AN: Hi, hello, what's up kids, I'm SO SO SORRY for how long it's been. Literally almost a whole year. Basically what happened is I moved two states away to go to my first year of college, which was amazing! Don't get me wrong! I loved it! But it took up all of my thoughts and energy to deal with my classes. I wrote very little that wasn't for class, and I tried to write for this story over winter break but I was too drained to finish a whole chapter. I've been home from school for about a month now, and I'm finally settled back in and I found a summer job and so NOW, FINALLY, I picked this back up again. I'm really sorry it's so short! I'm just trying to send something out to amp up my own motivation, and this is as complete a chapter as I can finish up and post quickly. Sorry for taking so long! Enjoy this little tidbit!

"Hey Quincy," Marina asked, staring up at the sky, "did Annie ever write to you about what happened?"

"No," he answered from somewhere vaguely off to her right. He flipped a page of his comic book. It was one about a Norse wizarding boy who tames a dragon, if she remembered correctly. "Did she not tell you?" he asked.

Marina sat up and shook out her hair, checking the back for bits of grass or leaves from lying down in Quincy's backyard. It was a lovely end-of-summer day, and Quincy's mum had insisted they spend time outside. "Nope. I thought about asking, but I figured it was sensitive enough to wait for her to tell me on her own."

Quincy hummed. "I guess she's not ready to talk about it yet, then." He turned another page. "Do you think this is how you properly tame a dragon? Like, in real life?"

"Probably not. It's a comic book. Aren't you curious about what happened?"

"With dragons in viking times? Of course, that's why I asked—"

"No, with Annie!" Marina rolled her eyes and gave her friend's shoulder a small shove. "You're ridiculous."

Turning the book face-down in the grass to save his page, Quincy sat up and shoved Marina back. "I'm not ridiculous, you're the one being ridiculous. I'm worried about Annie, of course, but I'm not gonna dwell on what exactly her family did to her. I don't need to know, do I? She can tell me if she wants to, but I'm satisfied with knowing she's at Molly's and away from her anti-magic muggle parents."

Marina crossed her arms. "Well, yes," she said, and paused to blow her hair from her eyes, "but you don't know all of it, do you? It's really quite serious, her whole family drama. I want to make sure she's okay."

"Are you sure you're not just being nosy?" Quincy asked, crossing his arms too and raising his eyebrows. "You get nosy sometimes, you know."

"I'm not nosy!" she protested.

"Are too, a bit." Quincy shrugged. "It's not your fault. You're just being curious, I guess."

With a "humf!" noise, Marina flopped back down in the grass. "I'm not nosy," she repeated, quieter this time. "I'll prove it—I can wait until she tells us."

"Sure, Mina," Quincy laughed. He picked up his comic book again and laid with his head on Marina's stomach, holding the paperback up at arm's length to continue reading. Marina watched the charmed illustration of a dragon breath red and gold fire across the page, and that was the end of the Annie topic until September.

The blonde in question would arrive at King's Cross with Gideon of course, so it was up to Marina to find an open compartment, which wasn't too difficult considering how early she and her mum liked to arrive. She sat with Maia held in her lap, absently petting along the length of her cat's spine as she watched out the window for her friends to arrive. It wasn't too long, though, before she stopped focusing on the crowd as her thoughts swept her away. Being back on the train reminded her quite sharply of all the things unrelated to her official academics: Evan, her animagus project, tutoring, Evan, the Gryffindor boys and their pranks, and Evan. Most importantly, her animagus project and how it might affect the rest of her school year.

First of all she needed to collect the ingredients, which would certainly be tricky. She also needed to keep a mandrake leaf in her mouth for a whole month, which would be the trickiest part of it all, she was sure. How was she supposed to eat with a leaf in her mouth? And there was something about a spell she had to say every sunrise or something—Marina couldn't remember exactly, but that might be challenging given her aversion to waking up early. Part of her felt like it was totally manageable, but another conflicting part of her felt that maybe she should have some professorial oversight after all.

It was something to worry about at another time. Out the window Marina could see Gideon's red head of hair (had he gotten even taller over summer?) tailed by Annie. She waved through the glass to catch their attention, and not ten minutes later she was hugging Annie tight in her arms.

"It's so good to see you!" Marina said. After one last squeeze, she held her friend out at arm's length. "How are you?"

"I'm great, actually," Annie answered with a blinding grin.

"And I suppose I'm chopped liver?" Gideon asked.

Marina turned to face his crooked, teasing smile. He somehow already had Maia in one arm, so he did his best to return Marina's hug with his one free arm. "It's good to see you, too," she assured him. He definitely got taller over summer.

Quincy joined them not too long after that, and they all settled in for the trip up to Scotland. Once again, Quidditch dominated the conversation for the first hour or so of the trip. Gideon was sure he'd make the team this year, absolutely sure. Apparently almost half the Gryffindor team graduated last year, so the new captain would need to fill a lot of positions. Annie contributed to the discussion this year, which surprised Marina.

"I thought you weren't very interested in Quidditch?" she asked.

