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PART ONE: WHAT SHE KNOWS
Millicent Bulstrode knew better than most what it meant to be considered a misfit. Despite being in Slytherin house, the house that prided itself on sticking together, she was on the outskirts from minute one. She wasn’t pretty like Daphne, she wasn’t smart like Tracey, she wasn’t take-charge and politically savvy like Pansy – Millicent was just big. She was tall, had broad shoulders, big feet. At eleven years old she was often confused for a fourth or fifth year. She spent her whole first year bigger even than Vincent Crabbe, though thankfully that didn’t last long.
Millicent Bulstrode knew better than most that reputations and relationships were things that needed to be kindled and stoked like a fire. By second year she had earned her reputation as a big, mean bully after she put tiny Hermione Granger in a headlock during dueling club. That had earned her an approving nod from Draco Malfoy and an almost-smile from Snape, which was as good as gold in the common room. Blaise Zabini had clapped her on the shoulder on his way to bed, saying she was a “good sort” and Millicent went to bed that night with a smile on her face, having finally found a place for herself in the House.
Millicent Bulstrode knew better than most that secrets were valuable currency in the dungeon she called home. From her place in the background of any situation and acting as muscle to back up her friends, she could see everything. She knew that Theo Nott had figured out how to brew a potion to get high during their third year, and that his glassy eyes and cryptic smiles were the result of that potion. She knew that Daphne had a crush on the Selwyn boy a year above them even though she also knew that Max Selwyn was a pervert who got filthy magazines delivered to him by owl and once got caught trying to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch team change after a match. She knew that Pansy Parkinson kissed Draco Malfoy when she was feeling vulnerable hadn’t eaten a full meal since she was eleven years old and shivered under her heavy blankets every night.
Millicent Bulstrode knew better than most that being pretty would get you far in life. She knew that she wasn’t pretty. She knew that she had to work harder than most of her friends when they attended galas and parties over holidays. Though she brushed her shoulder length black hair until it gleamed and let Pansy rub gold glitter on her eyelids for the Yule Ball their fourth year, she never had anyone try to kiss her at midnight, never had anyone try to dance with her, never found herself at ease making connections for her future. She just wasn’t cut out for it.
Millicent Bulstrode knew better than most that power was a good substitute for beauty. Fifth year gave her a taste of the kind of power she could wield, the power that relied on fear, intimidation, and guts. As a member of the Inquisitorial Squad, people took her seriously, listened to her when she talked. She learned so many valuable lessons that year, and watching Umbridge get dragged away because she was literally a child torturer (and that wasn’t Millicent’s fault, how was she supposed to know?) taught her the most valuable lessons yet – it’s better to rely on your own self than trust the authority of adults who claim to know everything.
Millicent Bulstrode may not have been a genius, but she knew a lot of useful things. Things like how to nonverbally cast a tripping jinx, how to sober up a friend with coffee and soup, how to sneak snacks into the library, how to find Tracey in hidden nooks around the castle when she needed homework help, how to cast warming charms on blankets to soothe a freezing roommate, and eventually how to fall in love in the most inconvenient way imaginable.
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PART TWO: WHAT SHE SEES
OWLs were going to be the death of her, she just knew it. Millicent sighed loudly and ran her ink stained fingers through her dark hair, earning her a glare from some Ravenclaw across the table from her in the library. She was holed up in the History of Magic section trying to memorize 500 years of goblin war dates and names along with half of the fifth year. She absently scratched under her robes in the spot on her chest where the Inquisitorial Squad pin dug into her skin. The Ravenclaw student across from her squeaked a little when her eye was drawn to the pin, and Millicent chuckled. It was nice to have such an obvious sign of her power pinned to her chest. No one made fun of her anymore, not to her face anyways.
She sighed again and looked at her watch. Nearly curfew. She got to her feet and packed up her quills and parchment, determined to get a decent night’s sleep. Her fifth year had just started, and with the OWLs coming at the end of the year and the professors overloading their homework, their entire class was under a lot of stress. As she walked through the stacks towards the exit she could see people at the tables looking at her, staring at her, whispering about her, looking away when she challenged their stares. She knew why, in addition to being on the Squad, she wasn’t often seen in the library, her size and reputation leading people to believe she was too dumb or too unwilling to learn. Millicent rolled her eyes, turned a corner, and ran straight into someone walking the opposite direction.
