Melanie sat listening to Professor Snape's droning voice as he listed the recipe for brewing blood-clotting potion. She tried to pay attention, but her mind kept wandering off, eventually she gave up, her partner, Trixy, would get the directions.

"Do you remember what goes in next?" Trixy asked her as they stood over their brewing cauldron. Melanie sighed and picked up her potions book, flipping through the pages to find the instructions, trust Trixy to forget the order minutes after Snape explained them.

"Snapdragon scales," Melanie said curtly, picking them up and throwing them in herself. The potion bubbled and turned a dull blue color, before settling back down and gently sizzling.

"We have to let it sit for fifteen minutes, stirring it counterclockwise every five minutes," Trixy told her. The girl's eyes blinked earnestly at her, and Melanie didn't bother to try and hide her disdain. She supposed she should be more grateful to Trixy, after all, she was one of the few Slytherins who actually associated with her, considering her heritage. But Melanie felt no need to be grateful for such an act, after all, she didn't ask for it, and Melanie didn't need anybody or any friends, she was perfectly fine going through school on her own. She had all the friends she ever needed back home and she didn't need more.

"You get on that," Melanie put her head into her head, once again daydreaming.

All of a sudden there was an explosion from the other side of the room, and Melanie looked over to see that Gryffindor boy, Neville's, comically surprised face staring down into his angry cauldron. What really had the Slytherins rolling on the floor laughing, though, was the blue slime covering him from head to toe.

"Idiot boy!" Snape yelled at him from the front of the room, coming over to Neville.

"Are you alright, Neville?" Potter's friend, Hermione, asked in a genuinely worried tone.

"I think so," Neville answered, wiping the scum off his eyes so that he could open them and see. A couple Gryffindors were chuckling, but most of them were concerned for Neville.

"Can't you follow simple directions?" Snape was asking Neville over the laughter of the Slytherins.

"Stop that laughing," a Gryffindor, Melanie wasn't sure who, yelled over to their side of the room. Melanie looked back at all her fellow housemates. All were laughing, or at least giggling. Draco Malfoy's obnoxious snorts could be heard the loudest over everyone.

"Of course it would be Longbottom," he was saying cheerily, "Never could do anything right, that dunce."

Melanie was watching her housemates when she noticed the time. Trixy was too busy giggling and using the distraction to chat with some girls, so Melanie reached over and turned the potion herself. Melanie was just putting her wand down when suddenly the Slytherins dieing laughter burst out in new force, startling her. She looked over to see what it was now, and couldn't mark any difference for a moment. She eventually realized, however, that the slime had been cleared off of Neville's skin, and the reason she hadn't noticed it right away was because his skin was stained a bright blue, matching that of potion that had been flung on him.

Melanie could see how something like that was quite funny. Every time something went wrong in potions, more likely than not it was in Neville's cauldron. In fact, that was mostly the reason she knew the boy's name at all, because of all his mishaps. She also considered it quite funny the way the Gryffindors always jumped to defend Neville, scolding a quite uncaring bunch of Slytherins.

And yet, and yet Melanie found that she could not laugh about it. It wasn't that she was opposed to laughing at someone else's expense. No, that would be ridiculous of her, she thought. It was just that Melanie found that she had a hard time laughing at all. She didn't want to say that she couldn't, because she knew she could, it was just that it had been so long that she couldn't quite remember the last time.

She sat, bored, watching impassively the goings on. She noticed it before anyone else did, the subtle change in Longbottom. The Slytherins were too busy laughing, and if any Gryffindor had noticed it, they sure as hell would have done something.

Neville's face, it went from sheepish confusion to one of discomfort. She noticed that he was opening his mouth, trying to speak, but no sounds were coming out. His eyes were getting wider by the minute, and the grimace on his face was increasing, yet he didn't move, and uttered no sound. Eventually, even the small opening and closing of his jaw stopped.

"Hey, what are you looking at?" a Gryffindor boy with wavy blonde hair glared at her. The two houses had digressed into arguing and shouting at each other from both sides of the room. Melanie had barely noticed, considering that this step in events was practically inevitable, the two houses always ended up yelling at each other. Snape would let it go for a few more minutes before quieting everyone down.

Melanie was surprised that she had been addressed, since she never entered these sorts of tiffs. She deemed these things to be below her, plus she had nothing to do with it. She had no investment in either side of their argument.

"I think you should stop worrying about me, and start worrying about your friend," Melanie taunted him, and when the boy just looked confusedly at her, "He needs to go to the hospital wing."

