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Web of Lies

Dark golden eyes scanned the Slytherin common room. Her black hair swished as she walked away. Another girl, one with dark brown hair and thin-framed glasses walked over to where the girl had been sitting. This girl was a Ravenclaw who looked quite out of place in the Slytherin's quarter, especially now that her friends had gone to sleep.

She noticed a battered blue book, a diary, perhaps, lying on the chair. She wondered if the other girl had purposefully left it there, but after a second of hesitation she picked it up anyway and read.

'I doubt that you'll have heard of me; I am Salinity (Sarina) Moon. I am a Slytherin… a mudblood Slytherin. My mother is a pureblood, a witch; she was in Slytherin House at Durmstrang(1). My Father, however, is one of the Luna'rahn line of vampires. So I, Sarina, am a halfblood, a mudblood, a child disowned by both the world of wizards and the world of vampires…

As for my house, I hate it. I hate my house and I hate this school. I am shunned here because I am not pureblooded; at least in Durmstrang I would be welcome, Lunaria is my true house, just as it is my true ancestry through my father's bloodline(2). Here at Hogwarts, we Slytherins are damned to darkness; trapped inside a silver and emerald encrusted rat-wheel, never to escape…

I know that many people hate me; but then again, why shouldn't they, I've never given them any reason to like me have I?

One Eloise Midgen, a Ravenclaw, seems to be in the Slytherin common room almost all the time; it's almost as though she thinks that the hat placed her in the wrong house. But I digress, as for the Eloise she seems to hate me rather more than the rest. She's jealous, jealous of being overshadowed by myself and one Hermione Granger. A Ravenclaw in red and gold is the only way to describe Ms Granger. I however, I do not care much for intelligence; wisdom is far more important.

I can see Ms Midgen glaring over at me from where she's sitting with Colette Draconisson and Draca Malfoy even as I write this. I can see her thoughts too; not because I am psychic – I'm not – but because she shows her emotions too easily; she wears her heart on her sleeve, so to speak. That's why she's not in Slytherin; you can't be emotional and ambitious at the same time, can you? And what's worse is that everything Midgen thinks about me is completely unfounded. She thinks that I'm too intelligent for my own good: that is not the case. Yes I did do my NEWT Potions exam five years early, but only because my maternal grandfather used to teach potions at Durmstrang, and has been teaching me the art of potion making since I was five.

Midgen, however, has the misconception that I am good at everything; that is not the case. I only got three 'O's in my OWL's- in Transfiguration, Charms and Ancient Runes-, the rest were 'E's, but I only just scraped an 'P' in Herbology. You see, I have never been gifted with plants; maybe it's because of my vampiric blood, but every living thing I touch just seems to wilt away: that's why I didn't take up Care of Magical Creatures in third year; I'd probably have ended up killing something.

Despite what Midgen thinks, I cannot handle curses very well at all. It is true that while I can fight off most variations of the Imperious curse, I cannot bear even a weak bout of the Cruciatus. I might not scream, and I might not faint, but I am dreadfully ill for days, even weeks, after just five minutes under said curse.

Also, I cannot fly to save my life. I get onto a broom, and then end up falling straight back off. I hate any type of wizarding sport anyway: well I like duelling, but Quidditch, Quidpot, etc are all extremely tedious to me.

But I digress once more. What I am trying to explain is that you should never judge others on rumours that you've heard. Just because someone else doesn't like the person in question doesn't mean that you'll automatically hate them too.

You see, we of Slytherin are damned. We have to live behind a web of lies in order to live; that isn't right. We have to keep our blood 'pure', and that too is wrong.

So if Midgen just took the time to see me as a person, not a rival, then maybe we could have been friends. But I'm Sarina; I'm 'perfect'. I live my life behind this façade, trapped within a web of lies.'

The girl looked up from what she had just read. So, she had been wrong after all. It was true, but Sarina Moon was not the only one living a façade. She, Eloise Midgen, was also 'trapped within a web of lies'.

The golden eyed Slytherin watched from her place in the shadows. 'Maybe the 'web of lies' will begin to unravel soon', she thought.

see the footnotes of 'Eloise' for details.

(2) one of the four founders of Durmstrang, Lexis Lunaria, was almost fully Vampire.