Sometimes you really have to take a step back to see the whole picture, and when my mother died, that was exactly what I had to do. My dad was a wreck, Luna wasn't much better, so things tended to fall on me to do. Dishes, mopping, and food didn't just suddenly appear in my house when everyone was busy. Which you'd think it would considering we weren't muggles.
I couldn't blame him much, my dad. He'd lost his soulmate but still had two little girls to take care of. He ended up burying himself in his magazine, the Quibbler, searching for all sorts of odd and mainly non-existent creatures to take up his imagination. It's not as though Luna and I went hungry or something, we just had to depend on each other a lot more than before.
Luna loved his work though, involved herself in it too. She'd tell me all sorts of things about Heliopaths or Blibbering Humdingers, how they were around us but we just couldn't see them like they could see us. When I was younger, I believed her. Now, not so much.
"Do you think the Umgubular Slashkilter's like the radishes or the suns better?" I looked away from the window in our dorm to her, she was focused on picking earrings before we went down for breakfast in the Great Hall.
"I don't think they have a preference." I replied dryly, not having much patience to deal with her nonsense this morning. I didn't sleep well, I felt hot and cold at the same time with a heaviness deep in my chest. It felt like I was in mourning somehow, but I lacked a death to be mournful for.
"Of course they do." She peered at me strangely from the bathroom, her blue eyes were narrowed as they met mine. I loved my twin to death, but we were entirely different sometimes. I collapsed onto her neatly made bed with a touch of frustration as I waited for her. Mine was never this neat, I didn't see the point in making a bed that you'd mess up as soon as you went to bed again.
"I'm ready!" She skipped out of the girl's bedroom's and quickly went up the stairs to the common room as I pulled myself up. She was a touch too cheerful for me right now.
"Right right." I huffed, following her down through the tower until we reached the same floor as the Great Hall.
I didn't say much at all as breakfast ensued but I could feel eyes on me. I glanced around to see no one sitting near Luna or I as per usual. Other Ravenclaws didn't really enjoy our company, which again was fair. Luna kinda threw some people off. I had friends but they were in the other houses, particularly Hufflepuff. I glanced around the room to find Draco Malfoy's eyes on me, it was unsettling how strongly he was staring and I started to squirm.
"Is it just me or is Malfoy just straight up staring at us?" I mumbled to Luna who looked up from her latest edit of the Quibbler to gaze at Malfoy.
"It would appear so. Maybe he's seen a Nargle, you know how they do enjoy misplacing my left shoe." She declared lightly, burying her nose back into the magazine.
"Of course." I sighed a little at that, I feel like we both knew it wasn't Nargles doing that, rather it was Cho Chang and one of her friends. I didn't have many problems with other Ravenclaws but...sometimes I just wanted to bloody punt Chang across the table. I didn't really give a shit if her boyfriend was Cedric Diggory, I mean he was nice but that still didn't mean you could just pick on my sister.
"Did you hear about the Qudditch World Cup?" Kathryn Abbott sat down quickly next to me in flutter of parchment. I eyed the papers as five of them fluttered to the ground. She was forever saying she didn't need a bag and that eventually she'd charm her paper stack to simply follow her about but everywhere she went, she left a trail of them.
"What about it?" I raised a brow, looking back up to her wide green eyes. The year had literally just started and she already had some sort of hot tidbit to tell me about, it was astounding.
"Someone cast the Dark Mark into the sky!" She dropped a heavy addition of the Daily Prophet onto the table with finality. I picked it up and sped through the title and image of the Dark Mark in the sky. We missed out on a lot in the bog country, like quite a lot. We had no idea that this was even happening, but I didn't care much about Quidditch.
"Thats odd." I peered at the mark for a little longer, unsure of what to do about this or what it meant. I mean, it definitely didn't feel like a good thing.
"Odd? Its awful, Selene!" She was emotional as hell about it, running a hand through her already frazzled blonde hair. I peered at her for a moment, processing unitl it dawned on me that she was a muggle born.
"Oh shite." I mumbled under my breath as I stared at her with a frown.
"Yeah!" She threw her one free hand up in exasperation. I opened my mouth to say something for some amount of comfort but the soft PING-PING signaled that Dumbledore was about to speak.
"Good Morning and I welcome all of you, new and old to another year of Magical Education...however. I regret to inform you all that Qudditch will not be taking place this year." He announced loudly over the sounds of groans starting across the Great Hall. I glanced around to see several first and fourth years looking downtrodden. Others looked rather excited however.
