Chapter 3: Did Someone Say Draco Malfoy?

Gwen

“Hey there little Phyllis! Who’s a good little Phyllis? You are! Yes you are!”

“Who’s a weird little goth girl? You are! Yes you are!”

I glared at Fred, who was sat with George wrapping up toffees in bright purple wrappers, then turned to Ari.

“Why are they even here?”

“Because the rest of the train was full,” she sighed “and because they said they’d help look after the snail-”

“Phyllis.”

“-but someone is a being as obvious as humanly possible about said snail-”

“Phyllis.” I corrected.

“Said Phyllis, when it’s supposed to be a secret.”

“Incorrect.” George dropped another toffee onto the pile. “She could be more obvious by hiring a brass band to play a specially written piece called ‘Look! It’s a Poisonous Snail!’-”

“Named Phyllis.”

“-and painting a giant sign with huge red arrows pointing to it.”

“Then, when everyone comes to see what all the fuss is about, she could let off streamers and shout ‘Welcome to my Secret Snail Party!’” Fred added.

I snorted contemptuously.

“That’s stupid. Who has Snail Parties?” I scooped Phyllis up and slid him back into his jar. I’d managed to create a nice pocket in my bag for him among my socks.

Fred and George looked at each other, nodded, then chucked one of their sweets at my head.

“Try one of those. Toffees; made ‘em ourselves.” I ducked, caught the sweet, then sent it sailing back across the carriage.

“No ta. I heard all about you and Potter’s cousin.”

Fred opened his mouth to ask just how I knew about that when Ari interrupted.

“Don’t ask. She knows way too much for her own good.”

“I have my sources.” I slipped into a seat next to Ari and pulled a heavy book out of bag. Flipping to the page I’d marked, I curled my feet up underneath me and leant against the wall to get comfy. Ari nudged me until I showed her the cover. She pulled a face and shuffled away from me.

“What is it?” George leant forwards and stole the book from my hands, making me lose my place. “The Monk, by Matthew Gregory Lewis.” He looked at Fred, who shrugged.

“Means nothing to me.”

Ari cringed. “Put it down! It’s disgusting!”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing!” I sighed, snatching it back. “It’s a respected work of Gothic literature!”

“It’s filth; that’s what it is!” She grimaced when I opened it again.

“What’s it about?” Fred asked. Ari protested, but I grinned and leant forwards.

“Right. There’s this monk, Ambrosio, and he finds out that one of his pupil monks is actually a woman, Matilda. She seduces him, and then uses magic to help him seduce this other girl, Antonia. He steals into her chamber and-”

“Enough!” Ari grabbed the book and stuffed it back into my bag. “I don’t want to hear about this!”

“Prude.” I pouted. “Now I have nothing to read.”

“Well then. You’ll just have to be sociable and talk to us.”

“No way.” I curled up against the wall and glared at the twins. “I don’t do sociable.” I had been the kind of kid who would build forts out of cushions and wouldn’t come out for days. I would have to be coaxed out by promises of profiteroles. But my roommates at Hogwarts weren’t particularly impressed by my extremely intricate fort designs, especially when I stole their pillows to build the walls.

“I’ve noticed.” Fred went back to wrapping toffees, George stared at the book, debating on whether to try and steal it or not, and Ari sat there and stared at me, trying to force me to say something.

An awkward silence fell upon the compartment with a heavy thud. Then it had awkward babies. These awkward babies perched upon each of our heads, reminding us that this entire situation was extremely awkward and that if no-one did anything about it then it would just get even more awkward and that eventually the build-up of awkwardness would cause us to explode one by one, in a very awkward manner.

I knew that it would fall to me to do something about the awkwardness, but I really couldn’t be bothered. So I decided to leave and let the others sort it out. Maybe by the time I got back the awkward babies would have grown up and left home to get degrees and find jobs, and then maybe we could invite them all back for Christmas and have a nice party with paper hats and cake.

“Well.” I said, standing up and smiling at them. “Not that this isn’t fun, which it isn’t, but this is all extremely awkward turtles, so I’m going to the loo.” I skipped to the door and slid it open.

