Tracey Davis' Guide to Surviving Slytherin

Tracey Davis' Guide to Surviving Slytherin

Chapter Six: Losing Your Head Isn't So Bad

The rest of the day (I'm referring to the aftermath of the fireworks display, of course) was relatively chaotic. Notably, Defense Against the Dark Arts was actually amusing - for once. Umbridge was absolutely seething - snarling every time a student another class appeared at our door stating that yet another teacher required her assistance in ridding of some escaped firecracker in their classroom.

What was not amusing was when some Gryffindor from McGonagall's class (I think her name was Lilac Brown, or something to that effect. Poor girl. Her name sounds like it was picked out of a paint box. What was her parents thinking?) arrived and with mock-meekness announced that Umbridge's assistance was needed in the Transfiguration classroom. After they'd left, no one, obviously, wanted to continue on with the work we'd been given - which was to read yet another chapter of Slinkhard's useless book - but for lack of entertainment (as being members of the Inquisitorial Squad, Pansy and Millicent could hardly be seen mocking their new Head), the topic of conversation revolved around me and who I ought to date.

And then it occurred. It: referring to the very strange phenomenon that transpired between Daphne and Quinn, which I believe they call jealousy, though I may be wrong. Hence it caused Daphne to turn around in her chair and say quite loudly in a terribly irked voice, "Won't you three shut up and leave Tracey alone? You give her enough crap already."

Quinn's cheeks flushed magnificently - so that they matched the colour of her auburn hair. Casting her eyes downwards, she said in a very low tone, "She's right." And then even more softly (and shockingly!) came, "I'm sorry, Tracey." Which, of course, left me wholly confused.

Even Pansy stared and asked worriedly if Quinn was quite alright

I cannot account for Quinn's strange and erratic behaviour at all. The Quinn I used to know would have just laughed Daphne in the face, shrugged her shoulders back, pursed her lips in a suppressed-amused-like way and asserted that I knew it was all a joke, didn't I? They were only messing around. Greengrass ought to get out more and let her hair down. Don't you agree, Pansy?

But the Quinn in front of me flushes angrily every time Daphne proves to have more morality than she; the Quinn in front of me is attempting to be a better friend; and the Quinn in front of me is a walking disappearing act who lies about where she really has been disappearing to of late.

The Quinn in front of me is also cracking up into tremendous peels of laughter at Terence Higgs' account of Flitwick slamming the door into Umbridge's face at the end of the last period.

"And then," he says to a group of lounging sixth years, "he says to her, he says, 'I could have dealt with them myself, but I wasn't sure I had the authority." I roll my eyes. Some where between the second and fifth hearing of the same line I have, unsurprisingly, ceased to find it funny.

I feel a soft hand grasp at my wrist and turn my head to find Daphne's twinkling eyes bestowing upon me on entreating look. "Theodore and I are off steal more butterbeer. Apparently, Zabini's been whinging non-stop that we used up all of his stock last night. Coming?"

I glance at Quinn, who is busy flirtatiously engaging Terence Higgs in a conversation - either about Umbridge, Quidditch or fireworks - I'm not sure which, but all three topics are more than capable enough of starting a conversation with someone like Higgs. I'm sure she won't miss me, so I turn to say 'yes' to Daphne, only to catch the remnants of a dirty look she'd thrown over in Quinn and Higgs' direction. It's not hard to guess why. Daphne and Higgs are in the same circle of friends. Correction; were in the same group of friends (which fell apart when Millicent and Cassius Warrington both decided to join the Inquisitorial Squad. If you thought Word War Three in my dormitory was bad, Warrington ended up in the Hospital Wing to have his ears shrunk - and that was after Higgs had satisfactorily boxed it for about three hours straight). Rumour has it that Higgs is going to ask Daphne out sometime soon. But then again, that might be why Quinn's acting all gooey eyed around him in the first place. Not that he isn't attractive on his own merit. But rivalry makes people do strange things.

That's it! I've found the word I was after - that word that 'it' referred to. It's 'rivalry'. Quinn and Daphne have this very bizarre, very strange rivalry going on. I don't know when or who started it, nor for what purpose. But at least I recall what the word for it is.

"Tracey?" a voice calls on my left with a faint tone of worry and a good deal of bemusement. Is everyone bemused when they deal with me nowadays? Am I that confusing?

"Sorry," I reply, turning around slightly. "Could you repeat that? I think I visited Elfland, or something."

