Chapter Four
Something had shifted between Mia and Pandora after the full moon. Pandora seemed to be walking on eggshells around her, and the brown haired girl wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react or what it was about. She figured her friend was probably just getting tired of her and didn’t really want to hang out anymore. Mia couldn’t fault her for it, though it did make her sad.
“The weather’s nice and cool now,” the silver haired girl remarks one afternoon, when the two of them were laying against the large tree next to Black Lake. It was true, September had finally given way to October, and Mia’s favorite time of year was finally beginning to stir.
“I quite like October, don’t you?”
Mia nods in agreement. For once, Pandora does not look satisfied with the lack of words. She sighs.
Mia purses her lips, pulling at the end of her sweater. She suddenly feels very uncomfortable and finds it suffocating that she cannot escape her own body.
“Do you remember flying lessons?” Pandora suddenly brightens, sitting up onto her elbows as the sun glints into her eyes, “I can’t believe you almost fell off your broom!” She’s laughing now and MIa finds she can breathe again.
The brown eyed girl rolls her eyes, shoving Pandora’s shoulder and giving her a false annoyed look. She didn’t want to talk about flying lessons. Her brother had teased her mercilessly for it already and practically the whole class of First Years knew about her incident. At least Remus was talking to her again, even if it was just to tease.
“Oi! Girls,” a voice calls, as the two of them turn their heads at the same time. They recognized that voice anywhere. Frank was probably coming to them to complain or poke fun at them. Both he managed to do in a friendly manner, which Mia thought only Frank Longbottom could manage at.
“What is it, Frank?” Pandora smiles, patting a space of grass beside them for the boy to sit. Frank does so eagerly, plopping down with little grace as his brown hair stumbles into his eyes.
“You won’t believe it,” he says, still smiling, looking a little stupid.
Mia gives an impatient look, waiting for him to continue.
“I’ll believe anything,” Pandora says quite bluntly, “If it’s got some merit.” Once again, she sounded a thousand years old. Mia admired the talent.
“Well then,” Frank blinks, slightly deterred. He opts to continue.
“I’m in love.”
Mia’s lips part slightly, eyes wide as she gives the boy a look. Frank Longbottom? In love? Mia couldn’t name one girl willing to go six feet near him at the moment. Well, actually, maybe she could, though she doubts that her and Pandora counted. There was also her, who Mia figured to be the answer based on literally everything.
“With who?” Pandora hums, taking a handful of Mia’s long hair into her hands and beginning to braid it absentmindedly. The girl leaned into the touch, taking it for granted because she knew this wouldn’t last forever. Pandora was already beginning to slip away from her. Mia’s heart beat nervously.
“Only the most amazing girl,” Frank sighs, falling back onto the grass with his arms out wide, like he was prepared to craft a snow angel.
“Does she know you exist?” Pandora asks, though not unkindly. Mia let out a small giggle, even though she knew her friend didn’t mean it in an insulting way. Pandora was sort of unaware of the way her candid speaking could be twisted negatively, even if she had no ill intentions in the first place.
At least, that’s just what Mia’s observed.
“As a matter of fact,” Frank sighs, quite glum, “She doesn’t.”
Mia giggles again, but then stops herself when Pandora tugs on her braid disapprovingly.
“It’s not funny!” The Gryffindor scowls, sitting up quickly and crossing his arms over his chest.
“It’s not,” Pandora agrees, tying off Mia’s braid with a flick of her wand. She then pours all her focus into Frank, and the brown eyed girl tries not to feel so dispirited about it. “Who is it?”
Frank purses his lips, seeming to mull over the question, probably deciding whether or not he wanted to tell them.
He kicks his legs up to his chest, and plops his chin on his knees, giving his two friends a onceover, “You can’t tell.”
Mia gives him a look. Frank cracks a smile. “Pandora,” he corrects, “You can’t tell anyone.”
The blue eyed girl nods, putting a hand over her heart. It was hard to believe she could do any wrong when she looked as honest as that.
Frank seems to agree because he immediately breaks, “It’s Quinn Faisley.”
Oh, Mia thinks, blinking away her shock, so not Alice. She’d figured it was Alice Fortesque because Alice had apparently liked him since first year and that just seemed like the way of things. Cecilia had told her all about it in Potions when they were supposed to be working.
She starts to wrack her brain on who Quinn Faisley is, and a head of bleached hair and red lipstick comes into mind. Pandora seems to share her shock but is able to hide it better.
“The Hufflepuff?”
Frank nods, looking a little dazed. Probably daydreaming.
