The first thing Cherry does the next day at the Great Hall is sit next to Dorcas. She plasters a hesitant, hopeful sort of tint to her smile, hopefully obvious enough for Dorcas to notice.
"H— Hi, Dorcas."
"Cherry," Dorcas says curtly.
Cherry sighs, looking down ashamedly. Taking a deep breath, she starts her fake apology. "You're right. I was being swayed by Black and Rosier. Watching that whole Marauders-Snape-Evans thing made me realize that, but I was too embarrassed to say so. It weighed on me all break, though.
". . . I had a falling out with my parents," Cherry adds, after a slight pause. "I felt so guilty I had to say something. I'm really sorry, Dorcas. I should've listened to you."
Cherry is surprised by how much truth she is hearing in her statement, but she thinks nothing of it. In any case, she is Marked now, and to change sides is paramount to suicide. And for all her anger and hurt, she doesn't want to die.
Mudbloods are lesser, they should accept their place in society, Cherry. They deserve it— you should not pity them.
"I heard from Marlene that you had been kicked out," Dorcas admits, finally looking at Cherry. The latter was glad that her latest 'scandal' (which had obviously been staged) had made its rounds through the Wizarding community. "I know it must be hard, being estranged from your family, but Cherry, you have to know. It's not fair to judge someone based on their parents' magic or lack of. If I were to have done that to you, we wouldn't be friends, Sorting be damned!"
"I know that now," Cherry sighs, averting her eyes. "I really am sorry."
Dorcas looks at her, gaze full of pity. "Don't do it again, and we're fine," she decides. "Anyway, I heard that Sirius has been kicked out, too. They must really be pushing for this 'pruning' of families."
Cherry lets out a small smile. Her plan did work, after all. Dorcas really is too trusting.
•——————•°•✿•°•——————•
The next day, Cherry walks down to Charms with Dorcas, who is taking it as she wants to work with the Department of Mysteries as a researcher and spell inventor. It is one of the few classes Hufflepuff has with Gryffindor, this year. For some odd reason, Dumbledore paired up Slytherin and Gryffindor—the two houses that hated each other—the most.
"C'mon," Dorcas grins, practically dragging Cherry. "You've got to meet Marlene, Mary and Lily!" Catching sight of Cherry's frown at the mention of the redhead, Dorcas sighs. "I know you don't like Lily, but I promise you, she isn't as as snobbish and stuck-up as she comes off."
Cherry frowns, but starts to pull her own weight. "Alright..."
Dorcas beams and practically runs over to where the three Gryffindors are sitting, so Cherry reluctantly picks up her pace.
It's 9 am, how are you so energetic?!
"Lils, Mary, Marls! I have someone for you to meet," Dorcas exclaims happily, plopping down into the seat behind the three girls, who turn to look at them. "This is Cherry Parkinson!"
Cherry gives them a small nod as she settles in her seat, trying not to show her disdain. "Pleasure"
Macdonald snorts, "Oh, you sound so posh!"
"Just because you've never had to face a governess—" McKinnon starts.
"Ignore them," Evans says with a very put-upon sigh, moving to sit on the other side of Cherry. "It's nice to meet you, too."
"Hey! You've abandoned us!" Macdonald says suddenly, noticing that Evans was no longer next to her.
"Well... I see you all the time..."
"Traitor! 'Cas, come join us," McKinnon says, and Dorcas shoots Cherry a pleading glance. Cherry, knowing of Dorcas' crush, and knowing that she has just made up with her friend, realizes that the quickest way to ensure that her old friend truly trusts her would be to . . . sit next to Lily Evans in her best subject.
Oh, bloody fucking hell.
She gives Dorcas the slightest of nods and it is the most painful thing she has ever done in her life.
"It's just you and me, then," Lily says, grinning as if it were the most glorious thing to happen to her—as if it weren't possibly the worst moment in Cherry's life.
"Actually, um..." says a hesitant voice, and Cherry turns to find a sheepish-looking Peter Pettigrew staring down at her and Lily. A quick glance tells her that quite literally every other seat is taken. For a fleeting moment, Cherry contemplates walking off the Astronomy Tower.
Lily's demeanour hardens, and she rolls her eyes. "Fine. Join us, Pettigrew."
Pettigrew scrambles into the remaining seat at their table, and just in time, as Flitwick walks in, humming happily as he climbs onto the stack of books on his chair.
"Hello, and welcome to your first N.E.W.T.-level Charms class, and your first N.E.W.T. class ever, I suspect. I'm quite pleased to see you all here, and might I say, all your O.W.L. results were absolutely fantastic! Now, before I begin, I must let you know that the seat you're sitting in will be your seat for the rest of the year."
You've got to be shitting me.
"Now, as always, I will be beginning with a review. We can't start on something new..."
"If we haven't practiced the old," the class of, what is usually a group of vibrant people, choruses bleakly.
If Professor Flitwick notices the sudden change in energy, he does not show it as he carries on, merrily asking, "Who remembers the incantation for the Disillusionment Charm?"
To no one's surprise, Gryffindor's resident sixth-year ginger has her hand up in the air first. Cherry resigns herself to a year full of being relegated to second-best in Professor Flitwick's book. Charms was in actuality her favourite subject (and her best), but everyone knew of Flitwick's soft spot for Lily Evans. She didn't want to try and impress her professor just to be outshone by the stupid Mudblood.
There's no point in repeating second-year. Cherry thinks, remembering how the last time Gryffindor and Hufflepuff had Charms together went. (It wasn't bad by any means, but for little Cherry, it was the worst.)
So, even though she had spent one month of summer reviewing all of the material she had covered in the years previous, and even though she had spent the other month reviewing all her stealth spells, Cherry did not raise her hand.
