CHAPTER 3 | LITTLE LEECH !

            SO MUCH GREEN. So much fucking green. It was a particular emerald shade and sure there were accents of black from the dark wooden furniture, sure there were accents of cream from the throw pillows on the couches but fucking hell was there a lot of green. If Kennedy wasn't already so fond of that particular emerald shade, she's sure she'd grow sick of it.

And quickly.

But generally, she liked the Common Room. There were lots of low-backed black chairs and dark green button-tufted sofas scattered around for students to lounge and study on. The room had a grandness to it, and Hogwarts apparently adored heavy-handed color-coding. The room also felt cold and dead in a way that was hard to articulate. Perhaps part of that could be attributed to the giant squid because they were below fucking sea-level or the random skulls sitting on the cupboards and bookshelves lining the room. The skulls were a bit overkill, in her opinion.

A lot of students were still milling around in the Common Room, chatting with their friends, plucking books from the bookshelves to curl up on a comfy chair until it was curfew. Immediately she'd walked in, she noticed everyone seemed to look at her with slight interest and confusion for a second before returning to whatever task they were doing.

Honestly, she just wanted to find Daphne and her friend and crash in her dorm room. She could explore the intricacies of the Common Room when she's struggling through an essay later in the year. Kennedy walked through the room, ignoring the surprisingly subtle stares and whispers given the late hour, and into a hallway of dorms.

Each door was a dark black with a silver ornate handle. Beside each was a gold plate with names inscribed on them.

Surprisingly, it didn't take her long to find hers. It was a little obvious that the "Kennedy O. Bishop" inscribed on the plate had been added a little hastily. Above her own name was Daphne's and the two other girls Snape had mentioned — Pansy Parkinson and Rachel Minks.

She stood outside the door for a second, not scared but thinking. She didn't feel any obligation to be nice to her roommates except Daphne and perhaps Daphne's friend. How they treated her and their general conduct would decide how they were treated. If she decided they were worth it, they would receive basic manners. Simple.

She opened the door and was thankfully met with two familiar faces. "Kennedy!", Daphne beamed at her as she sat crisscrossed on her bed with her friend from earlier sitting beside her. Kennedy smiled back and waved at the girl that could either be Pansy or Rachel. She wasn't sure yet. "What did McGonagall call you over for?", Daphne asked, pausing her conversation with her friend.

"Just wanted to show me where her chambers were and introduce me to the House Master. He's a rather jolly bloke, isn't he?", Kennedy rolled her eyes and received the gift of giggles from both girls.

"Could I come join you guys after I get these robes off me? They pack so much heat", Kennedy sighed and unbuttoned the clasp of the robes, revealing her uniform underneath.

"Of course", Pansy-or-Rachel said, "We have to officially meet ASAP. Daphne's been talking non-stop about you".

Kennedy raised an eyebrow and looked at Daphne directly, "Has she?". Scarlet spread all over the blonde girl's face.

Pansy-or-Rachel hummed teasingly, giggling about it and laughing harder when Daphne smacked her right upside the head.

"I'll come back to hear all about it, just give me a second", Kennedy snickered, quite amused.

Each dorm had a bathroom attached to it to accommodate five students. One bathroom and toilet stall would go unused then because this dorm had only four students occupying it. Quickly, Kennedy showered, brushed her teeth and put on a comfortable pink satin pajama set and set her braids in a low bun comfortable for her to sleep, remembering to grab her bonnet for bed (obviously, the bonnet matched the set — she wasn't a barbarian).

Walking out of the shower feeling quite refreshed, she walked over to the bed with her name inscribed on the plate beside it. It was in-between Daphne's and Pansy-or-Rachel's. On her bed, curled up rather comfortably was a small ball of fur — Sawyer.