“She’s my dream girl,” he breathes, unraveling his body and falling back onto the grass. Mia raises her eyebrows, and hopes whenever she forms a crush, if she does, she wont act so horribly embarrassing. She didn’t know if she could bear it.
“How do you know that?” Pandora questions, poking Frank’s foot with her finger to get him to stir, “You haven’t even talked to her. You can’t be in love with her if you haven’t talked to her.” The boy just shrugs, staring up into the cloudy sky. Mia shakes her head, giving Pandora a look. The silver haired girl nods in agreement.
He was being such a boy.
“It’s a feeling,” Frank hums, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Pandora kicks his foot this time, which the thirteen year old just flinches back at, laughing a little. Mia scowls at him. Understand when she’s older? He was only two years older than them! Plus, she definitely didn’t believe that. Mia didn’t see herself falling in love and besides, kissing was probably gross.
Pandora gives her an annoyed look, nodding her head over to Frank unsubtly. Mia cracks a grin, rolling her eyes in agreement.
“Well,” the silver haired girl sighs, “Nothing will change if you don’t talk to her. I’m sure Quinn would like you!”
Frank sits up at that, frantically shaking his head. “I can’t talk to her. I plan to play it coolly.”
“Uh-huh,” Pandora nods, unbelieving. Mia facepalms, also unbelieving.
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“By working my charm of course,” Frank smiles, swiping a hand through his knotted hair. His fingers get stuck halfway, and he has to work at it a bit before he can get through all the knots.
Maybe brush your hair first, Mia thinks, but doesn’t say. She almost laughs at her own thoughts.
“You can’t work your,” Pandora puts up air quotes at the next word, “‘charm’ if you don’t talk to her.”
“You don’t have to believe me,” Frank shrugs, “But watch. Quinn Faisley will want to go out with me by the holidays.” Mia purses her lips, digging in her robe’s pocket for two knuts. She holds them up to the boy.
“Are you seriously going to bet?” He asks, disbelieving.
Mia nods.
“Alright,” he shrugs, “But it’s your knuts you’re losing.”
He laughs at his own words, and Mia looks at him in disgust.
Pandora sighs, “I think someone’s calling for you, Frank.”
Sure enough, a group of third year boys were over in the courtyard, beginning to walk over. Mia sincerely hoped that they didn’t. Frank turns his head and widens his eyes, quick to get up.
“I totally forgot!” He exclaims, “I promised I’d go watch Gryffindor’s Quidditch tryouts. I’ll see you two, alright?”
Pandora smiles, “Of course.”
Mia just shrugs.
When Frank leaves, beckoned over by his third-year friends, it’s like Pandora and her go back to being awkward. Pandora’s looking at her, really studying her, and Mia feels both giddy and also embarrassed by the attention.
It takes a moment and then Pandora says, “Your scar. It got deeper.”
Mia blushes, a little ashamed as she brushes her hand against the moon crescent. The last full moon had almost taken the eye out, and though Pomfrey could work a lot of magic, she couldn’t fix all of it. The crescent had become longer, much angrier and another scar criss crossed it, forming a ugly X. Mia had sworn off mirrors completely.
And now Pandora had noticed it. She probably thought Mia was ugly. Absolutely hideous. For some reason, that thought made Mia feel even more deep shame than however way she got the scar.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Pandora frowns, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “I just noticed. What happened when you went to the Hospital Wing? It didn’t look like that before.”
Mia tugs on the sleeves of her sweater, wanting to dig her own grave in the ground below her. She didn’t know what to say, and Pandora looked like she wanted her to. Badly. What was she to do with that?
“Can’t you write it?” The girl asks after a moment, tucking another strand behind her ear. It was a nervous tick.
Mia purses her lips. No, she thought, I can’t.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t talk, it was that she didn’t want to. She didn’t want people to see her, didn’t want them to look, and yet Pandora always seemed focused on her. It was awful. It was wonderful. She didn’t know what to do with it.
“Alright,” her friend says after a moment, looking disappointed and maybe annoyed, “You don’t have to tell me. I know it’s wrong to push.” Then, she’s looking at her wristwatch and getting up.
“I have to go,” Pandora sighs, “Rodulphus wanted to see me. You’ll be alright?”
Mia nods, though she didn’t feel very alright. She felt awful. Pandora was staring too hard and Mia was afraid that she could almost actually see her. But before she can, Pandora turns away, picking up her bookbag and making the trek across the courtyard back to Hogwarts.
Mia sits by herself, under the great big tree, and closes her eyes.
