ALL THE THREADS OF FATE.
PART I
CRUEL SUMMER.
VII.
On the way down to the Great Hall, I decided to keep quiet about my conversation with Regulus. Not just because I wasn't speaking to James at the minute, but because approaching Remus or James with this would mean explaining why Regulus had shoved me inside a broom closet to begin with. Letting them know about the library incident would land James in an affronted rage, which would lead to pranks on Slytherin house a notch more vicious than usual. Such behaviour, in turn, would alert Yaxley and Rosier of my having blabbed to someone. Cowardly as it was, the memory of Yaxley's sneer and Rosier's glower still chilled my blood and, though not very Gryffindor of me, when it came down to it, my self-preservation always won out.
My decision solidified, I walked towards where my friends were seated at the Gryffindor table halfway through dinner. In fact, I doubted it would be much longer before the tables were cleared and dessert appeared.
Chatter filled the Great Hall, laughter bouncing from table to table. The Gryffindor table was the most raucous of all, but even Slytherin appeared to be in good spirits this evening. I kept my eyes resolutely away from it and focused instead on my own little clique.
The only free spot was between Dorcas and Remus, a seat I would any other day rejoice to fill, except as luck would have it today it would mean seating opposite Marlene—who remained aloof around me—and Sirius Black, because of bloody course.
"Hey," Dorcas greeted as I slipped onto the bench beside her. "Where have you been?"
Opposite her, Lily sent me a smile, mouthing a hi herself. I reciprocated, eyeing the slim pickings before me for something I could eat. Marlene said nothing. Sirius snorted into his goblet at whatever Peter had just said.
"McGonagall and Dumbledore needed to speak with me." I shrugged, distracted by Marlene's extended cold shoulder, Remus' own greeting, the painful lack of any substantial vegetarian dish, and, most of all, James's eagerness to duck around Sirius to catch my attention.
"Is everything alright?" Remus murmured, helpfully passing some roast sweet potatoes my way.
"There you are, Merry, I—" James started, raising his attempts to what could only be described as acrobatics.
Marlene tapped Lily's shoulder. "So, I read in Witch Weekly, that if you wear blue underwear—"
Lily half-listened, not wanting to be rude but also curious of my tardiness. Someone flicked the back of my head. I yelped, glaring at my brother's retreating back.
"Meredith, you better not stand me up tonight!" Freyr called over his shoulders.
Blimey. Everything was chaos. Never had the subduedness of Slytherin table been so appealing. I was so sore.
"Just some bullshit incident that apparently happened in the library yesterday." I grumbled, spooning some plain rice into my plate. Remus' fork wavered on his way to his mouth. "It's nothing."
Dorcas took my words at face value. She rolled her eyes in solidarity for the inconvenience and delved into the conversation between Marlene and Lily without batting an eye. Remus' eyes flittered about my face before he offered an understanding smile.
"Did you finish the Defense reading already?"
"Yes, I only have one chapter—"
My cousin's screeching became too loud to remain unheeded.
"Merry, Mer—Padfoot, move a bit, for Godric's—"
I looked their way just in time to watch him shove Sirius into the table and lean over his shoulders. Sirius grumbled something unsavoury under his breath, glaring up at James. My cousin was undeterred, instead perking up as he noticed he finally had my attention.
"Merry, I saved you some of that French stew you like. And some spinach."
Ah, yes. James had decided that the only way he would make it up to me for his blunder was to ply me with food.
At breakfast, he would slip my favourite pastries onto my plate. My teacup would surprisingly always be filled before I sat down, tea made exactly as I took it. During classes I shared with him, little treats would suddenly show up at my desk. Most of them had gone ignored, but the grapes and apple I'd snack on this afternoon had been slipped into my bag by James. Lunch was much the same, but dinner was the worst. It had the most options, and James was convinced the only way I would forgive him was by shoving plates overflowing with food in front of me as if I were a stray cat and he wanted to buy my love. It was too much, to the point where I sometimes wondered if, rather than trying to apologise, he was trying to kill me via exploded stomach.
Truthfully, I was caving. I adored James with all my heart, and I missed him something awful. Petty as I was, it never extended to James for a considerable amount of time. Besides, he looked so earnest in that moment, hazel eyes wide behind his skewed glasses as he kept Sirius down with one hand and balanced a plate full of tofu and mushroom ragout and spinach on the other. His expression was filled with such fragile hope and trepidation my lips twitched. The hope rose.
"Thank you," I said, reaching for the plate. "Jamie."
