Snape wants us to help him tomorrow?"

Medea sighed gustily. "Well what's in Hogsmeade that we haven't seen a million times?"

"Nothing I suppose, but it's just the idea that we're missing it."

~~*~~

Rissa sat on her stool in the Potions lab grinding wormwood with a mortar and pestle. It was a odd feeling to be sitting in the dark empty dungeon, just her and Medea, instead of full of students as it usually was. Snape had given them the task of making a very large batch of sleeping potion for the infirmary and left them to their task. He had been heading back and forth from his office to the cauldron he had simmering in the front of the room all morning. She dumped the wormwood into the simmering bear grease and powdered amethyst that Medea stirred intently.

"Okay, so who else would you feel up if you had the chance?" Medea asked with a snicker. They were of course still talking about Rissa's Phrenology project. It had consumed most of their discussion for the week, and they showed no signs of letting up.

"Anyone?" Rissa asked, carefully digging the eyes out of three dead hamsters and flicking them in the cauldron.

"Yeah, anyone at all."

"Professor Snape. I've had dreams of getting my hands on him."

There was a clatter from the front of the room and they jumped as they turned to see Professor Snape staring at them, his stirring ladle on the floor at his feet forgotten where he had obviously dropped it.

Rissa flamed scarlet as she realized how that must have sounded, but had no chance to explain as a pale Snape strode over to them quickly, hissing under his breath. "What are you two talking about, might I ask?" He crossed his arms and regained some of his normal icy demeanor. "And I do hope it's not as inappropriate as is sounds."

Medea stared at Rissa, her mouth opening and closing before she could get her mouth to work. "No sir... we were discussing a Divinations project."

"Oh really," he sneered. "Do tell."

Rissa nodded quickly and launched into a fast version of the whole story including Henry the bust and everything else she could think of. When she had at last fallen silent under Snape's steely gaze she swallowed hard. "So I really was talking about feeling your head, Professor Snape... not your ER" She trailed off into silence, knowing better than to go there again.

Snape cleared his throat, still looking vaguely pale and uncomfortable. "In any case, you are being negligent of the potion that your schoolmates, and quite possibly you yourselves will be taking. Since you feel the need to engage in idle gossip, to make sure you are more diligent, we'll be testing this potion on your rats."

Rissa and Medea looked at each other and chimed, though they were both already worrying about their rats, sleeping in Rissa's bag, slung over her stool. "Yes Professor Snape."

Snape strode back to the front of the classroom and tended his cauldron before disappearing back into his office. He paused once or twice to shoot them mistrustful looks.

"I could die now," Rissa muttered as she viciously chopped the sage and lavender for the potion. Her cheeks still felt hot. It was a blush that wouldn't die for days. The memory of the look on Snape's face when he thought... It would haunt her forever.

Medea on the other hand, was squinting thoughtfully at the cauldron on the other side of the room. "What is in that thing?" She mused. "Don't you think he's been hovering over it quite a bit? And is it just me or does he seem nervous today?"

"Nervous? He thought we were talking about groping his naughty bits!" Rissa blushed at the thought. Oh the humiliation, she groaned. "How can you think about some stupid potion at a time like this?"

"Because he was acting odd before. I wonder what's in there?"

Rissa paused to ponder on it for a moment. It was possible that Snape had been a bit on the nervous side. It wasn't much like him to flutter over a cauldron if it wasn't necessary. "Maybe it's just something that needs a close eye kept on it."

"We should volunteer to watch it for him... You know, to keep him from having to divide his attention."

Rissa snorted. "Yeah, somehow, I think he's likely to do that when he thinks we're going to muff up a simple sleeping potion."

"Speaking of which..." Medea ladled a bit of the potion onto a glass plate and inspected it closely. "Hm, nearly done, but still a bit grainy."

The girls sat hunched over their cauldron and watched the door of Snape's office, waiting for him to return to check his potion again. They watched him covertly as he stirred the cauldron and the nodded in satisfaction to himself. Medea cleared her throat. "Professor Snape, Sir? We're almost done here. Perhaps one of us could watch that for you, if it would help."

