Friends and Rivals

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid yelled.

Harry and Ron quickly piled into a boat and beckoned her over. But seeing that Neville looked as if he'd have a stroke if he were separated from Hermione, and the only other seats were with Slytherin, Cyrna offered them seats instead. Neville looked very relieved, giving her a shy smile along the way as Hermione stared at her curiously for a moment before boarding. When Harry and Ron frowned, she simply said, "I have another friend to catch up with. See you on the other side."

"Who?" asked Harry.

"Remember that girl in Diagon Alley?"

Harry didn't think he could not remember her after she'd ran the shopkeeper to the ground with words alone. "I'll find you at Hogwarts," he promised.

Cyrna tilted her head, glad that Harry quite clearly considered her as a friend. She laughed. "Of course."

.....

The heiress of the Greengrass family was standing close to a tall, brown-haired boy and a black-haired girl with a stocky build and jutting jaw when she arrived. They were just children, Cyrna reminded herself, even as she, for the most part, had to tilt her head up to stare most of them in the eye. But children in this universe seemed vicious—maybe it was just a Pureblood children thing, or maybe it was because she had been lucky enough to avoid bullying of sorts in her past life.

"Hello, Daphne!" Cyrna greeted, not bothering with the character she used when she first met Harry. She was pretty sure that would be a one-way ticket to losing Daphne's interest.

"I thought you would be sitting with the Potter boy?" Daphne asked. Her hand rose to her hip, somehow managing to make it look elegant, poised, and casual all at the same time.

Cyrna shrugged. "He's not the reason I got my books for free."

Daphne hummed, hiding her smile of fond remembrance. Her parents had been so proud of her when she had recounted her tale. Her eyes twinkled as her mouth twitched from suprressing a smile. Her two companions—Millicent and Theodore waited patiently beside her, each with disdain on their faces, but she knew that Theodore, at the very least, did not actually care. She didn't even know if he was paying attention. Millicent, on the other hand… well, her opinion didn't matter to her. Their families weren't particularly close anyways.

"Theodore Nott and Millicent Bulstrode of the Sacred Twenty-Eight." She introduced to Cyrna, studying her in the pause that followed her words.

Daphne could still remember. The shopkeeper yelling, he reached for the cat, then in the next instant—she would have missed it if she had blinked—several customers had, at the same time, been shoved onto the ground. Then finally she felt it rather than saw. A concentrated sort of pressure from beside her; a flash of silver. It disappeared, then the shopkeeper was blown off his feet, and tossed to the front of the door.

The girl had looked younger than her, but Daphne had been certain she was actually a few years older and in Hogwarts already. How else could one explain the magic? But then she had turned around and told the shopkeeper that she had been looking to buy first-year textbooks. Daphne could barely believe her ears.

"Cyrna Raine" Daphne introduced the girl to her companions. "She'll be sitting with us."

Her impeccable mask that she was renowned for in the circle of Pureblood heirs stayed steadily on her face. It didn't falter when Theodore rounded on her in confusion, neither when Millicent stared at her in shock. Cyrna Raine was a piece she'd like to acquire, and the Bulstrode heir could contend with another if she had an issue with her decision.

"Theodore! What are you doing!?" Millicent snapped when the boy just slumped in resignation and left for the boat. "You're just going along with that? She's the one Draco was—He hates her!"

Theodore gave a lazy shrug, having already scrutinized the half-blood. He didn't know what was special about her, but he knew Daphne well enough to consider that he may have missed something. "A short boat ride with a half-blood has never killed anyone, Millicent."

Millicent spluttered. "But what if Draco sees us with her!"

"I'll see you on the boat," Theodore drawled, giving a wry look to Daphne as he left.

Cyrna gave Millicent a bland smile and followed Theodore, knowing that she could leave Millicent to Daphne.

"So you're going to follow every whim Draco has? Like what he likes and hate what he hates?" Cyrna had to strain her ears to hear, but she heard Daphne say coldly, "Grow a brain. We look out for each other, but first, we look out for our own skin and our own gain."

Millicent responded, a whisper of a voice. Cyrna could not quite catch it, but Daphne's scornful retort, however, was clear.

"If you are content with trailing after the Malfoys like some pathetic stray to get a small share of their profit, then suit yourself—But I have my own pride, and my ambitions as the heiress of the Greengrass family is far greater than being someone's lapdog."

Power was everything for Slytherin.

And clearly, Cyrna thought as she sat down across from Theodore, the vying for power in the Slytherin House had already begun. After all, it was the Slytherins of Cyrna's year—not the current Slytherins—that held the most power; the most prestige. They were the heirs and heiresses of the Sacred-Twenty-Eight.

....

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