Belladonna

“You have ten minutes left” Professor Dumbledore announced.

Ofelia tried to speed up the movements of her quill. She had never finished a test with so little time left.

As she handed the piece of parchment to the professor, he smiled at her. She did not like Dumbledore. Although he was the type of teacher that you were supposed to look up to, he just was not particularly fair with the Slytherins. Ofelia felt like she was the only one that could actually see that Dumbledore’s smile was fake. And she always felt like he pushed her further than the rest of her classmates.

“How was the test?” Druella asked as soon as the three girls were outside the classroom. “That question in animal transfiguration was pretty difficult. I could not remember what the spell that you were supposed to use was.”

“I didn’t catch the last question…” Walburga admitted. “What about you, Belle?”

“I think I passed. But I’m not expecting an Outstanding.”

“Really?” Walburga said, surprised of her friend’s yield.

“Yes. I guess I’ll spend the Christmas break studying Transfigurations.”

“Or you could just accept an average grade and not crave perfection” Drue proclaimed.

“Nah…”

The girls walked to their next class: Herbology. Walburga was quite excited by that class. Not because she was interested in the Andean herbs properties, but because they shared that class with Hufflepuff. Saying that she had fallen pretty fast for Chuck Nale was an understatement. Some dancing and kissing was enough for Walburga to decide that he was the one and only. The poor girl was living in a pink sky universe, flying through cotton candy clouds and of course Druella could not wait to pop her fantasy bubble.

“Is it too crazy to say that when we were dancing I heard wedding bells?” Walburga sighed with dreamy eyes.

“Yes” Rosier cut her off. “You need to wake up, Walls, or you’re going to fall off a cliff” she warned her. “Your family will never let you be with him. He’s a muggleborn, a Hufflepuff and a black boy. They will never let you marry him.”

“I know that” she whispered in a serious tone. “But maybe I simply don’t care what my family has to say about this.”

Thank Merlin Ofelia did not have to do anything on the afternoon. She needed some peace and quiet to try to clear her ideas. She needed a way of distributing her time better. She was evidently falling behind in Transfiguration. Well, that is what she felt. That was not true at all. She just was not above everyone on the class.

Peace and quiet she needed. Peace and quiet was not what she was going to get.

BANG-BANG-BANG

Someone was banging at the door. Maybe the Common Room was flooding again (Sometimes first years would forget that you were not supposed to open up the windows). Ofelia went to the door, since Walburga was finishing her bath and Druella was too focused in painting her nails.

“Potter?” she asked confused when she saw the Gryffindor boy behind the door with Longbottom and Nale.

“Let us in. Quick!” he urged and the girl stepped aside, so that the three of them practically fall into the dorm and close the door behind them.

“What the fuck?” Druella mumbled from her bed.

“I think she means how did you get in here?” Ofelia translated.

“Mulciber was chasing us” Chuck said, out of breath.

“But how did you get in here?” she repeated.

“With this.” Potter showed a bright blue cloak.

The two girls were so confused. Was Potter finally losing it? But then he put the cloak over his body and Druella screamed. Potter’s body had disappeared and now his head was floating around the room.

“It’s an invisibility cloak!” Ofelia exclaimed excited, as Monty walked right up to her.

She reached his hand out to where his body was supposed to be, trying to see if she could get through it. Except she did bumped into his body. Actually she ended up punching his belly.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.”

“Drue… Why did you screamed like that?” Walburga came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. “AAAAHHH!”

“Walls, don’t yell. Someone is going to come and complain” Ofelia taunted.

“What are they doing here?!” she reflected pure panic, as she was holding her towel close to her chest. Then, she turned to Nale and smiled at him. “Hi, Chuck.”

“Hi, Walls” he waved back, staring at her legs.

School skirts were below the knees and they were supposed to use black knee socks, so technically this was the most skin she had ever shown to outsiders. She followed Chuck’s eyes to notice what he was staring at. She blushed intensely and ran back to the bathroom to put some clothes on. Then, she came back wearing a light green dress that was length appropriate. She smiled and leaned on to kiss Chuck on the mouth. Ever since that night at the Hog’s Head, they had started dating in secret. No one could know about them. Especially not Cygnus. But Nale seemed to be fine with it. He was just happy to have a sweet girlfriend.

“Oh, where did your body go, Potter?” Walls asked finally noticing Monty’s floating head and invisible torso.

After that, the six kids spend the afternoon at the girls’ dorm. The new couple were sitting on the floor (because sitting in her bed would be found highly inappropriate). Walburga put on her radio and that band both her and Potter liked came up, filling the room with the soft rock notes. Meanwhile Druella finished her nails. Ames found the nail polish colour really pretty and asked her to paint his nails too. Rosier found this completely odd.

A boy with his nails painted pearly white? That was ridiculous! He should paint them crimson red in honour to his house. So she painted his nails.

“Why are you so stressed?” Potter whispered into Rizzo’s ear.

They were both lying in her bed, glancing at the ceiling.

“Who told you I’m stressed?”