“But there are no loos on the train.” George frowned.

“Oh, I know.”

The luggage compartment was grey. That was all you could say about it. It was one giant compartment of greyness. I had considered snooping through some peoples’ bags, but then I realised that I might find some things that would mentally scar me for life. There may be some good blackmail material, but I really don’t want to find out what Draco Malfoy’s underpants look like.

And speak of the ferret…

“Krum and that Mudblood Granger last year…simply outrageous. I thought that at Durmstrung they were taught the importance of blood purity, but I suppose there’s always one who ends up a blood traitor, like Potter or the Weasel.”

His voice was right outside the door. I cursed silently, trying to harness my mystical powers of telepathy, willing him to leave. I hated people in general, but there was something about Ferret Boy that really, really irked me.

We were often forced into close proximity at my mother’s ridiculous gatherings, so I tried to avoid him like cholera at school to make up for lost non-Draco time. Our parents seemed to think that we would make a very good match, what with our families’ obsessions with keeping our bloodline ‘Pure’. I, however, had other ideas, which generally included turning him into a small rodent and feeding him to a large snake. Mad-Eye Moody (or whichever crazy he turned out to be) turning him into a ferret last year just provided me with more material for my fantasies.

“I didn’t think it would be Krum though; he was Karkaroff’s pet. You would think he would know better.”

A number of hexes ran through my mind, but none of them were good enough for Blondie.

“And with the chipmunk too!” shrieked the unmistakable voice of Pansy Parkinson. If it were physically possible for anyone to annoy me more than Malfoy himself, it was her. There was just something about her voice…it made me want to strangle something. Preferably her.

“Quite. Miss Know-It-All Granger. Still, now the Dark Lord’s back, I don’t suppose we’ll have to put up with Muggle-born filth like her for much longer.”

So the Ferret believed that You-Know-Who (possibly the most ridiculous and least threatening name for a dark wizard ever. It sounded like a bad knock knock joke. Knock knock. Who’s there? You Know. You-Know-Who? Exactly. Avada Kedavra!) was back. That didn’t surprise me. What did was that he had managed to go an entire conversation without uttering the words ‘My father’.

“My father says that Hogwarts will be the first place to be rid of Mudbloods and Blood Traitors.”

I spoke too soon. I thought, smiling to myself. Cracking the door open slightly, I saw that Malfoy was leaning against door of the compartment closest to me. I checked my watch; we would be arriving at Hogsmede station shortly, and my robes were on the other side of the train. I supposed I’d just have to grin and bear it. I yanked the door open and strode out past the Slytherin compartment.

“Look who it is.” The sneering voice rang out behind me and I stopped dead, clenching my fists. “McKee, what a surprise to see you being peculiar as usual. I’m not even going to ask why you were in there; I’m sure your reason will be too complex for us mere sane people to comprehend.”

“It’s nice to see that you haven’t changed at all Malfoy. I missed your stupid snarky responses; they make me feel so even smarter.”

If I could make it out of this alive, I could start planning Blondie's demise with Ari as soon as I got back to our compartment. Maybe Gred and Feorge could make themselves useful too…

“I was trying to be polite, but I suppose I shan’t bother now. It’s good manners though. Maybe you should try it some time.”

“I have perfectly adequate manners, I just don’t see the point in wasting them on a ferret.”  A vein pulsed in Malfoy’s forehead. I smirked and shot out my next remark. “Moody turned out to be a Death Eater, didn’t he? How does it feel knowing even ‘your people’ hate you? How d’you think Voldy’s going to like you, eh?”

“Don’t you dare talk about the Dark Lord like that.” Malfoy stepped forwards, his jaw twitching slightly. “When he cleanses our world, you Blood Traitors will die along with the rest of them.”

“You sound like you swallowed the Death Eater Bible. I’m sure I’ll have great fun being ‘cleansed’, but that will have to wait for another day. Now, this has been an utterly side-splittingly joyful experience, but I hope you get shot, fall off a bridge into a river, get raped by a shark and then eaten by it.”

I stalked off down the train. As soon as Draco was out of sight, I relaxed, only to be attacked from behind by an ecstatic Ari.  

