Hadrian Romanoff and the Beginning

Chapter-15

Marigold Pollock stared down at the missive sent to her from her Head of House through one of the school's house elves.

Marigold had been sitting in one of the leather arm chairs in the Slytherin common room with a copy of Witch Weekly, enjoying her weekend when one of the school's house elves appeared in front of her and held out a folded parchment to her. It popped away as soon as it was in Marigold's hand.

She looked up when she heard someone come through the entrance and saw Lathaniel walk in along with the sixth year prefects Elyan Farlowe and Imogen Lanning and the seventh year prefects Alton Sheehan and Emily Bulstrode. They all had identical missives in their hands.

"Took you long enough," Marigold commented.

Lathaniel rolled his eyes. "You don't even know where we were when we got these." He pointed out. "Did you call for a house meeting?"

"Of course I did," Marigold huffed and flipped her golden hair over her shoulder. "What sort of Hufflepuff do you take me for?" Lathaniel knew she knew what to do in this situation and wouldn't wait around for someone else to remind her and make her look stupid. Sometimes she would swear he said things like that just to annoy her.

Lathaniel ignored her. He knew how Marigold was, she had been the same way in their first year and the only difference now was that she was taller and had more spells at her disposal. He took his usual seat to the right of her, putting him in direct sight of anyone entering the common room while also placing him just out of the light of the fireplace so that shadows flickered over his face. He had fought Marigold long and hard for the right over the intimidating seat.

The other prefects shared a look but opted out of commenting. They were well used to how the fifth years acted. They all figured it was just a matter of time before the two killed one another or got caught in one of the broom closets.

Elyan and Imogen took their seats on the far left of Marigold, allowing them to see whoever came down from the dorms while Alton and Emily sat between the sixth and fifth years.

Slowly but steadily the rest of the Slytherins filtered into the common room. They broke off into set groups, mostly based on year, gender, and political standing. The higher the year the smaller the group as they already had years to form alliances and also had those years to spite others in their quest to get to the top of the Slytherin hierarchy. The seventh years generally had no more than three to a group while the first years, divided they may be, usually stuck together in situations like these.

Lathaniel searched through the crowd of impassive faces for a particular first year. Draco Malfoy was standing just behind Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, doing his best not to draw any attention to himself the way he used to. The blond still hadn't recovered from the humiliation of losing to the muggleborn Romanoff and was constantly having to balance throwing his father's reputation around while making it seem like he wasn't just riding on his father's coattails like Romanoff had accused just to keep himself from being at the bottom of the first year hierarchy alongside Millicent Bulstrode and Malfoy's own bodyguards.

When Lathaniel had returned Malfoy's wand to the small blond after informing Professor Snape of the incident, the boy had seemed uncharacteristically subdued. The prefect had guessed that being beaten so easily and thoroughly at the hands of someone he had been raised to believe was inferior to him had bruised his ego a bit. It didn't help that any support he would have had from other Slytherins who shared his belief disappeared the second Malfoy's wand ended up in Romanoff's possession.

Lathaniel didn't know if Malfoy had written home to his father about the confrontation, though he was sure that the witnesses to the incident had informed their own families. With all of Malfoy's boasting about his father and his position in the Ministry, Lathaniel doubted the blond would be in any hurry to tell his father about how he lost in a confrontation with a muggleborn, one he had initiated no less. Though Malfoy Senior would no doubt find out from his associates that had children in Slytherin and then Malfoy Junior would have to explain why he didn't see it fit to inform his father himself. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't.