Throughout her life, Diana Greengrass was raised to hate all Muggles and Muggleborns, fear half-breeds such as werewolves, believe that Divination was a useless class, and to detest the idea of romance and falling in love. Although Diana never expec...
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***
Diana still felt slightly cranky and flustered since Remus had pulled away from her so abruptly, leaving her longing for more.
Of course, she was too proud and stubborn to say it out, although her frown said enough on its own as she left the shower and walked into one of the changing stalls inside the locker room and wore her clothes.
When she walked out, she found Remus standing in the locker room without a shirt on.
"What are you doing?" Diana questioned, frowning.
"I need to dry my clothes with a spell, but I don't want to risk having them on while casting it," Remus explained with a grin as he hung his shirt on the wall and took out his wand. "The first time James tried it, he set all our cloaks on fire. Luckily we were standing near the Black Lake so we just jumped."
Diana wanted to laugh, but she felt too distracted by the sight before her. But she quickly shook her head and looked away, going to grab her bag from her locker and stuffing her Quidditch robes into it.
"Okay, I think I better get out of here first," said Diana, throwing her bag over her shoulder. "Wait five minutes before going out of the locker room. We don't want anyone to know we were in here together."
"Oh — yeah — of course." Remus nodded briskly in understanding, having managed to dry his shirt without messing up the spell.
"All right." Diana sighed and gave him a little smile, leaving the locker room before Remus would get the chance to take his trousers off and dry them.
Diana definitely didn't want to be there long enough to see that. She was feeling weird enough as it was, after their moment in shower.
***
As she had expected, there was no fun and exciting party going on in the Slytherin common room, unlike how Gryffindors would've done so. Instead, there was a boring celebration where the team players sat in the common room with others gathered around them, boasting out loud about their best moves during the game or making fun of the Gryffindor players.
"Hey," Diana told Layla as she walked into the common room, where she found her sitting not too far away from the rest of the celebrating Slytherins.
"Hey," Layla greeted her. "What took you so long?"
"I — um — took a shower," Diana replied uneasily, hoping that Layla wouldn't see her blushing.
But thankfully, Layla was too busy glaring at the other Slytherins gathered in the common room to pay too much attention to her friend.
"Listen to these idiots." Layla shook her head disapprovingly.
"... and did you see their Seeker? That freak is supposedly their captain," Finn Martin — one of the Slytherin players that Diana absolutely loathed — said. "That's what they get for having a girl as their captain." People around them sniggered.
"I didn't pay much attention to her," their Keeper said loudly with an ugly smug grin on his face. "I was too busy laughing at their stupid Chaser, Marlene McKinnon. But I'm grateful for her. She made catching the Quaffle way too easy for me. Why don't the Gryffindors do themselves a favor and just kick the girls off their team?"
"Oh, yeah?" Layla suddenly yelled out-of-the-blue, jumping to her feet. "And why don't you do us a favor and shut your stupid mouth?"
"Ooooh!" A few others said in a lofty and mocking voice, laughing at the stunned face of the Keeper.
"And why are you defending a filthy blood traitor?" the Keeper snarled, getting up to his feet slowly as the rage of being made fun of caught up with him.
"I'd rather defend a blood traiter than someone like you," Layla said through gritted teeth, drawing out her wand.
A grimace of anger covering his face, the boy suddenly drew out his wand and raised it up toward her. Before any of them could react and before Diana could pull out her own wand to defend her friend, a sharp voice behind them said,
"Drop your wand!"
Looking back, Diana's heart sank when she saw Regulus standing behind them, his wand pointed directly at the Slytherin Keeper.
The look of fear flashed before his eyes, and so the boy lowered his wand carefully, not saying another word. It seemed as though he knew Regulus was a Death Eater, and he certainly didn't want any trouble with his kind.
"Now," Regulus went on, his cold grey eyes fixed on him, "apologize."
The boy hesitated, gulping. He finally looked away, mumbling a small, "Sorry."
"Good enough," Regulus muttered sternly, before placing his wand back in his coat and walking away, disappearing into the boys' dormitory.
***
Weeks passed by, and even though Regulus had done a great deal to Layla and Diana, he didn't speak another word to them. He would even choose the furthest seat from them in the Great Hall, sitting mostly with Avery, Mulciber, and Snape. Although, from the occasional glances that Diana stole at him during meal times, Regulus would barely speak to the other three. He would just sit there, staring down at his plate.
"I feel so bad for him," Diana whispered during breakfast that day, sighing. "He's nothing like them. I just don't understand why he would go through with it and become a... you-know-what."
A Death Eater.
"I know." Layla nodded sorrowfully, placing down her fork. She glanced over at Hagrid who was carrying a large tree into the Hall, so Professor Flitwick could design it with charmed ornaments for the nearing Christmas.
Just then, a large eagle owl flew through the Great Hall along with others, carrying the morning mail with themselves. The eagle owl flew toward where the two Slytherin girls were sitting, dropping a purple envelope with a golden wax in front of Layla.
"Another letter for your precious Slug Club?" Diana said mockingly, taking a spoon-full of cereal from her bowl.
"He's throwing another Christmas party," Layla informed after taking out the letter and reading through it. "Ugh, we're supposed to bring dates."
"I'm not going with you."
"I didn't even ask you!" Layla laughed, shaking her head at her. "Besides, I suppose we can't bring friends. Only a partner."
"Well? Who are you going to take, then?" Diana mused.
Layla shrugged as she sighed once again, her black eyes scanning the Hall. "I'm not sure... but I do have someone in mind."
