Atropos → george weasley

xvi. fiery revenge

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sixteen

fiery revenge

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The snow was relentless.

Ottilie woke up to a chill in her bedroom each morning the next week. It was not helped by the general ire directed at her by her fellow Slytherins, disgruntled that a first year (who technically wasn't even allowed to have his own broom) had won Gryffindor's match against Slytherin. It was as though they thought it was her fault that Slytherin was doing poorly that year.

(Yes, sure, she'd lost more than her share of points, but they'd gotten them all back and made it to second place behind Ravenclaw.)

Draco and Pansy were using it as an excuse to be even nastier than usual. During their next flying lesson on Thursday, when Madam Hooch was distracted, Draco sped at her on his broom in an attempt to scare her enough she'd fall. Thankfully, she was good enough at flying by then. She had been able to dodge him and proceeded to bewitch a snowball to chase him around until he managed to swat it away (her bewitched snowball also resulted in Slytherin losing two House points, to which the Gryffindors applauded).

And, on Friday morning, the Slytherin girls in their year had sat around Ottilie at the breakfast table. They ignored her entirely until the end of the meal when Pansy accidentally knocked over a jug of orange juice, soaking Ottilie's robes.

It was an easy fix with a cleaning spell, but the precious moments she'd taken casting it allowed Pansy, Daphne, and Tracey to flee before Ottilie could do something in retribution. Millicent had stayed, looking uneasy, and attempted to hand Ottilie a serviette.

In a terrible mood, Ottilie grabbed her things for class and headed down to the potions classroom. For a few minutes, she was the only one there.

And then, she heard a trio of voices speaking softly to each other. Ottilie lifted her head to see none other than Hermione, Harry, and Ron. When they saw her, they stopped talking and proceeded to pretend she wasn't there.

"Hey, Hermione," said Ottilie, lowering her book as she leaned against the stone wall.

Harry looked confused. Hermione looked suspicious. Ron narrowed his eyes slightly at her.

"Hello, Ottilie."

"Commit any arson lately?" Ottilie gave a pleasant smile. Hermione's mouth dropped open and the boys' eyes bugged.

"W-What do you—?" Hermione stuttered.

"You know, I may've gone against Snape's authority, but at least I didn't set him on fire," said Ottilie. "My first week of school was awful because of you ratting me out. How would you like me to return the favor?"

"You wouldn't do that," Hermione said weakly.

"And, if you do, we'll just tell Dumbledore she did it to save my life!" said Harry.

Ottilie shrugged. "Sounds like a plan, Harry. Shall I tell Snape before class or after?"

Ron's expression unfroze and he crossed his arms."How about you mind your own business?"

"But what's the fun in that?" Ottilie asked. "How about one of you tell me how you knew—or, at least, why you thought—Snape was the one jinxing Harry's broom? And why you think he did it. You must have some suspicion of his intentions."

"Did you not hear me?" said Ron. "Mind your own—"

Ron cut himself off when he noticed their classmates making their way down the corridor. The trio glanced at Ottilie, obviously nervous she would say something else about the incident in front of other people.