The Bitter Divide
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why would I ever want to do that?”
Reese repeated once more, “Why not?”
“No.”
“Come on, Zabini,” she reasoned, walking backward alongside him on their way out of Potions that Wednesday morning. “We should start getting on well, I reckon. Why must we be confined by the arbitrary boundaries of our respective houses?" Reese mused, tilting her head to the side as she suppressed a smirk. "Is it not possible for us to transcend these limitations and come together as individuals, united by our shared pursuit of knowledge and growth?"
Zabini raised an eyebrow at her, his expression skeptical. "You make it sound like we're in some sort of epic saga, Reese. It's just lunch. We get on just fine. Being your Potions partner gives me no obligation to be your friend.”
Reese tilted her head contemplatively, squinting, “I don’t know about that.”
Zabini scowled and she spoke again, continuing on with the air of having not noticed, “I’m not asking to be your friend—that'll happen on its own. I’m just inviting you to study with the Gryffindors. It’s polite.”
“Ah, well, it's a pleasure to know your uncorrupt motives.” He commented dryly.
“No, no, really. The Gryffindors in our row are heading to the Great Hall during our free hour,” she lifted her wrist to glance at an imaginary watch, “which is right now. They don’t like to work on an empty stomach. You’re coming along.”
“This is less of an invitation than a demand.”
Reese shrugged nonchalantly, turning to face forward as they strolled down the next busy corridor. “Call it what you will. I call it an opportunity for you to lighten up, partner.”
“I would never succumb to sitting at the Gryffindor table with the likes of you lot."
“I’ll sit at the Slytherin one, if you insist—“
“I don’t insist.”
“Slytherin table it is. Being friends with you may grant me some hex immunity from them. Won't it?"
"It won't."
Dean, already seated, gave Reese a nod as she and Blaise entered the Great Hall. Lacey, on the other hand, greeted them with an exuberant wave and a bright smile.
“We can sit with the Ravenclaws," Reese dared as they passed the few blue-clad students hunched over parchment. “I don’t know many of them, but we’d be branching out.”
“I don’t need to branch out.” Blaise hissed impatiently as Reese led them aimlessly through the isles.
“Oh, there’s Padma. I acquaint myself with her—sort of. I know her sister, so I know Padma by extension. Lacey likes her, she always calls her Panda. It’s a bit stupid, but I don’t have the heart to tell her.”
“Well, if you know her by extension, then by all means—Merlin, you better not give me any sort of those ridiculous nicknames,” Blaise warned bitterly as he followed her approach towards a table.
Padma glanced upwards as their presence was registered. “Hey, Reese! And, er—“
“Oh, this is Lazy Blaisey.” Reese nodded, offhandedly, “Say hello, Blay.”
“Zabini.” He corrected irritably, his highly aristocratic voice indignant before he plastered a charming smirk on his face, “Blaise Zabini.”
“Yeah… we know who he is,” Padma replied in disinterest, turning back to her friends.
Zabini’s heightened aura of superiority radiated off the back of Reese’s neck, and she wasn’t sure if he was merely obtuse, unable to discern the underlying mockery in her casual remark towards his presence, or if he just didn’t care if the attention he got was positive or negative, as long as it was attention. His insatiable thirst for recognition superseded any concern for its quality or lack thereof.
“Blimey, we may have to register you as part Veela. The way she scoffed at you, your powers are a danger to society.”
“Piss off, she knew who I was, not you.”
“Don’t let that get to your head. You go around barking your last name all the time as if it’s the single thing about yourself you take pride in.” Reese jabbed, and he glared at her.
“Shut up, Loony.” He spat as they both turned around, and Reese wasn’t sure he knew where they were going either. “I can’t be friends with someone who scares everyone off when she speaks.”
“So we’re friends now, are we? She dismissed us because you were with me. I may have to denounce us as friends if you’re just going to epically screw up my social life with your lousy people skills.”
The two paused cluelessly in the middle of the Great Hall, taking in the options that lay before them.
“Are you sure you don’t want us to sit with my friends? They aren’t that headache-inducing. Only a bit.”
“No.”
“Library it is,” she nodded conclusively.
The trek consisted of Reese’s relentless attempts at lightening the mood, and Blaise’s half-baked attempts at shooting them down. She had offered to carry his bookbag twice, and he declined. She even offered for him to carry her bookbag, just to see what he’d do, but after clarifying that she wasn’t somehow injured or unable, he said no.
Their only common ground seemed to be their shared classes. They conversed amiably about the recent Potions examination, exchanging thoughts on the subject matters of the test and their performance on them.
As they turned onto a desolate corridor leading to the library, they slowed their pace, picking up on hushed tones emanating from within. Reese, with her heightened senses, stopped abruptly, causing Blaise to collide into her. She silenced him when he cursed, tuning her ears to the whispers. She hushed him when he cursed, focusing her post-moon heightened senses to pick up the whispers.