“I heard everything! You have got to-”

“I know what you’re thinking. And no.” I growled.

“No?” she blinked innocently.

“No.”

“No?” she wheedled.

“No.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Can we stop saying no now?”

“No.” Ari grinned.

“No?” I sighed. Now she was started, she would go on forever.

“No.”

“No?”

“No!”

She seemed to get the message, because she shut up. Temporarily, at least. Just as we reached the door of our compartment, she blinked at me with those large, profiterole stealing eyes, and smiled sweetly.

“You really ought to go out with him, you know. You’d make a great couple.” And then she ran.

Chapter 2: We could get killed! Or worse, expelled!

Arianna

I watched Gwen lick her ice cream, mentally capturing the image of her with blobs of ice-cream on her nose, left cheek and chin.

“What?” she said, looking at me in a mock-irritated expression, “quit staring at me!”

“Fine, but only if we can go and finish the shopping after this!”

“Why? What could you possibly have left to buy?” she said, looking at the plethora of shopping bags I was carrying with me already.

“Robes, quill, ink, some sweets, potions set, broomstick” I reeled off the remainder of my shopping list.

“Do I have to?”

“You don’t, but I do.”

“Hmph,” she grunted, “fine, you go buy whatever you need to, and I’ll wait here.”

“Seriously? Are you sure you won’t burn the place down?”

“No promises.”

“Alright, I’m off then,” I span on my heels, and headed to the door.

“Okilee dokilee!”

I shot her a look, “don’t ever say that again.”

“Sure thing, butterfly wing,” she yelled through the door.

“Go away!”

“Bye bye, fruit fly!”

I groaned and speed-walked into Madame Malkin’s.

***

After half an hour of  admiring the various shops’ windows, standing in queues and mentally battling between the wood and silver finish on the broomstick, I was finally ready to head to Gambol and Japes. Gambol and Japes was my favourite shop in the entirety of Diagon Alley. It was the joke shop. Now, to everyone in Hogwarts, I was far from the practical joker. In fact, I was pretty much the clumsy girl with good intentions. But the joke shop was my favourite place to be. It was so wonderfully vibrant, in looks and atmosphere. When I walked in the room, my ears were filled with the various sounds of bells, whistles and animated chatter amongst a host of yet to be identified noises. I immediately zoned in on a jar of colourful looking sweets.

‘Tongue tiers,’ the jar said, ‘ just one sweet and the victim will be placed in a state of silence for upto 4 hours! Only 10 knuts a jar!’

“Nice,” I mused aloud.

“They are quite,” said a voice behind me, “but not as nice as you.”

I span around. It was Fred Weasley.

“Wha-? Arianna?”

“Hi Fred!” I grinned.

“Sorry,” he blushed, “I thought you were someone else.”

“Did you now?”

“He did,” George Weasley appeared, from behind some shelves, “he thought you were-”

“Shut up George!”

“Angelcakes!”

“Go away!”

“Angiekins!”

“GEORGE!”

“Angelina Johnson!”

I laughed.

“Anyway,” Fred turned to me, “what are you doing here, Arianna?”

“Yeah! Go away! Fred wants his Angie-boo-boo here!”

Fred replied with a hard punch on George’s shoulder.

“No, what I meant was, you’re hardly known as the prankster...”

“I like it here,” I shrugged, “what about you?”

“Ah, now we’re here for market research,” said George.

“Market research?”

“Yes, we’re opening up a business…”

“In Hogwarts. We’re calling it…”

“Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. It’s going to be…”

“Awesome. Way better than all…

“The junk they’ve got out here.”

“Can you stop doing that?” I looked at the two of them.

“Doing what?” they chorused.

“Finishing each other’s sentences. It’s slightly freaky,”

“Freaky?” they both grinned, giving a new definition to the word freaky.

“Whatever," I looked at my wristwatch, "I’ve got to go meet Gwen now.”

“Gwen? You mean the creepy goth chick?”

“Yes. Gwen, the creepy goth chick.”

“Shall we come? You know, to protect you from all her dark magic?”

“She’s my friend.”

