Chapter 3
A few days later, no one had dared to speak of the incident in the Manor. The newspapers had done nothing but talk about it nonstop, especially highlighting the fact that the dark mark had lit up the sky after the fiasco.
Helene couldn’t help but feel sick just catching a glimpse of the article while Lucius read it in the paper the next morning. Due to that, she tended to just sit at the table and stare off into space, appetite nonexistent. The two adults were worried, but both decided not to say anything to her about it. Draco had also been worried about the girl, but he wasn’t sure how to approach the situation and just silently hoped his parents would intervene.
Eventually, the day came when the two were sent to board the train for the start of the term. On that day Narcissa brushed a stray hair behind her ear and whispered a quick and simple Be safe, with a soft motherly gleam in her eye. Lucius, as stoic as ever in public, simply gave her a pat on the head and sent her on her way.
Once on the train, Helene made her way to the car that she knew her Slytherin housemates liked to claim. It was a known fact that the Slytherins did not intermingle, in fact, the only house that they would consider deserving of their attention would be Ravenclaw. The reasoning was that Ravenclaw wasn’t stupid enough to challenge the Slytherins and preferred to be left alone with their heads shoved in a book. When it came to the other houses, it was a different story. Most Hufflepuffs were too friendly or overly happy about everything, and most Slytherins found this to be annoying, but a select few would find it endearing when the little badgers weren’t afraid of the house that bore the snakes. However, the relationship between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins was rather legendary. For years the two houses have been at each other's throats. The Gryffindors, thought the Slytherins to be evil and standoffish, while the house of green and silver thought the red and gold-wearing students were all buffoons with not a single thought in their heads other than to play outlandish tricks and do nothing but cause chaos.
That would be how Helene viewed the Gryffindors. Not all, because frankly no matter how annoying they were, she is not daft enough to not admit there were a few Gryffindors she could stomach.
No, not all, but there were two in particular that fit that description to a T, and that would be none other than the famous Weasley twins. The two boys never seemed to leave each other's side and liked to cause problems wherever they roamed. Helene had a particular problem with the twins, they loved to target the Slytherins, and seeing as Helene was one, she had fallen victim to a prank or two. She hated it, hated the childishness of it all, hated how they had no regard for people and their things, hated that they liked to torment the young unsuspecting students in her house. Helene was so lost in her thoughts of how she would have to put up with another year of the boys and their ridiculous torment, that she didn’t even realize that she had made it one train car away from her usual cabin. When she was stopped by a loud boom next to her, a cabin's doors opened, and smoke erupted around her.
A coughing sound came from the cabin and a figure that was covered by the smoke walked out, hand waving about as if trying to fan off the thick smoke which was of no help. Helene’s eyes watered immediately as the smoke filled the corridor around her. She brought her hands to her eyes and stumbled a bit when she somehow managed to bump right into the figure.
“Blimey Lee, we told you not to drop that bloody ball” A coughing voice rang out, somewhere. The figure that she had bumped into stilled in front of her, Helene quickly took a step back, as if to try and get around them. Attempting to get away from the tear-jerking smoke as fast as possible, however, the girl could not see due to the effects of the smoke that seemed to have been some type of tear smoke.
“Merlin George, I didn’t think it would be this potent.”
‘George’ Helene thought with an eye roll. ‘Of course, this is the bloody work of those insufferable ginger-headed psychopaths’ Helene said to herself bitterly.
Somewhere, someone cast a spell and most of the smoke disappeared immediately. Blinking her tears away and rubbing her eyes.
“Well, hello there,” Came a voice from her right. Wiping the last tear, the short girl made eye contact with a boy she knew who went by the name Lee Jordan, a student that was often seen trailing the twins in the halls. Helene glared at the boy after recalling what she heard through the smoke.
Another boy popped his head out, it was George Weasley she supposed. This means the figure in the hallway that stood there looking at her with a wide grin, and mischief in his eyes must have been Fred Weasley.
Her throat cleared and she was brought back to the topic at hand. Which was of course being caught in the middle of another one of the ghastly twin's pranks.
“Sorry about that, it was an accident we swear” Came from the twin who was still standing behind the Jordan boy, his long arms laid against the door frame, said with the same smile his brother had. Helene cut her eyes to him.
“Of course it was,” She snapped, rather irritated already. “Not even officially at the school yet and you can’t even manage to have a peaceful train ride.”