The boy turned to Neville, who was dazedly floundering about completely collapsing to the floor a second later.

"Neville!" a couple of Gryffindors shouted as a few boys picked him. Neville was completely limp by now, his eyes glazed.

"Yes, yes," Snape said, assuming his perfunctory bit as teacher, "Take him to the hospital wing," he mumbled as several boys carried a limp Neville out of the room.

"What a git," the Slytherins were still muttering, making fun of the boy even after he was seriously injured.

"Oh no, I forgot to stir the potion," Trixy moaned from beside her.

"No worries, I got it," Melanie assured her.

"Oh good," Trixy said, clapping her hands. It seems that everyone else in the room had forgotten to stir their potions in all the excitement a moment later when the room was filled with groans and frustrated expletives as people's attentions were finally back on the class.

It was soon time to go, and Melanie offered to bottle up their potion while Trixy scrambled out of the classroom. She stood in line up front to turn her potion into Snape, and couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride that hers was the only potion that was the correct dull blue color, everyone else's was a sickeningly bright red.

Melanie looked over as Hermione turned in her own bright red bottle. The girl was so upset by her defective potion that she looked as though she was about to cry. Melanie rolled her eyes at the girl for getting so upset over one stupid potion, but at the same time, she couldn't help feeling pleasure at the fact that she had outdone Miss Perfect at something in class.

Melanie turned in her bottle. "Good job, Miss Marsh," Snape told her, looking at that color of her potion. Melanie just shrugged off handedly, but secretly delighted in the praise, especially as she saw Hermione eyeing her angrily as she walked past her. Gathering her books, she walked out the door.

Melanie made her way to the Great Hall for lunch. The kids had different class schedules during this time of day, so the Great Hall wasn't filled, not like it is for breakfast and dinner. The kids from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor intermixed tables at this time and sat together. Of course, the Slytherins all kept to themselves at their own table.

Melanie recognized a few Slytherins eating at the far end of the room. They were a couple years ahead of her, and like most of her housemates, not friendly toward her. She took a seat furthest away from them, knowing that they would not want to sit with her, and not wanting to sit with them either.

She pulled out the book she had been reading, flipping to her page and settling down, gladly eating the sandwich that had popped up in front of her. So engrossed was she in reading about famous people she had learned about in her muggle history, and how, surprisingly, they were actually wizards or witches. Plato was a wizard? And Atlantis was a citadel of magical people?

"Hey Mudblood," the voice came from above her head.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Melanie asked scowling, not hiding the contempt in her voice as she looked up and saw the leering grin of on that pasty face. She didn't want to have to deal with this nitwit right now.

"You can't talk to me that way." Malfoy sneered at her, "I come from one of the best wizarding families there is, and a rotten little Mudblood like you ought to show some respect for her betters."

Melanie looked up at him with ire. While the Slytherins had often taunted Melanie, especially her first year here, they had eventually gotten bored with her lack of reaction, and most of the time they just ostracized her. It was unusual for anyone to confront her like this now without any provocation.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Melanie asked tiredly, showing that she was done with him and just wanted to get this whole conversation or whatever it was over with, so that she could move on.

"I see you sitting by yourself all the time," Draco said, leaning casually back in his chair, speaking in a much friendlier tone than this earlier one, full of righteous hate. "And while you are a pathetic little Mudblood," he looked at her distastefully, "I've decided that since you are a Slytherin, I might make you an offer that you will undoubtedly be quite ecstatic about."

"Oh, and what's that?" Melanie frowned at him, looking suspiciously from Crabbe to Goyle, who were standing on Malfoy's flanks.

"I've decided that I'll let you hang out with me, I'll even take you to dances and such," Malfoy said as though he were offering her a million galleons. "You would understand that you would be like my servant, though, and you would always have to treat me with respect, since I am belittling myself to take you in."

Melanie stared at him in shock. Was he for real? "I know you must be surprised that I would offer to help a Mudblood," Draco said self-importantly, "But I have, out of the kindness of my heart." He looked to Crabbe, who confirmed with a nod of his head that indeed, Draco was being extremely, unbelievably, beyond-all-call-of-duty kind, for giving her such a generous offer.

"Draco, I'm not really sure how to answer that," Melanie said.

"I know, it must be a bit overwhelming," Draco answered, and he actually reached out and patted her hand! Melanie snatched her hand away as though it were burned.