James' face split into a wide grin. I pretended not to see it, but that was more than alright with him. He slid off Sirius's back and re-joined their conversation. Despite my sore face, my aching shoulder, and the heavy weight that remained on my stomach from my conversation with Regulus, I ate every morsel of food on that plate.
The men in my family were going to kill me.
One, out of the goodness of his heart. The other, for a laugh.
I decided that as I kneeled on a stool inside a massive cauldron, with a pair of curved wire horns on my head like it was a headband. Dozens and dozens of snakes writhed within the cauldron, slithering over the lip, curving around my thighs. Most of them were grass and smooth snakes, and I thought them adorable anyway, so that wasn't the problem.
No, the problem was the viper Freyr was currently coaxing onto my shoulders. For the aesthetic of it all, no less. He'd assured me he—as in, the snake. His name was Koschei—was quite docile, and would not attack unless I made any sudden movements. Again, that would have been fine. Except Koschei had quite the easy access to my neck. Sweet Merlin.
"So why am I doing this?" I asked once Koschei had settled comfortably on my shoulders.
Well, I thought he was comfortable, with the bulk of his body across my shoulders and upper back, he looked quite content to explore my left arm with his face and upper body. Neck? I wasn't quite sure, had never really pondered a snake's anatomy in depth.
At the front of the room, Freyr stood behind an easel, large canvas set up, fiddling with his materials at a table beside him. There were tiny tubes of paint of all colours, brushes of different sizes and bristles, a slate of wood upon which he could mix his colours, and some slanted metal spatulas. I'd seen Freyr paint countless times since I had a memory, and while I understood the theory to some extent, I was still completely amazed by how he managed to create such beautiful work out of a bunch of foul-smelling goop. Music may come naturally to me, but art was a total mystery.
At my question, he looked up, abandoning the tiny spatula he was using to mix some paint.
"Well, Professor Benanti doesn't believe I am capable of drawing inspiration from people. She keeps going on about how I only ever do landscapes, and creatures, and Mr Potter, art lives in the soul, not a tree. I think she's biased because she herself couldn't manage to shadow and light water even if she received lessons from the merfolk."
It was amusing to witness Freyr, who tended to be so easy-going, complain about the injustices of having Professor Benanti request he broaden his artistic scopes. Yet again, art was the one certain way to ruffle my brother's feathers. Just like upsetting Addie was the one certain way to infuriate him.
"I can paint people; I just don't want to," he said when I failed to agree with him. "I figured this way I still get to do what I like but she shuts up."
"No—I meant why am I doing this?"
As I rolled my eyes with my whole head, the horns above me wiggled precariously.
I had postponed posing for Freyr, more in the mood to be alone than with my nosey brother after my meeting with McGonagall and my argument with James. True to his promise, the makeshift horned headband had landed on my head the moment I walked through the door, as 'visual reference'. Paired with Koschei, who was in the process of twining his body with my arm, the possibility that Freyr would really immortalise me as some she-devil worthy of horror stories seemed very, very likely.
"Oh." Freyr returned to his palette. "I dunno."
I narrowed my eyes at him. He pretended not to see, instead focusing on mixing the paint with his little spatula. I went to point a finger at him and call bollocks but the sudden movement had Koschei and his brethren hissing in annoyance and, well, I really didn't fancy a trip to the Hospital Wing because Koschei grew restless and mistook my hand for an unsuspecting fieldmouse.
So I kept quiet, and thanked Merlin for the royal blue cloak covering my body from the reptiles gathered about me. Snakes may have been cute, but my mind could not quite reconcile how they didn't feel to the touch the way they looked like they would feel.
"Where did you find an adder, anyway?" I asked after a while.
Freyr hummed, noncommitting, and raised a brush dipped in brown to the canvas. I eyed Koschei again, who had, incidentally, lazily twisted around toward me before inching forward and out of the comfortable ledge my arm provided. Well, if he wanted to balance in mid-air, that was his problem, see if I offered to act as his bed again.
"Did he steal you from your nest, Koschei?" I asked. He offered no reply but a lively forked tongue. "I don't know what Salazar Slytherin was thinking; snakes make for terrible conversationalists."
Freyr laughed. It was a clear and familiar sound, happy in a way only my brother could convey. I figured it wasn't so bad, being covered by snakes for two hours.
Freyr worked in silence. He offered no conversation, and I didn't bother with trying to start any. When he started painting, his whole focus belonged to that one detail he wished to get perfect, to that one shade of green he couldn't quite grasp. It fascinated me, how enraptured he grew, how the world shrank to canvas, palette, and brush.