“Now where is the fun in that,” Came from the identical boy in the hallway. Helene went to open her mouth again when a voice came from the end of the train car.
“Helene!” All heads turned to the shouting voice and attached to the figure that was barreling down the aisle. The owner of the voice stopped right in front of the short dark-haired girl, bent over attempting to catch her breath from her run. The person who had just run to meet her friend, the girl with hair similar color to caramel brown, that was layered in a style that resembles a 70’s shag, stood up and looked at her friend with her deep coffee-colored eyes, skin sun kissed from her recent summer exploration in the Greek islands with her family.
“Blimey, are you crying?” She asked as she stood up looking at her friend and then turning her head to look at the others. Squeaking when she saw who accompanied them. She looked at Helene, back to the boys then back to her friend again. Lowering her voice, she whispered.
“Why are you in the hallway with the Weasley twins?” Her whisper, might I add, was not much of a whisper at all and caused the twins to snicker.
“It wasn’t by choice, trust me Celia, somehow, I had got trapped in another of their ridiculous pranks, and I was just leaving,” She snapped.
“We said it was an accident, swear to Merlin's beard,” Fred spoke out. Helene shot him a glare as well, grabbing her friend's arm and dragging her away, oblivious to a certain tall boy's eyes that trailed after them.
Finally, the two girls made it to a cabin on the train in the Slytherin-claimed area. Celia, although not a Slytherin herself, was one of the few accepted Hufflepuffs that made their way into the den of snakes. Mostly, to do with the fact that not many dared to deny the girl access seeing as she was the best friend of Helene Marie Lestrange, the current heir to the House of Lestrange, one of the sacred twenty-eight in the wizard society.
Once thrusted into the otherwise empty cabin, Celia sat on the chair that had a bag already sitting there waiting, with a few books placed on the seat. Unable to hold on to her curious mind any longer she quickly asked.
“I’m sorry, but how is it that you always find yourself in the twin mishaps?”
“Celia, please can we drop it?” the girl spoke, her hazel eyes just now losing the redness that was a result of the smoke bomb that had surrounded her.
“Not a chance in flying hell,” The Slytherin girl shot her companion an exasperated look.
“Fine, you know as well as I that those bloody Gryffindors have it out for my house. I’m almost completely convinced that they have some type of signal that goes off when I'm around so that I'm caught in the middle of their childish ways. It’s not like I'm actively searching for those ruddy twins, or asking to be a victim,” Helene spat, face turning red from embarrassment after recalling the multiple pranks she fell victim to, throughout her six years at Hogwarts.
“I haven’t even spoken to them before, so I'm not sure why it is always me other than the fact they have something against my house, as most of those bloody lions do, or if they just have it out for me in general.”
“All right Helene, calm down,” Her soft brown hair friend chuckled. “It’s probably just a coincidence, you know as well as I those twins are always causing trouble no matter what house. Honestly, if it weren’t for their family's history of always being placed in Gryffindor, I would have placed money on them being in Slytherin,” Helene shot her friend a look of pure horror.
“Oh please, don’t give me that look, you know as well as I do that Fred and George Weasley have won the title for being the most sly and cunning boys in our year. How many other boys do you know can pull off spelling a whole corridor and not even get caught doing it?” Celia asked as she dipped her hand into her bag to pull out a sugar quill.
Helene scoffed and opened her book, no longer wanting to admit her friend was correct.
“Can we talk about how fit they look this year?” Helene’s wavy hair bounced around her as her head shot up to look at her friend perplexed.
“Celia, that’s just distasteful.”
“Oh please, let’s not forget what you told me in a fit of rage last year when you got caught in that trick that had your hair changed to a bright Gryffindor red.”
“You promised never to bring that up again, that was last year,”
“Whatever you say, Helene. However, despite your ridiculous house feud, I can say with the graciousness of me being a Hufflepuff, that I do not have to suffer that and feel no shame in admitting that George Weasley looks absolutely earth-shattering handsome this year.” Helene sat there unmoved by the Hufflepuff’s proclamation. Seeing as since the second year the girl has had a massive crush on that one particular idiotic twin.
“Don’t remind me, you may cause me to lose my breakfast.”
“What I wouldn’t do to run my fingers through that long red hair of his,” Celia sighed as she looked at the opposite side of the cabin’s wall as if lost in a daydream. Helene gagged.
“You are positively dreadful Celia Crosswell, positively absolutely downright dreadful,” Celia broke out with an infectious grin, Helene who couldn’t help it mirrored the grin.