"Now now, as I was saying, Qudditch will not be available but! As some of you know already, we are to have the honour of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year." Dumbledore stopped in his speech as the caretaker, Filch jogged through the Great Hall up to the podium. We all watch in some anticipation as they exchanged heated whispers which ended in Filch jogging back down the aisle to the great doors again.
"This castle will not only be your home this year but home to some very special guests as well. You see, Hogwarts has been chosen to host that legendary event: The Triwizard Tournament! Now for those of you who do not know, the tri-wizard tournament brings together three schools for a series of magical contests. From each school a single contestant is selected to compete." Dumbledore suddenly grew quite serious as I pursed my lips. I glanced at Luna who appeared to be absolutely enthralled in his speech.
"Now let me be clear, if choosen you stand alone. And trust me when I say these contests are not for the faint hearted, but more of that later. For now please join me in welcoming the lovely ladies of the Beauxbatons Academy of magic and their headmistress Madam Maxime." He waved to the great doors as soon they opened, revealing A group of girls dressed in blue.
I watched them with wide eyes as they elegantly danced up the aisle, releasing some sort of magical butterflies into the air with each weird little moan.
"Good lord." Kathryn mumbled to me as I nodded. This was a bit over the top.
My eyes darted back to the large woman that was being guided down the aisle by Dumbledore, he looked a bit like a small child next to her. Two girls were still dancing in the front however one was doing a ballet sort of thing while the younger girl was twirling and doing intricate gymnastics. I swallowed heavily, feeling a bit disappointed in myself for not being able to elicit awe just by walking.
They bowed at the end of the room leaving everyone to applaud, especially the men. I glanced across the room again at Malfoy to find he hadn't been watching them, rather his eyes were still trained on me. It felt like he was trying to stare until I burst into flames or he'd drilled a hole straight through my head.
"And now our friends from the north, please greet the proud sons of Durmstrang and the high master Igor Karkaroff." Dumbledore had ran back up to the stage area, waving his arms open in welcome right as I heard solid thuds coming from the doorway. I felt a bit like a toy on a pull string with how quickly my head was darting from side to side.
A series of older, and dare I say, quite attractive boys walked up the aisle brandishing bo staffs. They let out occasional HUAHs as they twirling their staffs around. I jumped slightly as a particularly large Durmstrang stopped and stabbed his staff against the ground next to me, creating a spark effect. He made eye contact and I swear I saw a bit of a smile right before he dropped it and went into a dead run. I pulled my head back as bit, as they did a set of twirls, stopping to blow a large and fiery dragon into the air.
"That was terrifying." I spoke to Kathryn as she nodded, picking a sadly burnt piece of parchment off the floor next to us.
"I'm going to have to rewrite this now." She was despondent as she held the parchment in her hand.
"Is it for Filtwick?" I raised a brow, inspecting the side of the paper.
"Yeah." She looked even sadder as I frowned at it. I pursed my lips.
"I can try to fix it." I offered warily. My wand was practically my child and while it had a pension for charms, it was also moody thanks to the Veela hair within it's Silver Lime body. The hair had come from my mother, however it was only placed in my wand for some reason. I guessed there hadn't been enough left after the accident but I thought she'd put away enough for both Luna and I when we were born.
"Its not like you can make it any worse." She mused, laying it down on the table in front of me. I shook my head, remembering that I was about to do something and pulled out my wand. I took in a deep breath and released it slowly.
"Reparo." I whispered to the wand as I watching it shoot out to the paper, leaving it clear of burned marks in a snap. Holy hell, it actually worked as planned this time!
"Oh my gosh, thank you!" She hugged my tightly.
"No problem!" I laughed as I patted her back, I was more just surprised it had worked. Last time I tried to fix Luna's barrette, it exploded into a fiery mess on our dresser. My dad almost fell down the stairs when he ran up them. I loved him but I inherited my clumsiness from him.
"Gotta go! See you at dinner!" Kathryn ran, grabbing the page off the table as well as a jelly doughnut off my plate. I sighed a bit and picked up another one, taking a bite out of it.
"Good work there." Luna commented distractedly from her book.
"Thanks." I chirped, taking another bite of jelly doughnut.
"Hello." A strong accent accompanied a tall guy in a brown militaryish uniform. His hair was nearly gone, shaved down to the scalp on the sides and almost gone on top.
"Hi." I mumbled behind the doughnut, watching him for a second and briefly considering if this was a prank. His eyes were deeper in his head and a dark brown, almost black to compliment his large protruding brows.
"May I accompany you ladies?" He took a deep bow as I glanced at Luna. She looked over the top of the Quibbler and gave a brief amount of eye-contact. I took that to mean yes, we were twins but we didn't always do the whole telepathic thing like everyone thought we did.