"I think not," Snape replied crisply.

"It's something very important then?" Rissa asked innocently.

"Something personal I'm working on," He muttered. "And too advanced for you to be mucking about ruining."

Medea raised an eyebrow at Rissa behind his back. Rissa swatted at her and rolled her eyes. Neither of them missed the faint emphasis on personal.

Snape removed the cauldron from the flames and set a cooling spell on it as he came over to inspect their handiwork. He lifted a ladle of the sleeping potion and peered at it intently. "This looks marginally acceptable. Where would our test subjects be?"

Rissa and Medea looked at each other with great reluctance.

"Come now, ladies. Surely you have the ultimate faith in this potion that you have been working on with such diligence."

Rissa sighed in capitulation and scooped the drowsy rats out of her book bag and dumped them out on the worktable. Silently she apologized for getting them into this. Flill looked up at Snape and flicked his little whiskers, begging, his paws clutched to his chest.

Snape eyed them with a glint of malice in his eyes. "Have I ever mentioned that I disliked rats as a child? My grandmother had a great black rat with a foul temperament."

Medea muttered something unintelligible under her breath about Flill's lack of sense.

Rissa coughed slightly. "I don't believe so, Professor." Something brown caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Mrs. Norris, Filch, the caretaker's cat, was stalking toward the table with her eyes glued on the rats. Bad day to be a rat, she thought.

Snape caught the direction of her glance and growled softly. "I thought I had made it quite clear to Filch to keep that creature out of my dungeons." He strode over quickly and scooped Mrs. Norris up and pinned her under his arm. "It seems your pets have a reprieve," he said silkily as he quickly produced an eyedropper and administered a few drops of the sleeping potion to the struggling cat.

Issy quickly darted up the sleeve of Rissa's robes as the girls watched Mrs. Norris slowly stop struggling and go limp in Snape's grasp. He deposited her on an empty table and watched her for a few more moments. Medea held her breath as she counted the rise and falls of the cat's prominent ribs.

"Ten points to Slytherin for a job well done, ladies," Snape commented at length. "Cool and bottle it before you begin cleaning up."

Medea let out the breath she was holding and relaxed. "All right, I'll bottle if you'll clean."

Rissa sighed in exasperation and nodded. "Fine but next time you wash." Her attention however was on Snape, decanting his violently puce potion into a series of small vials and stoppering them carefully. She couldn't recall a potion that that exact shade in any of her reading. There was something very interesting about it, if for no other reason, than wondering what in the world Snape was brewing up with such attention and diligence. Snape whisked the vials away in their rack, back into his office and then quickly returned to the sink to wash out his cauldron and utensils.

"Ballocks," she muttered. She had half hoped that there would be something left for her and Medea to inspect, but vigilant as always, Snape thoroughly cleaned everything and wiped down the table before returning to his office once again.

In the end, they both scrubbed glassware over the sink. Sleeves rolled up, they scrubbed down a batch of glassware with an industrial strength cleaning potion and muttered softly between them.

"I bet you it was something sneaky."

"Like what?" Rissa asked.

"An invisibility potion maybe." Medea shrugged as she placed a glass stirring rod in the drying rack.

"They are clear, and don't they put off vapors that turn things invisible as they simmer?"

Medea sighs. "Well it wasn't like he was making dye for his socks!"

"That color? I should hope not!" Rissa remarked mildly. Though she did have to wonder what he wore under his robes. He could have violet silk knickers under there and no one would ever be the wiser.

"I'm not giving up until I find out," Medea exclaimed as she dried her hands. "Are you with me?"

Despite her misgivings, Rissa knew she was. Always would be. Whatever Medea got her into it always proved to be two things: Interesting and usually borderline nerve-wracking. But regardless of whatever trouble they stirred up, it was always great fun.

She sighed. "Right then... we find out what he's up to."