Perfect Little Prefect

ᥴꫝꪖρ𝕥ꫀ𝕣 ꪮꪀꫀ

     The sweet scene of lavender shampoo and ginger snaps filled my nose as I stretched out my legs under the scratchy wool quit my grandmother had given me for my eleventh birthday.
     "Hey, Pansy!" I called out, rising out to my feet and glancing around the cluttered Slytherin dormitory. A booming feminine voice rang out from the bathroom doorway to my right. There stood a pug like pale girl in a bathrobe and dark collarbone length hair.
     "Thought you'd need a few more minutes of sleep after being up so late again." Them my friend chirped before rubbing her damp hair with a towel. She smiled at me. I rolled my eyes.
     "You mean you wanted a drag before I could bust you. Spray perfume at least, please. Shower didn't get rid of the smell." I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and headed to the loo myself. After getting ready for the day ahead, I walked down to the common room and met up with Pansy who was sitting on the arm of a couch, stroking the arm of a silver haired boy. He reminded me of a ghost as the other thing about him that wasn't as white as snow was his black Slytherin robes. These only seemed to make him look even more sickly. When he met my gaze he offered me a half smile.
     "Good morning, sleepyhead." Pansy purred. I hated mornings. Her voice felt like a rough slap to my very brain.
     "Hey, Brandi." Draco muttered, shrugging off Pansy's hand with a glare.
     "Coffee. I need coffee." I groaned. Suddenly a muscular arm found its way around my shoulders. I looked up to meet the mischievous gaze of a tall black boy with centimeter long hair. Blaise.
     "Get some caffeine in this girl before we lose our lives." Blaise dramatically said placing his free hand to his forehead as though he would faint.
     "You can let go of me now, Zabini." I snapped. He did just that, knowing all well that I would not ask again. Before my morning coffee I was a rabid dog that shouldn't be provoked.
     "Play nice you two." Draco chucked, suddenly standing on the other side of me with a smirk.
     "I'll be nice after breakfast can we go already?" I said with slight annoyance. The three of them giggled at me only making me more irritated. It was too early for this.
     "Okay, okay." Pansy said before the four of us made our way to the great hall together, sitting down at one of the long tables littered with our fellow Slytherins. I snatched a mug from next to blueberry scones and took a sip with a satisfied sigh. The bitter taste sent a flood of warmth into my heart. It was like sitting next to a fire on a chilly winter morning.
     "Feel better?" Pansy questioned with a raise of her eyebrow. She piled eggs onto her plate. Draco did the same.
     "I hate mornings so much, oh my god." I sighed.
     "We know." Blaise whined, between bites of bacon. "You are the worst when you wake up."
     "You're the worst all the time." Pansy giggled. I snapped my neck to look at her, my black curls bouncing against my light brown, freckled, cheeks as I did.
     "I am not! I just care about rules."
     "Yeah we were made prefects for a reason, Parkinson." Draco boasted. He shot me a prideful expression of which I returned. I had worked as hard as humanely possible for five years at Hogwarts to establish myself as the best candidate for Slytherin prefect. At the start of this year, our sixth, Professor Snape has nominated me himself with little to no doubt.
     "Following every single rule gets you nothing more than a boring life and a million cats to grow old with." Blaise said.
     "Sexist. I don't have to be a party girl to be sought after by people."
     "No but you do have to be able to live." Blaise raised his eyebrow and looked me up and down.
     "I don't need to do anything to be loved. I don't even need love. It's not a necessity of life or anything. It's a good part, I guess, but it doesn't make you whole. You make you whole." I bit my lip to keep my annoyance in tact.
     "I sure feel whole." His demeanor suddenly changed as he stared off somewhere across the ginormous room. I couldn't pinpoint who he was looking at through the crowd, but I gathered that they had to be sitting at the Gryffindor table. He was longingly gazing into a sea of red and gold. Blaise had informed us weeks ago that he had started dating someone but refused to tell us who due to some sort of drama we were unaware of. He placed his head in his hands and descended into a dreamy trance, ignoring my hand flying past his eyes. Pansy chuckled from across the table.
      "Well he's gone." I giggled softly, returning back to Pansy and Draco. Draco rolled his eyes.
     "Over the moon that one is." Pansy smiled, her eyes darting over to the handsome boy sitting next to her for a split second.
     "Do we have a prefects meeting today?" Draco chimed in. I nodded and took a bite of toast. He groaned.
     "I can't sit through another hour of Snape telling us we have to catch those damn Weasley twins. It's practically been every single day. Why can't the Gryffindor's just step up?"
     "You want to ask Ron Weasley to bust his own older brothers?" I chuckled.
     "They'd probably turn his hair green." Said Pansy.
     "I looked like a damn lime for weeks. God I hate that family." Recalled Draco. During third year Draco had started a fight with the Weasley's once again and after three hours of screaming at Ginny and Ron, the twins given him a peace offering. This was in the form of a cuppa hot chocolate that turned out to have some sort of charm or whatnot that turned his hair and eyebrows bright green.