She opened up her trunk and set out the pet supplies she'd brought for him, along with his bed. She hated to wake him up so she'd place him in his bed once she's ready to sleep. Daphne and her friend looked to the left to see her hauling her trunk down into a manageable position to unpack. "Kennedy, you wouldn't mind some help, right?", Daphne asked and rolled off her bed, her friend following suit.

"Not at all. I'd really appreciate it", she smiled. Damn, she was pretty and kind. Fucking hell, this girl was making this way harder for her than it needed to be.

Pansy-or-Rachel finally introduced herself, "I still haven't told you my name so you must be thinking I'm possibly that bitch Pansy".

Involuntarily, Kennedy let out a snort. Perhaps Rachel would be worth basic manners. "So you're Rachel G. Minks?", she recalled from her memory from looking at the plate from outside.

"That's me", she smiled, "The G is for Genevieve".

"That's a really pretty name, Rachel", Kennedy smiled, surprising herself by actually meaning it.

Rachel said thank you and smiled, her cheeks squishing up. It was adorable and reminded her of Jude somehow. Jude. She'd have to check on him at some point tomorrow. She hoped those boys weren't being mean to him again.

Daphne almost clapped to begin her sentence but then noticed the sleeping furball and abandoned the action. "Let's get started with your trunk, shall we?".

The three of them worked quickly and efficiently. Kennedy had packed her trunk in a very organized manner so getting everything arranged was easy. Kennedy had already set up her toiletries and hair products in her side of the bathroom, so that was done. Next was her school supplies. That was the easiest part — they just took all the ink bottles, quills, notebooks and textbooks and set them down on her designated desk.

Now, came the difficult part — clothes.

See, Kennedy loved fashion. She loved the process of planning an outfit and feeling confident in it as she went about her day. And so, she packed her favorite outfits.

The issue here was that her favorite outfits spanned wide categories from pajamas to comfy wear to slightly formal and full on gowns. She had it all.

And then she had accessories — berets, newsboy caps, leather gloves, lace gloves, stockings, leg warmers, shoals, pins, brooches.

"Are you even gonna wear all these clothes?", Daphne asked as she pulled out Kennedy's jewelry box and set it down on her desk.

"Trust me, I'll find a way", Kennedy said, completely unbothered by the sheer magnitude of clothes and accessories she'd packed. She'd brought collapsible hangers as well so they were all currently hanging the clothes up in her closet.

"You really like cropped blazer and skirt sets, don't you?", Rachel remarked upon hanging up the third of the type so far. Kennedy excitedly looked into the trunk and pulled out the matching black and pink newsboy cap, "I love them!".

Rachel chuckled fondly before grabbing the cap and setting it down on top of the drawer section of the closet where they had agreed they would put her accessories.

"I love those as well", Daphne smiled, "And from how much we've unintentionally matched while going to Hogsmeade, Rachel, I know you love them just as much".

Rachel held her hands up, "Guilty as charged" and the three girls laughed as they sorted through the last of Kennedy's clothes. Finally, her uniform and cloaks were at the bottom.

"I say we put them in the drawers", Rachel said.

"The entire uniform set?", Daphne asked, "Tie, cloak, shirt, socks and skirt?".

"Maybe just the cloaks?", Kennedy suggested, "So I have easy access to the rest of it".

They looked at each other and made varying facial expressions of agreement. They removed the folded cloaks from the trunk and placed them in the drawer carefully.

"I think we're done", Kennedy smiled at both of them, genuinely grateful they'd stepped in and helped without asking.

Her smile faltered.

"No wait, fuck, I forgot I have shoes", Kennedy rushed back to the trunk and laughed. The girls snickered at her oversight, "I didn't bring as many shoes as clothes, I promise".

She wasn't lying at least. She really just brought some slippers, loafers, heels, lace-up boots and flats all in varying colors. They arranged those in the shoe rack at the very bottom of the closet quickly.

In the other drawers, they arranged hair supplies and accessories, her satchels for going from class to class and all the other bits and trinkets she'd packed.

"I think we're done", Kennedy said once again. "You certain?", Rachel teased.

