Chapter Two
Classes started on Monday, and Mia found herself late to each one of them. At one point, Professor McGonagall had stopped her in the hall and asked for a tardy pass as Mia just gave her a blank stare.
“Do you not have one?” The woman questions, looking quite unimpressed.
Mia shakes her head.
The Professor sighs, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion. “You’re a first year?”
Mia nods, looking down at her shoes but then looking up when the woman lets out a tut.
McGonagall gives her a kinder look, softening her eyes and sighing a little. She was still clearly trying to seem stern, “I’ll let you pass just this once but only this once. I’ll need to walk you to your class to make sure you get there. Which one is it?”
Mia pointed to her Potions textbook, frowning a little. She wasn’t too excited about the whole Potions class, same going for Flying which she had later this month. She found she’d never been much of a good cook and didn’t have much experience on a broom, so she wasn’t really excited about that whole aspect of school. Honestly, the brown haired girl hadn’t even been lost, she was just neglecting going to class.
“You’re a quiet one aren’t you?” The graying woman smiles, placing a gentle hand onto Mia’s shoulder.
The girl shrugs. She was much louder in her head.
“Emilia, right?”
Mia winces, but nodded all the same. She didn’t really have the time to have McGonagall guess a nickname, and the eleven year old doubted that her teacher would have the eagerness to like Pandora did.
“Ah, yes, I know you,” the woman remarks softly, guiding her along the hallways, “you’re Remus’ sister.” They were beginning to walk down to the basement, which Mia thought was a pretty creepy place to have a Potions class, but she wasn’t going to say anything.
She cringed slightly at the woman’s mention of her brother. They hadn’t spoken since the Sorting. Remus was still avoiding her like the plague and Mia was still refusing to look at him. In her mind, Remus Lupin was a traitor. If he wanted those friends of his to be his new family, then so be it. Mia knew she was a monster, but she’d always figured that Remus would at least always stick by her.
She guessed that she would just have to prepare herself for everyone to eventually fade out. Mia could deal with that. She’d find a way.
“Are you alright?” Professor McGonagall pulls her from her thoughts, and Mia blinks, coming back to herself. Sometimes she forgot she was in a real body doing real things the way she got trapped in her thoughts sometimes.
Mia nods, and then they’re at her already started Potions class.
“Well, then,” the woman sighs, clearly looking bothered, “Go on in. Try not to disturb the class too much, though, I doubt you will.”
The brown haired girl cracks a smile at that, and shares it with the woman like an orange, who smiles right back.
Inside, Potions fell into an awkward silence when she entered, and when Slughorn noticed her, he tutted, “Looks like we have a late-riser. That’ll take points off your chances of getting into Slug Club.” Like she wanted to be in that anyways. “Go ahead and find a seat. I think there’s one in the back.”
Mia immediately set her eyes to look for Pandora, but she already had her table occupied with another Slytherin. The silver haired girl gave her an apologetic look, but Mia just shrugged. She couldn’t rely on Pandora for everything; She didn’t want to suffocate the poor girl. So, instead, Mia found a seat in the back, where she shared a table with some Slytherin girl with honey blonde hair.
“I heard you’re a mute,” is the first thing she says. Mia scowls, dropping her bookbag on the ground with a thud.
“Everyone’s been talking about it,” the girl continues, chewing on a piece of gum. The Ravenclaw blinked, unsure of how to proceed. Has everyone really been talking about her? Mia hadn’t noticed anyone whispering behind her back, but maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention. The brown haired girl slid into the empty chair and began picking at her nails absentmindedly, a frown pestering her expression. She didn’t bother with paying attention to this lesson. She knew it wouldn’t interest her.
“So you are a mute?”
Mia gives her new partner a dirty look.
“I’m not saying that’s a bad thing,” the girl shrugs, “Everyone tells me I should stop talking so much. I’m Cecilia,” the blonde gives Mia a once-over very critically, “and you really shouldn’t peel your nails, it’s nice to have them long.”
Mia shrugs. It wasn’t like she purposely ravaged her fingers, it was just that she needed to do something when she was uncomfortable.
“Well, anyway. I heard your Remus’ sister, which is weird, you’re like the total opposite of eachother. Well, that’s not entirely true. You're both quiet but he’s… cool.” Mia pulls her face into one of disgust. Her brother? Cool?