Theodore raises an eyebrow. "Where?"

"Don't you ever read?" Thomas the Rhymer is lying on my bedside table, although I always thought someone like Theodore Nott ought to be familiar enough with legends and myths to recall Elfland. And no, that's not the one with the Happiest Little Elf wearing some thing that resembles an orange hazard cone on his head, prancing about with a little red car and a monkey with a mischievous tail. Oh, wait. That'd be Noddy. Daphne laughs from the other side of Theodore. I like her laugh. It's rather melodic. The sort of laugh that makes you yearn to join in with. But I don't, of course. Instead, I watch my feet tread a route towards the kitchens, nodding every now and then whenever the occasion called for it. Listening, basically, to the conversation held between two people on my left - without taking any of it in.

The hum and rhythm of their voices comes to an abrupt halt, along with out feet. I watch with interest as Theodore reaches out and tickles a pear in a painted fruit bowl. Such a ridiculously obvious painting to hide the kitchens behind. How many other fruit bowls did the castle decorators leave hanging about in less conspicuous places, then?

"It giggles!" I exclaim as the portrait swings open to reveal the entrance to the kitchens.

"Of course it does," Daphne asserts. "Come on." And she steps through the hole, aided unnecessarily by Theodore. There is one slight problem. And that is that she is holding my wrist as she does it. Suddenly, I am yanked into the kitchen, my feet following the jerk of my body, catching on the edge of entrance hole. My knee grazes on the stone floor... to cut a long story short, I find myself in a tumbled heap on the floor with a disorientated glaze fixed on my face just as the portrait swings shut with a clunk behind me. Effectively drowning out the stream dim, dark yellow light from the hallway, of course.

I blink in the darker atmosphere twice and on the third, a knobbly little face peers at me. "Ith Mith alright?" coos a house-elf with a lisp. A pretty, little thing, for a house-elf.

"I'm fine..." I try to stand up - but a dull pain throbs in my ankle. Wincing, I turn to Daphne and say, "Well, maybe not fine." Immediately, she flies towards me and fusses about to see where I'm wounded.

"More like a casualty from a battle," chuckles Theodore's soft voice. I see him wink at me, and know that it is not a generic metaphor, but a clever reference to Quinn and Daphne's odd rivalry. Smirking, he gently pulls an already mollycoddling Daphne away to allow the house-elf to bandage my ankle up and administer a small pain relieving potion.

"Yeh thall have to thee the Hothpital Wing, Mith. But, thoo'll be alrigh'," the house-elf smiled generously.

"Well, thank you...."

"Meek, Mith. A pleathure," she bows and flits away. I rather like her. I've never had a house-elf, but if I did, I'd like to have some one quite companionable like Meek around.

Theodore hoists me up and we walk, rather I hobble and they walk, towards a fire where some other house-elf with a greasy, dirty dress and tear stained face hiccoughs, blows into her apron and hoarsely mutters to her self. The others all seem to avoid even looking at her and Theodore gives no account of her circumstance when Daphne asks for it.

"Why must you be so silent, Theodore?" Daphne demands while he clunks about behind a barrel marked 'WINE - MCGONAGALL' in a dusky black stencil. He shrugs - barely visible but for the gleam from the fire that catches the outline of his shape. "'Theodore' is too long a name for a man of little words," she observes.

"You could always try 'Theo'," he suggests, handing her two bottles at a time. They clink together as she loads them into a small crate

"Too generic. Besides, 'Theo' has two syllables."

I'm starting to feel a little unnecessary.

"Dore?" she muses. He glares at her by way of a response. Boys can be so primitive sometimes. "How about 'Ted'?" she asks me.

There is a pause.

"I think it sort of suits you, Ted," I say, determined to be the first to try out his new nickname.

"Ted..." Daphne experiments. He looks up at her, intense eyes locking into her own. Their breathing slows simultaneously - almost as though they'd rather not be breathing at all. And then I see the exchange of The Look. The Look that I've dreamt about for months. The Look I'd give anything to receive from Blaise Zabini. The Look that they have in old romantic Muggle movies when love takes seed and begins to blossom.

Now I definitely feel unnecessary. Silently, I cautiously climb out of the kitchen entrance hole and walk towards the Hothpital Wing - er, Hospital Wing. Maybe I could free Meek and convince her to come live with me. No. No, that would be horrible. That would be unscrupulous.