"Positive. The trunk's empty", all three girls peered into it. It was true, the trunk was completely empty.

Kennedy turned to both of them and smiled wide, "Thank you so much for helping me unpack. I didn't even ask and you just came and helped. Just... thank you".

"It's no problem, Kenn. We've no idea what it's like to transfer smack in the middle of your education so if we can help you settle in smoother by being silly while helping with your trunk, then we'll do it without question", Rachel brushed her off, "Oh shit wait, can I call you that?".

"Kenn?", Kennedy mulled it over — she'd never had a nickname before — "I like it, you definitely can". She turned to Daphne and smiled, "And you can too".

Rachel clapped once with a cheeky smile to break it all up, "Alright, lovebirds, enough with the mushy shit. Let's just try and get an actual conversation in before curfew. That train ride always tires me out".

"I thought I was the only one", Daphne said as they all settled on her bed. "I mean, it's a good couple hours from King's Cross to here. I think we'd all need to be on something to not be tired once we got here", Kennedy added.

"The way people act around here, they probably are", Rachel rolled her eyes. Kennedy let out a loud laugh, "Any ideas what the contagion could be?".

"Powdered Moondew, I reckon ... or plain old Gillyweed-laced Firewhiskey", was Rachel's quick reply. "Botany's my one true love as you can probably see", she gestured flippantly behind her to the bending bookshelf holding book upon book on Herbology, Indian healing practices, British healing practices, muggle medicine and some of Jane Austen's finests.

"Shouldn't your 'one true love' be your girlfriend, Minks?", Daphne retorted.

"Well, yes Daphne, but the plants—"

"Oh my god, you name them, don't you?", Kennedy laughed. "Of course I do. I'm not a barbarian, Kenn", Rachel rolled her eyes, "I can't have a planter here, because you know, we're below fucking sea level  but at home, I have a huge garden outside that's a mix of muggle and magical plants, and a dedicated window alcove in my bedroom".

"Then, how do you keep doing it while you're here?", Kenn enquired.

Daphne snapped as she remembered something, "You started off that arrangement with Professor Sprout end of last term, didn't you?".

"Yep", Rachel popped the 'p', "I couldn't plant here before but, I realized I could ask if Professor Sprout would let me tend to the plants in the greenhouse and have a little section to myself. I asked her about it last year and she said I can come in whenever I'd like".

"She's the best Herbology student in our year", Daphne beamed, obviously quite proud.

"Not if Longbottom has anything to say about it. Beat me in the last quarter and ranked first, the git", Rachel muttered, mockingly scorned. "I'd definitely be first if Healing was a subject but alas, it is not", she paused before rounding on Daphne, "And don't act all proud like you're not pseudo-captain of the dueling club, the best chaser our house has seen in years, and the obvious runner-up for captaincy next year".

"Guilty as charged", was all she said with a laugh.

"Modesty isn't her strong suit", Rachel stage-whispered at Kennedy. "Hey! I'm just proud of myself!", Daphne defended herself.

"Very arrogant, that one", Rachel continued on, voice conspiratorial and joking.

Daphne just rolled her eyes as Kennedy noticed how their personalities bled all over their dorms and person. The hair ties on Daphne's wrist to hold her hair in a ponytail if need be, the unlawful amount of sneakers lining her bed, muggle movie posters that she reckoned Rachel introduced her to, multiple leather-bound notebooks on Rachel's table (for herbology and healing perhaps), the dried herbs beside them and a Wizard's Chess set.

"Who owns the chess set?", Kennedy asked curiously. At the mention of the game, Daphne groaned and Rachel lit up. Well, she got her answer.

"That would be me. Wizard's Chess extraordinaire", Rachel introduced herself with a flourish, "Daphne hates it because she doesn't get it".

"It's so needlessly complicated!", Daphne defended herself once again. "That's because you can't play it", Rachel teased.