I whiled away the time by keeping one eye on Koschei's movements, and studying the snakes about my lap. Grass snakes were truly beautiful, with their curious eyes and markings. I was quite partial to that yellow and black collar about their heads. Shame, that snakes had such bad reputation.
"Aunt Effie wrote to me."
My brother's voice snapped me out of my musings. He was dabbing at the canvas with a blue-tipped brush, brows pulled together until a tiny arrow appeared between them.
Aunt Euphemia had owled him. It took me a second to remember why that warranted such a grimace.
"Excellent."
"She wants to know if you and Black kissed and made up," Freyr continued, telling me what I had already figured out. "James has been avoiding the subject and—"
"What did you tell her?" I asked as dread coated my insides.
If he had been in a particular mood, one of those that turned him into a total shithead worse than James, the reply to such a letter could paint me in quite the unfavourable light—an impressive deed, considering my aunt was already disappointed beyond belief with my behaviour.
"That you apologised, of course." Brush hovering in the air, Freyr looked at me. "Said you two are civil as ever. Lately, that's not saying much, though, and Aunt knows it."
I relaxed. Yes, Sirius's and mine version of civility lately did not coincide with everyone else's, but that was fine, because my aunt hadn't asked that we become friends again. No, she had merely asked that I apologise. How we defined civility was a different matter.
Freyr cleared his throat. "If she asks Black…"
He kept the sentence open, yet his eyes convened the message clear enough. I wasn't worried—well, that wasn't true. I was worried aplenty, but not about this. Sirius, I had learned, had also been asked to apologise, something he had failed to do as of yet. My hope was he would lie much like my brother had and put the whole subject to rest. At least that was what I would do when my own letter eventually arrived.
"So, what am I supposed to be?" I asked instead.
"A she-demon." At my dry look, Freyr snickered and amended, "the embodied representation of some ideal or another. I haven't decided."
That sounded dubious at best.
"Horns and snakes as ideals?"
No offense to Koschei, who had decided to stop his exploratory balancing act and return to my wrist, but there was a reason the word snake equated danger and betrayal.
Freyr flicked his brush at me before returning to the canvas. "It won't be horns."
"You told me you'd give me horns. And a tail." I tried to catch another look at the wiry headband. "It looks like horns."
"What matters is its shape, not what it looks like. I'm using the headband as more of spatial reference."
I squinted up at the not-horns. Spatial reference? for what? Unbidden, an image of myself came to my mind, with bucking teeth and a big pair of donkey ears. She-demon was starting to look more and more appealing the more I heard my brother's flimsy explanations.
"I go where the inspiration takes me, and then I decode its meaning and what I was unconsciously aiming towards. Stop." Freyr chastised. "Don't move your head."
"Prick." I stopped trying to get a better look at the headband all the same. "I thought it was supposed to be the other way around."
Freyr rolled his eyes, switching brushes with ease and dipping the new one into a blob of sunflower yellow paint.
"I don't criticise your music, do I?"
"You certainly have made fun of me over it."
He bobbed his head in rare admittance. A smile stretched across his face, so full of affection I was left speechless.
"Yeah, when each time you picked up a violin it sounded like you were skinning Aunt's cat alive." He deadpanned.
My scowl lasted all of two seconds before it dissolved into an agreeing snort. My relationship with the violin had truly had a less than fantastic beginning to the point where I was surprised Mother had not simply shoved another instrument in my arms and thrown that one out the window. My piano training had begun much more smoothly.
"My mind knows what it's doing, you'll see." Freyr assured me. His smile gained a sharper edge. "We'll get a painting that's exactly what Professor Benanti wanted with copious symbolism."
I considered this. "Well, the cauldron can represent the femi—"
"—feminine mystique, yes, I know." Freyr droned. "You know, Addie's my sister, too."
"Snakes are tricky." I barrelled on as if he hadn't interrupted. "They're a symbol of healing and rebirth, or evil forces, it depends on the interpreter."
Freyr nodded along, chirpy as he slashed at the canvas with the brush.
"Like I said, she-demon." He quipped.
A pitiful whine escaped me, so high pitched some of the smooth snakes startled. "I don't want to be a she-demon. I don't think my public image can survive that type of satire."