     "Well I should head to herbology before everybody else gets there." I said, standing up quickly and grabbing my books from the bench.
     "Nerd." Said Pansy and Draco simultaneously. I fumbled with the hem of my tan shirt and smiled.
     "Ambition is no sin for a Slytherin." I waved goodbye and walked through the halls of Hogwarts before finding myself in the brightly lit greenhouse. Plants of all shapes and sizes littered the walls and floor with long tables resting in the middle of the room. At the far end of the left-most table stood Neville Longbottom hunched over a cactus of sorts with a focused expression. I sat my books down on the table next to him and inspected the plant.
     "She keeps sprouting flowers but I've done everything right!" Sadly stated the boy. I stared at the prickly green mass with numerous red blooms before glancing around the room for any sort of clue.
     "Was it near the Mandrakes? The mandrakes's scream causes these to sprout poisonous flowers in order to scare off what they assume is a loud animal wanting to eat them."  I said. He smiled.
     "What would I do without you?" Neville softly spoke as though the world was listening in on a secret.
     "Be in sixth year herbology probably. I'd be there too without you though so I think we are even." I
     "That's not true," he frowned. "You could be in any advancement of your classes without any help."
     "You are too kind to me." I grinned at him causing him to smile as well. Neville was the sweetest person I knew, after Luna Lovegood. It was a refreshing change from my After a few minutes of studying together, the rest of the class began to file into the greenhouse.
     "Today is a study on your own day, class! Please keep the chatter down to a minimum." Professor Sprout cooed once everyone was inside, leaving us to our own work. I sat down in a far back corner on a small stone bench surrounded by sweet smelling flowers. The scent reminded me of honey with a hint of sweet tarts. I opened up my notebook and began to sketch various flora and takes notes on their magical properties. The feeling was like no other. It was as though my pen was my wand and the ink was my magic itself. A slow but overwhelming sense of calm overcame me as it always did, causing me to get lost in my work for what must have been about thirty minutes before a tall ginger sat beside me. I almost didn't notice his presence but the scent of gala apples and fireworks flooded my senses.
"You're really good at that, y'know. Drawing. Your handwriting isn't half bad either." He leaned over my shoulder to get a closer look at my handiwork. On the page was an intricate drawing of various flora such as foxglove, hemlock, deadly nightshade, and wolfsbane. I looked up to see the freckle littered face of Fred Weasley, the corner of his thin lips curved upwards ever so slightly as he continued to stare at my book.
"I've had a lot of practice. It's not that difficult to draw once you get the basics down, really." I smiled kindly not knowing whether to be friendly due to his compliment or irritated due to his interruption.
"Oh that's way beyond basics. Your shading is great! It looks practically real." His eyes were still on the paper with awe. I decided friendliness was most deserved here.
"Thank you. Shouldn't you be studying though?"
"Everybody needs free time every so often. Wont hurt to skip today." He chuckled, finally looking at my face. I bite my lip anxiously. I wasn't used to this much positive attention outside of my friend group. It felt almost embarrassing. His eyes darted down to my lips for a mere second before returning to my eyes with his well known goofy grin.
"It's better to get as much memorized as you can so it's less difficult later actually. Then you don't necessarily need free time anymore." I insisted. He smiled at this.
"Too much stress. Aren't you a prefect too? I've seen you report a couple people I think." I narrowed my eyes at him. Was this actually some sort of attempt to flatter me into looking the other way of his foolish pranks?
"I am yes. It's an honor to play an important and helpful role for the school."
"Oh yeah, it's a real service to the community to break up snogging couples." I huffed at this, now annoyed.
"I do more than that!"
"And yet I haven't been caught." He boasted with an almost prideful expression, catching me off guard. This was the most either of the twins had ever talked to me. The rest of our interactions were a passing greeting or common courtesy when I was discovered talking to Ginny or Ron, nothing more.
"I..I...don't make me tell Ginny you were mocking me. She'll break your nose and you know it." He chuckled at this and raised his hands in the air with defeat.
"Oh c'mon, I finally try to connect with you and you threaten to sick the dogs on me?" He thought for a moment before letting his face fall. "Don't tell her I called her a dog...I just got stopped those damn bat boogies from flying out of my nose this morning" I couldn't help but smile. Ginny was the badass of the Weasley siblings.
"Don't taunt me then. I'm also trying to study."
"Is it cool if I watch? Watch you draw I mean." I tilted my head and stared at him before agreeing. He wasn't going to do his work anyways so he might as well involuntarily learn through watching me draw. We spent the rest of the class curled up on that stone bench staring at my notebook and listening to the sound of quiet chatter that filled the room, talking every so often about pointless things such as weather or our other classes. It wasn't unbearable though, surprisingly, it was almost comforting.

Hiyah Author here. I did proofread and edit but if you see any typos please do comment so that I can fix them! <3