Dominique Weasley would never claim to be beautiful, not because she wasn't aware of the fact, but because voicing it wasn't socially acceptable.

God forbid the arrogance of a girl who valued her own worth accurately.

Arrogance, because when it came to women the only way the word confident could apply to them was if they 'weren't confident enough' whereas those who held higher levels of confidence were told they had crossed some unspecified boundary into cockiness.

If you kept your back too straight and stood tall you were accused of having a stick up your arse, yet if you slouched under the weight of expectations you were considered weak.

If you smiled brightly in the corridors and laughed long and loud you were trying too hard, yet if your face remained unmoved you received the token 'cheer up Love, it might never happen' regardless of whether you were the speaker's 'love' at all.

And Merlin have mercy upon the girl that dared to make an attempt to accentuate their appearance with makeup or nice clothes. Why should they have the right to feel good about themselves?

Dominique had seen it over and over again with the girls of all years in the school, with those that had less confidence being put into a box labelled 'girly' and 'weak', whereas those that held a higher degree of self assurance were repeated knocked for being 'arrogant' and 'stuck up'.

Granted it wasn't all the boys that did it, or even only boys, but Dominique had noticed over the years that even the well intentioned would make comments in passing that just found sore spots in any girl they were directed to.

Dominique didn't know exactly why, but she knew that claiming yourself to be beautiful was considered tasteless to many of her peers. And even in the name of Merlin's fanny pack she couldn't afford to alienate herself from them further.

She fell into an easy routine over the course of the next few days, moving between her dormitory, the Great Hall, lessons, and the library. She found herself enjoying the change of pace that came from cutting down subjects since last year, but the workload was definitely heavier. The girl didn't find herself complaining, as she had plenty of time to complete all the homework, but those who had extensive commitments such as being on the quidditch team were very quickly finding that they would fall behind if they didn't put in a lot of extra time.

Dominique believed Louie would be in their position in a few years, as the only one of her siblings that truly held an interest in playing the sport competitively. Louie was probably the most Weasley-like of all her siblings, with a full face of freckles that convened towards the skin that stretched over his cheekbones, along with a cheeky smile and eyes that seemed to laugh at everything. In spite of the long-ish blond hair that fell into his eyes, Dad always claimed him to be a strong reminder of Uncle Fred. Louie certainly lived up to the legacy when it came to his beater position that he took up with gusto.

Dominique knew her brother planned on trialling for the team this year, and even if it would be for an opposing house she couldn't wait to cheer him on on the pitch.

In the meantime her mind largely rested on keep up good grades with her chosen subjects and enjoying the food.

Of course she was perfectly willing to sacrifice the food in order to spend a few on her lunchtimes studying Righor.

One time she and Mellie were taking notes on the body ratio changes as he got older; such as his wingspan scaling as far larger in comparison to the length of his body, and Mellie dropped the measure only to have it clatter on a rock as it hit the ground.

Righor flung himself back with a fearful glare in the direction of the measure, his wings snapping open and beating rapidly to stabilise his body, buffeting air back towards the girls that led their hair to dance wildly.

His tail lashed up off of the ground and for four wingbeats he remained suspended in the air.

He was flying.

Dominique met his eyes as he tucked his wings back in and dropped to the ground and she tossed him a piece of charred meat. "That's called flying," she told him as he looked surprised at his own actions. "It's very clever, good boy."

She tossed him another chunk of meat, because frankly flying deserved multiple rewards in her mind.

They had charred the mutton in the fire of Professor Hagrid's hut, since Righor could only produce little spits of flame and sparks at the moment, and had no mother to char the meat as most whelps did.

The thing Dominique loved about Professor Hagrid's lessons was that he knew so much besides the source material around what they were expected to know, and he didn't limit what they learnt to the expectation for exams or even to his own subject, as when they were in the process of skewering and charring the chunks of meat he explained that it was actually dragons that gave the predecessors of humans the idea to cook their food so many thousands of years back.

After making all the measurements and noting down the ratios at four weeks, Professor Hagrid set them the homework to compare Righor's size to the statistics presented in the textbook and write an essay on why he might not have the same developmental milestones as other dragons.

Dominique was mentally plotting out the main points of the piece in her mind, such as the fact that Righor was raised by humans and not in the same conditions as others of his kind, as well as the fact that the statistics their textbook provided an average over all breeds of dragons which might not be all that accurate for a specific breed, when Mellie nudged her.

"Not to draw your attention away from the sweet thoughts of writing an incredibly long and difficult essay, but we have to check Riggy's teeth aren't showing any signs of damage and I do not want to try that alone."

Dominique nodded, holding a piece of meat out to the dragon that stood almost to her waist now. He stalked closer, and snatched it suspiciously. He was right to be suspicious as Mellie curled her arm over the top of his head and wrapped her hand around the bottom of his jaw. He hissed and shook his head a little, but Dominique hushed him and handed over another piece of meat that he swallowed down whole.