Hogwarts: a Gossip had recently posted a ruthless piece on my apparently lacking manners, claiming my glare was akin to that of a gorgon's. Dorcas had enjoyed the article with the copious glee of one who did not suddenly find one's self under peer scrutiny, but Mother had been less than amused when similar articles had appeared in the gossip section of Witch Weekly and the society columns of The Prophet, wondering if perhaps there was truth in the magazine's claim by dissecting my behaviour at several summer events. Clearly, Hogwarts: a Gossip's reach had grown exponentially in the past two years from the small in-school magazine it had been.
"What a time to find out." Freyr commented. "Now quit squirming."
That was the last look he gave me before returning fully to his masterpiece. I sat there in silence, convinced next time he required a model I would direct him elsewhere. It had been so long since I sat for him, though, when he approached me in the train ride to Hogwarts and asked if I would consider posing for him I couldn't help but agree. Cressida always offered, and Freyr always agreed before either Addie or I knew he was in need of a model. Our little sister insisted this was the only way she and Freyr could spend some real quality time together, and since she was a Ravenclaw and didn't share a common room with us, Father had been very clear we were not to take this away from her.
I toyed with her reaction to this painting, and whether Freyr would have put not-horn horns on her head.
"There's something else," Freyr said after forty minutes of silence save for the rustle of brush upon canvas and the slithering snakes. "I've received an offer for an art apprenticeship with Dimitrius Saxon."
The news were so shocking I could do nothing but gape at him.
He cleared his throat, picking at his cheek with a short nail. "It's five years, starts right after I graduate."
"Five years?" I repeated, incredulous. "Mum and Dad won't let you. You're their only son, remember?"
Dimitrius Saxon was one of the greats. He was either 80 or 120, he refused to clarify and nobody could agree. What everyone could agree on, however, was that his art was the most magnificent, the pinnacle of the craft. He only took on a handful of students every five years, and only the most promising were considered. Exceptional talent and those with that je-ne-sais-quoi were distinguished with a tutelage offer. To train under him was akin in the art world to being tutored by Merlin himself. This was an insane opportunity, testament of Freyr's talent and efforts, but I knew Mother would be furious. This was not what she had planned.
"I've found I don't much care about what they'd like me to do or not." Freyr's shrug was a smidge too tense, but his words were honest. "I know myself."
Easy for him to say, Mum and Dad weren't looking to marry him off as soon as Hogwarts was finished. Still, Freyr had always been encouraged to pursue a career in law. Mum dreamed of the day he'd be Minister. I couldn't see it, neither did Freyr himself.
Regardless of what family drama may be unleashed by his decision, I beamed at him, giddy now that my shock had worn off. Dimitrius Saxon had seen my brother's work and had found him as extraordinary as we believed him to be. Dimitrius Saxon!
Freyr beamed right back. He placed his palette back on the little table beside him, and I took that as permission to carefully lower Koschei down from both my arms to only one. He was a big boy, and my arms were beginning to strain. He also seemed completely unbothered by the movement, content to settle around my left arm and peer curiously over the lip of the cauldron.
"It's at his New York City gallery," my brother said with a cautious look across his face.
I blinked. "As in—the States?"
Freyr tilted his head. "What other New York City is there, Merry?"
The joy that had lit me from within dimmed with a strange type of sadness that was just as equally coloured with pride. Saxon had three galleries: one in London (his very first one), one in New York, and one in Paris. As I understood from many hours spent listening to my brother moon over the artist, his New York city gallery specialised in concepts that were a little more out there, whereas the Paris one was heavily inspired by the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The London gallery accepted all styles, which is why I had assumed it was the one Freyr would have attended, since his technique was classical even if his concepts and work were a little more fantastical.
"Right." I gave a tight smile. "What did Addie say?"
"I haven't told her." Freyr shrugged at my renewed surprise, but his guilt was still obvious. "You know how she gets. If I tell her I'm going to spend five years in the thick of the American art world, she'll fall into a stupor from the improper debauchery her brain'll conjure."
Ah, yes, Adelaide Potter-Greengrass was many things and killjoy was high on the list of adjectives to describe her. She had a tendency to never lose her inhibitions, even when under the influence she never indulged enough to lose control. It allowed for mistakes, and she did not make mistakes. Which was fine, except she expected the same from us all. This would come as a great shock to her. Which brought me to my other question.
"Have you told Cressida?" I checked.
Cressida would either logically give Freyr an itemised list of why such a decision was a mistake, followed by one detailing whatever benefits she considered, or she would work herself into such a state at Freyr being away for such a length of time that eventually Mum would find out before Freyr could speak to our parents. If he had told Cressida, he and I would need to have a little chat with her and keep her quiet.
