Sunday, 16 January 1977

"Hey, Remus?" Frank asked.

"Yes, Frank," Remus said, turning to face Frank.

Frank was sitting on his bed, which was next to Remus'. Frank was currently messing around with the cords of his guitar. From his bed, Remus could see the markings Alice had put on Frank's guitar with black ink. Alice had drawn a few stars on the right side of the guitar. On the body of the guitar, she had written a message.

i love you

-alice

Next to it, Frank had written his own reply.

I love you too

-Frank

"May I ask why you're charming a bunch of quills to read out loud?"

For the past two hours, Remus had been using charms from a charms textbook he has taken out to enchant quills to read words both aloud. He also was trying to charm the quill to act as a pair of headphones without wires in case whoever was using the quill wanted to listen to what they were reading in private.

Unfortunately for Remus, his experimentation was not going well. So for the quills he had been using only spoke in gibberish or in French. He had finally gotten the quill to speak in English, but it only repeated whatever Remus said.

"Uhhh, boredom," Remus lied.

Frank laughed. "Alright. I'll pretend to believe you."

In truth, Remus wanted to give an enchanted quill to Lena. He had felt so terrible that he hadn't been able to help her go over her readings and notes after the full moon earlier in the month. He figured that the quill was a way he could be there for Lena when he couldn't be. She wouldn't need him to schedule study sessions with him to go over readings and notes. She could use it on exams to read questions, saving time to answer them. She could use it just to read for fun. Remus just wanted to help her and make her happy.

Thursday, 20 January 1977

"How's it going over there you two?" Professor Slughorn asked as Regulus threw the Erumpent horn into the Erumpent Potion he and Lena were brewing in the Potions classroom.

Slughorn was making everyone in his Potions class work outside of class hours in his classroom to brew Erumpent horn. Since they were brewing a highly explosive potion and he did not want multiple explosions happening at once, he had assigned everyone individual time slots to work alone with him and their Potions partner in the classroom. Slughorn looked up from his book every five minutes or so to make sure there were no major mishaps.

"Yes, sir," Regulus said, he replied. "We're about to add the scarab beetles."

"Excellent!" Slughorn cried, clapping his hands happily. "You two work so well together. It's a wonderful display of interhouse relations!"

"Thank you, Professor," the pair said in unison.

"Speaking of houses," Lena began, "what's going on in Slytherin, Reg? Ever since last week, everyone in Slytherin is treating Guinevere Rowle like she has the plague or something."

Normally, she was flanked by Aurelia Zabini and Enoria Greengrass and other Slytherins like Snape. For every meal since last week, Rowle had been sitting completely alone. Her closest friends and even her siblings Thorfinn and Soren Rowle were ignoring her. Rowle didn't seem to be taking it well either. Her pin-straight blonde hair was unkempt and she looked like she was in another world everytime Lena saw her walk down the corridors.

"You didn't hear?" Regulus asked, raising his eyebrows in disbelief as he put the smushed beetles into the potion

"Hear what? Tell me what happened," Lena implored him.

"Rowle got disowned," he said in a hushed tone.

"What?" Lena whispered back.

"She got a letter from her parents last week. They told her she was going to marry Antonin Dolohov over the summer. He's a Death Eater and he was at the meeting Bellatrix took me to."

"I don't remember a Dolohov ever going to Hogwarts."

"His Dad's Russian so he went to Koldovstoretz instead of Hogwarts. He grew up mostly in England, though. Anyways, she wrote them back and refused to marry him because he's bonkers and a fanatic and she doesn't believe in the Death Eater cause. Her parents completely disowned her for saying no. They shipped all of her belongings to Hogwarts and told her not to bother coming back."

"Holy shit! What is she going to do?"

"I have no idea. She doesn't have anyone to turn to. It's not like when Sirius got disowned. He had friends and an entire house to rely on. Her friends and her entire house are shunning her right now and I doubt any of them are gonna stop."

Regulus paused. "I wish I could talk to her and help her out. But I can't. Not without blowing my cover."

Lena looked into his eyes that were now tinged with regret and sadness. She took a breath. "I can be someone for her to rely on… on behalf of both of us."

Regulus looked at her and nodded, his eyes seeming brighter than a few moments ago.

Maggie squinted her eyes and stared at Lena's face. "Are you sweating right now?"

"Yep," Lena replied as she rose from the Hufflepuff table, balling her fists.

"Where are you going?" Ava asked, twisting her fork in her spaghetti.

"The Slytherin table," Lena replied as she walked away.