“Really? Arianna is friends with the creepy goth chick?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“Well now, this has to be a mistake. We’ll have to see it to believe it, won’t we, Fred?”

“Indeed we will, George.”

“Let’s go then!” I smiled. This was going to be fun.

I didn’t end up finding Gwen at the ice cream parlour, actually far from it. We were walking towards Florean Fortescue’s, when we heard a terrible screeching noise come from the Magical Menagerie. Fred and George ran inside, almost instantly, with me following after. Inside was a dark, furry catastrophe. And at the centre of all of it, who other than Gwen?

“I’m ok!” she said, coughing and spluttering from under the large assortment of magical creatures piled on top of her.

“Gwen?” I asked.

“Yup!” she picked herself up and sprang onto her feet, “and I see you brought company.”

I nodded.

“So… Tweedle dum and tweedle dumber?”

“Fred and George.”

“Gred and Forge?”

“If you want.”

“Hey!” Fred said, interrupting me, “That was once! Four whole years ago!”

“So?” Gwen grinned. She had a funny habit of knowing things that she wasn’t supposed to, I’d noticed.

“Gwen…” I looked around, “what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to buy something!”

“What exactly?”

Gwen pulled out a little glass jar from her pocket, inside which I could make out a strange, fluorescent orange blob, “say hello to Phyllis.”

“Phyllis?” the twins chorused.

“She’s beautiful,” I said, “but you know Hogwarts will never let you keep her.”

“It’s a he,” Gwen looked at me gravely,

“A male snail called Phyllis!” George burst out laughing, “Pass him here, will you, I’ve got to have a look at this.”

“Yes,” she said, gently lifting the snail out of the jar and handing him over to George, “And you three are going to help me protect him.”

“What?” I said, “Gwen, I am not getting kicked out of Hogwarts for some snail.”

“It’s not just some snail! It’s Phyllis! Besides, you won’t get kicked out of Hogwarts, so long as we don’t get caught.”

I glanced at George playing with Phyllis, “he’s poisonous, you know. There’s no way we can keep him.”

“But he’s adorable!” George said.

“Isn’t he just,” Fred said, stroking the back of Phyllis’ shell.

“Look, even they agree!” Gwen widened her eyes.

“Fine," I said, "but don’t count on me to feed him."

Chapter 1: Together We're Totally Awesome

Gwen

“Miss Gardenia. If you don’t turn around this instant I am going to hex your nose right off your pretty little face.”

Arianna looked up from the copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5 she was holding and wheeled around. 

“I swear Gwen, one of these days you’re going to give me a heart attack sneaking up on me like that, and then you’ll be left friendless and alone for the rest of your life.”

“And hello to you too!” I rolled my eyes and hugged Arianna tightly. “I haven’t seen you for six weeks, and the first thing you tell me is that I’m going to end up living alone with fifty cats. Honestly Ari, way to put a dampener on things.” 

She laughed and held me at arm’s length. “Let’s have a look at you…your hair is actually longer than your ears. What happened?” 

“Mummy dearest confiscated the scissors. Last time she gave a banshee a run for its money with her screeching.” I smiled fondly at the memory; last Summer I decided to cut all my hair off, and she walked in as I cut the last lock of those dark curls off. The house elves were sweeping hair off the kitchen floor for weeks.

“And it’s not green this year.” 

I shrugged. “She’s made sure the elves don’t take orders from me anymore, so I can’t send them out to get any dye. I would just magic it purple or whatever, but I don’t particularly want to be expelled just yet.”

Ari gave me a look that said she knew exactly what I was thinking. 

“No, you just don’t want to be separated from your precious Severus.” She wrinkled up her nose in disgust. “I honestly don’t know what you see in him. His hair is greasy, his nose is too big and he’s just plain mean. Oh, yeah; and he’s a teacher. What possibly possessed you to fall in love with him?”

“I’m not in love. I just want to have his babies.” I sighed wistfully.

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“What an innocent world you live in.” I ruffled her black tresses. She flinched back and defended herself with the book. “Now c’mon. I’m hungry and I want ice cream. Now.” 

Ari rolled her eyes and gathered up the pile of books. 

