Bad Reputation - Harry Potter Fanfic

Chapter Eight

  "Can I have my cloak back?" I asked Millie once we got back to the castle. 

"Not until you stop calling me 'Millie'," she answered, crossing her arms. 

I sighed, loudly and very dramatically. "Fine, I guess it's a hostage now. But, just so you know, you're basically stealing from an orphan." Of course, we both knew I wasn't really an orphan, but they were dead to me anyway.  

She offered me a soft smile in which I guessed that the joke had maybe been a bit too dark for her.

"Sorry," I said.

"Boy, why you apologising?" she asked me. "You have absolutely no reason to apologise for your shitty parents. It just so happens that your estrangement is not getting your cloak back."

"I don't know, it just kinda looked like you didn't know what to say to that," I told her, frowning.

"And I didn't, but you should not apologise for that, either," she practically ordered me.

"Yes, Commander Millie," I replied, giving her a muggle salute, my right hand moving up towards my head.

"Die in a hole, Cae."

"Which one, Commander Millie?"

"A really deep one, Cae."

I frowned. "Oh, I don't know, that requires some thinking for myself and I don't really know how to do that," I stated, putting a hand on my chin.

She laughed, pushing my arm slightly. "Okay, dinner's gonna be soon and you should go have a shower cause you stink - get to it, recruit," she added with a laugh.

~

I found Keller at the Halloween feast and sat next to him.

"Why is your hair wet?" he asked, giving me an odd look.

"Millie - Camille, but her nickname is Millie now - and I had a snowball fight and she had stink pellets."

"Huh, okay," he said, before helping himself to the mashed potatoes.

"Hey, Malfoy," a girl said opposite me, and I glanced up, to see that she was actually looking at me. She was the seventh year, Liza if I remembered correctly. "I have a question for you, actually, two, but the first question has a lot of little questions, too."

"Shoot," I replied, though I felt pretty weird that this was happening.

"Okay, first, so you know how I want to open up my store in Ashdale, right?" she asked.

"Yup, the land of permits and selling owls, cats, toads, that kinda thing," I replied, telling her that I did, in fact, remember what she had said.

She grinned. "Yeah. So, you're really one of the only people here who've lived in a foreign land, and I guess it wouldn't have the same kind of law as America-"

"You want to know about the permits?" I asked.

"Yeah, we can't really just send an owl," she said, smiling a little awkwardly.

"You'll have to go through our Ministry," I told her. "It's pretty much the same in most countries, but the United States has more regulations. You can owl our ministry and ask them to send information packs or something."

"That'll cost, won't it?" she asked, sounding a tad discouraged.

"Well, there's the Minister's grandkids," Keller added, sounding a little awkward speaking up, pointing down the table to the Crawley twins who weren't identical. The lighter haired, much more baby faced twin was Eric, while the dark haired, older looking twin was Emmerson - both of them were very traditionally attractive and in my year, which is why I knew their names. "They can probably ask the Minister for you."