"I might try to be subtle, to spare you feelings," Melanie started, "But I know that your giant ego would not allow you to interpret what I would be telling you, so I'm going to be plain. I never, and will never want to be your friend, servant, or whatever it is you're suggesting. I think you are disgusting jackass. I don't want to be around you, or be seen around you. Got it?"

Melanie picked up her books and her bag. "I hope that I've been clear?" she asked questioningly. The utter look of shock on Draco's face showed that he was being utterly serious about his proposition, that he actually thought she would appreciate it. He glanced embarrassedly from Crabbe to Goyle.

"Fucking Mudblood, thinks she's better than she is," he said scathingly from behind her back as Melanie had already stood up and was heading to the main doors.

Normally she just ignored whatever taunts people were giving her. She was above all them and their insults. They could call her a Mudblood till they were blue in the face and she still wouldn't care and wouldn't even deign to fight back. But still, it felt good to put Malfoy in his place for once.

She could hear footsteps hurryingly following her, and she knew who it was. Malfoy couldn't let her get away with that, especially not in front of his friends. He would have to hex her to feel like he was still better than her, even though she rejected him.

Melanie was prepared to whip around from her forward stride and throw a hex at Malfoy and his minions before they even had a chance to think about what they were going to do, perfectly finishing off her outburst at Malfoy, but before she got the chance, something went horribly wrong.

One minute she was striding confidently down the hallway, and the next, she was lying flat on her back, and bugs were falling down on her face. Melanie started screaming pushing the bugs off her as best she could. She quickly stood to her feet, trying so desperately to get all the squirmy little creatures off of her, that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going, and she stumbled right into a hole in the floor.

Her foot got stuck, and she fell backwards onto her butt, her other leg flying out in the air above her. She groaned as she tried to get out of the whole, at the same time grabbing her wand, thinking someone was hexing her. She looked over to where she knew Malfoy and his friends would be, and they were just rolling around laughing. They didn't even have their wands out.

She continued to struggle to stand up, but before she could, she felt something gooey and sticky land on her head. The slimey substance ran down her hair and onto her cheeks. Melanie reached up her hand and felt the goo with her fingers, smelling it. Honey.

Wondering why someone would jinx her with honey on her head, she felt a rumble underneath her foot, the one still trapped inside the hole. There was a tickling sensation, and a pressure, dull at first, but building. She desperately yanked to try and get her foot out of the hole, not knowing what could be in there.

"Ahh," she screamed as her foot was jammed out for her by the growing pressure. The swarm of Honey Hucks were on her in a matter of seconds, attracted by the sugar covering her scalp.

"Get off," she yelled swatting away the hearty little buggers as they swarmed her, licking the honey off of her.

She couldn't see what was happening, too covered in tiny little bugs. She could hear the laughter of Malfoy quite distinctly, though, loud and obnoxious. The idiot didn't even have to jinx her, some unknown person did it for him.

She gripped her wand tightly in her hand, "Ut fugo!" she shouted, pointing her wand in the air. The Honey Hucks stopped their lick attack of her face and took to flight, dispersing along the corridors.

She glanced over to Malfoy, who was still laughing hysterically. Inside, Melanie seethed. She was angry at Malfoy for laughing and seeing her like that, but she was more angry at whoever had hexed her. She flipped her head around for the culprit, but no one else was even about. With a glare at Malfoy, she decided that it wasn't worth it right now, and she stalked off. She needed to get back to her room and wash up, especially before anyone could see her. Luckily, not many people used these halls.

Unfortunately, though, she passed the Weasley twins, who gaped at her for a second before they burst out laughing. Melanie sent them a death glare as she passed them and continued to stalk toward the Slytherin dungeon.

"Oi, someone set off our trap, and we weren't there to see it," she heard one of them say in a complaining voice. That made Melanie freeze and turn to look at them as they continued to walk along like nothing had happened. She stared at their retreating backs.

"I told you we set it to early to get Percy. You should have waited like I told you."

"How am I to know someone would come wandering down here?"

"Oh well, at least it was a Slytherin."

"Still too bad we missed it."

The Weasley Twins, Melanie thought menacingly as they turned the corner, out of sight. Always setting off jokes. Always looking for laughs. Well, she wasn't laughing. They had messed with the wrong person this time, she thought. She was simply not in the mood.

They thought they could just play jokes on whoever they wanted and get away with it? At least it was a Slytherin, their asses. Melanie wasn't sure how yet, but she would get them back for this. It was time that those Weasley twins got a taste of their own medicine.