Cecilia opts to ignore her expression and keeps talking, “Do you know Sirius? He’s sorta pretty, apparently even prettier than last year.”
Cecilia goes on like that for a while, and Mia just listens. She spends her time thinking about how when she was a kid, before everything, she used to like to argue. Cecilia sorta reminded her of that. Of that need to talk. Mia couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed at the Slytherin, she just felt nostalgic.
“Girls in the back! Have you even gathered your ingredients for the potion we are going to brew?” Professor Slughorn cries from the front of the classroom, and suddenly all the students' eyes are on them. Mia blinks, blushes under the attention, and tries to wrack her brain for what ingredients they were supposed to get. She shares a look with Cecilia, who’d just rolled her eyes at the situation.
“Do you even know what potion you’re making?” Slughorn interrogates once more, looking personally attacked.
Mia decides the best option is to just shake her head slowly, trying to not look like a total idiot.
“That’s ten points from Ravenclaw and Slytherin both,” the man sighs, “I expected better from the both of you.”
Mia catches Cecilia mimicking the man under her breath in a pretend gravelly voice. She lets out a laugh that sounds more like a scoff and quickly covers her mouth with her fingers, slightly embarrassed.
“Is something funny?” Slughorn questions, immediately halting in his 180 turn back to his desk. Mia shrugs, wincing a little.
“Are you going to tell us what potion we're making?” Cecilia asks after a much too long uncomfortable staring contest between Slughorn and Mia, “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”
Slughorn frowns at the pair of them, looking not angry but disappointed. He was clearly used to adoration from students. Mia can’t help but feel a little guilty. She hadn’t meant to be rude, Potions was just so boring. Plus, she hadn’t even said anything.
“That’s detention for the both of you,” Slughorn grounds out, clearly trying to not get too angry at being disrespected, “I expect to see you two here tonight, as you’ll help me clean the cauldrons.”
Cecilia lets out a groan, leaning back into her chair in annoyance. Mia glares at the girl and then at Slughorn himself. How’d she manage to land herself a detention on her first day of classes? She didn’t even talk!
“But what potion are we making?”
Slughorn takes five more points from Slytherin.
That day, while she’s making her way down to the Great Hall for lunch, James Potter and his two friends stop her in the middle of the hall, with large boyish grins on their faces.
“We heard you got detention!” James cheers, practically jumping on her and then halting when Mia flinches away.
“That’s brilliant,” Sirius Black attempts to smirk, but it just comes out awkward.
“How’d you get detention without even talking?” The blonde boy next to them questions in confusion. Mia tries not to be shocked that they knew that fact about her. It made sense for Remus to tell them. She tries not to make herself think that he’d been trying to insult her.
“Peter!” James scowls, but can’t seem to manage to get mad at the boy for too long. Adoration that ties with annoyance replaces the anger in his eyes quickly.
Mia just stands there, unsure of what she was supposed to do in that moment. She looks down at her shoes, inspects the buckle of her Mary-Jane’s. There’s a smear where her left toe sits.
“Well, anyway,” James goes to say, pulling Mia from her head, “we didn’t mean to bombard you or anything. Just congratulate you. You’re officially cooler than Remus!”
Mia rolls her eyes, a smile on her face. Like she was ever trying to achieve that.
“We’ll see you around,” Sirius says coolly, looking quite bored and maybe a little uncomfortable. James nods, shooting the girl a thumbs up before walking away with his group. Mia stands in the corridor by herself for a moment, trying to process everything. Then her stomach growls, and she decides lunch surely couldn’t wait.
Pandora was there waiting for her, buttering some toast with a letter in her lap. She looked bothered by something. Mia sat down across from her, grabbing an apple with a sigh. At the noise, the silver haired girl looks up and shakes her head.
“You shouldn’t have gotten detention,” Pandora frowns, “you weren’t even the one talking. Cecilia was the one being quite snarky, not you.”
Mia shrugs, taking a bite from her apple. There was nothing she could do now.
“I can’t stand things not going right,” Pandora frowns, taking another angry bite of toast, “It was so obvious, too, that you weren’t involved.” Another angry bite, she begins talking through her food, “Plus, taking away ten points and a detention seems a bit overdramatic.”
The brown haired girl shrugs once more. She didn’t see the point in talking about it. Instead, she gestured over to the letter in her friend’s lap, a curious look on her face.