"I play too", Kennedy then smirked competitively, "Bet I'm better than you".

"Oh, you wanna go?"

"Fuck yeah, I wanna go—"

"Salazar, there's two of them now", Daphne muttered, mourning the last bit of her sanity. At least she wouldn't be subjected to the torture of missing out on her morning run to blunder through Wizard's Chess against Rachel again.

"The set is gorgeous though, where'd you get it?", Kennedy complimented the set. One side was a pale pink and the other a rose gold marble. Thin golden accents added some variation and some pieces had little crystals encrusted in them.

"My mother got it for me for my birthday last year when she was in Madrid", Rachel beamed, "She taught me how to play".

"I play with my Papa".

"You know, I have other colored sets, if you'd like to see—", Rachel was cut off by the sound of their door slamming open, announcing the arrival of the last girl of the dormitory.

Pansy Parkinson.

Immediately upon seeing her, Rachel rolled her eyes and lost all traces of her cheerful demeanor.

"Hello Pansy", Daphne greeted politely to diffuse the very obvious tension.

Pansy ignored her, which immediately irritated Kennedy. "You must be the new girl", Pansy simply stated, her eyes trained on Kennedy. "You're all everyone can bloody talk about", she muttered under her breath with a small roll of her eyes, clearly irritated.

Kennedy smiled, mocking as she leaned onto her fist and let her words drawl out slowly, "Oh, really? I had no idea".

Rachel snorted and muttered not at all subtly to Daphne, "She's not looking too jolly about that, is she?".

Pansy looked at her with disgust, "Don't you know not to talk in the presence of your superiors?".

"We're all on equal footing here, Pansy. We've been over this", Daphne calmly explained. But Kennedy could tell she was cracking. The calm was forced and anything forced would soon crumble.

"No, we're not", Pansy rolled her eyes again before addressing Kennedy, "I hope you're not one of her kind".

"My kind?", Rachel asked, an annoyed puff of air leaving her nose. "My kind?", her voice's volume grew and grew before Daphne grabbed her hands and whispered calming words to her that Kennedy couldn't hear.

"Yes, your kind", Pansy snarled, "Fucking half-bloods. You're no better than mudbloods in my eyes."

"What the actual fuck is wrong with you?", Kennedy stood from the bed, absolutely furious.

"You walk into our shared dormitory, throw slurs at one of your roommates, and hope that your newest one is not one of her 'kind', without even asking for a name first! Are you fucking mad?", Kennedy's voice was low and steady.

"I'm the only one in this dorm with an ounce of sense in my head about how the world should be so if that means mad in your mind, then yes, I am fucking mad", Pansy sneered.

"At least you're self-aware", Kennedy crossed her arms.

Pansy lunged at her and Kennedy side-stepped, nearly falling back onto her bed and onto a sleeping Sawyer.

Now that got her angry.

"You almost pushed me onto my sleeping cat, what the fuck Parkinson?", Kennedy said, her voice almost a shout.

She cocked her head to the side mockingly. "My bad", Parkinson pouted through her words and it took Kennedy every bit of restraint not to scratch her lips up so she'd never mock her like that again.

"From this interaction, which I will emphasize is not a good look for you, I can tell we're not going to be the best of friends. Stay out of my way for your own good, Parkinson". Kennedy said and noted a regretful glint of understanding in Parkinson's eyes. Perhaps she finally recognized that Kennedy was in the class of the leaders she leeched off of and licked the boots of.

"I'm giving you advice not even on the basis of basic "friendly advice" but based on my humanity and for my own conscience. Stay out of my and my friends' way, and we'll all live in perfect harmony".

"Did that ring clear throughout your ear or do you need a cotton bud for all the wax I can see from here?", Kennedy's voice lowered back to its low and calm timbre.

Parkinson was quiet. "Well?", Kennedy raised an eyebrow and waited for an answer.