“Shut up and let me listen,” Reese muttered, a finger to her lips. Blaise rolled his eyes but complied nonetheless, their backs pressed against the wall as if they were being camouflaged.
The first voice, which Reese couldn't recognize, asked inquisitively, "Yeah, Lupin, with all the scars..." Blaise raised his dark eyebrows, looking at Reese as if she hadn't noticed who the speaker was referring to.
“I don’t know,” another voice whispered, “I don’t think anybody knows. My brothers don’t—it’s a wonder she didn’t lose an eye in whatever blow left such a wound.”
Reese’s jaw clenched, a sour tang of fury sitting in the back of her throat as she hauled forward without missing a beat, Blaise in tow.
Upon entering, however, instead of finding two nosy Slytherins as she'd thought, they instead encountered a short, raven-haired boy sporting Ravenclaw robes, who was standing across from a very wide-eyed Ginny Weasley.
Weasley immediately bristled, freckled ears turning bright pink.
“A wonder indeed,” Reese countered, outwardly airily but internal seething, before brushing past the two first years and disappearing behind a maze of bookshelves.
Once Blaise reached her once more, she wasn't sure whether he was bemused or amused.
“Interesting encounter. Why are you just standing here?”
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Reese huffed, wringing her hands. “I can’t believe I just walked away. God, I should have done something.”
“What? Throw a punch and prove them right?”
Reese shrugged helplessly, “No, I just mean, like—I don’t know, what the hell am I supposed to do now?”
“Find a bloody table, perhaps.”
"Right, right," Reese said, the frustration still evident in her voice. "We have to wait until they leave. We have a point to prove."
“Which is?”
“I don’t know, Blaise, a point! If I walk out now, they'll think I had no idea where I was going and I'll look like an idiot—“
"You didn't have any idea where you were going," Blaise corrected, and Reese shot him a glare, “They scurried out the second you walked away, Lupin, It’s clear.”
Reese’s face fell, befuddled. “Oh.” she blurted, “Well, come along, then.”
Thirty minutes had been spent occupying a vacant circular table in the back of the room, textbooks scattered disorderly on Reese‘s side, while Blaise’s lay neatly organized on his. While his eyes grazed the pages, however, Reese‘s chin lay on her parchment glumly. Her mood had depleted significantly since witnessing what she had. It had been verbally presented to her then on a platter: what people really thought of her.
Ginny Weasley: brand new, a little black diary always tucked beneath her arm, obtaining the nerve to discuss Reese while lacking the strength to ever look her in the eye otherwise. Ginny Weasley: too outspoken, obliviously ignorant. Whatever moral obligation Reese may have possessed before to get along with Ginny, was now a memory of the past, no matter how many of her brothers she was acquainted with, and Reese hoped the coldness she would display might freeze some sense into her.
Blaise was only half-heartedly—which was better than completely—reluctant, in Reese's interpretation, to roam the halls with her that day, both to lunch and dinner.
Dean was rather suspicious of this new-found friendship, of course; interrogating her incessantly during suppertime about Zabini's intentions and supposed ulterior motives.
"No, Dean, I'm fairly certain Blaise is not intending to hex me."
"You can never be too certain. I mean, you didn't even sit with us during our free period! He could be planning with his pureblood friends to perform a terrible prank on you. Should I be jealous?"
Reese rolled her eyes, stabbing her fork into the steak and kidney pie that had been served that night. "Of course not. And why is it automatically assumed that there's some malicious plan along with being my friend?"
Lacey chewed her helping of steamed asparagus before grimacing and spitting into a napkin. "Oh, leave her alone, Dean. I bet he's nice, and I bet he plays Quidditch. Those are two very important traits in a man. He's perfect for you, Reese!"
"We're Potions partners. Merlin's sake, I'm allowed to not abhor a boy without fancying him, you know. Why is that so universally hard to believe?"
Lavender nodded diplomatically, "Yeah! It's not as if any of us would ever date Dean, but we're friends with him, aren't we?"
Dean's jaw dropped in offense, hands flying up in surrender. "Woah, woah, woah! Must you do that to my frail heart?"
Reese grinned, suppressing a snicker. "Relax, mate, you always have Seamus."
"I do look bloody ridiculous surrounded by you lot," Dean concluded uncharacteristically, glancing around himself, Seamus and Neville only a couple of bodies away.
"Oh, hush you're just being moody," Lacey chided, swinging an arm around Lavender beside her, who also chimed in.
"We are the best thing to happen to your social life, I reckon."
"Right, Seamus would say I look like a right ladies' man."
Reese snorted. "'Man', that's cute."