Rating:
PG-13
House:
Astronomy Tower
Ships:
Blaise Zabini/Other Canon Witch Other Canon Witch/Other Canon Wizard Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson
Characters:
Other Canon Witch
Genres:
Drama Angst
Era:
The Harry Potter at Hogwarts Years
Spoilers:
Order of the Phoenix Half-Blood Prince
Stats:
Published: 12/09/2006
Updated: 02/14/2007
Words: 15,745
Chapters: 6
Hits: 2,270

Tracey Davis' Guide to Surviving Slytherin

mekelon

Story Summary:
Tracey Davis, fifth year Slytherin encompassing none of its finer attributes and all of its nonsensical ones, is the invisible damsel in distress trying to make it through just one more day of her housemates' irksome competitions. A story where Blaise steals butterbeer and more besides, Pansy's busy attempting to flirt with Draco (presently, it's quite one-sided) and everyone's in love with Daphne Greengrass. A slow but un-fluffy romance about the difficulties of being unconventional in the traditionalistic society that is the Slytherin Common Room. Just because you're a Slytherin doesn't make surviving your fellow housemates any easier.

Chapter 05 - A Helping Hand

Chapter Summary:
Tracey has her detention, and recieves some help from some
Posted:
12/28/2006
Hits:
243
Author's Note:
I was one of the Australian recepient's of Cassandra Clare's


Tracey Davis' Guide to Surviving Slytherin

Chapter Five: A Helping Hand

A great overfed barn owl peers at me in a manner that suggests that I am the most loathsome creature on the planet, perhaps universe. Well, I might be exaggerating a little and personifying the ugly bird a bit - but I know, I am positive, that owls never look at anyone else like that.

Filch turns around, what with his grey, greasy hair, and scowls and me, pointing to a mop, bucket and other indeterminate cleaning utensils - all of which are stacked atop a feather and straw covered ledge. There are white and black stains of bird droppings everywhere. Inwardly, I shudder. I really hate owls. "No magic," he leers and stomps away with, what I'm sure is, a nasty grin plastered all over his repulsive face. That man is such a sadistic, miserable, ugly piece of a flobberworm! Honestly.

Well, maybe he can't help being ugly - but you'd think someone from the Staff Common Room would have hit him with at least half a dozen Cheering Charms by now. Faculty meetings must be such a bore with him nattering on about the improper conduct carried out by ickle first years who are too frightened of him to tie up their shoelaces in his presence. Not to mention Mrs. Norris. I don't know how long he has worked at Hogwarts, but Mum tells me he and his 'broomstick-stuck-up-his-arse' attitude were here long before she started. Perhaps someone can convince Professor Flitwick in appeal of the greater good of humanity.

Not particularly sure why I have to do a detention during lunch, but remembering that now that Dumbledore has gone and Umbridge is the new Head, I figure that life is all chaos anyway. But that doesn't stop me from standing in the centre of Owlery feeling tense. There is no one else here but the school's population of owls - all of whom are softly hooting and blinking down at me from the rafters. Swirls of feathers rain down slowly. My hands grow clammy, and a tight knot rises up in my throat. "Could you all look away, please?" I venture with feeble hope.

Something flaps and flutters overhead. I can just imagine outstretched claws homing in to tear at my flesh. Spinning around wildly, and holding my arms over my head, I come face to face with Stephen Cornfoot.

"ARGH!!!"

Hang on. Stephen Cornfoot?

"Calm down, woman! No need to scream bloody murder," he cries, grabbing my flailing wrists. My heartbeat slows and my breathing steadies as I look up to meet his eyes. He stares down at me with the lofty gaze that I had expected, his dark blue eyes and the knot in his brow also voicing concern, laced with annoyance and, oddly enough - guilt.

His hands are still holding my wrists.

In a movie, in a novel, in any romantically inclined play - this would be the moment at which two characters would kiss. Except, I am not remotely interested in Stephen, much less in kissing him.

