She looked up at the Gryffindor girl from her seat near the window. “ Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t recall hearing them ask for your opinion. ” It was irritating enough to deal with the people who stared and whispered behind her back with her having to retake some of her OWLs at the beginning of the year, the comments about her house were enough to tip her over the precarious edge of anger. It was all too easy to set her off recently. Cleo hadn’t been trying to listen in on the conversation, but the snide remark about Hufflepuffs had caught her attention. Many of her housemates tended to be too nice to stand up for themselves, which only enabled further mistreatment. She cast a cursory and dismissive glance over the girl from head to toe, and then tilted her head and rested her chin on her hand with a little raise to her brows. “ Let me guess, Gryffindor is just so much better than every other house, right? So we’re just going to ignore the fact that Gryffindor and Slytherin account for almost every single instance where Hogwarts has nearly fallen apart? Sure, you’ve had some really famous witches and wizards over the years, but sometimes bravery seems to be synonymous with stupidity, if you ask me. ”