"You're the only one I've told."
We stared at each other. A quarter of me was aware, in a vague and distant sort of way, that this was a monumental moment in our relationship. Freyr had confided in me before he had even told his twin, whom he trusted with everything. The rest of me, however, was torn between tears and laughter.
"So, you're going, then."
It was more a statement than a question. At no point had he implied he was asking for help to make the decision, or wondering if he should or not. No, Freyr was not asking. He was telling me in no uncertain terms that once June rolled around he would be packing a bag and moving to the States for five years. I needed no confirmation, but my brother felt the need to offer one anyway.
"Yes, I am."
I swallowed. "This is really what you want."
"You know it is." I kept quiet, fighting a losing battle with the knot in my throat and the fire behind my eyes. Freyr fiddled with the brush in his hands. "What do you think?"
I thought there was no war in America, that my greatest fear would never be realised. I thought it was the safest place for Freyr to go, even better if he was happy and doing what he loved. I thought I missed him already.
"I think," I began, looking at Koshcei so my brother would not catch sight of the tears stinging my eyes. "If I weren't holding a viper in my arms, I'd hug you."
Freyr laughed. It was a relieved laugh as much as it was a delighted one. I tried to laugh along, but the sound was a little wet so I abandoned the endeavour and focused instead on whether Koschei enjoyed my petting him. He didn't seem too bothered by it, but I did not know enough about snakes to tell if the movements were as soothing to him as they were to me.
My brother reached out and took a hold of Koschei's sturdy body; one hand securing his head, the other on the middle of him. He plucked him from my arms and deposited him in a secure glass case on the side, but I still did not look at him. My nose had begun to tingle again; I found it strangely embarrassing that my tears would betray how important Freyr really was to me.
"Merry," he called.
I turned to him only when I was certain there was no evidence of my emotion on my face. My brother grinned, eyes bright with excitement. It was a look I often saw on James, and their similarities in that moment were striking. Both James and Freyr had very much taken after the Potter side.
"You are viper-free." He pointed out, so gentle despite the grin still on his face that I knew my cover was blown.
I threw my arms around him, anyway, leaning over the cauldron and careful not to step on any snakes. They may have been harmless, but they would still strike under threat and the bite of a grass snake hurt like hell. Freyr hugged me just as tight, swaying us from side to side as his hand rubbed my upper back.
"I'm very happy for you." I sniffled. "And proud of you."
"I know."
"I just—" I tried to swallow the knot in my throat. "I am really going to miss you."
He squeezed me a little harder. "It's only five years."
"Only." I snorted. It came out as a broken snotty sound. "That's a lot of birthdays and Christmases and other stuff. What if you like it so much you decide to stay?"
"I promise to come back for birthdays and Christmas and all that other stuff, even in the unlikely event that I decide to stay." Freyr droned, but he sounded amused. "Hell, I'll even come for your wedding."
I tensed without meaning to. My reaction was so visceral the snakes twisting about my feet hissed in warning, some even sniped at each other.
"Fabian hasn't—um… I mean, Mum and Dad only mentioned it," I stuttered. "Nothing's decided."
My face was burning for a whole other reason than tears. I could not help the way my palms grew moist and nerves fluttered about my stomach.
"Who said anything about Prewett?" Freyr scoffed.
Despite the fact that we were still hugging—he would spend five whole years in New York, that was a lot of hugs to make up for—I could hear the eye roll in his voice. A frown pulled at my features as I broke from the hug, suddenly realising I had never stopped to ask what Freyr thought about Fabian. It was not the way things worked between us. I kept out of his dating life, and he kept out of mine.
"I don't want to marry a stranger." I told him with finality even if I was confused.
It was alright for him, being the heir and all. He was expected to go on The Grand Tour after Hogwarts, and a wife complicated such important aspects in the education of a respectable pureblood wizard. His union had a little more weight than mine or my sisters', which meant Mum and Dad couldn't get him betrothed to just anyone. Arranged marriages were a dying tradition as it was, mostly practiced among the more orthodox wizarding families, whose values did not align with ours. Dad had even begun considering skipping the tradition for Cressida and me, claiming they had lucked out with Adelaide. Mum, who already came from a House that followed pureblood tradition somewhat closer than the Potter family did, had been scandalised, so I had long abandoned any hope that they would renounce the tradition by the time my turn to be betrothed came around. Freyr knew all this, and I had assumed finding out that Fabian was being considered for my hand would have relieved him.