Gently, I feel his grip slacken, and then the feel of his palm against my skin disappears. He steps away from me - looking guiltier, traceably annoyed and no longer concerned.

"What are you doing here? Attempting to murder me?" I ask with false pleasantness.

"Kevin was right," he observes. "Sarcasm does not become you. Erica pulls it off very well, but she's... well, she has the sort of beauty that carries a sharp tongue."

"How wonderful," I mutter. "He's come here to murder me and lower my self esteem."

"Look," he cries exasperated after swearing under his breath, hissing something that rhymed with 'ducking shoe men'. "You're not bad looking, alright? But sarcasm just doesn't suit you. It makes you sound like Parkinson - and she looks like a pug," he added as an afterthought. "Why are you friends with her, anyway?"

Unable to stare at him furiously, as I had planned, I find myself very much taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"I said you're not bad looking. You'd be considered beautiful by someone else's standards, even," Stephen corrects. "I prefer fair hair, myself. Now, would you answer my question already?"

My head swims. Beautiful? I cast a suspicious gaze over him. Is he just pulling my leg? But what would be the point? There would be none. Maybe he's just being nice - but what for?

"Tracey?" His voice is soft - but I can still detect a note of that infamous 'I'm so much better than you' attitude in him. It's like he's being almost patronising.

"Why am I friends with Pansy?" I repeat, mostly to see if I could infuriate the guy. He did sneak up on me in a dark Owlery where I was considerably anxious. That's not a particularly nice thing to do. And he's still surveying me in a particularly lofty manner. I don't know how he carries all of this off. If it were me, I'd have broken down due to the immense number of facades undertaken. But then again, it never would be me. Thank Merlin. Without really listening to his brief reply, which I suspect was something synonymous with the affirmative; I carry on. "It's a matter of survival." I pause, knowing that he'd be confused. Suddenly, I discover that I couldn't care much about the state of his mind. "Well, unless you have anything else to tell me, I have a detention to get on with. I'm hungry, and I want to have something to eat before class."

"Actually, that's why I'm here."

"Sorry?"

"That note they found in your mail," he began slowly, his expression transforming into horribly guilty in the afternoon sunlight.

"Yes," I urge impatiently. I'd tap my foot if it wasn't for the fact that I was still subconsciously aware that I am surrounded by owls and they tend to swoop at sudden movements at ground level. The fact that my shoes have shoelaces doesn't help. It probably resembles mice tails.

"It was... sort of... Well, it was... partly - er - my fault."

There is a long and silent pause.

"What?"

"I wrote the note," he explains, "And it wasn't meant to go with your mail. It was meant to go with... well, someone else's - but there was a mix up."

"I don't understand."

"Look, I didn't know who it was that copped the blame until after that Herbology lesson yesterday morning."

"So, you mean to tell me that it was you who wrote the note, and somehow attempted to put it into someone else's outgoing mail, but it ended up in mine instead. And now I am the one, the only one, of the lot of you, who is getting her mail checked - when I didn't do anything wrong?" I feel somewhat triumphant when Stephen takes a nervous step backwards, away from my furious frame. "Is that what all that 'not bad looking' nonsense was all about?" I demand.

Stephen looks aghast. "No. No, that was honest. I meant it. I don't lie."

"No." I cross my arms and glare at him. "You just refrain from telling the truth in order to clear perfectly innocent people from atrocities such as having their personal privacy constantly invaded by toads like that detestable-"

"Shush." His hand clamps over my mouth. "You don't know who is listening," he whispers, removing his hand genially. That's it - the boy is positively mad. Though, he has a point. Pansy might be a friend, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad is. And they wouldn't refrain from punishing me for saying anything unpleasant about the new Head.

"Well, if you are the real culprit," I say, lowering my tone to the dangerous levels my mother employs when she is royally pissed off, "then you can do this detention for me." I smirk, but it is wasted when I discover a large grin slopped over his mouth. He definitely needs a mental check up.