I don't mind being fussed over by Madame Pomfrey. I don't mind her constantly telling visitors to 'shush', and 'don't wake her up'. Firstly, I never get any visitors anyway, and secondly - it's not like life in the dorm is particularly peaceful. I mean, we don't have World Wars in there like we did last night, but there isn't exactly a lovely spirit of togetherness either. Hence Quinn and Daphne's odd rivalry.

"Watch it!" someone cries I walk right into a blue jumper, faded pair of jeans, white Dunlops and the solid flesh that wore those clothes.

For the second time tonight, I find myself in a tumbled heap on the floor. This time, however, I blink a few times and see a pair of grey eyes, dark brown hair and Kevin Entwhistle's set of teeth gleaming behind his surprised, parted lips. He's close enough to kiss. I can see faint freckles across the bridge of his nose and his lashes are sort of longish. He'd definitely be the sort of lead I'd like to kiss.

Dammit.

That's three movie moments in one day. It's beginning to get quite ridiculous.

Hurriedly, I gather myself together and stand up, dusting myself off and wince as I realise that my ankle still hurts. "I take it that this isn't the first accident you've had today?" he asks, pointing at the white bandage peeking out from underneath the cuff of my robes.

"I tripped."

"Not a first?" His brow quirks whilst a half smirk creeps across his face. He's just as skilful at the brow rising as Daphne and Theod-, I mean, Ted are. He continues to look up at me, as though waiting for something.

"I'm sorry," I blush, finding myself, curiously, unable to stop my lips from curving into an embarrassed smile. "I didn't mean to walk into you." I frown, biting my lip. Perhaps he hit me with some sort of a Giggling curse, for I have a strong urge to sit on the floor with him and laugh myself to pieces. Now, that would be a nightmare to clean up.

Laconically, he shrugs. Peculiar. And then, "That's quite alright. I suppose we're even, now."

I watch him as he smiles up at me from the ground. This is getting ridiculous. "You're just sitting there!" I exclaim at last.

"I'm a free man. I can choose to do whatever I please," he retorts. I notice a flash of bitterness and anger in his eyes - but this clears up when he stands to his feet (to my immense relief. It's somewhat awkward when you're trying to pseudo-talk with someone whilst they're sitting on the ground and you're standing up. There needs to be some sort of equality.).

"Well," I begin awkwardly. My usual shyness is creeping into me all over again - it seems to disappear only when I'm shocked, or annoyed, or something along those lines. Or maybe it was because I looked into Kevin's eyes. I can't look into people's eyes and maintain any sort of confidence. I can look at their lips, and watch as it opens and closes, pouts a little and spreads out into a broad grin. But I can't look into someone's eyes. I feel half afraid that I might fall into them. Irrational, I know. But then again, I am the girl with a phobia of owls. "I'm just going to the hospital wing. To have my ankle checked, you know. I fell over... It wasn't my fault." Oh, gods. I'm rambling. I must look like an utter blathering idiot. Wait. Isn't that what I called Stephen yesterday afternoon? Merlin, it feels like aeons ago.

"I'll come with you. To make sure you don't walk into anyone else along the way. And I wanted to see Erica," he adds as an afterthought. Somehow, I think it was really just an afterthought. An excuse, really, to explain his presence.

I nod in fake-nonchalance.

"So, other than running into people, how has your day been?" he asks as we slowly set off.

"Amusing, and then not so amusing, and then I became an overnight thief," I answer cryptically.

He frowns. "Amusing because of the firecrackers, not so amusing because?"

"Because Pansy, Millicent and Quinn decided to play 'let's embarrass Tracey into the depths of Hell itself' today in Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Is that a game?"

"Yes," I reply with an edge of suspicion. For a Ravenclaw, he sure as Hell is acting quite thick right about now.

"What are the rules?"

"You'll have to ask Pansy on the specifics, but the Golden one is that 'Tracey is not allowed to have any part in the conversation'."

"Sounds nasty," he remarks, ducking as a firework zooms over his head.

"What do you think being in Slytherin is all about?"

"I don't know," he says serenely. "Why don't you tell me?"

My mouth curves into a taken aback smile. "I'd rather not." I try to be pleasant in my tone, but something in it makes Kevin give me a sharp look. "I'm sorry. Can we talk about something else? Like about how Umbridge is losing her head?"

"You know, losing your head isn't so bad... It's when you lose your heart." He turns left at a corner.