Leaving James, Black, Lupin, Evans, and the only Abbott in her year as the only ones with their hands in the air.
Smiling, Professor Flitwick calls on Evans, who returns the expression with a confident "miscere".
"Would you be able to perform the charm on yourself?" Professor Flitwick asks, his smile—something starting to infuriate Cherry for no reason—still as happy as ever.
With a nod, Lily performs the Disillusionment Charm on herself perfectly.
Cherry's picture-perfect posture slumps for just a moment, revealing her frustration, but she hastily sits back up in her seat. Under no circumstances am I to look less than perfect. Under no circumstances can I give away the fact that I have quite literally signed my soul away. He thinks I can be a spy, I have to be able to do it.
"Excellent work, Ms Evans! Now that you've had a demonstration, please attempt the same."
Barely suppressing a sigh, Cherry twirled her wand around herself, casting miscere with ease, only remembering at the last moment to shudder. She isn't supposed to be used to the odd feeling of an egg cracking down your back that the Disillusionment Charm triggers.
Evans, who has apparently been looking at her during this, says, "Wow, Cherry—can I call you Cherry?—that was amazing!"
Even though she feels like declining, Cherry nods in affirmation to Evans' question. "It's really nothing," she adds dismissively. "We learnt this last year, remember, Evans?"
"Call me Lily," Evans responds, staring pointedly past Cherry, who follows Evans' eyes and suppresses another sigh. Despite learning this last year, Pettigrew is struggling.
"Fair," Cherry nods, conceding to Evans' point—both ones.
•——————•°•✿•°•——————•
Loathe as she is to admit it—indeed, after almost a full school year of lying to herself—Cherry can now say Dorcas is right. Lily isn't all too bad, for all of an insufferable, picture-perfect, know-it-all she comes off as. Even though Cherry can clearly tell how much Lily is put-off by Pettigrew, whenever he asks for help she is patient with him. Unless he pulls something that James or Black puts him up to.
Lily refuses to help him then, and as Cherry never had and never will have the patience to deal with a person whose level of incompetence is as high as Pettigrew's, he knows not to do it too often.
Cherry hates how perfect she is. She knows, that for all that the Sorting Hat praised her niceness, Cherry cannot push down the hate in her to help someone she truly loathes.
"What's wrong?" a voice behind her asks.
She turns around, only to be met with the face of one Sirius Black, who is surprisingly lacking his other three parts.
Cherry is currently sitting at the Gryffindor table for lunch, with Dorcas to her right and some random third-year to her left. So, obviously, Black takes that as an invitation to force the second-year to scoot and inserts himself into her business. Why he's bothering her, she doesn't know. They haven't spoken to each other properly since their Care of Magical Creatures project in third-year, and their last interaction was the Snape Fiasco, as she is starting to call it.
"What do you mean, Black?" Cherry snorts derisively.
"I mean, what have the potatoes done to deserve being mutilated by your fork?" he asks, his arm hovering over the plate of baked potatoes. "I want to know so that I don't regret eating them," he adds flippantly, as though it would be awful for him to actually be concerned for her well-being—Black always was disgusted at the thought of showing compassion.
"Nothing that you'd care about," Cherry says, sighing, doing her level best not to slouch with the exhale. "The potatoes are fine, they just happen to be here and be very mashable."
"Where do you live now?" he asks suddenly, adding a spoonful of said potatoes on his plate.
"In a beach house I'm pretty sure my parents forgot they own," Cherry answers, going with the lie she and her mother fabricated. "I'm assuming you're living with Potter?"
Black gives her a short nod but moves past her question quickly. "That's not safe," he whispers hurriedly. "Why aren't you with Meadowes?"
"We had a little disagreement mid last year," Cherry says flippantly. "We only just made up so I don't want to bother her with my homelessness just yet. If my parents do end up visiting the beach house for whatever reason, I'll just go to Gringotts and have a very extended stay at The Leaky Cauldron."
Black's expression of worry does not dissipate, "That's still . . ." he shakes his head. "Why don't you come with me? James has more than enough space and I'm sure Mrs Potter would love having a girl in the house."
"Paddy!" exclaims a voice behind Cherry, causing her to flinch. "What tales of my bravery have you been spreading?"
James Potter, Cherry decides—because she could recognize that voice anywhere—has no need for her personal woes. So, she speaks before Black can.
"Oh, he was just about to tell me what actually went on between you and that piece of mistletoe in third year," Cherry lies with a laugh, shooting Black a warning glance as James sputters.
The Mistletoe Incident, as the school learnt to call it, is a mystery that ended with James Potter walking to the Hospital Wing absolutely covered with the plant. While no one knows how Potter got in such a state, it's something that, understandably, roused curiosity in everyone, and mentioning it is a surefire way of getting him sidetracked.
"Padfoot I thought I swore you to secrecy!" James exclaims, once again forcing the poor second-year to scoot so that he could sit next to Black.
"All I said was that no one would see the pictures!" Black retorts with a laugh, although he does shoot Cherry a warning glance, promising her that they would revisit the conversation.
"Padfoot, you didn't," James says incredulously, lunging towards his friend.
As the two boys devolve into a playful fight, Cherry discretely vanishes her plate of food and carefully leaves the Great Hall. She has plans to make for the summer break.
•——————•°•✿•°•——————•
a/n: i know it's literally been over a year but ... i'm back? sort of? hopefully? honestly, i had most of this written from before, but since i had almost nothing written in the outline for this chapter... it was kind of iffy. aaand i slowly lost motivation to finish.
i do have a whole plan and everything for the rest of the fic and have had one since the beginning, but between school and performances and competitions and all, i can't promise y'all a consistent updating schedule. i hope you'll continue reading anyway and that this chapter was alright! your author is trying here, i can promise you that.