Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I’m trying to pay attention, I really am. But it is extremely hard to concentrate about goblin uprisings when the butterflies in your stomach are staging an uprising of their own. I glare at the back of the blonde head, trying to muster some kind of anger to feel about the fact that I will, once again, have to beg Anya for the notes in order to maintain my grade in this class. I can’t.

The butterflies swirl violently when the blonde head turns around, and even though I know she is probably looking at the clock, it feels like she is looking straight at me. I keep my face as expressionless as I can. Professor Jaha’s voice proves to be successful in putting most of the class to sleep within the first few minutes- everyone except Anya, who should probably be in Ravenclaw with her studious and energetic note taking, and Clarke. Clarke always shifts in her seat, causing her hair to shift every which way, catching the light so that my eyes are drawn to it and can’t escape. She moved with an unbridled energy, and I imagined it was because her spirit longed to be out on the Quidditch field.

Everything Clarke does is beautiful, from the way she brushes her quill underneath her nose when she is thinking, and flinches when it tickles her, like she doesn’t know what she is doing, to when she whacks a bludger at someone’s head when it dares to come near one of her teammates. I let myself imagine what it would be like to have Clarke Griffin defending me, being loyal to me, trusting me.

I was jolted out of these daydreams by the end of class. Anya punched me on the arm, her usual go-to when I stop paying attention to the world around me. She yanked on my arm, “We’re going now, dreamer.”

“Hold up a second.” It takes me a while to pack up my stuff, partially because I am loathe to leave the room with Clarke in it, and partially because I am still half in the daydream, struggling to connect with the reality crashing down around my ears. It is like breaking the surface of the water when I finally see the way my hands move to replace the stop on the inkwell and place it in my bag.

I see Clarke coming towards us, and I stare at her in terror. I wouldn’t know what to say to her, so even though my heart wants to say hello, my head lets Anya pull me out of the classroom and down the corridor.

I don’t look back.

As I copy Anya’s notes in the common room that night, I think of Clarke again. I want her to trust me more than anything, but I know that since I am a Slytherin, she isn’t likely too. Hufflepuffs may be loyal and accepting, but even they don’t like Slytherins. I don’t know how to get close to her. Maybe I should just try to woo her.

When Anya comes back to retrieve her notes, she sighs at the hearts I’ve drawn around “Clarke + Lexa” on my own paper, muttering a quick spell that copied her notes onto my paper, erasing the hearts and the words, before she leaves the room without saying a word to me.

That’s the other problem. Clarke is a halfblood; her mom is a muggleborn, and my friends don’t approve of my feelings. Or of Clarke, for that matter. According to Anya and Gustus, Clarke is a genetic mistake; something evil, unnatural, and something to be avoided. Even Professor Flamekeeper, or Titus, as I knew him growing up, has expressly told me that pursuing a relationship with Clarke Griffin would be disastrous to my family’s image and my schooling career. I suspect that Anya told him about my feelings for her, and didn’t talk to her for a week following the incident. When Gustus told me that I couldn’t prove anything, I relented and talked to her again. I can’t believe that I can’t trust my friends with my feelings for Clarke. They call muggleborns and half-bloods disgusting.

What disgusts me is anybody ever thinking Clarke is less than perfect, anybody ever treating Clarke as less than perfect.

Chapter Text

I keep having to shift in my seat, unsure what to do or how to position myself. It’s hard to pay attention to Professor Jaha when it was like I could actually feel holes being drilled into my head from behind. For at least a week, as far as I’ve noticed, Lexa has been staring at me nonstop. It’s mind boggling, why she’d be so interested in me simply taking notes in class.

Once, when the class was dismissed I tried to talk to her thinking that maybe she needed something from me. I’d barely gotten over to her before she’d given me an icy look and turned away to join her friends. Still, I was determined to talk to her about it. Yet somehow she always escaped before I could say something.

Taking a risk I decide to turn in my seat to look at Lexa, feigning interest in the clock. Yeah, still glaring at me like I shot her owl right out of the sky. I quickly turned back around, my hair whipping around and hitting Octavia. She playfully knocks her elbow into my side as payback.

I’m too distracted by my thoughts to do much else then smile half heartedly. It’s not unusual anyways, since my friends know I’m too serious in class to mess around.

I spend the remainder of the class thinking about Lexa, which puts me in a foul mood. I missed the last half of the notes and came to a startling but obvious conclusion about my mini-stalker.

I turn to Octavia as she sweeps her books into her school bag.

“She hates me.”

“Sorry, what?” Octavia smiles, confused.

“Lexa, obviously!”

“Oh, obviously. I’m so stupid to think you’d be talking about anything else besides the cute girl who stares at you all class.” Octavia’s smile is more playful now. I've vented my frustrations about Lexa often to my fellow Hufflepuff.

“No, listen, I’ve figured it out. She’s always glaring at me like I’ve fed her a skunk flavored Bertie Bott’s every flavor bean.” I whisper this furiously, watching out of the corner of my eye as Lexa takes her sweet time packing up.

I continue, “I didn’t want to believe it, I think. But she’s a Slytherin and a pureblood, how could I have missed it?”

Octavia raises her eyebrow at this and I think she’s catching on.

“She’s looking down on me. I’m a halfblood and my mum’s a muggleborn!” I angrily shuffle my papers, making sure they’re in order before shoving them into my satchel.

Octavia frowns and I can tell I’ve offended her.

“Clarke, c’mon, you’re making a serious assumption. If she hates halfbloods, she’d be glaring at me too. Besides, Lincoln is a pureblood and he-”

“Wait, she’s leaving. I’ve got to ask her before she escapes again!” I sling my bag over my shoulder and walk as fast as I can towards Lexa without looking desperate. As I suspect, Lexa immediately escapes with her friend Anya; they disappear into the crowded corridor.

It makes my blood boil. Octavia puts a comforting hand on my shoulder and guides me out of the classroom. I wish I could stop caring, like Octavia. Being called a blood traitor or halfbreed never bothers her. She lives her life on her own terms and doesn’t care what the opinion of others are.
It wasn’t that I did, per say, but it was the prideful part of me. Why should my friends or I be treated like this when really, it didn’t matter? We were wizards now whether we had grown up with it or not. We deserved to be at Hogwarts just as much as purebloods.

As the day passed my anger faded and I forgot about it. Octavia reassured me that if anything escalated she would be there to kick ass for me, which made me laugh. Soon enough thinking about Lexa’s bigotry was discarded in favor of doing homework and teasing my friends with harmless spells; sitting cozy by the fire in the common room and eating pastries snuck from the dining table.