"Sorry?" I ask, feeling wholly bewildered, hobbling just that little bit faster to catch up with him. He turns to look at me, and startled, I discover that bitterness ebb from his eyes into the rest of his features. His scowl clears away quite quickly, though, and instead, I receive a shrug as a response. Once again, boys can be so primitive sometimes!

Suddenly, Kevin pulls me behind a tapestry, and clamps a hand over my mouth. What is it with Ravenclaw boys and their attempts to shut me up? Though, it does give me a sadistic sort of pleasure to think what they'd do in efforts to shut someone like Pansy Parkinson up. They'd probably have to murder her.

As my breathing steadies, I hear disorderly footsteps, and vehement mutterings. I can't see anything, of course, but do hear something that sounds a lot like, "Blasted dungeon dwelling moron... Can't believe I actually... Oh, it makes me sick to think of it. And he has such greasy hair. Positively traumatises the children, of course. What ever did I see in him? And, of course, never shuts up about the 'star' incident!" Determinedly pulling Kevin's hand off my mouth, I dare to peek around the tapestry.

Hang on. Is that Professor Sinistra tottering around the corner with a bottle of whiskey in her hand? And who on earth was she talking about? Oh, wait, 'greasy hair', 'traumatises children', 'dungeon dwelling moron'. How could I miss it? "She was talking about Snape!" I whisper excitedly to Kevin. And then I make a face. "Ergh. Which means the rumours were true."

"Which ones?" he asks mildly. He has a point. In a place like Hogwarts, your mind sifts through about a hundred different rumours in a day. Okay, abuse of hyperbole - but who cares, really?

"The ones about Snape and Sinistra. You know, together?"

I can hardly see him in the dark, so I pull out my wand. "Lumos." I turn to look at him.

He has screwed up his nose - it's rather endearing, actually.

"No offence, but I really don't like Snape - whoa," he whispers in appropriate appreciation of a new discovery.

"Oh," I tilt my head to side, staring at long, dark tunnel that stretched out before us. "I haven't used this passageway in ages."

"What does it lead to?" He looks at me expectantly. For a moment, I see a flicker of longing for adventure.

Grinning, I suggest we follow it through; though, I know it goes no where particularly interesting. Just towards the Hufflepuff common room, really. Once again, not interesting. Unless I want to meet Ernie Macmillan patrolling his perimeters and have the pants annoyed off of me. I suspect that that would be less interesting, and more irksome, however.

"What's that noise?" he asks suddenly.

I pause, and try to listen hard. I hear a moan of a girl, and the sound of someone coming up for air. "I think we're an accidental audience," I inform my other quarter.

"What do you mean?" He's trotting off already. Obviously he does require the explanation.

"Couples snog here occasionally," I offer.

"Oh, so that's why you brought me here."

"Don't be silly," I say blushing, even though I shouldn't be embarrassed about anything. Perhaps it was because it was only less than ten minutes ago that I thought he wouldn't be too bad a person to kiss in a Muggle-romantic-movie style. "You know perfectly well that it was you who dragged me behind that tapestry. I didn't realise you were so afraid of the Astronomy teacher. She would have been too drunk to notice us, anyway."

"I thought it was Trelawney going past. I can't stand her."

"She was about to get thrown out of the castle! What do you mean you can't stand her?" I demand.

"Oh, I pity her," he says dryly, "I do. But you don't tend to like people who predict your future will be cold, empty and dismal every Divination lesson. And besides, she got replaced by Firenze - and he's worse."

"What did he say? Look into your eyes and tell you you'll grow to be 160-years-old, have ten sons and daughters, fifty grandchildren, then get Alzheimer's and die a relatively peaceful death?"

"No," he answers shortly. "But all the girls are crazy about him."

"Is that your only-" But I don't finish what I was going to say. No. I stare at the couple snogging in an alcove. Not just any old couple. Two girls, as a matter of fact.

"I don't need to see this," Kevin hisses. I turn to make him stop, but already he is gone. At first I think of walking on... But then I see her hair.

Her auburn hair spilling over her shoulders in a tangled mess, some other girl's hands sunk into it. Her fingers splayed over her partner's back. Her whole frame so caught up in this kiss - as though she'd die if she couldn't have it. It feels so surreal.

"Quinn?" I venture.

She pulls away at the sound of her name. For one short nanosecond, I hope with all my heart it isn't her.

Alas. But it is.