Innocent | d. malfoy

- one -

Aria Rowen

First nights back at Hogwarts were always the worst growing up. For people like me, it was just a reminder of the terrible year you had to 'look forward to'.

Nonetheless, I was at least trying to enjoy myself a little bit over the weekend before classes began on Monday.

It was a late, Saturday evening and I was spending it in the Slytherin common room, despite being a Hufflepuff.

Other house parties were just lame, which was probably why there was a wide variety of students from each of the four houses.

The teachers definitely knew about the first night party that was thrown almost every year after the feast and welcome speech, but I doubted that they cared enough to shut down our fun.

"Hello gorgeous..." Dylan Hernandez placed her hands on my shoulders from behind me, jumping upwards and into the air.

Dylan was a Slytherin, an American one at that. She and her mum had moved from the states so that she could attend her first year at Hogwarts, and had remained living in a London apartment ever since.

"-how's it going?" She seemed unbelievably peppy considering how late it was.

"It's... fine," My voice trailed off as I glanced through the clusters of people on the dance floor, spotting another one of my friends.

Dylan's gaze followed mine and eventually landed on the blonde-haired girl. "Is that Jenna?"

I sighed, watching as she used the bottom of her glass to crush a row of tiny pills. "Yep," She was surrounded by some Slytherin guys and a few girls from her own house.

You'd think that a Ravenclaw like her would be smart enough to know not to do drugs, but Jenna Ryles had been doing this since 4th year.

Usually I would restrain her from taking part in things like that, but hey, if that's how she wanted to cope with her emotions then I'd have to accept it- for now at least...

"Ew, disgusting-" Dylan gestured to another corner, where our other friend, Indy Emans was busy making out with her boyfriend.

Indy was a Gryffindor, yet for some reason she wasn't brave enough to give Luke Carrow a good 'ole knock to the head. Her boyfriend was downright abusive- and whenever any of us tried to speak up about it to her she shut the conversations down quicker than it had started.

Some might say that it's a power move to have a friend group of four, one in each house, but for us it was only benefiting our survival in this bloody mess of a school.

"Pathetic, the lot of em'," Dylan pointed subtly as a certain group of Slytherins appeared at the door to the party.

I glanced over, spotting Zabini, Nott, Parkinson, and Malfoy enter the common room. "If they're pathetic then what does that make us?" I swirled the contents of my drink around in the cup before taking a big sip of the throat-burning liquid.

"They're pathetic... we're just downright fucked up."

"Amen to that," Jenna Ryles snuck up behind the three of us.

I looked into her glassy blue eyes in a scolding way. "Are you high enough yet- or do you need us to get you some muggle crap too?"

If I wasn't joking, Jenna probably would've accepted the offer. "Ha, ha, very funny, now have some fun yourselves!" She tried grabbing my hand, but I didn't budge from where I stood by the wall.

"Fuck no..." I snapped back, causing her to drop my arm.

"Lighten up bitch, it's called a party!" She gave a stifled laugh as she backed away. I rolled my eyes, but that didn't stop her from continuing to nag me. "Don't be so harsh- either of you!"

Before we got the chance to respond, Jenna had already grabbed Dylan's arm and was pulling her away.

The Slytherin girl sent me a pleading look, but I only smiled and waved as Jenna continued to drag her to the dance floor.

Sure, I loved my friends, but sometimes we could be bloody annoying and spiteful to each other.

None of us were very popular in our own houses, which is probably why we sort of... clicked.

We were all a little broken, and the Battle of Hogwarts only worsened our mindsets to where none of us really saw the point in living anymore. Maybe we just all found solitude in one another, maybe it was the fact that any one of us were so willing to die that we'd gladly take the place of a friend.

There weren't many returning 8th year students, which made sense because who would want to go to school for another year? Why not be free to go where you want? Do as you pleased?

Well, not all of them really had a choice- like that clique of Slytherins that entered the party not too long ago. All of their parents were associated with death eaters, hell, some of them were even death eaters themselves. In order to avoid being shipped off to Azkaban and buried away in a cell, some of them chose to return to Hogwarts instead.

There really wasn't much difference in the choices that the newly established Ministry of Magic gave them between going to school or being locked away.

Die a terrible death in an inescapable prison?

Or go to Azkaban?

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