Pandora took another angry bite. “It’s from my parents. They’re quite upset, they wanted me to be in Slytherin, like my brother.” Mia raises an eyebrow, like a question. She didn’t know much about Pandora, now that she thought about it, and an insight into her family seemed like a big step. Mia couldn’t help feeling a bit giddy about it. She felt like such a freak.
“His name is Rodolphus, he’s in his fifth year,” Pandora sighs, folding the edges of the letter with a frown. The brown haired girl couldn’t help but frown a little too. It seemed Pandora was full of bright light, and to see her like this was… well, upsetting. Desperately, Mia wanted to say something nice. Something comforting.
She parted her lips, trying to get the words to dislodge. Pandora didn’t seem to notice, so focused on the letter. Mia, instead of letting a word out, huffed in frustration, and took another bite of her apple, trying to think on what to say. She would’ve written it, but the problem wasn’t that she couldn’t just speak, it was that she didn’t have the words. It was all a mess.
“I’m not sure what to write back… Ravenclaw isn’t a horrible house, of course, but I know it’s not the best look. My father doesn’t care much, but my mother…” Pandora goes silent once more, tucking a strand of silver hair behind her ear, “Just pointless things, really.”
Mia frowns, desperate to do something to make her friend feel better. So, the brown haired girl reaches a hand out on the table, and grabs Pandora’s own, squeezing it tight. Her friend looks up in shock, but manages to hide her surprise quickly with a grin, squeezing Mia’s hand right back. They sit like that for a moment, hand lines on hand lines, until nothing matters too much anymore. Not the full moon, not a letter and not anything in between.
“I’m glad you found my compartment,” Pandora whispers, just for Mia to hear.
Mia nods, hoping Pandora knew that meant she felt the same.
The first week of classes passed by quickly, along with the detention on Monday, that was spent scrubbing cauldrons in silence. Mia got through her schoolwork quite easily, and found she spent most of her freetime in the library or in her dorm, sleeping. Sometimes Frank would come see her and Pandora, and the three of them would play exploding snap in the Great Hall. The only problem with the week going by so fast was that the full moon crept closer and closer. The brown haired girl couldn’t help but look at the ceiling of the Ravenclaw common room and stare at the moon.
It was almost full.
She wondered how her brother felt right about now. Mia wouldn’t admit it to herself, but she was scared to transition in a new place, away from the comfort of her own home and from what she was used to. Dumbledore had promised her a safe place though, far from her brother (so they wouldn’t harm each other in wolf form) and far from prying eyes.
Days before the full moon, they had to do a dissection in Potions to learn the anatomy of a frog, and what could be used inside as ingredients for a brew. Cecilia had held the legs and arms of the frog down so Mia could cut into its chest. Her hands shook so bad she could barely focus.
Her mind felt foggy. She thought about sharp claws and little girls and a scar along her stomach.
“Are you alright?” Cecilia asks beside her, “You look like you’re going to puke.”
Mia nods, though she did feel a bit lightheaded. She wasn’t about to make that known though.
Cecilia groans, “Then, if you’re not gonna spew, just cut into the bloody thing!”
The brown haired girl lets out an annoyed huff, but nevertheless, goes back to moving the scalpel over the frog’s stomach, trying not to think about whether or not the amphibian had a family. That was quite a stupid thought to have.
But, maybe the frog had a brother. Or a mother. Or maybe a kid. And now it was just… dead. Decomposed.
“Well?” Cecilia sighs, “It’s getting gross holding the legs of this thing.”
The girl looks back down at the frog, at where the blonde’s holding its legs and its arms. Her thumb was over the poor thing’s face.
Mia blinks, drops the scalpel, and feels her eyes roll back as she drops to the floor.
Apparently, as Madam Pomfrey had told her, she’d fainted and hit her head on the corner of the table on the way down. The woman had fixed the heavy bleeding in a flash, but Mia had been instructed to stay in the Hospital Wing for the night.
“Don’t worry too much, dear,” Pomfrey sighs, walking over to Mia’s bed with a tray of medicine, “Lots of students faint the first time they have to do a dissection. Sensitive souls, really.”
The brown haired girl didn’t know if she enjoyed being called a sensitive soul.
“Here, drink this, it will help with the headache,” the woman smiles, passing over a small jar filled with a dubious purple slodge. Mia frowns, looking unsure, but after a pointed look from Pomfrey, downs it in one gulp, doing her best not to gag. It tasted like moldy mint leaves.
