𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐬 | l. lovegood

xxvii

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 without some sort of project to keep Dorothea busy. When she wasn't in classes, studying, hanging out with Nevilla and Luna, or spying on Draco to figure out what he was up to, she was in her dorm bored out of her mind. She needed an adventure; she needed something to keep her head from exploding from all the information she was taking in.

She had weekly check-ins every Saturday with Professor McGonagall, something that her mother had arranged so that she would have a trusted adult to talk to about what was going on with her. Dorothea didn't know why her Transfiguration teacher had to be her therapist. She was fine. She was eating all her meals and doing the bare minimum of social interactions. Wasn't that what Andromeda wanted?

"Where are you off to, Torpid?" Dylan Rodgers asked as he followed Dorothea down the corridor, his best friend, Blake Miller, at his side. "Where's your other half? Off searching for made-up creatures that don't exist?"

Dorothea rolled her eyes. She hated these Slytherin boys. She clenched her hand into a fist and kept walking.

"Still upset about the death of your murderer cousin, are you?" Miller taunted.

He instantly knew that he fucked up.

Dorothea whirled around, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "He wasn't a murderer. He was framed."

"Oh, yeah? Where's the proof?" Rodgers asked. Miller shook his head to tell him to come off it, but he ignored him and stepped closer to the petite girl. "Your whole family are murderers, isn't that right? Your aunt is a murderer. Your cousin was a murderer. I wouldn't be surprised if you're a murderer, too, Torpid."

The next thing he knew, Dorothea's fist had collided with his face. He yelled out in pain and grabbed his nose, which had begun to bleed.

"Dorothea Tonks!"

"C'mon, Dylan, let's get out of here!" Miller grabbed his friend's arm as McGonagall approached.

"You're a fucking psycho!" Rodgers shouted before running off with Miller.

Dorothea blinked. She looked down at her hand and unclenched her fist. Her nails had left small cuts in the shape of crescent moons on her palms.

"Haven't I told you before that if those boys give you any grief, you are to come straight to me?" McGonagall asked sternly.

Dorothea swallowed thickly and nodded, her cheeks burning with shame. She'd tried to control her anger, but nothing got to her more than people judging her for who her family was, especially when it came to Sirius.

"10 points will be taken from Hufflepuff, and I will be writing to your mother. Now, if you will, please follow me to my office."

Dorothea walked the rest of the way down the corridor towards McGonagall's office. She took a seat, and the woman sat down behind her desk. Dorothea took the worry stone Hermione gave her last year out of her pocket. She held it in the palm of her hand as she rubbed it with the pad of her thumb.

"Since we were already meeting, I want to ask what led you to hitting Mr. Rodgers," McGonagall said as she folded her hands on her desk.

Dorothea took a slow, deep breath in through her nose. Her knee began to bounce. She shrugged.

"Could you write it down for me?"

Dorothea nodded. McGonagall slid a sheet of parchment across to her and handed her a quill. Dorothea scooted her chair closer to the desk. She dipped the quill in the ink pot and wrote, He called Sirius a murderer and said I was one, too. She turned the parchment around so that McGonagall could read.