“Fuck!” Millicent swore loudly as the stack of parchment she had been carrying scattered all over the ground and all over the person she had knocked down. Her exclamation earned her a shush from Madame Pince, but Millicent didn’t care.
“What the hell, watch where you’re going!” she snapped.
“I’m sorry!” The girl she had knocked over was on her knees frantically trying to separate her parchment from Millicent’s, and Millicent groaned when she saw the girl’s yellow and black striped tie.
"Useless fucking Hufflepuffs, I swear to Merlin,” she muttered under her breath and saw the girl’s shoulders tighten, but she didn’t say anything, just kept sorting through parchment. Millicent sighed again and got down on her knees, “Let me help.”
She reached for a piece of parchment at the same time as the Hufflepuff and their hands touched, fingers barely brushing each other. Their eyes locked and Millicent was suddenly struck breathless by the depths of the brown eyes she found herself staring into. They were almost the color of caramel, with gold flecks around the iris that dazzled in the torchlight, and framed with long, dark lashes. Time seemed to slow down, stretching the seconds into minutes as she stared heavily into those beautiful eyes. The Hufflepuff blinked, which shattered the spell Millicent had been under, and her eyes dropped to the girl’s face and saw the deep round scars in her cheeks and the completely crooked nose.
Eloise Midgen.
Eloise Midgen?
Millicent blinked and sat back on her heels sharply, and Eloise flinched and cast her eyes down to her hands, fidgeting with the hem of her skirt, “I’m really sorry Bulstrode, I didn’t see you. I’ll be more careful.”
“See that you do.” Millicent responded, half out of habit and still a little dazed. The two worked in silence for another minute, and when all of the parchment had been divided up, they stood awkwardly, As they made to walk away they moved the same direction, then the other, each blocking the other’s path. Millicent rolled her eyes, annoyed, but Eloise snorted with involuntary laughter. Millicent looked down at the much shorter girl, put her hands on her shoulders, and lifted her slightly off the ground, rotating them both so they were out of each other’s way. When she put her down, the two girls were nearly chest to chest and still staring at each other.
Millicent was the first to pull away, nodding her head and murmuring, “Midgen.” She spun on her heel and stalked toward the library door, not looking back, but could feel two perfect brown eyes on her as she left.
Fuck.
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PART THREE: WHAT SHE FEELS
Millicent couldn’t find her Transfiguration essay.
She had worked on it for so long, filling three rolls of parchment with her painstaking research and sloppy handwriting. She hadn’t historically done well in McGonagall’s class but she was proud of this essay, and was tearing her side of the dorm room apart looking for it.
“Millie, it’s six in the bloody morning, what are you doing?” Her best friend Tracey Davis appeared from behind her curtains, dark eyes blazing with anger, her normally glossy dark brown curls frizzy with sleep and barely contained by a silk scarf.
“My essay’s done a bunk, I can’t find it anywhere!”
“It didn’t grow legs and run off, you know. You probably left it in the common room. Go out there and make your noise.”
“Some fucking friend you are. See you at breakfast.” Millicent quickly pulled her wrinkled uniform on, ran a comb through her hair, and rushed out to the common room. The green glow from the lake was getting brighter as the sun rose, but even though she tore apart the entire corner that she and her fellow fifth years had claimed the night before, there was no sign of her essay. She found one of Daphne’s earrings in the couch cushion and pocketed it to give to her later, then rushed out the door to go back to the library. When she reached the great wooden doors however, the library was still locked up. Madame Pince wouldn’t open the doors until after breakfast. Millicent sighed and slumped to the freezing stone floor in defeat. She’d have to do a rush job, rewriting what she could remember and stealing from Tracey and Theo again. She rubbed her eyes and groaned thinking about the A she would get on the assignment when she had been fully expecting an E. That meant extra work, extra credit, and another disapproving glare from the Scottish nightmare that was the head of Gryffindor house.
The sound of footsteps approaching made her sit up, hoping against hope that it was Madame Pince coming to open the library early. It wasn’t the librarian.
“What are you doing here, Midgen? Come to knock my stuff out of my hands again?”
The Hufflepuff blushed prettily (prettily? Millicent shook her head at the thought) and started digging through her bag.
“I found this last night and couldn’t rest knowing you were probably worried about it. I decided to bring it here in case you came asking Madame Pince about it. I forgot the library wasn’t open yet, but here you are! Even better than Pince! You’re way less scary than she is. I’d rather not speak to her if I don’t have to. I’m glad you’re here though, this saves me the trouble of finding you at breakfast.” She was babbling nervously and finally extracted three rolls of parchment from her bag. She held them to Millicent, who was gawking at her in shock.