"You shouldn't mess with me either...", Parkinson trailed off, realizing she didn't know Kennedy's name. Idiot hadn't even had the foresight to look at the plate by the door. Kennedy snorted before doing a small hand motion and saying "Go on" with a bright smile on her face. Parkinson went pink with embarrassment.

"I have connections. Lots of them. I'm connected with each and every powerful person in this house. You don't want to mess with me either".

"Sweetheart", Kennedy smiled and beckoned her closer. The moment she came close, she gripped Parkinson's shoulders tightly.

"I know your type, Parkinson. Bootlicker, leech, always following a leader. But let me tell you one thing," Kennedy looked her dead in the eye.

"I follow no one. I bow to no one. I lick the boots of no one and leech off of no one. I have myself prepared and equipped for anything so I don't need the protection of knowing whichever 'powerful people' you know", Kennedy paused and licked her lips as she dug her nails into Parkinson's shoulder deeper then deeper still.

"Now, I want you to remember this day and my words specifically. One day, I will be amongst the 'powerful people' you know and much sooner, above them. Remember that, because it will come true".

"And because that will come true, one day, you will be begging and following around and attempting to leech off of me. But I won't let you. Little people like you always want to follow the most powerful. I won't let you follow me when the time comes. I won't let you leech off me when the time comes".

"Guess why?", she cocked her head to the side mockingly, the skin on Parkinson's shoulders blooming red.

"Because you're not worthy, you're not worth it and you never will be. You're pathetic for how you think, how you conduct yourself, how you are and I want you to know that for each and every day you walk this earth".

Kennedy allowed her nails to slowly dig out of Parkinson's shoulders, leaving behind five rounded marks on each shoulder — a visual reminder of her words. They would fade quickly, but the night was burned in Parkinson's memories. She was certain of that.

"Are we clear, Pansy?", Kennedy smiled.

Parkinson looked back at her, her eyes glassy but offered no verbal or physical response.

Whatever. Kennedy could work with that. She took the tears as her response and rubbed Parkinson's shoulders before turning her towards her bed, allowing her to stumble from the spin then tapping her back twice, "Now, off you go!".

Parkinson scurried away from Kennedy, reaching her bed and realizing much too slowly that she was being ordered around like a dog. She looked back at Kennedy who looked back at her, eyes wide and innocent, before she rushed out of the dorm.

Kennedy returned to her friends on the bed and grabbed Rachel's hand, "I'm so sorry you have to go through that with her. I just met you but you seem like a wonderful person and I absolutely will not have trash like Pansy Parkinson speak like that to you".

Rachel smiled at her, incredibly happy after Daphne calmed her down (and after she was thoroughly entertained by watching Pansy Parkinson have her ass handed to her).

"Dee", Rachel called out to Daphne without breaking eye contact with Kennedy.

"Hm?", Daphne hummed in question, staring at Kennedy as well. It seemed they had both reached a non-verbal conclusion.

"We're keeping her", Rachel stated plainly.

.·:••●••:·.

            THE MORNING HAD BEEN A RUSH of silky ties, askew buttons and Rachel's dreadful bedhead. At breakfast, Daphne, Rachel and Kennedy had compared schedules and saw that even if they hadn't chosen all of the same electives, they at least had Care of Magical Creatures in common — the first class of the day.

Rachel decidedly wasn't kidding when she declared that they would be keeping her but Kennedy more than didn't mind.

She quite liked being kept.

The three of them walked together on the castle's wet grounds in the pale sunlight, huddled together with wheezy laughter floating between them. Their classmates meandered around them towards Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest where their lesson would be taking place.

The Gryffindors had arrived before them and they stood clustered around several open wooden crates, all half-blocked by Hagrid from her perspective. A large black dog, presumably Hagrid's, stood by the crates whimpering and straining at his collar to get a better look of the crate's contents.

His curiosity was quite justified, however. The crates shifted and rattled on the forest floor with pop-like sounds emanating from each at irregular intervals.