"I have hope that won't be the case, either." He informed me, matter-of-fact, which only helped to confuse me more. My brother was unwilling to answer my unvoiced question. "I won't be moving until late June, so we've got lots of time. And when I do, you have permission to write to me or visit as often as you like."
"Really?" I gasped.
Freyr nodded, looking like he was already regretting the offer. I squealed, scrambling out of the cauldron to give him a proper squeeze. We could have such fun, if I visited! He could show me and our sisters all the cool places that he found around the city, and his progress, and where his work would be exhibited…
"Merlin!" I gushed, nostalgia forgotten. "My brother, the famous artist!"
To my greatest delight, Freyr blushed with self-satisfaction.
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, overtaken by a rare bout of abashment. "What about you?"
"Me?" I wondered as I scrubbed at my wet cheeks with the back of my hand.
"When you were little, you used to spend day and night going on about how you wanted to be a singer." He reminded me.
I scrunched up my nose at the when you were little, as if he weren't a mere year older than me. I also dislike where the conversation was going. Yes, I had wanted to be a musician. At the tender age of five.
Mum had been ecstatic and very supportive; I'd already shown promise when I was two and my ballet teacher had mentioned learning a musical instrument might help with my ability to keep rhythmic count, or lack thereof. Because apparently all the other two-year-olds, where much better at performing the choreography than me.
Three years later I could play three musical instruments, four, if one counted my own voice, and ballet classes had been dropped to only twice a week to help with the grace expected of someone of my station rather than for me to actually dance.
Mum had signed me up for extra classes, and competitions, and even summer courses at W.A.D.A.. Which had been fun at the time, of course, when I was, again, five, but the experiences had lost their shine in the following years, when I noticed my brother's thirst for art in general was never quenched no matter how many activities my mother slotted into his schedule, meanwhile music had begun to feel like a chore, no longer a hobby I enjoyed.
Mother could not see that. It had almost been like a missing piece had slotted into place, and suddenly my mother's plans for my future were fully solidified. I would be a concert pianist, or a violinist for the London Orchestra, or a singer, any of those three options she would be happy with. Nothing else would do. It was the sort of career that suited the type of girl she believed me to be. Just like Adelaide would become a landscape designer.
Addie wanted to be a landscape designer, therein lay the problem.
"Yet you haven't sang in years, not even to the radio." Freyr pointed out with an eyebrow. "And I noticed you only go into the music room when you think you're home alone."
"I have different hopes now," I said.
And it was the truth. I did not know what they were exactly—whether it was to be a curse breaker or an unspeakable—but I knew that my ambitions had shifted to other matters, that I wanted to keep music as something for myself that would divert me and bring me joy, not add more worry and tension.
"That mum and dad disagree with." Freyr realised.
I shrugged. "Figured I might have already lucked out with my betrothal, I don't want to continue to rock the boat."
My brother considered that as he organised his paints and waved his wand over the used brushes to clean them. I gave him time, moving to where my stuff laid. It was but a few seconds later, as I shrugged my school robes on top of my uniform, that Freyr said:
"Giving up… well, that's not very you, little sister. You have been much more determined in the past."
I said nothing in reply, and the subject was dropped. We spoke of nothing and everything on our way to the Tower and the serious parts of our conversation drifted from my mind. They were easy to shove away as I spent some time with Addie and Freyr by the crackling fire, playing exploding snaps and pretending like Freyr and I weren't keeping something huge from her. Yet as the evening wore on and I readied for my last Prefect patrol of the week, my brother's words became difficult to ignore. They were all I could think about as I roamed the sixth and seventh corridors of the fifth floor and kept a half-hearted eye out for any students messing about.
A/N:
OryxGreen: Yes, the relationship with her mother is definitely a little strained and will continue to hit several bumps before it can be fixed/attempted to be fixed. I always thought they knew each other from before school (I mean they would have considering Dorea Potter was a Black-and I know the whole 'blood traitor' thing but Mer's mother is from the 'sacred 28' so they had to have at least crossed paths) but I never revealed it, so I mentioned that here. As for Regulus... I have several plans I'm toying with at the minute for him, but some I'm struggling to fit into the storyboard so we'll see which one prevails. I definitely do not think he is shy. Quiet? perhaps, but not shy, more calculating. I love James! And I miss him too! I want him to be in every scene and then I'm like nope, hold your horses, you need to touch on this issue first lol Thanks for your review, and hope you like this chapter!
twilightlover427: Thank you very much! Hope you continue to read.
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