Thinking For Herself

Millicent Bulstrode would be the first to admit that she wasn't the brightest girl in the school, or even in Slytherin, but she worked hard, or, as Pansy once put it, 'Like a Hufflepuff with a coffee addiction'. Millicent didn't care; the look of pride on her father's face when he saw her end-of-year results was always worth it.

Her first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson made her feel concerned. Millicent knew she could be clumsy and often over-exaggerated her wand movements at first when learning a new spell. Finesse was not a trait anyone associated with her. Even a simple Wingardium Leviosa had taken her a couple of weeks to perfect: to begin with, she'd embedded half-a-dozen feathers in the ceiling. Because of this, she'd hoped to spend lots of time going over her defensive spells. She feared that after a year of doing nothing but reading Slinkhard's dreadful prose she'd step into the exam hall at the end of the year and, instead of disarming her examiner, punch him backwards through the stone wall with a magical blast.

"I wonder where Professor Hagrid is," she mused. "I thought we'd fail Care of Magical Creatures and pass Defence Against the Dark Arts, not the other way around. I wouldn't mind if we had Grubbly-Plank for our NEWTS, to be honest. We'd sail through our exams."

"What do you think of Umbridge, Millicent? Do you think we'll pass our exams with her?" Pansy asked idly, flicking through a copy of Hex Marks The Spot: Practical Curses For Teenaged Witches. She had no intention of carrying on with Care of Magical Creatures after her OWLs, not unless her parents insisted. She'd had enough of things that bit and scratched and stank to last her a lifetime.

"I could do with a bit of practical work, and I don't think she'll give us any," Millicent replied, guardedly. The lack of practical studies aside, she had liked the silence in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and the fact that she didn't have to interact with anyone. She'd never say it in front of Draco and Pansy, but the teacher she'd learned most about the subject from was still Professor Lupin, because his lessons mainly involved magical creatures and she had a natural gift for dealing with animals. "She's got a scary side, though - I bumped into Eloise Midgen, and she says Harry Potter got detention from her after his first lesson. She gave him detention for a whole week. I'm not pushing my luck with her."

"You're going to be like her one day," Pansy told her. "I can just see it, you in some poky old farmhouse, a dotty fat old spinster plastered in chintz. Only you'll have real cats, not ones on plates."

Millicent kept her face neutral. She'd learned from experience that everyone could be cruel to her sometimes and Pansy was no exception. At least with Pansy it was done out of habit, not genuine malice. Pansy could be catty to nearly everyone. "I'd look like a sofa if I wore chintz," Millicent pointed out.

Pansy giggled. "I don't care, I'd come and see you even if you did wear it. Just don't start putting your hair in bows. Friends or not, there are some things I won't stand for."

"Bows are for cats," Millicent stated. "Speaking of which, I haven't fed them today." She got up to do her favourite task.

In most Hogwarts houses, and in Slytherin until Millicent's arrival, the House Elves fed the animals. Millicent rarely stuck up for herself unless pushed, but she always put animals first, and had been adamant even as an 11-year-old that no one looked after Puss but her. Pansy had persuaded her to look after her Siamese too, and over the following years Millicent had somehow become Slytherin's animal keeper.

In a side-room off the common room, Millicent picked up the dirty old dishes and stacked them in a neat pile for the House Elves to collect and wash. Many cats were waiting there already, and the toads were croaking softly in their tanks. As she collected tins of cat food from a shelf, she looked hard at Theodore Nott's elderly toad. She'd kept it healthy as long as she could, but Nott would have to bury it at some point in the next term. She had already found a suitable box, and had hidden it where the toad couldn't see it. She knew the toad had no idea what the container was for and so she was being foolish, but she hid it anyway.

She scooped smelly blobs of cat food onto the clean dishes. Jasmine, Pansy's pedigree Siamese, leaped up onto the sink where Millicent was working. "You know you're not supposed to be up here," she warned her, and picked Jasmine up and dropped her on the ground, carefully so that she'd land on her feet. Puss, Millicent's own cat, trilled at her. Millicent picked Puss up and cuddled him. "Where have you been? I haven't seen you all day."