"— Blast-Ended Skrewts!", was all she could catch from Hagrid's sentence. She hadn't walked fast enough to hear the beginning.

A Gryffindor girl walked forward to look at the creatures and made a noise of abject horror and disgust. Truly, they couldn't be that bad. Coolly, Kennedy stepped up beside Hagrid and peered into the crate.

Deformed, slimy and pale they were. With legs in places she didn't believe legs should be and some with heads and some without, the lot of them surely weren't going to be winning any beauty pageants.

But Kennedy kind of liked them.

They were cute in an odd way — the way they kind of just wriggled over each other, bumping blindly into the sides of the crates.

They smelled horrid though, that she would admit.

Daphne and Rachel sidled up to her to peer into the boxes, having similar but much more controlled reactions than the Gryffindor girl.

"They're kind of cute", Kennedy voiced her opinion and they looked at her like she was a tad bit mad.

"Precious, aren' they? On'y just hatched", said Hagrid proudly with a beaming smile. "So yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"

"And why would we want to raise them?", came a cold voice. Kennedy found it just as slimy as the skrewts, and not nearly as cute to make up for it.

She turned to see who had spoken. She remembered him — the platinum blonde boy from dinner with an arrogant air about him. The one who stuck with the boy with the high-top like a unit.

She muttered to both girls without taking her eyes off him, taking in detail after detail, "Care to explain who that is?". It was curious how high-top boy was nowhere to be seen near him now. He was stood away from him, distanced.

The arrogant boy had a boy flanking each of his sides who seemed to be the goons of his little posse. The two of them had snickered at his words like he'd said something worth such fanfare. Kennedy wanted to giggle at it all.

Having a little band of followers to make others think you're worthy of being followed, then think that you're important in order for them to subconsciously treat you as such. The lazy way of doing it, honestly. Way too easy. Why not earn it?

"Draco Malfoy. Rich brat, bully and resident campus asshole", Rachel gave a brief run-down.

"Ah, Malfoy. I know that name. Papa does business with his father, I believe. Or is it his uncle—"

The slimy voice came once again, addressed to Hagrid. "I mean, what do they do? What is the point of them?"

"Animals don't have a point, Draco. They're not for entertainment. They exist and live and deserve to be cared for", came Daphne strongly.

"That's righ', Daphne", Hagrid beamed down at her and Daphne returned his smile, "We have ter care for the little ones".

"Oh, Greengrass' got a bite this year, has she? Grown a backbone over the break?", Draco rounded on Daphne, his little posse snickering at his words.

"If you qualify making a valid point as a bite, then yes, she's got a bite", Kennedy said coolly. Most of the class — both Gryffindor and Slytherin — turned to her. Apparently talking back to his highness wasn't too common.

He rounded on her. "New girl's got a tongue, hm?".

"Could you not talk in that odd perspective and speak directly while addressing me, please? Thanks", Kennedy smiled, sugary and plastic before dropping it immediately.

He stalked toward her, "Who do you think you are? My father—"

"Conducts business with mine. So if you don't want your father to lose about four streams of passive income and the money for your dye potions, then I suggest you shut up".

The class giggled and Draco flushed red at the notion that his platinum blonde wasn't all natural. "I'll have you know that my hair is—"

"Natural, yes, yes I know. No need to get your knickers in a twist, Draco".

"I've never told you my name", he scrunched his nose at his observation.

"Intelligent people tend to ask intelligent questions", Kennedy smiled coyly and batted her eyelashes mockingly, "Quite unlike the one you asked earlier, might I add". That got a roar of laughter from the class.

Draco flushed darker and sputtered for a response.

"Alrigh', alrigh', break it up. Let's focus on the lesson, alrigh'?", Hagrid stepped in when he sensed they weren't going to stop any time soon.

"We're jus' feeding the little ones today. Now, yeh'll wan' ter try 'em on a few diff'rent things — I've never had 'em before, not sure what they'll go fer — I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake. Just try 'em out with a bit of each".