"Well, Gideon and Fabian were at Molly's quite a bit, trying to teach Billy with Arthur. He has a child's broom; it's really adorable! So they taught me, too, while they were at it."

This all went on while Marina sat with Maia, listening a little sullenly. What even was the point of Quidditch? So her friends liked it, sure, but there were other things going on that were more important, right? Didn't anyone want to hear what happened to Annie? Well, Gideon probably knew, and Marina supposed Quincy didn't feel the need to know, but she still wanted to make sure her friend was okay! And what about their electives? Shouldn't they discuss what electives they would take together this year? After all, Marina dropped Divination, and that was one of the only classes they all four spent together.

The arrival of the trolley witch was a welcome break in Quidditch talk, and as soon as she left, before Quincy or Gideon could start it up again, Marina quickly asked, "What electives is everyone taking this year? The same or different?"

"I dropped Divination," Quincy said with a shrug. "Just down to Muggle Studies and Care, now."

"Me too," Marina said. "I dropped Divination. I'm taking Arithmancy and Runes this year. Divination was such a horrid class."

"It wasn't so bad," Gideon protested. "I thought it was sort of easy."

"That's because it's completely bullshit. You just make it all up anyway!" Quincy said.

Annie raised her eyebrows. "That's quite harsh," she said. "I'm still taking it. And Care."

"Me too, Div and Care," Gideon added.

Marina snorted. "Why's everyone taking Care?" she asked.

"It's easy, and Kettleburn's a legend," Quincy answered.

"And fun," Annie added.

"And it's outside," Gideon finished.

After that, Gideon, Annie, and Quincy all started talking about Professor Kettleburn, another topic Marina couldn't talk about. She stroked Maia in her lap, feeling quite left-out and wishing they could talk about something she could also talk about, like—like—well, she didn't know what, exactly. She supposed the only thing she really wanted to talk about was Annie and what happened with her family, but that just wasn't the sort of thing to bring up casually, was it?

The feast was good, as always, and it cheered Marina to be back in the castle again. The floating candles and charmed ceiling in the Great Hall did wonders to improve her mood, and when McGonagall filed in with the first years, Marina exchanged amused looks with her fellow fourth year dormmates.

"Were we really that small?" Lark asked.

"They look so young," Annie said with a smile.

Marina almost completely forgot about her questions by the time they were all back up in their room in Ravenclaw Tower. Only, once she was alone with her friends, she remembered again. After the four girls settled down and made their annual adjustments to The List, Marina decided it was as good a time as any to finally ask Annie what had gone wrong.

"Annie," she began gently, "can I ask why you left your family this summer?"

"Wait," Lark cut in, "you ran away? Where did you go?"

"Gideon Prewett's older sister Molly's home," Annie answered quickly before looking back to Marina. "Mina, I don't really want to talk about it."

Oh. "Why? Was it bad?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Annie sighed. "Not yet, anyway."

"Um, hang on, I knew you two were friends with Gideon the Gryffindor, but I didn't know you were close enough to spend the summer with his family!" Lark raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Am I missing something? How close exactly are you to Gideon Prewett?"

Annie laughed and threw a pillow at Lark. "Not as close as you're thinking," she answered. "We're all just friends."

"If you say so."

"It's Quincy Jackson you should be more concerned about," Artemis commented lightly.

Lark gasped. "You're right, Marina does spend a lot of time with Quincy! And didn't Quincy ask Annie to Hogsmeade last year? Lad's got game!"

"Like Annie said, we're all just friends," Marina said. It was difficult to be annoyed by Lark's accusations; her comical expressions turned the round of interrogations into a joke.

"Oh, of course, my bad. You've got your eyes on one Evan White, haven't you?" Lark asked her with a shimmy of her shoulders. She threw herself back on her bed dramatically. "Oh, Evan!" she cried. "You look so gorgeous when you sit in front of me in class!"

The girls all laughed. "That's enough," Marina giggled. "We should get to bed for class tomorrow morning."

And that's what they did. They did that for a whole week of classes actually, during which Marina and the other Ravenclaws withstood two blocks of Potions on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. By the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around again, Marina had started thinking about her personal project again, as of course was bound to happen once she returned to school. They happened to be using lacewing flies that afternoon, which got Marina thinking about death's-head moths, whose chrysalises were used in the potion needed for the animagus transformation. Someway, somehow, she'd need to brew that potion. As potions class was finishing up and students were starting to clean their tools and put away their extra ingredients, Marina's mind wandered to the class supply stock. It wouldn't be so difficult to just—well—snag a couple things, would it?

When Marina took her jars of scarab beetles, ginger root, and armadillo bile to the back of the classroom to put them away in the classroom cabinet, she lingered a moment, idly fiddling with the placement of her items on the shelves. She found herself occupied with skimming over the other labels nearby, looking for what she might need. Perhaps she stood there just a bit longer than she should've, and perhaps "just a bit" was an understatement. At the sound of Professor Slughorn's voice, she turned, startled.

"Are we quite alright back there, Miss Seymour-Llewellyn?"

"Yes, professor!"