I find myself witnessing Stephen Cornfoot raising his wand and muttering, "Scourgify" left, right and centre. Other than the generally amusing fact that he is actually quite good at casting cleaning spells, he also manages to enchant the broom to sweep together the matted mess of straw and feathers strewn all over the stone floor - of which, I am of course impressed by. I've always wanted to be able to pull off that spell, but haven't been successful.

"Filch is a Squib." He shrugs at my questioning Look, adopted from the one and only Quinn Rivers, of course. "He won't know the difference."

Speaking of Quinn, incidentally, the girl has continued to be a walking disappearing act, and laughed at me when I mentioned it in Potions, though she stiffened when I asked if she was seeing anyone I didn't know about. Curious. I thought she liked Blaise.

"Tracey?"

"Sorry?" I ask, blushing as I realise that I have no idea what Stephen has just said. I discover that he is standing very close to me, offering his hand for me to shake.

"No, that's not what I said. I just wanted you to know that my behaviour yesterday won't happen again."

My mind flits back to the image of his condescending self towering over me in the Greenhouse. He hasn't changed much, but at least he found it within his self-important little heart to attempt to set things right. In quite a Slytherin-like way, actually. I smile, and shake his hand, telling him he is forgiven. I think I could like Stephen Cornfoot quite well, given time.

I stiffen, seeing the agonisingly reproachful Mrs. Norris enter the Owlery sleekly. How old is that cat, anyway? I've known her batty, scrawny self for five years - and she's surely older than that! I hear a rustle from my left, and find that Stephen has bolted into a dark alcove. Filch peers at me, then at my supposed handiwork with a look of contempt, which fades into disbelief. "You finished, then?" he demands. I nod as modestly as I can manage. "Well, your detention is over. You can go to lunch now." Unless I am deeply mistaken, I could swear he sounds horridly unhappy at the idea. That man is truly the most sadistic creature I've ever met. "Come on, love," he coos at his cat. His stupid, nasty, horrible cat and his stupid, nasty, horrible self leave together. How could a man like that adore a filthy animal like her and how on earth could an animal bear such sadism? But then again, Mother Nature does care for prey and predator alike - made each for the other, according to my father.

"Finally," Stephen exhales with relief, stepping back into the sinking light. "Well, I guess I'll see you round, then."

"I guess," I reply with a half smile. I'd almost forgotten about Stephen, my Mother Nature obsessed thoughts having utterly removed me from my present reality. Mum calls it escapism, frowning upon it. Dad calls it daydreaming and reckons I don't do nearly enough of it. The return to Earth was not as rough as it usually is.

He waves at me just before leaving through the massive doors, and blithely humming to himself as he walked down the stairs.

Suddenly, the room feels empty, and I can feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on me. My heart, hammering louder than a jackhammer, is stuck in my throat again - and somehow, I know, I just know, that they can sense my fear.

"Wait!" I cry, running after him.

He pauses and turns halfway around, startled.

"You can't leave me in there with those owls. I have an owl phobia."

He stares, and then snorts. "You do know that one of the definitions of 'phobia' is an irrational fear of something, don't you?"

"Irrational, or not, I hate them, and they hate me. They swoop onto me, and hoot at me - and if I approach them to send mail home, they claw me. And if I don't write back to Quinn over the summer the very day I receive her letter, her owl pecks me. They're horrible. I hate owls."

He begins to chuckle. After a moment or so, I realise he isn't going to stop.

"What is so damn funny?" I demand, feeling a little insecure.

"You sound exactly like Kevin."

"He hates owls too?" I ask. But it's useless, as the only reply that I get is the sound of his footsteps. Did I ever say I could like the guy quite well? Is it too late to take that back? Blathering idiot, he is. Well, not quite 'blathering', as he isn't exactly saying anything. Lackadaisical pest, perhaps? I found that word in a battered old copy of a Muggle classic that was lying around at home. Accordingly, it refers to an apathetic person, and apathetic is what Stephen is at this very present moment.

