Chapter Text
You’re just trying to finish your last year at Hogwarts, avoiding the type of trouble you got up to in the previous years. Honestly, you’re a seventh year now, you don’t have time to worry about dangerous schemes or intricate plots or whatever, and besides, you should probably heed Rowan’s advice for once and actually try to focus on your school work. The NEWTs are coming up at the end of the year, and as much as you’d like to very much Not Care about them, there are only so many places in the wizarding world you can work without formal qualifications, and the Venn diagram of those particular places and the places you would never want to be caught dead in, is pretty much a circle. And besides, since Jacob, your reckless, Gryffindor, up-to-no-good brother, finally managed to free himself from the clutches of evil last winter (no thanks to him, but to none other than yourself, Penny, and Rowan, thank you very much), there shouldn’t even be anything remotely dramatic for you to worry about this year.
As you sit on the train back to school, sharing a compartment with Rowan and Penny, this is what you tell the two, with maybe a little less conviction than what you would have liked.
There is exactly one thing you have not brought up, neither in this conversation with your friends nor with yourself, and that is a certain someone by the name of Merula Snyde. Okay, so maybe you have thought a bit, or a lot, about her during the last few weeks (months (years)), but as you often tell yourself, there is no shame in self-deception, as long as no one finds out about it.
Rowan, however, seems convinced, and tells you enthusiastically that “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying as well, now that everything is fine with Jacob and the Cursed Vaults, it’s time to focus all our energy on, you know, actually doing what we’re supposed to do – learning!”
“Yeah, I know,” you say, and feel relieved that she agrees with you.
Penny, however, a dear friend you usually care a lot for, and who you’d defend in most duels given that the opponent has proven to be weaker than you on at least two occasions, says “Okay, sure, you don’t have to worry about your brother anymore, but what about Merula Snyde?”
Penny can defend herself from now on.
“What do you mean ‘what about Merula Snyde’?” you say, as levelled and seemingly clueless as you can manage, which, frankly, is not very.
“Well,” Penny explains, “I’ve heard people talking about how Snyde is, like, proper mad about everything that happened with the vaults, and she blames all of it on you. Besides, I overheard my mum talking to her friends about how her mum got out of Azkaban right before the summer holiday, but her father’s still in there, so she probably has to deal with that as well. So, you know, I don’t think she’ll be in the most forgiving mood, so you should probably sleep with one eye open in your dorm from now on.”
“Woah, what, how is any of that our problem!” Rowan exclaims, at the same time as you, without thinking, burst out “Her mum’s not in Azkaban anymore?”
Penny gives you A Look, you glare back and will your blush to disappear as quickly as it appears on your cheeks, and Penny continues, “Yep, apparently it was her dad who got the life sentence, while her mum only got six years. Why, do you care about Snyde’s wellbeing or something?”
“No, of course not, I don’t care about Snyde or her parents!”
“Okay, whatever you say.”
Penny seems about as convinced as professor Snape does when you try to explain to him that it was Merula who messed up in Potions class and not you. For reasons probably related to her valuing your friendship and her realising that you're only keeping her around for her Potions skills, Penny doesn’t push the subject.
“Anyway,” Rowan continues, “What does it all have to do with us? The vaults were destroyed, so that’s done with, and it’s not like I care if she’s pouting about her unfortunate domestic situation!”
“Yeah, same,” you say, a tad too quickly.
“Well,” Penny says, pointedly meeting your gaze, “Even if you don’t care, you both still have to share a dorm with her, and according to some rumours flying around, she is planning something as a revenge for what happened in the vaults. Knowing her, though, the plan will probably fail in some way,” she giggles, “But I’d still keep an eye out if I were you.”
“We need to ask professor Snape to remove her from our dorm if that’s truly what’s going on!” Rowan says indignantly. She turns to you, “Right?”
“Yeah,” you say, not looking at your friends, but rather staring at the hilly landscape flying by outside the window, tuning out the rest of their conversation.
Sure, you’re not exactly happy about the fact that Merula is planning something that is probably ridiculously over-the-top and plainly stupid, and where you (and by extension, Rowan and Penny) are implicated, but on the other hand…
On the other hand, you’re not exactly sad that Merula will probably pay you some attention again.