Quidditch League Season 6: Caerphilly Catapults

Round 7: [Beater 2] Palette by IU ; Theme: coming into your own

Prompts:

(dialogue) "I believe you. But I believe everybody else too."

(word) belittle

(colour) aquamarine

...oOo...

Aquamarine was the colour of the lonely sky. It was the place of isolation and loneliness, and Nymphadora knew all about how that felt. So she grinned up at the sky, when she could manage it and her classmates weren't as terrible as they usually were, and changed her hair colour to match it – maybe she could make the sky feel a little less lonely.

It was the solitude of not even being accepted by her fellow Hufflepuffs.

"You'll end up in Azkaban with your Death Eater aunt, Nymphadora."

It was a Gryffindor that hissed the words at her this time. It had been a Hufflepuff last time, so it was a bit of an improvement. Nymphadora did her best to ignore the girl. She was just one in a line of many that ignored the fact that she was Hufflepuff and the fact that she was a halfblood to sneer at the fact that she looked so similar to Bellatrix Lestrange. All anyone ever saw was the Black blood that ran through her veins.

They even said her name as if it was her aunt's. As if she were the one running around in a frayed black dress handing out Unforgivable Curses like they were sweets. Nymphadora could barely light the end of her wand up with a Lumos, and her Levitation Charm needed more help than Uldric the Oddball. There had been more threats than successful spells and Christmas had been a month ago.

She probably had a higher chance of tripping down that Grand Staircase than successfully changing a beetle into a button, but Nymphadora had already heard rumours about how she was able to wandlessly cast the Torture Curse. She didn't think such a feat were actually possible, even by the Death Eaters, but she honestly wished that she could just take it all in her stride and act like her magic was really that powerful. Maybe they would stop bothering her.

Nymphadora couldn't, though. She could change her face and hair colour, but she couldn't take credit for something she couldn't do.

...oOo...

Aquamarine was also the colour of the vast ocean, surrounded by so much but still alone. It was filled with so many animals and so much life, but there was nothing that was able to truly understand it. That was what Hogwarts was to her: a place filled with witches and wizards, yet none were willing to befriend her because of her aunt. Her insane, blood-purist aunt whom Nymphadora was certain she never wanted to meet in her life.

"I believe you. But I believe everybody else too."

Those words were the only explanation Nymphadora got from anyone she tried to convince of her innocence. They basically translated into a 'I don't believe you, and there's nothing you can do about that' in her book.

Nymphadora didn't know what these people wanted from her. They wouldn't listen to her, nor would they bother to look at any of the very obvious, in Nymphadora's opinion, clues that screamed that she was nothing like her aunt. They taunted and belittled her and expected her not to respond – that any angered response only proved their point. Any sliver of frustration meant that she might go on a murderous rampage at any moment.

Having wanted to be a Healer for as long as she could remember, Nymphadora knew that if she saw some of these people again, in need of healing, she really might hesitate to save them. They were purposefully cruel, and Nymphadora didn't understand how they could still somehow think of themselves as 'good' and worth being saved.

Each time Nymphadora thoughts followed a similar vein, she hated herself just a little more, because wanting to hurt them in some way made her like Bellatrix. It made their words true, and they weren't true. Nymphadora was as certain of that as she was her name. She was a Hufflepuff – loyal and hard-working and most importantly, she adored her father.

Ted Tonk's silent disappointment was the only thing that reined her temper in. Nymphadora didn't want her parents to receive an owl about another fight she had found herself in. She could stand another million of her mother's rants about how she needed to learn to control her temper, but not another of her father's tired sighs that came with an equally exhausted. "Try not to do it again, Nymphie."

...oOo...

Everything changed one detention when Nymphadora was tasked with rewriting the faded detention cards. She didn't understand why they didn't just get an enchanted quill to do it, but it was always better than scrubbing bedpans or wiping trophies.

S. Black and J. Potter

Reason: Caught throwing portable swamp into Slytherin Common Room.

Nymphadora snorted at the idea. It would have been hilarious to see the Slytherins trying to get out of their common room with a swamp in the middle of it.

It wasn't long before she found another.

S. Black, J. Potter, P. Pettigrew.

Reason: Caught charming all house point gems pink

There ended up being a whole stack of detention cards that contained a variation of 'S. Black', 'J. Potter ', and 'P. Pettigrew'. Nymphadora caught sight of two that had a fourth 'R.J. Lupin', but the former two were the most frequent.

The quartet of delinquents had her tentatively paging through the Zonko's brochure she had owl ordered, imagining the worst of the pranks on those who insisted on comparing her to her aunt. Deciding on the first one was probably the most difficult decision Nymphadora had ever made – she had thought up perfect plans for each and every one of their products – but she decided to go for the simplest one first.

It wasn't going to be the last. She just knew it.

...oOo...

Aquamarine really wasn't her colour, Nymphadora realised. She preferred the bubblegum pink that came with the delight of pranking unwilling victims. If the people who got embarrassed more than the rest were the ones who had taunted her the most, well... it really wasn't her fault they were stupid enough to fall into every single one of her pranks.

She was done with trying to be liked.