she's nothing but a child
a waif who needs protection

ϟ

Perry sat with Alana and Cedric the morning of Halloween. They feasted on all kinds of pumpkin treats before they departed for their classes. The two Hufflepuffs made their way to the dungeons for potions and the lone Slytherin made her way up to the charms classroom.

With the help of the two third years— more Cedric than Alana— and the dear Hermione Granger, Perry had began to excel in her classes. She thought the Slytherins could no longer make fun of the girl for not understanding magic, for she knew more than they did now, but even then it didn't stop them.

Perry arrived to class early as usual and sat in her regular seat where the Slytherins would fill in around her. In the beginning of the year she had sat between Draco and Pansy, who had made it their daily task to annoy or bully her. In the beginning they would make fun of her for not knowing anything, but when she started to grow in knowledge they began teasing her about being so smart. It seemed to her she could not win.

Other students began filling in around the classroom until everyone was gathered. Professor Flitwick got up on his stack of books and instructed the class on the days agenda. He told them they would be working on the levitating charm in partners.

Perry wasn't fond of partner work unless it was with Hermione. The girl sitting to Perry's right would be her partner. She had seen the girl around plenty, they shared the same dorm room after all. Unlike the others, the girl never made fun of her, which was somewhat comforting. But this girl seemed to have no interest in anything. She'd rather be anywhere than in classes. Perry would often catch her rolling her eyes or mimicking others when they were speaking, this including Perry herself.

The feathers for today's work were distributed and before Perry could even get her wand out her partner had lost interest in the subject.

"Ugh, this class is dreadful," the black haired girl complained.

Perry looked at her and made eye contact. The girl looked beyond bored. Perry nodded at the girl and turned back to her feather. Perry recited the incantation with the correct movements of her wand, yet she couldn't get the feather to do more than twitch.

Her partner on the other hand had decided to take to balancing the feather on her nose. Perry eyes the girl with a mixture of confusion and fear.

Perry raised her hand, but then remembering Cedric's advice about relaxing, sat it back down on the table. By now the class was almost to an end. She cleared her mind and relaxed her shoulder. She gripped her wand but relaxed her muscles as she did so.

Closing her eyes to clear her thoughts she pronounced, "Wingardium Leviosa!" clearly and powerfully. She opened her eyes and watched as the feather in front of her rose to the ceiling. She maintained focus on the feather while refusing to break her eye contact with it. Around her she heard the whispers, gasps, and grunts of her classmates.

"Dear Merlin! Miss Persephone has accomplished to levitate her feather!" Flitwick announced as he bounced on his pile of books. Across the room Hermione's feather rose into the air as well. "It seems Miss Granger has done it as well! Excellent work, just excellent!"

Persephone smiled as she looked over and gave Hermione a nod. She then turned her head to Harry who was mouthing 'how' to the girl. Perry shook her head with the smile on her face.

"Miss Parkinson," Professor Flitwick said looking to the girl beside Persephone, "I do not believe the practice of balancing feathers was on today's agenda."

The girl looked over at the professor as the feather floated down from her nose. "But, you see professor, I must practice the art of balancing a feather on my nose for my competition," she joked.

He did not look amused.

"No? Well, I'm just joking," she covered up. "Really, I couldn't figure the spell out. I decided to wait till Persephone got it, because I knew there was no way she couldn't, and then I'd ask her to give me tips."

He grunted a barely audible noise. "Well I guess that's better than what I thought. Now that Miss Persephone has accomplished the task, you two get to work."

He walked towards the side of the Gryffindors to instruct two girls Perry recognized as Pavarti Patil and Lavender Brown. Perry watched as he passed Harry and his partner, Seamus Finnegan, who seemed to be having trouble. Her suspicions were confirmed when she watched Harry sigh and hit his head against his wand.

"Wingardium Leviosa," the girl next to her said dully. The feather did nothing. "Ooooh how exciting!" she said sarcastically.

Perry looked over to the girl with a nervous smile, "I can help y—"

"No, it's fine," she said nonchalantly. "I just said that to get out of detention. I've already had too many of those."

Perry was surprised at how easy the girl had convinced him. "So you lied?"

"Yep," she said with a smile as she put her feet up on the table where Perry usually worked.

"You did that so easily," Perry said as more of a question.

"Yeah," the girl said once again balancing the feather on her nose. "Guess it's my forte."

"Guess magic's not," Perry said with a slight smile.

The girl looked at her with a straight face and Perry began to get nervous. Then the short haired girl let out a little chuckle and a small smile at Perry.

"Guess you're right," she said.

"Well, maybe—"

Just then there was an explosion from across the room on the side of the Gryffindors. Perry snapped her head to look over towards the loud noise. Her eyes landed on a wide eyed Harry and the ash covered face of Seamus. Around her the Gryffindors laughed at the explosion and the Slytherins laughed at the boy himself. Perry laughed as well, but she didn't know for which of the reasons.

Professor Flitwick sighed, "I guess that will be it for the day." Then he went over to Seamus to help the poor boy.

Perry turned to look next to her, "So.." she began saying, but the girl next to her was already out of her seat and making her way out the door.

A frown almost found its way onto her face but the second she saw Hermione walking towards her from the Gryffindor side of the room she smiled.

"That was amazing!" she exclaimed to Perry. "It looked so natural to you."

