Lenore McCrea, Domina Weather Witch -3

"Sounds good to me," Lenore said. "Come on, Kwet, let's find us some pictures."

She dragged the tan-skinned girl into the depths of the library. Huge stacks, the smell of the place was enough to intimidate Kwet.

"How are we supposed to find anything here?" Kwet asked.

Lenore showed off her knowledge of the library, by slipping into the walkway nearest the entrance. "Well, it's got a system. You just have to know how to figure it out. Plus, you can always ask the ghosts."

"I ... I don't think I like ghosts," Kwet said, as one of them drifted by. The transparent person floated around, and it became apparent that they'd possibly died as a result of some kind of smoke inhalation - there was a smell that went along with it and it did distinctly reek of poison.

"You'll get used to them. They're everywhere."

"And have you seen those freaks from that little House?" Said a snide voice from halfway around another great bookshelf. "Taking on the rejects. Pretty soon they'll be all over the place. Oh," Draco said, with a mocking frown, "I am so sorry - we didn't see you ... freaks ... here."

Kwet was about to wilt away and die, but Lenore stood her ground. "That's right, the freaks have invaded. Pretty soon, it's guys like you that'll be scraping for space."

He'd forgotten, hadn't he, that Lenore didn't take his crap. Draco wanted - clearly - to say something else, but had long since stopped himself from falling into that trap. He turned to his cronies and muttered, "the stench of freak is too strong. We'll study in the dorm." He brushed past the pair of girls from Domina, pushing his shoulder at the taller Lenore.

She let him bump into her, of course. Kwet stood google-eyed, as the trio of Slytherin guys left them. "You totally told him off," she whispered. "How did you do that?"

"He's kinda cute," Lenore said, watching the guys leave.

That provoked almost the same response in Kwet that it had many months before in Zora. Kwet recovered easily enough, though. They got back to their work.

"So...." Lenore said, glancing at a huge pile of books they'd assembled, "if I were House Domina's totem animal, what would I be?"

"I'd want to be cool," Kwet said, "but different."

"How about this?" Lenore held up a book opened to a page with a gecko pictured on it.

"Nah - Slytherin's snake would just eat it. And besides, geckos are really clingy." Kwet made 'finger-spready-clingy-on-wall' motions. Then, she dug open another book. "How about this one?"

She pointed to a dragonfly, with the brilliant blue tail end and irridescent wings.

"Ooh, that's cool. Hold that page." Lenore said.

They continued to open up pages and flip through the big musty books of animal and heraldic lore. Finally, they had narrowed their search down to a few images and some heraldry devices.

"It'd be a lot easier if Zora actually had a family crest or something, huh?" Kwet said.

"Yeah, but if she did I don't know if she'd want to use it. She's all gypsy-family anyway."

"And nobody likes gypsies," Kwet sighed. "I did a paper in Muggle school about them. It figures I'd wind up in a House for them."

In a little bit of uncomfortable silence, they completed their mission. Magically copying the images onto parchment with a wave of her wand, Lenore and Kwet would show off their findings to their House head. She'd have to decide what would stay and what might go.

Several weeks later, the Harvest ball was coming up. This had put many of the girls at the school into a tizzy. Who would ask them to go? Would they wind up alone? Or did they have the right dress?

Kwet's family had a huge background in silks, but she was so tiny that none of her dresses might even come close to fitting Lenore. She tried altering one of them, but it just wasn't working.

"I don't know why I want to even try for a dress," Lenore said, with a strangely old sigh. "Not like anyone's going to ask me to the dance anyway. I'm a freak. At least you're pretty and have something nice to wear," she told Kwet. It was true, Kwet would make an adorable ornament on any young man's arm, in her vibrant scarlet silk kimono. And Kwet tried to console Lenore, but that suddenly seemed like a poor idea.

There was a storm cloud outside that wouldn't go away. Most people had gotten used to it, as it came and went, but they also got used to having it as a gauge to know what mood Leny was in that day. And it was brewing darker.