We continue in silence down the stairs towards the Great Hall where lunch awaits us, and I can tell that I am positively starving yet again, as my tummy rumbles as loud as thunder and Mt. Vesuvius combined. Stephen is wearing an idiotic, manic grin all over his face. Frankly, I find it more unnerving than his condescending alternative.

"Who'd you come into the Hall with, Tracey?" Theodore asks me quietly as I slip into the seat beside him.

"Oh, just Cornfoot."

He gives me a curious, thoughtful look. I ignore him, and scan up and down the Slytherin table. "Where the bloody hell is Quinn when you need her?" I demand of no one, furrowing my brow.

"That's precisely what I like to hear," a very familiar voice whispers into my right ear. I turn in my seat, startled, and see Quinn's impish face smirk right into my own. She pecks me on the cheek, something she used to only do to Pansy until, well, just now. "I'm sorry you keep missing me, darling," she drawls, making me giggle. "But, I like to be needed, and I like you - so I put two and two together, and figured that it wouldn't hurt to be the walking reappearing act for a couple of hours."

Theodore frowned at her, deeply unimpressed. Personally, I am astonished that she actually values my opinion in anyway, shape or form. I hardly thought she really liked me. I mean, I like her. To me, she's my best friend. I know I've called her bitchy, insipid, sycophantic - and whatever else. I know I have expected her to treat me like dirt. But deep down, I admire her. She's a planet, after all. I'm a moon, she's a planet, and Pansy's a star. We make a galaxy. But planets don't generally value moons. And stars never value planets or moons.

And then it strikes me - what would Theodore be? Does he even belong in the sky?

"How'd your detention go?" I am asked. I scowl. What is with people and asking me questions when I am positively starving and have just got my first spoonful of food in front of my mouth? Doesn't anyone here want me to actually eat? Well, to tell you the truth, I hardly think they really care, but it's nice to vent and rant out all my frustrations.

"Actually, Cornfoot did it for me."

"What?" Quinn demands, a sharp note in her voice causing me to drop my spoon. "What is it with you and Ravenclaws lately?"

I scowl at her again. "I don't know. They're the ones tripping me up in the Entrance Hall, demanding to be my Herbology partners, getting me into detentions, and the doing them for me. I have nothing to do with the Ravenclaws." I realise with horror that I have just announced something I did not want to reveal, but after spending time in Theodore's company last night, I'd hardly paint him as malicious. Blaise, on the other hand... Remind me what I see in him, again? Oh, yes. God-like features. Deep voice. Incredibly attractive appearance in general.

"I'm sorry, Tracey," she says, patting my hand reassuringly.

"Hold up." I jerk my hand away, and lean in closely, trying to scrutinise her motives. "What's all this about? You never say sorry to me. Why are you acting like this, Quinn?"

"I don't know what you're on about. Why are you acting so suspicious?" She sounds grumpy, but I am not fazed, like I usually would be. My encounter with Stephen and everything since has filled me with a new confidence I never knew could exist within me before. For the first time in a long time, it turns out that not everything that goes wrong for me is actually my fault. No. It's just Stephen Cornfoot and Kevin Entwhistle. Bizarre coincidence.

"You either explain to me what you're trying to do, or I'll never ever trust you ever again, Quinn Arabella Rivers." I'm trying not to make a scene, I'm trying not to have a massive emotional hiccough, I'm trying so very hard that it hurts inside like I've never known it to hurt before.

I'm just not cut out for a life of being confidant, reassured, and beautiful - like Quinn and Daphne and Pansy, sans the beautiful. Suddenly, I feel filthy, old, horrible, scabby - and exhausted.

"Daphne spoke to me last night. She seemed to think I didn't appreciate you enough. I know she's wrong. She's wrong, isn't she?"