"Wait, what!?" she heard her friends cry as she kept walking to the table.

As she walked, Lena focused on Rowle. The blonde sixth year was reading a book as she was eating her meal. There was a radius of one foot between her and any other Slytherin. To the left, Regulus sitting with Barty Crouch, Seraphina Parkinson, and Snape. On Rowle's right, Zabini and Greengrass were flirting with some of the seventh years.

"Hi Guinevere," Lena squeaked, her voice coming out much higher than she intended.

Rowle looked up from her book and turned to her. "Ummm, hi?"

"I'm Lena Pettigrew," she introduced.

"Okay…" Rowle dragged out.

"How are you doing?" Lena asked, probably to chipper.

Rowle rose from her seat and narrowed her eyes. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No, no, not at all," Lena sputtered. "I was wondering if you wanted to sit with me and my friends."

Even though she had lost her family, friends, and housemates, Rowle was going to keep her pride.

"I don't need your pity, Pettigrew," Rowle said proudly.

"I didn't mean it in a pitying way," Lena said, although she did ask out of pity. "I want to sit with you to strengthen interhouse relations between Slytherin and Hufflepuffs," Lena said, inspired by Slughorn's words from earlier.

Rowle gave Lena a once over.

"Alright," Rowle said, smirking. "Let me just grab my book."

Rowle grabbed her book and, quite purposefully, smacked her goblet of pumpkin juice with it. The golden goblet went soaring in the air to the right of Rowle. The contents of the pumpkin juice rained down onto the heads of Zabini and Greengrass and the goblet hit her brother Thorfinn on the head before clattering onto the floor.

"You bitch!" Zabini shrieked, standing up with orange droplets dripping from her hair onto her robes.

Greengrass was desperately attempting to get the sticky substance out of her hair

"Oops. I am sooo sorry, Aurelia, Enoria," Rowle said insincerely in a sickly-sweet voice. "I didn't mean to do that. It was an accident. Entirely my fault."

It was clear to everyone that it was not an accident.

Rowle turned to her mountain-like brother who was fuming. "And sorry for hitting you on the head, Thor. I hope it didn't make you lose too many brain cells. You don't have many to begin with."

Lena swallowed as the blonde boy turned red and clenched his fists. The Rowle sister held her chin high and looked at him defiantly, daring him to do something.

He did nothing, though.

"Shall we, Pettigrew?" Rowle turned to Lena.

"We shall."

Lena and Rowle walked to the Hufflepuff table, all Slytherin eyes on them.

"Um, great aim back there," Lena complemented, both frightened and impressed. Rowle was not someone to messed with

"Why, thank you," Rowle said proudly. "I wanted to play Beater for the Slytherin team but my mother said it was unbecoming of a lady to do so."

Lena and Rowle arrived at the Hufflepuff table and sat opposite Maggie and Ava.

"These are my friends Maggie Cho and Ava Kamen. And this Guinevere Rowle."

"Hi," Ava said, nervously.

"Nice to meet you," Maggie said.

"That remains to be seen," Rowle replied.

Lena puffed out her cheeks. This was not going the way she envisioned.

Dinner went surprisingly well. Guinevere Rowle was one of the most charming people Lena had ever met and she wasn't even trying to be charming. She was incredibly witty and she had this way about her that made everyone know they were in the presence of someone great and impossibly cool. And somehow, Rowle, who made it clear from the second she sat down with Lena and her friends that she didn't want any relationship with them, was able to develop bonds with them over the smallest things. Ava and Rowle had bonded over their mutual love of Quidditch and the lack of womens' representation in the sport, Maggie and Rowle shared a love of Witch's Fingers (the worst candy known to wizarding kind), and Lena and Rowle could not agree more that the Warring Warlocks were the most underrated wizarding band of all time.

"Night, Guinevere," Ava said as she, Maggie, and Lena rose to their feet to go to the Hufflepuff dormitory.

"Well, it was nice meeting you," Maggie said.

Rowle gave her a small smile. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

"See you around," Lena said as she and her roommates walked away.

"Hold on, Pettigrew," Rowle ordered.

Lena grimaced and turned around as Maggie and Ava kept walking.

"I'm not an idiot. I know you invited me to eat with you out of pity, not for your interhouse relations bullshit," Rowle said with her arms crossed.

Lena opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.

"I appreciate it, though. You didn't have any reason to reach out to me," Rowle continued. "So, I wanted to say thank you."

"You're welcome, Guinevere."

Rowle smiled at her.

"You can call me Gwen, Lena."

"Goodnight, Gwen."

"Goodnight, Lena."