Lenore sat and moped in the Domina tower dorm, looking outside at the rainy muck she'd been causing. It wasn't anywhere else, just sliding down the edge of that portion of the building. The gardeners were thinking of asking her to move around the castle, just to keep things even.

"Hey, mopey," Zora said, shaking her fingers through Lenore's hair. "Why the glum face?"

"... No guy in his right mind would want to ask me to this dumb dance, that's why. And, I don't have anything to wear at all. I don't even have more than two pairs of pants, anyway. Let alone a dress." There was an edge to her voice, and Zora knew that any minute now, it would be accompanied by a hailstorm or thunderclap outside.

Best to get that part overwith. Zora sat next to her student, leaning on her shoulder heavily.

"Cut it out," Leny said, trying to wiggle away.

"You could always just go stag, and let the guys regret not asking you while they're stuck with their girls." Zora said, to which Lenore gave a disgusted cough. "What, you don't think you're prettier than half the girls in Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, the ugly half really thinks I'm great."

"You are just so hopeless," Zora said, getting back up and wandering away.

But several minutes later, there was a knock at the dorm door that Zora seemed to have no intention of answering. "Fine, I'll get it," Leny said. Kwet was out doing some broom flying study.

At the door, there were three fairly strange girls. They were all members of House Hufflepuff, all dramatically different from one another yet seeming oddly the same.

"We heard that you ... you know, you didn't come to the school with much," said one, the tallest and skinniest.

"So we thought maybe," the middle-height one, plump and freckled, said. "That you know, we'd try helping you out."

"If you don't want us to, we'll go away, but we've brought stuff," said the third, a short girl with badly cut brown hair. "And we know how to sew." She held up a pair of scissors.

After a moment of silence, Lenore stood away from the door and let the trio in. Like a swarm of good-fairies, they started taking measurements and muttered numbers to each other. Notation spells drifted through the air, jotting down this number or that idea.

Then just like that, the trio vanished through the doors, and went back to wherever they'd been hiding. The tall one said over her shoulder, "we'll be right back!" And hustled to catch up before the stairwells changed again.

"That was... weird..." Leny said. The storm outside twirled around, and Zora seemed to be watching it.

Lenore tried to get some studying in on her cauldron-use class, but then about an hour later the trio of Hufflepuffs came barging into the dorm again. They didn't even bother to knock, Zora had never barred the doors to their private chamber like the other Houses' were.

"We've got some things!" Said the short one.

"Come on and get those things off," the plump one said, "you can't try these on with your robes!"

Shortly, they had propped up Lenore on a low stool, and were flitting around her like bees. One had brought a bright yellow dress, but there were other things in a basket they'd dragged along. The fitting went so quickly that Lenore was taken aback. She didn't even have time to react when they backed away to appraise their work.

"Put your arms down, dear," said the tall one. She was apparently the oldest of the group, too, what looked to be a fifth year student.

Lenore obeyed, and she felt the pinch of a spare pin in her armpit. "Ooh!" Said the plump one, "Missed one!" She gathered it up, and then pawed at Leny's arm to take it down again.

"Mirror!" Said the little one, "get a mirror! Not that nasty one," she said to Zora who had eagerly tried to provide a black-framed and apparently smouldering-glass mirror. Who knew what that one might show?

At last, Leny got the chance to see herself in this gown they'd made. She could hardly believe her eyes. Zora played with her hair, putting it up into a kind of tassled bun. The dress was beautiful, no doubt about that. Puffy short sleeves, showing off how long Lenore's arms were, snug waist and rather low neck line showing the benefits of growing up with a proper diet... The hem came to just below her knees, but was frilly and dropped up and down around them. It made swooshy noises as Leny turned around on the stool.

Then she dove at the girls from Hufflepuff. Sniffling, with the storm outside drizzling and finally letting up, she said, "I can't thank you guys enough, so if I start crying just ignore me, because I'm not too likely to stop anytime soon."

