When you walked into Hogwarts the reaction was… intense to say the least. Because you look just like her… Cordelia, who died just last year. A girl who had wormed her way into most students lives and corrupted everything she touched. Cordelia knew how to read a room, and she did it well. During first year she was like a guppy in a big pond, pretending to be something she wasn’t. Lost, shy, confused and harmless. She was beautiful enough to gain the attention of the Slytherin majority, “humble” enough to have the hufflepuffs in her orbit, “clumsily” brave to attract attention from the Gryffindors and clever enough to be a Ravenclaw. By sixth year she had everyone eating out of her palm. The teachers, the students, the headmaster, they all loved her but they all favored the versions of herself that she’d show them. Cordelia was in every shape, every meaning of the word—a snake. And she thrived on collective misery. She was a liar, and a cheat. A deceiver. She was dating Harry Potter, yet sleeping with Mattheo Riddle. She’d put ideas into Astoria’s head that Draco had admitted to being tired of her. Of wanting more than just the gentle heart and she’d tell her this under the guise of concern. The arguments Draco and Astoria had were all her fault and after? She’d go comfort Draco, reassuring him that she didn’t know what Astoria was talking about and he’d believe her like the idiot he was. She had been with Lorenzo, had lied to Theodore, she’d even managed to pit them against one another. She helped a Hufflepuff with an assignment and then turn it in as her own work, diminishing the poor Hufflepuff. Her word against theirs. She’d kissed Ron in-front of Hermione because she knew Hermione liked Ron and poor Ron was ever the clueless git. And then after she acted as if it were an accident that they got caught kissing, and she played it well. Cordelia, lied and lied to everyone she’d ever known. She’d spill secrets that weren’t hers to keep.