“How did you end up with my essay? All three rolls of it? Did you read it? Did you steal it to laugh at me?”
“No! I mean, yes actually. Not the laughing part! I did read it,” Eloise scuffed a toe on the stone by Millicent’s foot and blushed again, “I was confused as to why I had it, I must have thought it was mine when we were going through our stuff last night after I, you know, knocked into you. And then all of a sudden I was reading it and couldn’t stop. It’s very good you know. You obviously worked really hard on it. That’s why I was so anxious to get it to you as soon as possible.”
Millicent looked down at the parchment rolls in her hand and noticed a couple of words crossed out and rewritten, “And you…decided to edit it too? What do you want from me? What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing! I just noticed a couple of words were misspelled. That’s all, I swear.”
There was a long pause where Millicent simply stared at the small figure in front of her, completely aghast.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you help me out?
“Because it was the nice thing to do since I accidentally stole it.”
“The nice thing to do.” It wasn’t a question, Millicent simply couldn’t comprehend the statement, so she repeated it back, slowly getting to her feet.
“Yes Bulstrode,” Eloise rolled her eyes (her beautiful eyes), “Nice. I know it’s mainly a Hufflepuff trait but surely you’ve heard of it? Normally the nice thing to do when someone does something nice for you is to say thank you.”
Her sarcasm startled a laugh out of Millicent, “You Hufflepuffs really are suckers aren’t you? Whatever. Thank you, Midgen. That was very…nice…of you. You saved me a lot of stress today by bringing this up here. I owe you one.”
“A favor from a Slytherin? That’s worth its weight in gold.” Eloise’s eyes twinkled with good humor, and Millicent laughed again.
“Don’t get used to it, and don’t abuse it. See you around, Midgen.”
Millicent nodded and walked around Eloise towards the Great Hall. Breakfast was about to start, and she was suddenly famished. Before turning the corner she took a look over her shoulder at the Hufflepuff still standing outside the library doors. She watched as Eloise put a hand to her mouth like she was giggling, her eyes crinkled with a smile as she leaned heavily against the stone wall of the corridor. Suddenly Eloise was looking back at her, the full force of the smile on her face turned her way. Millicent’s eyes went wide, and she felt her stomach drop to her knees before swooping up to her throat.
Now that is an interesting development, she thought as she started to turn away. She felt her own smile cross her face before she could stop it, then quickly walked down the next hall where she could no longer be seen.
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PART FOUR: WHAT SHE FEARS
She got an O on her essay.
It lay there on her desk, the red ink shining and staring up at her. She stared right back at it, barely hearing McGonagall dismissing the class. They had Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws right after lunch, followed by Herbology with the Hufflepuffs before dinner. She had turned the essay in on time earlier that week expecting an E if she was lucky, but an O was unheard of. She hadn’t gotten an O in any class besides Defense Against the Dark Arts in months.
She got to her feet slowly and started gathering her things when the professor’s sharp Scottish brogue calling her name caught her attention.
“Miss Bulstrode, if I could speak to you for a moment please.”
She finished putting her things in her bag, swinging the heavy strap over her shoulder as she made her way to the front of the classroom where Professor McGonagall was waiting.
“I’m very impressed with this essay, Miss Bulstrode. You did a fine job.”
Millicent was speechless with shock, so she just nodded.
“Whoever it was that checked over your spelling did a fine job too. You might consider working with them more often. Your grades will continue to improve if you learn from them as much as you did here. Keep up the good work. You’re dismissed.”
She wandered down to the greenhouses in a daze and took her usual seat on the far right bench in Greenhouse 3, as far away from the bubotubers as she could. The pus made her queasy. As Professor Sprout started lecturing while passing out dragonhide gardening gloves, Millicent’s eyes sought out Eloise of their own accord. She had never really paid attention to the girl before, but now she couldn’t stop thinking about her. She had helped her get an O, had smiled at her, and said she was less scary than Madame Pince, which didn’t sound like a usual compliment but had made her laugh anyways. Eloise was on a workbench two rows ahead of Millicent on the same side of the room, her light brown hair was pulled back into a plait that reached nearly to the small of her back. Millicent couldn’t see her face, but she imagined the smile that she had seen earlier that week and her heart started beating a little quicker.
Oh no.