Puss simply purred and rubbed his face against Millicent's, which was better than any conversation as far as she was concerned. Millicent loved Puss. Other pupils laughed at Filch and Mrs Norris, but she understood them. She suspected that Filch felt like she did about most other people - and that they both secretly envied Hagrid, who had his own little hut far away from the school. If he's not coming back, Millicent thought, if Draco's father does get Hagrid sacked like he says he will, perhaps I could move in there... but no, that would never be allowed. "Stupid old mudblood cat," she crooned. "Got no father or mother worth knowing, and yet you've got into Hogwarts anyhow." Puss buzzed back.

Most other cats in Slytherin were like Umbridge's plate-kittens. They were fluffy, stupid things. Adrian Pucey had a neat, quiet grey shorthair called Alfred. Jasmine was like Pansy: elegant, seen by some people as beautiful and others as ugly, snooty, intelligent and demanding. Puss was stocky, with raggedy ears and a tail that had been broken some time before Millicent found him yowling in a ditch. Puss was tatty and had no pedigree, but he was Slytherin's king of cats. "Perhaps that's why you're here," she told him, putting him down. "You're too keen to be the leader to be in any other house." Her cat rubbed round her ankles, pleading for his supper.

Contentedly Millicent put the dishes on the floor and smiled. Heads down, tails up, the cats tucked in. This was her favourite sight. Everyone in the room was happy, and no one cared if she was plain or chubby or a bit quiet. Millicent adored all animals, but cats were her favourites. Two years previously she'd heard a rumour about Hannah Abbott's cat having a litter of sickly kittens. She'd marched straight up to Hannah before the next lesson Slytherin shared with Hufflepuff and grilled her on the kittens' ancestry. Hannah hadn't looked closely enough into it; she and another Hufflepuff had just thought it would be cute to have kittens. Their pedigree cats were too closely related, and the kittens were weak. Some were even deformed.

She bent down to stroke Puss. After scolding Hannah soundly about responsible cat breeding, she'd waited a year and then offered Hannah Puss' services. Last year Hannah's cat had had a lovely litter of healthy, strong kittens. Hannah didn't care that Puss was a mongrel cat, a no-name nothing. Hufflepuffs didn't even mind that about people.

Sometimes a bit of gutter blood was better than a pedigree, and this reassured Millicent. While Millicent yearned to be pretty, just as she longed for a full set of magical ancestors, she accepted both as impossible dreams. In her early years at school, she'd been pathetically grateful to Pansy for befriending her, doubly so after she found out her own mother was a half-blood. The pair of them had been friends since they arrived at Hogwarts. Millicent wasn't sure why, but she felt that even as an 11-year-old Pansy had sensed that Millicent would never compete with her. The fact that Millicent had known Draco Malfoy since childhood was also something Pansy also appreciated about her, as the pair grew older.

Nowadays she wasn't always sure if being so close to Pansy was a good thing. When she was with the cats or in some isolated spot in the grounds with only her books and the natural world around her, Millicent felt at peace. She didn't feel ugly and tainted because no one was there to make her feel it. Pansy was everything she wasn't, everything she longed to be, and sometimes she hated her for it. She felt bad about her jealousy, but it was there, and would flare up whenever someone new turned immediately to pretty Pansy and away from blocky Bulstrode before either girl had opened her mouth. She knew it wasn't Pansy's fault people took to her so easily, but Pansy accepted it as natural, and that grated. Then there were the times when Pansy wanted Millicent to do something she didn't like - times that had grown more frequent since Pansy started dating Draco. Pansy had always been sharp, but now she could be truly awful at times.

"I wish I could be a little bit prettier," she whispered to Puss. "Or a pureblood. Or a cat. Other cats don't care who you're related to, and all cats are cute." Other cats came to butt her hand for a fuss, and she sat on the floor, surrounded by her furry friends. All her cares drifted away, and she patted and tickled the animals. They liked her size; it gave more of them a warm and comfy place to sit.

An ugly face looking round the door distracted her. "Where's Jasper?" Crabbe asked. At the end of the previous academic year he'd taken to visiting his toad whenever it was cat feeding time, much to Millicent's annoyance. It looked as though he was going to carry on doing it this year, too.

