Dear diary,
These past few weeks have felt like a fever dream. When the Dark Mark appeared over the Astronomy tower, it shrouded the school in a grim truth: Hogwarts was no longer safe. I was too far away to glimpse the spectacle at the tower base, but everyone knew what had happened. Dumbledore was murdered by one of our own.
The betrayal felt personal to me. Snape was a distinguished member of Hogwarts staff, and Draco my own housemate. Granted, I mostly thought of him as a worm of a boy, but for them to cast Slytherin house into such a nasty light was disturbing. Now everywhere I walked I heard whispers of contempt at the sight of my emerald robes.
Needless to say, I didn't attend the funeral. I wasn't a great person per se, but at very least I wasn't on the level of mentor-killing-friendship-betraying-letting-down-every-student-who-cared-about-me nastiness. The sickening glares were to be avoided. It's not my fault Slytherin is full of Death Eater apologists. You can't sort all the evil looking kids into one house and expect there not to be trouble. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Dumbledore was kind of asking for it.
Despite going out of my way to avoid trouble for once in my life, trouble found me in the form of one Tony Gabagool. We had started going out for real this time after a rather sweet apology and a lot of snot-nosed begging. Always attracted to a pathetic little man, I agreed to be his girlfriend. We did all the normal couple things. Holding hands in the hallways, dates to Hogsmeade, a school appropriate amount of snogging. It was going really well. But I should've known, nothing goes well for Dahlia Clawthorne. A week after Dumbledore's funeral, he found me in my hiding place in the library, nose buried in a dusty Potions book. He seemed nervous, jittery, but that didn't concern me. I already knew he had issues with talking to women. But as we locked eyes, I knew something was different. This was more than the usual aversion to girls, this was something serious. I closed the book and gave him an expectant glare.
Tony stared down at his feet and let the words tumble out. He was pregnant. Immediately my jaw hit the floor. How was this possible? He was a man??? I certainly couldn't get him pregnant. I stood up, face contorted with shock and anger, and left the room with a flourish. As I stalked through the halls, I found myself on the way to the Slytherin common room. Maybe Sonnet would be there, I could use someone to vent to.
But Sonnet was absent. A nagging part of my head said he had abandoned me intentionally, but I tried to quell those thoughts. Instead, I sat down at my desk and took out a pen. I had meant to pen this diary entry but anger quickly clouded my reason. I found myself spilling my guts over the parchment, angry words tumbling out of my pen. I sealed the letter with a flowery wax stamp and cast the howler charm.
home