They laughed - and finally brought out the other items of clothing they had made up for her. A basket full of things, perhaps altered but more likely assembled on the fly, and that almost quadrupled Leny's very meager selection of outerwear.

The Harvest dance went off ... with not much of a hitch. Lenore did wind up going alone, hanging by the wall with the other girls or guys who hadn't the guts to ask someone else. There were hardly guys in the place that would have accepted had Leny asked anyway - to hear her say it. Even Draco had his date, some girl Lenore had never heard of but knew was a strongly placed Slytherin.

She wasn't quite jealous of the girl. How could she be? She made Draco look rather short. Lenore smirked at that, but thought that he was still rather handsome in his suit.

One cavalier Ravenclaw decided to grab Leny's hand for an upbeat dance, and she had no choice but to rush onto the big ballroom floor to be with him. They spun around, Leny laughed and tried to imagine what the dance might be called.

"Playing dress up with your little friends?" Said Draco, back to her and with a snide grin.

"Yup. It's a shame that you didn't." Lenore said, and with that the tall dark-haired Ravenclaw boy dancing with her got a look of amazement. It was echoed on Draco's dance partner's face too.

Nothing more need be said about that night - except that Lenore and Kwet did notice (when they weren't busy dancing or gossiping or playing with the finger foods) that Zora was hanging out rather a lot with spooky ol' Snape...

***

Late in the school year, when Kwet was going to head back home for the summer, and Leny was fretting again over the fact that she couldn't really head anywhere, Zora announced that she'd be remaining on again.

"Maybe this time, you'll get to know a broom?" Said the yellow-eyed coach, but Leny still hadn't managed to get a broom together, and was still falling farther behind in that regard.

Her potion studies again went superbly well. That and her wand use and memorization of quick spells were called her best subjects.

Now if only they could get her to control that cloud of hers...