She couldn’t have feelings for Eloise Midgen, a Hufflepuff and a Muggle Born besides. She would be the laughingstock of Slytherin house. Not to mention that Eloise was mostly known for her acne and the incident with her nose and a badly placed curse. She shook her head, brushing that thought away. She wasn’t one to talk, being the big, ugly brutish girl of her house. She was teased for her looks about as often as Eloise was, it wasn’t fair to think on that, not when Eloise also had the most beautiful eyes and smile she had ever seen. She had other, better reasons for needing to squash those feelings as they emerged. A little crush, nothing more.
Just as she was shaking her head to ride herself of thoughts of Eloise, the subject of her musings turned around and looked right at her. Her plump, round cheeks and full lips, her beautiful brown eyes, and yes, the acne scars and crooked nose, Millicent could see it all and found the face she was studying to be absolutely perfect.
Oh shit.
She nodded at Eloise and turned away quickly, barely catching the other girl’s frown out of the corner of her eye. Steeling her resolve to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, she set to work with her Herbology partner Greg Goyle in silence.
After class, as they all hurried back up to the castle nearly freezing, Millicent was near the back of the pack when she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. She whipped around and saw Eloise, her cheeks red with the cold, smiling up at her.
“How’d you do on your Transfiguration essay? Did my edits help? You really didn’t need a lot of help. It was very well written.”
Millicent swallowed thickly, the traitorous butterflies in her stomach all riled up again, “I, um, I actually got an O. McGonagall says the spelling edits helped boost the grade up.”
“That’s wonderful! I’m so happy for you!” Millicent eyed the other girl suspiciously, but she really did seem genuinely happy. Strange, that definitely would have been a threat in the Slytherin dungeons. I guess the Hufflepuffs really are completely incapable of lying, unless she’s making fun of me. Maybe she thinks I’m stupid, too stupid to get an O on my own.
“Thanks, Midgen. I still owe you one.” Millicent said gruffly, then tried to turn to go, but the shorter girl was keeping pace with her, nearly bouncing up the path alongside her.
“I mean, if you want, we could work on the next essay together? I bet we’d get it done a lot faster and better if we worked on it at the same time.”
“What are you doing, Midgen?” Millicent rounded on her as they passed through the big front doors and were safely out of the cold and in the Entrance Hall. “Why are you talking to me? What do you want from me? Why are you trying to work with me? We aren’t friends, we’re not even acquaintances! You think that what, we can just sit like chums in the library, the Puff and the Snake, new best friends, and no one would say anything? You can’t just decide that we’re going to be study partners or whatever when I don’t even know you. You helped me out once, fine. And I owe you a favor. I’ll do your Astronomy chart or whatever, not that you’d want me to do that as dumb as I am. Just stop what you’re doing and go back to your little bleeding heart badger friends. And leave me alone.”
She was breathing heavily from the walk and the cold, but mostly from her anger. She didn’t need help from some Hufflepuff who thought she was better than her. With one final glare she stomped back to the dungeons to leave her cloak before dinner. She pretended that her heart didn’t sink at the sight of the shock and sadness on Eloise’s face.
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PART FIVE: WHAT SHE WANTS
Millicent made it nearly a week without seeing Eloise again, aside from the glance or two she snuck during Herbology. And during dinners. And lunches. And at the Quidditch match that Saturday.
But she hadn’t seen the beautiful brown eyes outside of her dreams in a week when suddenly their power was turned on her full force as they accidentally shared a table at the library.
It was entirely Millicent’s fault, she made it to the library late after dinner when she had to go back and fetch her quill from her bag in her dorm. Because she hadn’t gone up straight after dinner, she was stuck wandering around the library looking for a place at a study table, and the only spot left was the one right next to Eloise in the middle of the Potions section. She sighed heavily, then made her way over to the table and threw her things down, hoping to finish her Care of Magical Creatures diagram as fast as possible so she didn’t have to suffer long. Eloise stiffened and tapped her quill against the table a few times but didn’t look her way and said nothing. Millicent sighed again and got to work.
The diagram took longer than she thought, and as the torches burned lower and shadows grew longer, more and more people left the library until the two girls were the only ones left in their section.
Eloise yawned and sat back in her chair, looked around, then rounded on Millicent with a whisper, “What so it’s ok to be seen with me now? Are you still ashamed of me or do I need to remove myself from your presence?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you and me. About how we maybe could have been friends or even maybe more than friends until you decided to ruin it by caring, for some unholy reason, about what other people think of me.”