This, she thinks, is when it starts. When it all starts falling apart.
Her and Remus sit together quietly in the library, and he’s brought one of his friends along with him. It’s Peter, who Mia has decided she likes the best, because the blonde boy knew the right times to be quiet and the right times to be funny. And when he was funny, he was actually funny.
“You didn’t sit by Pandora at breakfast this morning,” Remus comments offhandedly, clearly trying to seem casual. Now that he didn’t want to ignore her anymore, her brother kept trying to poke at and examine her life. Clearly, he could only be one extreme or the other.
Mia tries not to be so annoyed by his statement. It was the truth, she hadn’t sat with her friend. She’d been avoiding her for the whole day, ever since yesterday afternoon. Pandora sat with her brother at the Slytherin table, and Mia chose to sit alone.
“You could’ve sat with us,” Remus shrugs, not looking up from his book.
Mia shrugs right back. She hadn’t wanted to push it. She’d spent some time mulling over her brother’s words, and was slowly beginning to understand them. He had something of his own, completely separate from their childhood and any bad, and Mia didn’t want to put a blotch in it. Plus, it would have felt stupid running to her brother for comfort because she didn’t have anyone to sit with.
“It would’ve been nice,” Peter interjects, “You’d balance out the complete headache that’s Sirius and James.”
Mia sends the boy a smile at that. It was true, James had a habit of yapping about a certain redhead all around the school halls, and Sirius had also made it a habit of being his wingman.
“Her?” Remus frowns, something like amusement in his eyes, “Oh, no. My sister here will talk your ear off. A walking headache, Peter. I mean it.”
Mia shoves him in the shoulder. He doesn’t laugh but Mia can tell her brother wants to.
“Remus?” Peter blinks, looking a little shocked. “Did you just tell a joke?”
Remus scratches at his head, “Yes,” he says, “I guess I did. What about it?”
Peter nods slowly, his lips pursed to keep from laughing, and he’s clearly still processing the whole thing. Mia’s expression mirrors him, and for a moment, her and Peter share a look of understanding. The Ravenclaw swallows her laughter down, turning back to her brother much calmer as he looks at the two of them in annoyance.
“What is it?” Remus huffs, closing his book.
“Nothing,” Peter shrugs, still smiling, “Just thought you were all tough, s’all. I’m relieved to know you have a funny bone.”
“Oh shove off!” Remus groans, shaking his head and opening his book back up once more. Mia can’t help but smile. She liked seeing her brother this way, the way he is with his friends. He feels less burdened.
The three of them fall into silence, and after a moment of staring at nothing in particular, Mia is startled when Remus uses his wand to pat at her Potions essay she’d been writing.
“Back to it,” he says, not even looking up. Mia groans, kicking his leg under the table, but picks up her quill albeit.
The week leading up to October is awkward, to say the least. Her and Pandora are not necessarily avoiding each other, but aren’t as close as usual. Frank takes notice, along with a lot of people, but doesn’t push on it. Mia spends most of her time with Cecilia, which is quite shocking. It wasn’t that Mia didn’t like the girl, she was just startled by her. Especially after the incident in the library.
“This is just miserable,” the blonde complains, aggressively crushing the snake fangs with a pestle. Mia watches in discomfort, slightly alarmed, but goes back to stirring their porcupine quills for their boil cure. They really needed to get a good grade, as both had managed to get a Troll on their last assignment. To say the least, neither girl was very solid in the class.
“Isn’t it supposed to be pink?” Cecilia questions, dropping the powdered snake fangs into their brew. A grey cloud began to brew, and both girls winced. Mia frowns, turning back to the textbook, hoping no one, especially Slughorn, had noticed them yet.
“Are we doing alright?” Her partner asks, sounding unsure.
Mia just shrugs, deciding to continue on with the ingredients, as Cecilia just shrugs too, complicit in the destruction of their grade.
“Too late to turn back now,” the Slytherin sighs, “Could you get the horned slugs? They give me the creeps.”
Mia sends a thumbs up, walking to the front of the classroom where all the ingredients sat waiting. Slughorn was there, and when he noticed the girl, he shook his head.
“I do hope you and Ms. Tyler are faring much better today,” he says quite pointedly, as Mia rolls her eyes, trying to be subtle about it but knowing she wasn’t. The brown eyed girl opts to ignore the man, instead using her hand to grab four horned slugs and make a beeline back to her table.
When she got back, Cecilia’s hair was beginning to rise from the humidity.