House Domina Personalities
	Lenore McCrea, House Domina Weather Witch One Year Ago "Don't you think that a House needs something more than a name?" Zora asked. Lenore nodded, and the first-year student with her, a diminutive girl named Kwet, nodded along. "Then I want you to do some research in the library. I need a crest for House Domina. I've never had one of those.
"Sounds good to me," Lenore said. "Come on, Kwet, let's find us some pictures." She dragged the tan-skinned girl into the depths of the library. Huge stacks, the smell of the place was enough to intimidate Kwet. "How are we supposed to find anything here?" Kwet asked. Lenore showed off her knowledge of the library, by slipping into the walkway nearest the entrance. "Well, it's got a system. You just have to know how to figure it out. Plus, you can always ask the ghosts." "I ... I don't think I like ghosts," Kwet said, as one of them drifted by. The transparent person floated around, and it became apparent that they'd possibly died as a result of some kind of smoke inhalation - there was a smell that went along with it and it did distinctly reek of poison. "You'll get used to them. They're everywhere." "And have you seen those freaks from that little House?" Said a snide voice from halfway around another great bookshelf. "Taking on the rejects. Pretty soon they'll be all over the place. Oh," Draco said, with a mocking frown, "I am so sorry - we didn't see you ... freaks ... here." Kwet was about to wilt away and die, but Lenore stood her ground. "That's right, the freaks have invaded. Pretty soon, it's guys like you that'll be scraping for space." He'd forgotten, hadn't he, that Lenore didn't take his crap. Draco wanted - clearly - to say something else, but had long since stopped himself from falling into that trap. He turned to his cronies and muttered, "the stench of freak is too strong. We'll study in the dorm." He brushed past the pair of girls from Domina, pushing his shoulder at the taller Lenore. She let him bump into her, of course. Kwet stood google-eyed, as the trio of Slytherin guys left them. "You totally told him off," she whispered. "How did you do that?" "He's kinda cute," Lenore said, watching the guys leave. That provoked almost the same response in Kwet that it had many months before in Zora. Kwet recovered easily enough, though. They got back to their work. "So...." Lenore said, glancing at a huge pile of books they'd assembled, "if I were House Domina's totem animal, what would I be?" "I'd want to be cool," Kwet said, "but different." "How about this?" Lenore held up a book opened to a page with a gecko pictured on it. "Nah - Slytherin's snake would just eat it. And besides, geckos are really clingy." Kwet made 'finger-spready-clingy-on-wall' motions. Then, she dug open another book. "How about this one?" She pointed to a dragonfly, with the brilliant blue tail end and irridescent wings. "Ooh, that's cool. Hold that page." Lenore said. They continued to open up pages and flip through the big musty books of animal and heraldic lore. Finally, they had narrowed their search down to a few images and some heraldry devices. "It'd be a lot easier if Zora actually had a family crest or something, huh?" Kwet said. "Yeah, but if she did I don't know if she'd want to use it. She's all gypsy-family anyway." "And nobody likes gypsies," Kwet sighed. "I did a paper in Muggle school about them. It figures I'd wind up in a House for them." In a little bit of uncomfortable silence, they completed their mission. Magically copying the images onto parchment with a wave of her wand, Lenore and Kwet would show off their findings to their House head. She'd have to decide what would stay and what might go. Several weeks later, the Harvest ball was coming up. This had put many of the girls at the school into a tizzy. Who would ask them to go? Would they wind up alone? Or did they have the right dress? Kwet's family had a huge background in silks, but she was so tiny that none of her dresses might even come close to fitting Lenore. She tried altering one of them, but it just wasn't working. "I don't know why I want to even try for a dress," Lenore said, with a strangely old sigh. "Not like anyone's going to ask me to the dance anyway. I'm a freak. At least you're pretty and have something nice to wear," she told Kwet. It was true, Kwet would make an adorable ornament on any young man's arm, in her vibrant scarlet silk kimono. And Kwet tried to console Lenore, but that suddenly seemed like a poor idea. There was a storm cloud outside that wouldn't go away. Most people had gotten used to it, as it came and went, but they also got used to having it as a gauge to know what mood Leny was in that day. And it was brewing darker. Lenore sat and moped in the Domina tower dorm, looking outside at the rainy muck she'd been causing. It wasn't anywhere else, just sliding down the edge of that portion of the building. The gardeners were thinking of asking her to move around the castle, just to keep things even. "Hey, mopey," Zora said, shaking her fingers through Lenore's hair. "Why the glum face?" "... No guy in his right mind would want to ask me to this dumb dance, that's why. And, I don't have anything to wear at all. I don't even have more than two pairs of pants, anyway. Let alone a dress." There was an edge to her voice, and Zora knew that any minute now, it would be accompanied by a hailstorm or thunderclap outside. Best to get that part overwith. Zora sat next to her student, leaning on her shoulder heavily. "Cut it out," Leny said, trying to wiggle away. "You could always just go stag, and let the guys regret not asking you while they're stuck with their girls." Zora said, to which Lenore