Millicent blinked, “It’s not about you, what in Merlin’s name do you think I said to you? Ashamed of you? I said we weren’t friends and weren’t likely to be, what does that have anything to do with what people think of you?”
“I know I’m not popular or cool or pretty, but you could have at least pretended to think about it before rejecting me.”
“Again, what does that have to do with anything? I’m not popular or cool or pretty, you think that’s why we can’t be friends? Look at who my friends are, and look at yours. They’d tear us apart.”
Eloise got to her feet and shoved everything into her bag before stomping out of the library, earning a shush from Madame Pince.
Millicent sat in shock for a moment (Wait, more than friends?) before gathering her things and racing out behind the frustrating Hufflepuff.
“Midgen, stop! Stop!” The freezing corridor was nearly pitch black, with only a low torch in the middle of the wall between the two girls. Millicent could barely make out the look on Eloise’s face, but after a moment she realized she was crying. “What do you want from me?”
“Why is it always about someone wanting something from you?”
“Everyone always wants something.”
Eloise rolled her eyes and took a step towards Millicent, “I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to see if I imagined it.”
“Imagined what?”
“I imagined that you looked into my eyes and into my heart. I imagined that we talked and you actually heard and saw me. I imagined that you didn’t care about my nose or my face and just… well I thought I saw something in your smile. I was wrong.”
“I’m… I’m not sure you were. Wrong that is.” Millicent’s voice was raw and echoed along the corridor. Eloise snapped her eyes up to meet hers and Millicent felt like the wind had been knocked out of her lungs. She took a step forward, “I thought that maybe you would be the first person ever to think I was smart, that I had something to offer. You helped me without question or care, you weren’t scared of me, you’re not intimidated by me.” She took another step forward, and Eloise took one to match. They were much closer now, the torchlight casting shadows over the planes of their faces.
“You’re wrong,” Eloise whispered, “I’m very intimidated by you.” Millicent blinked again her shoulders fell, “But not like that! I mean…shit. I just mean that you make me babble on like a fool when I’m near you and that I got really nervous when our hands touched in the library. You’re really something, you know. Don’t make me say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you’re almost too beautiful to be real.”
“Don’t tease me,” Millicent frowned, “Don’t lie.”
“Never. I would never tease you Millicent. I’ve never even considered it. And I promise to never lie to you.”
The two of them were now very close together, and Millicent could finally see the depths of those beautiful eyes, now so close to her she could almost imagine falling into them. The firelight danced around the gold and brown, making them seem almost amber.
“You do realize that if we do this that we’d have to hide from everyone. No one will understand. I can’t just tell them that a pair of beautiful eyes convinced me to abandon Slytherin house and what they stand for.”
“I didn’t want to admit it, but you’re right. The Hufflepuffs will never understand. They’re very kind but very set in their ways. You’re seen as a danger to them.”
“I can’t really bring myself to care.” Millicent smiled.
Eloise laughed quietly, then slipped her cold hand into Millicent’s, “You really think I have beautiful eyes?”
“Yes Eloise, I really do.”
Eloise smiled and wrapped her hand around the back of Millicent’s neck and pulled her down to meet her lips.
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PART SIX: WHAT SHE LEARNS
Millicent Bulstrode knew she wasn’t a genius, but she thought she knew a lot of things.
She thought she knew that she was ugly and unlovable, that no one would ask her to dance or kiss her at midnight. But some nights when the darkness took over the castle she crept into an unused classroom and kissed her girlfriend all she wanted while they told each other how beautiful they were, even when the world couldn’t see it.
She thought she knew how to steel herself against her own heart, but her heart had been melted and stolen away by a Muggleborn girl who gave herself and her heart freely.
She thought she knew that she would never pass more than two of her OWLs. Eloise saw to it that she got three.
She thought she knew that all Hufflepuffs were simpering weaklings. Her girlfriend was no weakling, and by the end of their fifth year, when the Dark Lord had truly shown his face, she fought tooth and nail to be able to stay in school, to stay with her, whatever the cost. The misfits who decided to stick together.
She thought she knew how to be alone, but when Eloise’s father put his foot down and took her out of school, she floundered and stumbled and felt completely lost.
They wrote each other every day, sharing their secrets, their desires, their love. And the girl with the crooked nose, the acne scars, the soft belly and the kind eyes showed Millicent Bulstrode that she still had so much more to learn.