Dominique Weasley would never claim to be beautiful, not because she wasn't aware of the fact, but because when anything truly good happened to her, it had nothing to do with looks which led her to believe that they weren't truly all that important.

For example, the fact of so many other students appearing concerned as to the impact of Skeeter's article.

The year before she had been just as physically attractive, yet none had approached her to offer comfort. All that had changed between the years was that she had made the effort to reach out to more people, leaving them more confident that they were within their bounds to reach out to her in return.

Back on the train she had spoken to six people, and none of the conversations had appeared to go all that well, yet they had worked to break down the boundaries that existed due to the fact of her never exchanging as much as a word with them before, and even though Keire was the only friend she had gained from the train journey, another three of the students still felt comfortable approaching her.

Leaving what she had passed off as a flop to wind up with what could be deemed as a success rate of two thirds. Quite impressive for the girl who certainly did not deem socialising as one of her strengths.

Throughout that day simply the act of a few people coming up to her at breakfast kept her incredibly happy, in spite of Skeeter's article. To add yet another bubble of positivity to the buoyancy she was experiencing, it was one of the days that she got the opportunity to interact with Righor at lunch times.

The young male had gone from producing sparks to fully fledged flames, however he had also come to understand that directing them towards people was unacceptable and would be met with the cold shoulder for a few hours, leaving him far easier to work with.

Along with this, he could now char his own meat which both he and the students viewed with great pride. Instead of being required to sear chunks of mutton in Professor Hagrid's fireplace, Dominique and Mellie were now simply tasked with chopping the raw meat into cubes which were then tossed to Righor who would engulf them in columns of flame before gulping them down eagerly. It was a fairly spectacular display, which might have grown old with time were it not for Righor's increasing enjoyment to entertain spectators with flamboyant tricks.

Such as catching the meat mid-somersault, which certainly gained admiration from the first years that frequently grouped to watch him.

Mellie and Dominique could have happily spend hours simply feeding Righor, but his increasing size had presented problems as well as improvements, the main one being that they kept having to expand the enclosure, an arduous and labour-intensive task even with magic involved, something that quickly managed to pop Dominique's bubble that the day would be perfect.

"No offence to Professor Hagrid," grumbled Mellie as they hauled massive rolls of chain-linked mesh across the grounds, neither of them able to levitate such large large objects without the spell wearing off very quickly or the rolls unraveling, "but couldn't he have just built this thing bigger in the first place?"

Dominique shrugged. "I read that dragons feel more comfortable in areas more fit to their size. That's why they relocated caves so often even if they find one that's perfectly safe."

Mellie shook her head, desperately trying to wrench the bottom of the mesh that was caught on a rock to come loose. "So we're doing this for our dragon baby. Great. I feel like one of those parents that redecorate their child's room every other week." The girl tussled with her end for a few moments before letting out a huff of annoyance that was almost a growl. "Will you lift you literally aren't doing anything."

Dominique frowned, her admittedly feeble arm muscles straining to hold up her size of the metal mesh, fingertips freezing and dented due to the slight sharpness of the metal. Looking to Mellie's side though, it was resting on the floor with the other girl not even succeeding in lifting it off the ground.

She dropped her end and it fell to the frozen ground with a hard thud. "No, now I'm not doing anything. And look at that, we match."

Mellie glared at her for a few moments, eyes almost black in the dim light of the sun that managed to permeate through the heavy blanket of clouds. "Pick up your end, Dom."

Always, always people insisted on abbreviating her name to the one syllable symbol of laziness that was a nickname. Some may see it as a sign of flattery and familiarly for a name to be shortened, but the way Dominique saw it they simply couldn't be bothered to spend time on speaking fully.

As a child it was always how people addressed her when they didn't want her around, when the cottage was stuffed to bursting with assorted red-haired and brown-freckled family members, uncles and aunts, younger cousins that hurtled past like rockets or asteroids, sucking Dominique into their orbit then spitting her out. In the context of space, the adults were steadily burning stars, and her cousins were flaring meteors. Dominique was debris, not worthless but simply irrelevant.

Her parents would ruffle her hair in passing, 'alright Dom?' But they wouldn't wait for a response. People listing off the kids, 'Vic, Dom, Lou, James...' She hated that she fell so briefly into the role, often forgotten. Cousins dashing past, 'Wanna play Dom?' Already gone before she could formulate an answer, compounding the idea that they didn't really care about her involvement.