“Fine. I’ll just buy these, then we can go.”

“You can buy these later! I want ice cream!” I pouted. 

“But we’re already here!”

“And I’m already hungry!” I tugged on her arm and all the books tumbled out of her arms. A wizard who may well have been a witch (I couldn’t quite tell) peered around the bookshelf and tutted at us. Ari blushed and bent to pick them up, but I put a finger on my lips and pointed to a ‘Quiet’ sign on the wall. 

“Shh!” I hissed at her. “No tutting.” The witchard started tutting again, frowned, then disappeared behind her bookshelf. Ari stood with the books and started slotting them back in their places on the shelves.

“You are incorrigible.” 

“I don’t know the meaning of the word.” There was a pause. “Seriously. I don’t. What does it mean?” 

Sighing, Ari grabbed my arm and dragged me through the shop. 

“Before you cause any more destruction.”  

“But destruction is fun!” I flicked her on the forehead. 

“I see you’re still as violent as ever.”

I replied with a flick to the ear. Ari looked at me for a second, trying to fight a smile, before flicking my nose. I flicked her chin. She flicked my left eyebrow. 

“Now you’re neglecting my right eyebrow.”

“Huh?” she frowned.

“It feels left out.”

“It’s an eyebrow Gwen.”

“Flick it. Flick it and apologise.”

“I am not apologising to your eyebrow.”

“Say sorry!”

“No!”

“Just flick it already!” This was a rather disgruntled looking wizard with rather impressive eyebrows. “Some of us have books to buy y’know, and we would prefer to do it in peace.” 

I raised a hand to point to the ‘quiet’ sign again, but Ari picked this moment to flick my eyebrow and apologise to the man.

“Sorry sir. It won’t happen again.”

The wizard harrumphed and stalked past us. 

“Idiot.” I muttered. “We were having a perfectly good flicking fight. No-one interrupts my flicking fights! Someone should flick his eyebrows. There’s no way you could miss them. Maybe I’ll hex them off…”

“You should’ve been in Slytherin, you really should. Ravenclaw is wasted on you.”

“And I’m sure I would have been honoured to have had you in my house Miss McKee.” That voice…

I wheeled around and saw the future father of my children stood a few metres away. 

“Professor Snape! How nice to see you again.” 

Ari shot me a look and Snape remained impassive. He was always impassive. Other people may find it disconcerting and even rather scary, but I thought it was extremely endearing. I loved imagining what he was thinking, even if none of it could be repeated out loud.

“Quite. I suppose I’ll be seeing you in my office again very soon, if your past record is anything to go by. I do hope you’ll prove me wrong.” He swept past us, his dark robes swishing as he turned the corner. I grabbed Ari and pulled her out of Flourish and Blotts.

“I think he’s quite fond of me really.” I stated, quite seriously, but I was fighting back a smile.

“And I think you’re insane. But I suppose I’m stuck with you now.” Ari stuck her tongue out at me, then giggled and bounced up and down. “Gwen! It’s our fifth year! We’re going back to Hogwarts!” She started to sing sweetly. “Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts, teach us something please.” A smile tugged at my lips. 

“I don’t sing.”

“Whether we be old and bald or young with scabby knees.”

“I don’t sing!”

“Our heads could do with filling with some interesting stuff. For now they’re bare and full of air…” 

I couldn’t resist the look she was giving me. I sighed reluctantly for show, then muttered “Dead flies and bits of fluff.” 

Ari laced her arm through mine and started skipping down Diagon Alley, much to the surprise of a group of unsuspecting first years.

“Oh no. No skipping.”

“So teach us things worth knowing…”

“I refuse to skip.”

“Bring back what we forgot…”

“Singing I will accept, but absolutely no skipping!”

“Just do your best…”

“No. I refuse.”

“We’ll do the rest…” Ari turned and gave me the puppy dog eyes she does so well. These were the eyes that forced me to give her my last profiterole in First Year. And I loved those profiteroles.  

I caved.

“And learn until our brains all rot!” 

We skipped arm in arm down Diagon Alley, and never have odder looks been given in the history of odd looks.