My chest feels tight. "I don't care whether or not she's wrong. But next time you're going to be all out of character, make sure you give me some sort of warning. Though, to be honest, it was kinda nice," I add, faking an afterthought. Over the top, in appearances only, I slide on the mask of apathy. But underneath, I am breaking apart.

Underneath, I am breaking apart, and I can't breathe. Everything keeps changing, and crumbling, and shifting - and I keep falling onto my face - like just now. Just when I think I might be surviving Slytherin, I find that something has shifted - something I never took into account. Something I never guessed, or thought probable. And dimensions change. Life changes. And I cannot deal with it any longer. I can't survive this on my own. Today, Quinn favours me. Tomorrow, she might leave me to it and run off to flirt with Blaise. And the day after that, who knew? But the worst thing is, despite knowing it won't last, I want to be liked by her. I want to be appreciated by her, even if it's just to show up Daphne Greengrass. Even if it's just appearances. Even if it's such a mean way of showing Daphne that Quinn can have best friends and retain them.

I hate them both. But admire them all at the same time.

Do I get any more screwed up?

"What in Salazar?" Theodore mutters. I follow his line of gaze, and watch as Harry Potter's two friends enter the Great Hall, Weasley muttering darkly at our table.

"Gryffindors are such prima donnas," Quinn supplies.

"What does that make Draco?" I ask darkly, thinking of the now shockingly empty hourglasses the other houses could easily sustain, even if they were awarded a trophy for Special Services to the School. The Inquistorial Squad had been in form for less than twenty-four hours, and already they're undermining the balanced system we've had in place for years.

Quinn giggles, and Theodore smirks appreciatively. But my mood is not lifted. I liked Dumbledore as Headmaster. Umbridge is detestable. Dumbledore was odd, and partially insane, but Umbridge is horrible and sadistically insane. I mean, who walks around in a pink cardigan and tries to throw out a drunken Professor Trelawney? This is not a bar.

Suddenly, we hear a loud shriek from within the Entrance Hall. A sparking firework zooms over the top of my head, and explodes a little further down the Slytherin table. I leap out of my chair, banging my knee into Theodore himself. He swears colourfully, and then yanks me to the ground as a second firework whizzes over our heads. "Gryffindors are also fond of ridiculously obvious Gryffindor-like pranks," he whispers vehemently into my ear. "If you were planning on learning these next two weeks, think again. Meanwhile, I am going to kill them. I have OWLs to study for!"

"What are you on about?" I stare at him.

"You honestly don't know?" The look in my eyes must have told him that I clearly thought he was mad, for he laughed hollowly and shook his head.

"She is going to murder them."

"Who?"

"Come on," he leads me out of the Great Hall, through the Entrance Hall, and up to the first floor where we watch, in genuine amusement, Umbridge and Filch's attempts at controlling the enchanted fireworks and firecrackers. "If you haven't worked out whose idea this was by now, then you'll know soon enough," he states, and we walk away down towards the dungeons, avoiding shrieking third years, and a bunch of hysterical Hufflepuffs.

"I don't think I want to murder them after all."

I still can't figure out who he's on about, but am relieved that his malevolent feelings have ceased. Theodore Nott becoming a killer overnight would hardly be good for Slytherin publicity.


Review, my darlings. Review! Review!

Credits: Credit given where credit is due.
The ARGH!!! line inspired by Sukie's A Dork's Diary (I know, plug in the form of a credit. Leave me alone.) And: Stephen hissing something that rhymed with ‘ducking shoe men’ was inspired by Cassandra Clare's City of Bones - not word for word, of course, but the idea of using words that rhyme with expletatives was borrowed and I wrote it in directly after I finished reading her book.

Coming Up: Chapter Six: Losing Your Head Isn't So Bad - Tracey bumps into Kevin, sees romance blossom, and someone's head is lost. Whose it is, is the question. Less angst, more romance, but still a shock. There's always a shock.
See if you can guess:
a) who loses their head (it's not particularly difficult. You don't even need to re-read OotP for the answer) and
b) which two characters see sparks