Dom was an underfoot child, quiet and subservient, often overlooked in the chaos or briefly acknowledged before being forgotten again. Dom was when people didn't have enough time for her.

And once she grew older, more self-aware, developed an understanding of why the name annoyed her so much, expressed that she disliked it... Well, that should have been the end of it, but no, because people wouldn't take a hint.

Dom was the nickname used purposefully to upset her, to devalue her opinion. When somebody was angry, wanted to get in a quick jab, that was what they used. Where revealing that she disliked it should have cut back its usage, people just exploited the knowledge. To the point where even those that meant it as a term of fondness were met with her irritation.

Dominique took a pointed step backwards and away from chain-link mesh. "Don't call me Dom."

"Pick it up."

Just as it appeared that the difficult situation was about to be the cause of a fully blown argument between the girls, Professor Hagrid strode back towards them and scooped the roll up under his arm in an easy motion.

"No point bickerin' over a job like this, Miss Weasley, Miss Igwe. Yeh'll on'y regret it later. Workin' with one another's important, even if yeh both strugglin'."

The two exchanged slightly ashamed looks that they had almost been driven to draw wands over such a simple matter, however Dominique maintained that anybody without a heart of absolute gold would struggle to remain civil through such an irritating task.

In a world where magic was available to them at every turn, being forced to practically drag a heavy roll of metal over near enough frozen ground, while the only respite from the sharp edges digging into your fingertips was the cold numbing them, well, it simply didn't seem like something they should have to do manually.

It wasn't surprising in Dominique's mind that she and Mellie had snapped at one another, but that didn't mean she didn't feel guilt over the matter.

Especially with Mellie being the one that presented as so affronted by the article, who rallied her little group of tutees to deface Skeeter's writing, who was working with Keire to send the woman a howler.

For Dominique to argue with her today of all days, it was beyond her how she had let her frustration get to her so quickly. Mellie had been provocative, sure, but that was more her nature that anything else. She hadn't meant her comments to insight the reaction that Dominique had given.

Dominique shook her head as she met Mellie's eyes. "Sorry, I don't know what I thought I was doing. It was beyond rude for me to just drop it like that when you were trying to lift it over the rock."

Mellie's eyes lit as she grinned. "Nah mate, it was completely understandable. I was being a brat."

"No--" Dominique began to protest, but Mellie fixed her with a pointed look. "Maybe a little bit. A very little bit." She offered Mellie her hand to shake, but the girl dragged her into a hug.

Resting her forehead on Dominique's shoulder, she could almost feel the tension go out of the Slytherin girl. Mellie always looked full of laid-back energy, but the result of her presenting as such was that she was constantly like a live wire, almost vibrating with energy yet struggling to appear calm and collected. "I shouldn't have pushed you," Mellie murmured, the concession quietly as if she was unwilling to make it. "Not today, not after that stupid article. It wasn't fair." Before Dominique could reply, she withdrew from the hug and rubbed her arms briskly. "Now let's go help Professor Hagrid enlarge this stupid enclosure before I freeze to death."

Even with the help of the professor, enlarging the enclosure took them over the end of lunch and into their free period, leaving the two with stomachs rumbling due to the intensive manual labour and no hope of the Great Hall still being laid out with food.

Dominique could deal with a lot of things, but a lack of food was not one of them. She was a fairly small eater mainly because she had had a weak stomach as a child, but in spite of, or perhaps due to, living off such a plain diet in her younger years she had developed a love for interesting or new foods as she grew older.

She honestly couldn't say that she found herself disliking any of the variety of foods that she had tried at Hogwarts, although any of the spicier foods tied her stomach up in knots, so she tended to avoid them.

But for some reason there was something special about making up a small plate of something to eat, it was an area over which she had complete choice, and it never failed to lift her mood.

The food at Hogwarts was definitely one of the school's strengths.

But here she was having nibbled on nothing but a piece of toast for breakfast, and her stomach was complaining loudly, which certainly hadn't gone unnoticed by Mellie.

As they approached the marble staircase in the entrance hall, Dominique made to venture towards them in order to make her way up to the common room, but Mellie put a hand out to stop her. "Follow me."

Dominique looked at her in bewilderment. "What? Where?"

Mellie's face lit with a smile. "I think it's time I introduced you to someone."