Kennedy walked to the crates with the food and stared at them curiously, wondering which would be least vomit-inducing to touch. Stood by the crate to the left of her was two boys and a girl. Both were gangly and tall but one was ginger with freckles dusting his face and the other had messy dark hair, green eyes and round glasses.

She was certain she was taller than both of them. Well, perhaps not the ginger boy but certainly the dark-haired one. By about an inch and no more, she guessed. The girl had large bushy brown curls upon her head and a pensive expression as she stared into the crate. It seemed she was having the same dilemma.

Kennedy turned away from them to the crate in front of her. Rachel had already chosen her delicacy for the skrewts and was attempting to feed them a couple ways away from her and Daphne.

"What do you recko— "

The boy.

The one with the dark hair and glasses and oh, a scar on his forehead in the shape of the Avada Kedavra wand movement. A single jagged lightning bolt.

She'd forgotten Harry Potter was in her year.

She'd heard about him, obviously, but honestly it had just slipped her mind that he was her classmate now. Which was odd that she forgot such a detail but nonetheless, time would tell if he'd matter in the grand scheme of things of her time here.

"Kenn?", Daphne called out to her. "Yeah, yeah sorry. Got a little distracted by how, uh.... appetizing these all look. What do you reckon would be least vomit-inducing to touch?"

"Think I might go with the frog liver honestly", Daphne said, sounding near mournful.

"Ew", Kennedy's face scrunched up involuntarily.

"Better than ant eggs", she shuddered before bracing herself, grabbing a handful and rushing to a crate of skrewts.

"Fuck it", Kennedy thought and did the same.

Ew, ew, ew. It was so... squelchy.

She lowered her hand to tempt the skrewts to eat. Surprisingly, they were quite cooperative. And so so cute when they ate. They were just newborns so they didn't have full control over it all. It probably still felt a little foreign. She could feel them taking little nibbles then disproportionately huge bites then nibbles again—

"Ouch!", yelled a tall Gryffindor boy with dark skin, "It got me!".

"Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off", Hagrid nodded, completely nonchalant about this fact. Kennedy snorted, deciding she quite liked him.

"Eurgh!" said the dramatic Gryffindor girl from the beginning of the class, "Hagrid, what's that pointy thing on it?".

Hagrid lit up, "Ah, some of 'em have got stings". The girl quickly withdrew her hand from the box.

"I reckon they're the males... The females have got sorta sucker things on their bellies... I think they might be ter suck blood".

"Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive", said Draco, "Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting and bite all at once?".

"Boring pussy-hearted platinum blonde gits", muttered Kennedy. Potter had been passing by her crate and let out a snort at her remark. They shared an awkward smile-that-wasn't-quite-a-smile before they continued on with their respective activities.

"Just because they're not very pretty, it doesn't mean they're not useful," the bushy-haired girl snapped. "Dragon blood's amazingly magical, but you wouldn't want a dragon for a pet, would you?"

Potter and the ginger boy grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a knowing smile from behind his bushy beard. There's history there, Kennedy realized. She wondered what it could be.

The rest of class was relatively uneventful. Draco shrieked at every pop by the skrewts and Kennedy snickered at his discomfort, very content with feeding her little baby litter of skrewts.

Oh, how she loved those ugly little things.

The lesson came to a close however and Kennedy had to say goodbye to them. She couldn't wait until the next Care of Magical Creatures lesson.

But that wasn't until later in the week. She had Divination next.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

AUTHOR'S NOTE!

rachel listens to marina, dee listens to laufey and kenn is a kali uchis, sza and tyler girlie sorry i don't make the rules 🤷‍♀️

it's deadass been a month since i last published cos i was busy with exams but they're over now so i'm hoping to update a bit more regularly!!

also, i just want to say thank you so so much to everyone who has read, voted or supported this book in their own way. love yall smm 🤍🫧🫀