“Bella.” He turned around and watched her as if she just said something really dumb.

“I’m not doing well at Transfigurations…” she confessed.

“Are you failing Transfigurations?”

“No!” she denied because that was very far from the truth. “I just think I didn’t do that well in the test today.”

“Oh, so you’re doing Ok. Instead of excellent.”

“Are you going to try to convince me that I’m overachieving too?” she grunted.

“It sounds like it.”

“Well, I’m not” she rolled her eyes. “I've just fallen behind a bit in class. I need to study a bit more to understand the last things we saw.”

Fleamont did not like to see her so stressed. She needed to learn when to stop pushing herself. So logically he felt the need to help her.

“Maybe I can help you study, so that you don’t fall behind in the other classes” he offered, already knowing that she would say no out of pride.

“No, Monty, I can handle it.”

“But we could make a deal…” He knew that she would immediately be interested.

“What deal?”

“Well, I need help in Potions and I heard that you’re the best potioneer in our year.”

“In the whole school” she bragged.

“Yes, yes, exactly. So you can help me and I can help you” he continued.

“You teach me Transfigurations and I teach you Potions?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know that you weren’t doing well in Potions” she said like it was her responsibility to know that he was failing. And actually she used to make it her responsibility, always helping Walburga with her studies.

“You can help me with that” he assured her.

She thought about it for a moment, trying to leave her pride aside.

“Fine, let’s do it.”

She agreed standing up. Potter imitated her not knowing exactly why she was leaving the room or where she wanted to take him.

“Oi! Where are you going?” Ames asked while Ofelia was grabbing a cauldron, her apothecary and her Potions book.

“I’m helping Monty with Potions” she explained and Longbottom looked at her, as if she had said the stupidest thing ever.

They went to the grounds in order to have some tranquil space for Potter to improve his potions skills. Thank Merlin it was not snowing. Rizzo explained for more than an hour what they had seen in the last term, showing him step by step how to achieve the perfect potion. She felt very proud when Potter managed to do all the potions exactly as she instructed him too.

“We can start with Transfigurations now” Monty suggested when she finally closed the book and vanished the potion in the cauldron.

“Nah, it’s getting late. Plus, we did not brought the books” she said lying in the cold grass. “You can tell me about your invisibility cloak instead.”

“Oh, well, it’s a family antique” he explained. “My father passed it to me and his father passed it to him. One day I’m going to pass it to my son or daughter.”

“What’s with you people and your ‘family antiques’?” she asked, remembering Riddle’s ring. “I don’t have family antiques. We left everything in Italy.”

“Have you ever returned to your old house?” Potter asked cautiously, since it was the first time that she had spoken about her family tragedy.

“No, but I’m not sure I would want to go back there.”

Probably everything had burnt to the ground anyways.

The next day Potter practically obliged Rizzo to revise Transfigurations with him. It was the last day of classes before the vacations. Everyone was celebrating their winter break in the grounds, while the two friends were entering the Gryffindor Common Room. Ofelia was not surprised to see that everything was covered in red and golden, after all the Slytherin Common Room was entirely decorated in green. But what she did like was that they had grand windows letting the winter sun enter. She hated that her common room was so obscure and cold. They spent at least half an hour revising every concept that she had seen with Professor Dumbledore. Then, the next hour they practiced the spells. Rizzo accepted Potter’s advice to turn the wrist a little more in order to change water into air. Then, she tried to not be annoyed when he confessed that McGonagall had taught him that.

“Are you leaving tomorrow?” he asked when they had finished studying.

They were not in the Common Room anymore. They had climbed up the stairs to go to Potter’s dorm. They were lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling again just like they did in her room the day before. She liked the place. The dorm was practically the same, excepting the colours, the huge windows and the fact that the room was for five people instead of three.

“No, I have stupid Slughorn’s Christmas party” she sighed. Those parties were so boring, but she could not escaped them since she was part of the Slug’s Club.

“Oh, who are you going with?”

“No one.”

“I’m staying here… My parents are in a trip to the U.S. visiting my aunt” he proclaimed.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry that you have to spend Christmas here” she said totally not getting what Monty was trying to say with that comment.

“No, it’s fine. Chuck is staying here too. You know it isn't safe for muggleborns to travel that much. It can be dangerous” he explained.

“Yes, I can imagine.”

“So I’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Great!” she exclaimed, still oblivious.

“Argh! You can be so dense sometimes” he grumbled. “I’m trying to tell you that I can go to the party with you.”

“Oh, then why didn’t you just say so?” she laughed realizing her stupidity. “Are you sure you want to come? Slug’s parties are really dull.”

“Yes! Unless you don’t want me to come…”

“No! Yes, I want you to go. You would make the party more interesting” she assured him.

“Then I’m going!”

“Do you have a suit for the occasion?”

Potter stood up and walked to his closet. He opened it and took a new suit with a formal cloak. He showed the clothes to Ofelia, who was surprised to find out that he did have one.

“I’m always prepared for the occasion.”