gave a disgusted cough. "What, you don't think you're prettier than half the girls in Hogwarts?" "Yeah, the ugly half really thinks I'm great." "You are just so hopeless," Zora said, getting back up and wandering away. But several minutes later, there was a knock at the dorm door that Zora seemed to have no intention of answering. "Fine, I'll get it," Leny said. Kwet was out doing some broom flying study. At the door, there were three fairly strange girls. They were all members of House Hufflepuff, all dramatically different from one another yet seeming oddly the same. "We heard that you ... you know, you didn't come to the school with much," said one, the tallest and skinniest. "So we thought maybe," the middle-height one, plump and freckled, said. "That you know, we'd try helping you out." "If you don't want us to, we'll go away, but we've brought stuff," said the third, a short girl with badly cut brown hair. "And we know how to sew." She held up a pair of scissors. After a moment of silence, Lenore stood away from the door and let the trio in. Like a swarm of good-fairies, they started taking measurements and muttered numbers to each other. Notation spells drifted through the air, jotting down this number or that idea. Then just like that, the trio vanished through the doors, and went back to wherever they'd been hiding. The tall one said over her shoulder, "we'll be right back!" And hustled to catch up before the stairwells changed again. "That was... weird..." Leny said. The storm outside twirled around, and Zora seemed to be watching it. Lenore tried to get some studying in on her cauldron-use class, but then about an hour later the trio of Hufflepuffs came barging into the dorm again. They didn't even bother to knock, Zora had never barred the doors to their private chamber like the other Houses' were. "We've got some things!" Said the short one. "Come on and get those things off," the plump one said, "you can't try these on with your robes!" Shortly, they had propped up Lenore on a low stool, and were flitting around her like bees. One had brought a bright yellow dress, but there were other things in a basket they'd dragged along. The fitting went so quickly that Lenore was taken aback. She didn't even have time to react when they backed away to appraise their work. "Put your arms down, dear," said the tall one. She was apparently the oldest of the group, too, what looked to be a fifth year student. Lenore obeyed, and she felt the pinch of a spare pin in her armpit. "Ooh!" Said the plump one, "Missed one!" She gathered it up, and then pawed at Leny's arm to take it down again. "Mirror!" Said the little one, "get a mirror! Not that nasty one," she said to Zora who had eagerly tried to provide a black-framed and apparently smouldering-glass mirror. Who knew what that one might show? At last, Leny got the chance to see herself in this gown they'd made. She could hardly believe her eyes. Zora played with her hair, putting it up into a kind of tassled bun. The dress was beautiful, no doubt about that. Puffy short sleeves, showing off how long Lenore's arms were, snug waist and rather low neck line showing the benefits of growing up with a proper diet... The hem came to just below her knees, but was frilly and dropped up and down around them. It made swooshy noises as Leny turned around on the stool. Then she dove at the girls from Hufflepuff. Sniffling, with the storm outside drizzling and finally letting up, she said, "I can't thank you guys enough, so if I start crying just ignore me, because I'm not too likely to stop anytime soon." They laughed - and finally brought out the other items of clothing they had made up for her. A basket full of things, perhaps altered but more likely assembled on the fly, and that almost quadrupled Leny's very meager selection of outerwear. The Harvest dance went off ... with not much of a hitch. Lenore did wind up going alone, hanging by the wall with the other girls or guys who hadn't the guts to ask someone else. There were hardly guys in the place that would have accepted had Leny asked anyway - to hear her say it. Even Draco had his date, some girl Lenore had never heard of but knew was a strongly placed Slytherin. She wasn't quite jealous of the girl. How could she be? She made Draco look rather short. Lenore smirked at that, but thought that he was still rather handsome in his suit. One cavalier Ravenclaw decided to grab Leny's hand for an upbeat dance, and she had no choice but to rush onto the big ballroom floor to be with him. They spun around, Leny laughed and tried to imagine what the dance might be called. "Playing dress up with your little friends?" Said Draco, back to her and with a snide grin. "Yup. It's a shame that you didn't." Lenore said, and with that the tall dark-haired Ravenclaw boy dancing with her got a look of amazement. It was echoed on Draco's dance partner's face too. Nothing more need be said about that night - except that Lenore and Kwet did notice (when they weren't busy dancing or gossiping or playing with the finger foods) that Zora was hanging out rather a lot with spooky ol' Snape... *** Late in the school year, when Kwet was going to head back home for the summer, and Leny was fretting again over the fact that she couldn't really head anywhere, Zora announced that she'd be remaining on again. "Maybe this time, you'll get to know a broom?" Said the yellow-eyed coach, but Leny still hadn't managed to get a broom together, and was still falling farther behind in that regard. Her potion studies again went superbly well. That and her wand use and memorization of quick spells were called her best subjects. Now if only they could get her to control that cloud of hers...