“What is it?” The girl asks, patting at her head. Mia shakes her head, figuring it was best not to say. Unceremoniously, the Ravenclaw drops the slugs into the cauldron and tries not to feel so terrible about it. Gesturing to the fire, her partner seems to understand, as with a flick of her wand, the flame ceases to exist.
They begin to stir clockwise, just as the potion begins to brew black, when Mia reads over the book once more.
Oh.
Her eyes widen, making sure to read the steps once more, just in case her eyes were being deceiving. They weren’t. She tugs on Cecilia’s sleeve, and when the Slytherin turns to her, she gestures over to the book.
“Oh dear,” the blonde voices when she reads the page, “Only two porcupine quills? After the horned slugs?”
They both know it’s going to happen before it does. Before they can do anything to stop it, their potion explodes, and the two girls let out a scream as their robes are soaked and their skin begins to burn.
“Salazar Slytherin!” Professor Slughorn gasps from the front of the room, as Mia feels everyone’s eyes on her. “Girls, are you alright?”
“No!” Cecilia shrieks, patting at her robes. Mia’s eyes are wide, and she turns her back on the classroom, trying to ignore everyone and everything. She couldn’t actually quite process what was going on.
“That is what you do not do!” Slughorn takes the opportunity to lecture the class, an afterthought to his initial terror.
Mia scowls, just as she feels her skin start bubbling up angrily. She hears Cecilia’s scream before she sees the issue at hand.
“Your skin!” Cecilia gasps, hands clamping over her mouth. Mia looks up towards the girl, and her eyes widen when she sees her appearance.
Cecilia Tyler was covered in large, overgrown boils that looked more like pimples than anything. And, Mia didn’t have to be a detective to know she probably was covered in them too. Her stomach bubbles with terror. Instead of screaming, the Ravenclaw just points at Cecilia, eyes still wide.
“No,” the blonde whispers in horror, seeming to realize.
Mia just nods, slightly apologetic.
What comes next is a shock. Cecilia turns toward their cauldron, and quite literally vomits. Vomits. Mia can’t look, she turns around as quickly as she can. Their class is laughing and it is chaos and Mia wants to die. Like actually keel over and die. She hopes Pandora isn’t looking.
Mia ignores the thought, pretending she couldn’t feel her friend’s stare.
Mia and Cecilia end up having to drink a successful Cure for Boils potion, which just so happens to be brewed by Pandora herself. Mia can’t look the silver haired girl in the eyes when she takes the vial, just downs it in one gulp with the apples of her cheeks flaming red. She can feel her friend’s sympathetic stare and scowls at her shoes.
They get another Troll in the class and become the funniest story in Hogwarts by the next day.
At the very least, the rest of her classes go a bit better, and she ends up able to turn in all her late work. Professor McGonagall had still looked displeased about her having late work in the first place, though. By the weekend, Mia had successfully avoided Pandora and any shame or questioning she might face. The only place she couldn’t get around her was their dorm, and there, Mia always went up early and fell asleep before Pandora could speak to her.
Despite the fact it was her fault they weren’t talking, Mia still missed the girl like she would miss a lung.
She tried not to think about it, feeling it was for the better. She’d talk to her soon, just not now. Right now, Pandora probably looked at her and saw boils and ugly scars as most people in the school did.
Cecilia had been hiding her face under the hood of her robes since Potions class and whenever the two of them walked next to a big crowd, laughter always seemed to follow suit. Remus and his friends both have tried talking to her, but Mia has decided to avoid them too. Next week, she decides, is when she’ll face them all.
“I’m the shame of Slytherin,” Cecilia sighs from next to her, pulling her robe farther down her face. Mia sends the girl a frown. They seemed to form a quiet solidarity with each other in the face of their torment. Being the laughing stock of Hogwarts seemed to do that to you. Mia turns back to her doodling, absentmindedly sketching whatever was on her mind. She couldn’t really make it out now, but figured she would soon.
“I might as well just go back to being some muggle,” Cecilia continues, taking a bite from her strawberry cake. They were in the Kitchens, a slightly hidden room in Hogwarts basement that Mia’s brother had told her about. It was filled with House Elves, who were nice company on a regular day and even better company on days where regular Hogwarts students only laughed when they saw her.
“Squiggly doesn’t think Mistress Cecilia should! Squiggly enjoys her company very much,” a kind House Elf gasps, coming around with a plate of cookies to drop in front of the blonde. Mia looks over with raised eyebrows.
“Thank you, Squiggly,” the Slytherin sniffs, wiping at her eyes. The House Elf nods, and scrambles away, clearly unused to the attention.