Mellie eased open his jaw so that Dominique could carefully check each of his teeth, poised with a hard bristle toothbrush to scrape any dirt off. Fortunately they were developing well, enough so that he kept trying to gnaw on her arm as a way of sharpening them.

"Hey, no," Dominique told him firmly, giving him a small bop on the snout.

Righor growled at her and tried to shoot flames, mustering up a few sparks that fizzled out on the arm of the flame-retardant jumpsuit she had donned before the lesson.

Professor Hagrid had told them in no uncertain terms that they weren't allowed to let such behaviour go unpunished, so both of them turned away without acknowledging the dragon and walked through the door that exited the enclosure.

He let out a petulant whine and they heard him stalking loudly across the the other side of the enclosure.

"I think our baby's entering his teenage phase," laughed Dominique.

"Well, dragon whelps don't typically enter the adolescent period of their development until between ten and thirteen months--" Mellie cut herself off with a flush. Mellie typically didn't seem very good at recognising jokes or sarcasm, but once she spotted it she responded positively. "Oh, you were joking. Well he's certainly getting moodier, perhaps we just aren't raising him well."

"Don't pin the blame on us, dear, it's his aunts and uncles that spoil him constantly," Dominique responded in her best Uncle Percy impression.

The two girls shared in a moment of laughter before Professor Hagrid joined them from where he had been watching them work a few paces away. "Good job with the measurements both of yer, all I'd have teh say is Miss Igwe, when yer holdin' Righor's mouth open hook yeh fingers around to hold his gum next teh the teeth so yeh don't risk gettin' bitten or losin' yeh grip. And Miss Weasley, make sure yeh sound like yeh mean it when yeh tellin' him off."

They thanked the professor and told a still-sulking Righor that they'd see him in a few days, to which he turned his head away with a huff and flicked his tail over his snout.

"Let's see if we can grab some lunch before lessons start," offered Mellie.

Dominique agreed quickly, almost in shock that the girl had offered to spend time together outside of lessons and the extra time spent helping out Professor Hagrid, something that had never happened before.

The girls made the trek up to the castle quickly and arrived in time to grab some dessert, Mellie picking up what looked like almost half a treacle tart while Dominique went for the very slightly less heart-attack inducing apple crumble cake that her mother claimed was the only thing she could originally stomach of all the food that Hogwarts provided, with the exception of the French cuisine that was offered as an alternative for the visiting students.

It was a sponge that was moistened by the layers of sweet-tart apple that ran throughout and cut through the plain sweetness, with a crunchy crumble that topped the entire thing.

Dominique had finished it before they even exited the hall and grabbed a scone to supplement it, while Mellie devoured her enormous slice of tart with terrifying speed, looking up when she was down to her last few bites. "I'm going to crash so hard in Transfiguration, and Professor Lynnet won't hold any sympathy."

Dominique winced. "No, she won't. Fortunately for me I have Herbology  now, and Professor Sprout will probably just be concerned if I appear tired."

Mellie groaned. "I should have just taken fruit or something." That didn't stop her from consuming the rest of her pastry, brushing the flakes off of her fingers. "If you've got Herbology you'll be late unless you run."

Dominique realised the truth of this statement too late as the Greenhouses were a fairly long walk across the grounds and the bell was seconds away from ringing, while Mellie's classroom was right in front of them.

"Merlin's saggy left ball sac!" she cursed, taking off.

"I'll distract Sprout for you if I see her!" called Mellie, but the head of Hufflepuff was not the sort of teacher to be late for her own lessons, so it was a fair assumption she was already in the Greenhouse waiting for her students.

To say Dominique tore ass would be a complete understatement, she probably broke the land speed record risking life and limb on the slippery turf of the slopes of the Hogwarts grounds, not even stopping to acknowledge the groundskeeper Millicent Bulstrode, which wasn't a wise move as the woman didn't take kindly to impoliteness.

It was incredibly fortunate for Dominique that her last name placed her at the end of the register, as she skidded into the room just as the professor called her name.

"Yes. Hi. Sorry Professor," she blurted, earning a couple of chuckles from her peers. She blushed, feeling heat rush to her cheeks.

Usually that would be a bitter reminder that her ears didn't flush like the rest of her family, but she was fairly sure her entire face was as red as a tomato included her ears as she panted heavily after her mad dash to be on time.

Brushing sticky strands of hair out of her face she took her place at the bench. She was fairly sure she looked like a complete mess, however the two boys that sat on either side of her still struggled to be the one to pull out her stool.

She attempted to send them a weak smile, but was fairly sure it came across as more of a grimace, as she found herself feeling incredibly guilty that she was subjecting them to making fools out of themselves when there was no way that they could have controlled themselves against whatever strange form of mind control led people to stare at her.

Her mum found it to be useful for her own ends, and Victoire was so generous and comfortable in herself that people who were entranced by her Veela blood quickly found themselves liking her personally, but it always made Dominique feel incredibly awkward and like a completely horrible person. It was like she was brainwashing then or something, and she didn't like it at all.