“I know you must be worried about…” Pomfrey doesn’t finish her sentence. Mia knew what she was talking about and shuddered. Her head still hurt bad. She couldn’t get the image of the frog out of her mind. She felt like going vegetarian.
“But I will be there to take care of you, as I do your brother,” the woman finishes, clearly not wanting to press. She’d probably noticed Mia’s discomfort. With that, the witch walks away, taking the now empty jar with her as she gives Mia one last sympathetic look.
Later that evening, Frank and Pandora come to visit her, chocolate frogs stuffed in their pockets.
Frank has his hand on the back of his head again when he says, “We probably should’ve thought about the whole frog aspect before we brought them.” Mia lets out a little laugh and shrugs.
Pandora hands her one with a smile, “These ones we’ll eat.”
Mia cracks a smile, unwrapping a chocolate frog and quickly popping it into her mouth. It reminds her of when their father used to buy her and Remus chocolate on bad days. She tried not to think about that. Her father had been gone forever and Remus hadn’t come to visit her yet in the Hospital Wing.
“Don’t feel too bad about it,” Frank says after a moment of quiet, “Dissections are rough. But soon you’ll get into all the magic instead of this rubbish practical stuff. I almost fainted the first time I had to do a dissection too.”
So everyone keeps telling her, but Mia hadn’t heard of anyone else actually fainting like she did.
“It is always admirable to have empathy for a creature,” Pandora nods in agreement, taking hold of her friend’s hand. Mia latches onto the comfort, trying to memorize the feeling of the girl’s hand on her own. It was good to have some nice memories before a full moon, it made the transition easier.
“How are you eleven?” Frank laughs, with a shake of his head. He pops a chocolate frog into his mouth and doesn't bother to cover his chewing. Mia looks at him in mock disgust. “You sound like a wise fifty year old.”
“I’m twelve actually,” Pandora corrects smugly, “I have a summer birthday.”
“So, you’re a…” Frank tries to think, “I dunno? What thing are you?”
“Thing?” The silver haired girl frowns, giving the boy a pointed look.
Frank blushes, clearly embarrassed. Mia predicts that he’ll move his hand to the back of his head before he actually does it.
“Y’know, Mia’s a Tori and you’re a…?”
Pandora rolls her eyes, but smiles albeit. “Mia’s a Taurus. My birthday’s June 24th so I’m a Cancer.”
Frank nods, slouching further in his seat. He clearly still didn’t understand any of it. Pandora and Mia share a humored look, and the brown haired girl feels a warmness in her she hasn’t felt in awhile. This was nice. This was right. She doesn't know how she’s managed to have such nice friends, but does her best to memorize every moment of having them. Mia knows this won’t last long, eventually they’ll find out she’s a monster and be forced to ditch her.
But right now, they were here and everything was good. Right now, Mia could breathe.
“Alright, you two,” Madam Pomfrey finally pulls the curtains back, a stern look on her face, “Let my patient get some rest. Godric knows she needs it.”
Frank groans but gets up all the same. Pandora squeezes her hand just a little more, and then she’s up too.
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” the silver haired girl smiles, waving as she and Frank walk away.
Now it was just Mia in the Hospital Wing with Madam Pomfrey. When Mia turns to the window, she realizes the sun has set during the time spent with Frank and Pandora. The girl had sort of hoped that maybe her brother would visit her but knew with how late it was, Remus probably wasn’t planning on it. But of course he hadn’t been. For one reason or another, he didn’t want anything to do with her. A tear started to form in her eye and she immediately blinked it away. No use crying over some stupid boy. Even if it was a brother.
“Lay back, dear,” Madam Pomfrey sighs, swishing her wand so the sheets of the bed move all the way up to Mia’s chin and the pillow under her head fluffs up. Mia stiffens, feeling sort of suffocated but also very safe.
“Do you need a sleeping drought?”
Mia almost laughs at that. If there was one thing she could do, it was sleep. On the weekends, she could snooze until noon. Instead of laughing though, the girl opts to just shake her head, a nice smile on her face.
“Alright then, I sent a letter out to your mother to let her know what happened, so expect a reply soon,” Madam Pomfrey says kindly, “sleep well.” And then she leaves, closing the curtain shut behind her, and Mia is alone again, full of chocolate and warm to her chin.