“They already hate me for being muggleborn,” Cecilia groans, dropping her face into the palms of her hand, “And now this.”
“It’s unbelievable,” she continues, voice muffled in the sleeve of her robe.
Mia nods along, continuing to doodle what was beginning to look like a girl’s face.
“What’s that?” Cecilia perks up, leaning over the table to get a better look. Mia goes to hide the drawing, for whatever reason, but isn’t quick enough.
“Is that Pandora?” The blonde grins, giving Mia a look she can’t decipher.
The brown eyed girl shrugs, looking back down at the drawing. She supposed it did look a little like her silver haired friend, with the sloped nose and thin lips. Mia feels weird, and scratches the drawing out.
“It was nice,” Cecilia comments, shrugging a little as she grabs a cookie and takes a nibble. Mia rolls her eyes, and crushes the parchment within her palm. Cecilia doesn’t say another word about it.
They eat in silence after that, and by Sunday, Cecilia is back to sitting with her Slytherin friends when a new, more entertaining story in Hogwarts begins to spread.
That morning, Mia goes to sit in her usual spot at the Ravenclaw table, and when she goes to take her place, there’s something waiting for her.
It’s a piece of origami made of parchment and magic, and when Mia picks it up, she realizes it’s a butterfly as it flaps its wings out of her hand and flies around her. She lets out a quiet laugh, just under her breath, and her eyes immediately go to the girl she knows made it.
Pandora was already looking at her with a smile that really was an olive branch.
Despite it all, Mia smiles back, guilty and wrong and able to breathe again.
Her friend is quick to remove herself from the Slytherin table, and even quicker to grab Mia’s hand and pull her out of the hall.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” is the first thing Pandora says when she pulls the two of them into an empty classroom. Mia purses her lips, uncomfortable. The smile had been wiped clean from her face. Pandora was just looking at her, really seeing her, and Mia couldn’t hide even if she wanted to. And maybe she didn’t really want to.
“I wasn’t going to judge you,” Pandora sighs, “I mean, you’re absolutely rubbish in Potions and it’s a little funny what happened, but I would never judge you for it. Never.”
Mia just stares at her, and she wants to say what she’s thinking. She does. But she’s scared to. Scared because if she talks, she knows what it means. She lets Pandora continue.
“And the whole thing about you telling me what happened in the Hospital Wing? You don’t have to. You must think I was annoyed at you for not speaking to me, but that’s just not the case. I wasn’t annoyed at you, I was just annoyed that I didn’t understand something for once,” she rambles and Mia just listens, eyes wide and mouth slightly open.
“I just want to understand you,” Pandora sighs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “I want to know you. But you just, I don’t know, hide from me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and then Pandora says, “I would never judge you. Not for anything. You’ve never judged me.”
Mia thinks about it for a second. Thinks about everything. She thinks about fading and hiding and closing her eyes and trying to be everything she wasn’t. If she were to speak to Pandora, make herself known, would the girl run or would she stay? Mia knew that if she ever told her friend the truth about who she was, Pandora would run the other way. But the silver haired girl didn’t have to know everything. Just a part of her.
The part that liked sunsets and the color navy and Nora Sparks.
“I promise I won’t,” Pandora says once more, and then she has her hand over her heart. Mia stares at her for a moment and her heart beats hard.
“I,” Mia begins, and then she’s quiet. Pandora widens her eyes, but doesn’t dare move. Her hand is still over her heart.
Mia’s terrified. She feels claws on her mouth. She can’t do it. She tried and she couldn't do it. The classroom is dark and yet a hundred eyes on her. Mia shouldn’t have spoken. It was too much. Too fast. She hated change. Her scar burned and her hands shook and this was too much, too fast-
A hand reaches out for her own. Pandora’s grip is nice and firm and warm.
For a second, Mia can breathe. There are no claws on her lips. She’s eleven and her friend is twelve and they are at Hogwarts and they are safe. No one dangerous can see her.
“It’s alright,” Pandora whispers, squeezing her hand once more. She’s safe. Pandora’s safe. It’s alright. “You don’t have to.”
Mia’s heart is still beating fast by the time they make it back to the Great Hall, but Pandora doesn’t remove her hand from her, and she takes the spot at the Ravenclaw table next to her. When the butterfly of parchment notices them, it flies around their hands and then their heads, and lets itself land on Mia’s shoulder with a flutter.
She lets out a gentle laugh and feels much lighter, the terror slowly stepping out of her.
Mia takes a bite of her eggs and listens as Pandora rambles on about her latest story. It’s about a ghost that asks to share a body with a girl.