"Jasper's in his tank, where he always is," Millicent said. "And don't go licking him any more, you know he's the wrong sort of toad and he doesn't like it."

Crabbe grinned. Millicent could be almost military in her love of rules and faith in right and wrong, which entertained most of her housemates, who paid scant attention to regulations. "I won't, I promise." He walked over to the tank, stepping carefully around cats, and surveyed Jasper with almost fatherly pride. "I've had him from spawn. Hey Jasper! Jasper!"

Jasper looked unblinkingly at him. Millicent smiled, in spite of herself. When Draco wasn't pulling his strings, she liked Crabbe. "Have you got any spares? I think Theodore's going to need one."

Crabbe looked sad. "Oh, that's awful. I'll have some more next spring... hey, Jasper! You missed a cricket! Look! Cricket!"

Millicent left him tapping on the tank, trying to make Jasper notice his insect supper.

Crabbe, for his part, was disappointed to see Millicent go. He'd never felt able to tell anyone, but he was rather fond of her. She was always kind to him and she had... well, those. She looked like a girl he could grapple with without fear of hurting. Draco and Blaise would tease him if they found out, and probably push him at someone with a longer family history. The Crabbes were too long-established for him, an only son, to marry Millicent. It was a shame, though. She was a fine figure of a girl.

Pansy had got Draco to herself by the time Millicent finished feeding the cats. Not wanting to disturb them, she found a quiet corner and sat over her copy of Slinkhard's book. She tried practising the wand movements for simple defensive spells, mouthing the appropriate incantations. Just about every Slytherin could manage those spells which could be use offensively as well as defensively; even the feeblest first years got the hang of the leg-locking curse or disarming spell. In such a competitive house, they were essential. However, she wasn't sure she'd manage the more difficult ones she'd need to get a good grade in her exams. She tried a new spell, one she'd seen fifth years revising the previous summer.

Adrian Pucey, Slytherin's seventh-year Chaser, watched her intently. Adrian was as much a loner as his cat Alfred. In his way, he was as precise as Snape. "You're doing that wrong," he told her.

"How do you know what I'm doing?" Millicent asked in annoyance.

"Because I've already passed my OWL, and I know what you're supposed to be doing. Watch." He demonstrated the move with his own wand. "You need to be more fluid in your movements."

Millicent tried again. "Better?"

"Not much." He sat back. "Try again. Again. Again - that's more like it."

"I'll be rubbish at it again by tomorrow," Millicent said glumly. "It takes me so long to learn wand movements. Once I've got them, they feel natural, but simply learning them is a chore."

"Practice them every day, then," Adrian told her. He pulled a face, and said, "Tell Pansy you want to give her more time with Draco."

"Everyone will laugh at me for practicing these," Millicent said.

"Why? Do they think they won't ever need to defend themselves from Dark wizards or spells? They'd have to be pretty special to be untouchable. Draco and Pansy might be that important one day, and Theodore Nott, and probably Blaise Zabini, but the rest will be expendable. You'll be dispensable, Millicent. You'll be doubly so, because you're impure." Adrian spoke without a hint of malice. "Who will defend you, Millicent?"

"We all look out for number one. I'll defend myself," she told him, going over the move again and again. She would get it right eventually, she was sure. "Anyway, there are hardly any Dark wizards any more. The only person who still believes in them is Harry Potter, and he's loopier than a tin of spaghetti hoops."

Adrian looked approvingly at her. "It's better to be prepared, anyhow. Come and show me that one on Sunday evening. If you're any good, I'll teach you another."

Millicent shrugged. She didn't understand why Adrian was taking an interest in her Defence studies. He wasn't bad looking, and he was a pureblood. He was about the right age to be applying for a good job and finding a suitable girlfriend like Montague. Instead he loafed about the Common Room acting all superior. Alfred wandered in, and she decided that must be the reason: Adrian liked her because she cared for his cat. Whatever the reason, it didn't really matter. At least with his help she might have some hope of scraping a pass in her exam.