"Are you kidding?" Perry laughed as they made their way out of the classroom. "I couldn't have ever done that if it weren't for your help and Cedrics help!"

"Well I'm glad to help," she said, "I wish those boys would let me help them sometimes."

She was talking about the Gryffindor boys in front of them, two of them being Harry and Ron. Perry also wished Harry was as into this magic things as she was. She found it unfair if she were being honest. People thought so highly of him because he was the boy who lived who got sorted into Gryffindor, yet he didn't try at magic at all. Meanwhile, she had been trying her hardest to learn Magic and lots of people were scared of her.

She didn't see what others saw about the Slytherin house. Their qualities were quite astonishing and she loved the ravishing lifestyle. Still, it only takes a few witches and wizards to tarnish a name and make a bad impact. Perry was the girl who made impacts. But she wasn't one who would accept making a bad one. She did not accept failure.

She hadn't been listening to what Hermione was saying to her all that time they were walking. She hadn't been paying attention to where they were going either. It wasn't until she heard a different voice that she decided to listen.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her," Perry heard Ron say to Harry, "she's a nightmare, honestly."

Perry looked to Hermione who looked like she was about to cry. She reached out her hand to put it on her shoulder. As soon as she made contact with her shoulder, Hermione shrugged her off and rushed past her. She rammed into Harry's shoulder as she started to the next corridor.

"I think she heard you," Harry said as she ran off.

"So?" Ron sneered. "She must've noticed she's got no friends."

"What is wrong with you!" Perry shouted at him. Both he and Harry turned around to look at her. She let out a grunt of disgust. "And you say all Slytherins are evil. Looks like Gryffindors aren't as perfect as their reputation makes them seem."

With that she rushed off past them, ignoring their calls for her to comeback.

For the next half an hour or so, Perry searched through empty classrooms and closets in the corridor Hermione had run down. It wasn't until fifteen minutes after that did she start to call out her name. Eventually, she came across a girl's bathroom.

"Hermione?" she called out into the empty bathroom.

"Persephone?" Hermione called out through sobs.

Perry let a sad smile spread across her face in relief of finding her friend. Perry walked towards the stall she heard sobs coming from and opened the door. She let out a shriek when she saw the face that looked up at her wasn't Hermione's.

Perry backed away into the stalls opposite of the ghost sitting in front of her. She closed her eyes as she calmed her breath. Her shriek had caused the ghost to start crying more than she was before. Perry should have been used to being scared by ghosts by now considering how many times Peeves or the Bloody Barron had jumped out of nowhere at her. Yet, here she was, heart racing, staring at the ghost of a girl.

"Oh!" the ghost shrieked. "Everyone's afraid of Myrtle! Nobody wants to be friends with a ghost!"

"No, no!" Perry said stepping foreword. "A few of the other ghosts always try to scare me, so I was just startled."

"Ghosts don't scare people," Myrtle screamed.

"Well— Well the Bloody Barron and—and I guess Peeves is a poltergeist, but they still scare me. I'm sorry— I didn't mean to offend you."

For the first time the ghost looked up.

"Oh I know you," she said in a tone Perry didn't like all too much. "You're the girl they all talk about. The one who lived." Her words dripped with sarcasm. The ghost was now on her feet and stepping closer to Perry with each word. "Your the girl who has the popularity they all envy. The one they all say is evil."

"I'm not evil," Perry said fast. "They all think that because of my house." Her voice went low once again. "Because he was in my house."

The ghost was now standing in front of Perry. Myrtle stared down at the small girl in front of her.

"You don't remind me of him," she said before flying backwards into the toilet.

Perry stared at the toilet she saw the ghost fly into making a quick note in her mind to look for anything supernatural in the bathroom. She was brought back to the present when she heard Hermione's sniffles.

"Hermione?" Perry asked to the open as she made her way to the stall she now knew she had to be in. She put her hand on the stall and pushed, but it was locked. "Hermione I'm here for you. Can you unlock it?"

Hermione didn't give an answer but let out a sob instead.

"Hermione, Ron didn't mean what he said," Perry sympathized. "He's probably just jealous of how smart you are and how dimwitted he is if we're being honest." Hermione let out a tiny chuckle between her crying.

"Mione— Can I call you that?" She waited for a response but didn't get one. "Well I'm going to. Mione, you're one of the kindest, most brilliant people I have ever met."

Perry took a deep breath before starting her next thought. "Growing up with Harry's relatives didn't exactly leave me time for friends, so I really only had Harry. But then I came here, and I met you. Also Alana and Cedric—" her voice then changed to a much more goofy voice— "but they're irrelevant in the situation."

"Ron— he was just— being Ron... if that makes sense. He'll open up eventually and see you how I see you. I won't deny that your pushy sometimes, but that's only because your trying to bring out the full potential that only you see in people. That I know for a fact. A lot of people gave up on me, but you didn't, Mione. That's why you're such a good best friend."

Perry waited a second before she heard a click of a lock being switched. Then she saw the door open and Hermione slowly exit the stall wiping her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but Perry cut her off with a hug.

Both of the girls who usually attended classes five minutes before they started missed the rest of their subjects for that day. These two girls had hearts of gold that longed for learning but cherished love. So when it came to one or the other, one girl was to sad to go to class and the other couldn't stand seeing her friend in that state.

They spent the rest of the day in the bathroom talking, crying, and comforting. Neither of the two could have expected what would occur next.