Chapter 3
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
— Voltaire
Her eyes glided over the parchment, rereading the last line over and over.
“If I knew what love was I’d quote myself.”
She stared at the paper for so long that her vision went blurry, drawing imaginary and thorny lines that budded from the letter-tips of one word to wrap around the others until the letter was just a chaotic mess of swaddled words and tangled bonds.
She hadn’t expected an answer. She’d thought it was a joke, someone having a laugh. Who sent love letters these days? Caradoc Dearborn, apparently.
“Mary?”
She smiled to herself, the letters imprinted on her cornea so that when she looked up from the parchment the words still danced before her eyes. “Hm?” she answered absentmindedly.
“What are you smiling at, Marisol?” Marlene’s teasing voice travelled through the circular dorm room, bouncing off the stone walls. Marlene was the only person who called her by her real name, the only person allowed to.
“Yeah, you’ve been staring at that piece of parchment for twenty minutes,” Alice budded in.
“Er— nothing,” she said, quickly refolding the parchment and turning to put it in her bed table drawer.
“Hold on! You’re not getting away with it that easily.” Marlene grabbed the parchment from her hands, swerving out of the way as Mary jumped up from her bunk to get the letter back.
“Oi Marlene, I want a peek too!” Alice followed Marlene around the dorm, both giggling mercilessly as they scanned the letter.
“‘Dear Mary Macdonald—’ wait, is this what I think it is?” Marlene’s mouth promptly fell open as realisation dawned on her. “Is this… a love letter?”
Mary danced after them, trying to snatch the letter from Marlene’s sticky hands. “No,” she responded defensively.
“Oh, she’s definitely lying,” Alice whispered in Marlene’s ear, glancing at Mary. “She always gets this strange glint in her eyes when she lies.”
“No I don’t! I’m a great liar.” She was. She could talk herself in and out of everything.
“Ha! So you admit you’re lying!” A glorious smile spread onto Alice’s face, holding up her hand to accept a high-five from Marlene.
“Ugh, fine,” Mary sighed, accepting defeat. “Yes, it’s a letter—”
“—A love letter.”
“It’s from this boy, Caradoc Dearborn. He’s a Hufflepuff fifth year. I don’t really know him very well, and he definitely didn’t strike me as the type of person to write love letters… but he’s actually kind,” she said, strictly avoiding Marlene’s eyes.
“Pretty good writer too,” Alice said, taking the letter from her friend and reading the last few lines aloud. “‘If I knew what love was I’d quote myself.’ That’s quite poetic.” She handed the letter back to Mary.
“You reckon he’s being serious?” She asked them, sitting down on her four-poster and resting her hands on her ankles. More than enough boys had shown interest in her over the years, but it had never turned into anything worthwhile. It always ended in heartbreak.
“He sounds pretty serious,” Alice said as she plopped down next to Mary, her dark almond eyes reflecting the golden light of the fireplace.
“I don’t think blokes write poetry for people they simply want to snog,” noted Marlene from across the room.
“Yeah, maybe,” Mary nodded. There was a beat of silence before she added, “and if he isn’t, at least I’ll get a fun time out of it.” She shrugged, pushing her uncertainty down, masking it with a smile.
Mary was the first to wake up in her dormitory the next morning. She lay there for a moment, watching dust swirl in the ray of sunlight that was coming through the gap in her four-poster’s hangings.
Judging by the sleepy silence and the freshly minted look of the beam of sunlight it was just after daybreak. She pulled the curtains around her bed open, got up and started to dress. The only sound apart from the distant twittering of birds was the slow, deep breathing of her dormmates. While rummaging for some socks in her trunk her eye fell on Lily, who was still vastly asleep in her bed, red hair pulled up into a bun. She’d been on prefect duty with Remus the previous night and had come into their dorm when the other girls were already asleep. She smiled, averted her gaze and carefully opened her school bag, pulling out parchment and quill before heading down to the common room.
Making straight for her favourite squashy old armchair beside the softly lit fire, Mary settled herself down comfortably and unrolled her parchment while looking around the room. The detritus of crumpled-up bits of parchment, old Gobstones and sweet wrappers that usually covered the common room at the end of each day were gone; the house-elves had already been by to clean. She uncorked her ink bottle, dipped her quill into it, then held it suspended an inch above the smooth yellowish surface of her parchment, thinking hard… but after a minute or so she found herself staring into the glowing fire, at a complete loss for what to say.
She sat quite motionless for a while, gazing into the fireplace, then, finally as a gaping yawn struck her, came up with something to write. She dipped her quill into the ink bottle once more and set it resolutely on the parchment.
Dear Caradoc,
Did you know it takes eleven muscles to yawn? This is the sort of weird fact I find myself recalling to keep myself from… well, yawning… especially during History of Magic or late Astronomy classes. My friend Alice told me that fact on my very first day here, six years ago, for some reason it’s stuck with me ever since. So, yeah, I guess I turn to other people’s words too.
When you’re a pretty girl — and I know this makes me sound conceited — but that’s why you’re even writing to me, right? Anyway… when you’re the ‘pretty girl’, people want to give you things, but what they really want is to make you like them. Not ‘like them’ as in ‘I like you’ but ‘like them’ as in ‘I am like you.’
I have many people sprinkled throughout Hogwarts others might consider to be my ‘friends’, but truthfully I only have a few with whom I can really be myself.
So, I’m like a lot of people. Which makes me kind of no one.
She reread the letter several times before carefully signing her name.
Considering it was a short letter, it had taken a long time to write; sunlight had crept halfway across the room while she had been working on it and she could now hear the distant sounds of movement from the dormitories above. Sealing the parchment carefully, she climbed through the portrait hole and headed off to the Owlery.
The sun was high in the sky when Mary entered the Owlery and the glassless windows dazzled her eyes; thick silvery beams of sunlight criss-crossed the circular room in which hundreds of owls nestled on rafters, a little restless in the early-morning light, some clearly just returned from hunting. The straw-covered floor crunched a little as she stepped across tiny animal bones, craning her neck for a sign of her favourite school owl.
“There you are, Atticus,” she said, spotting the tawny owl somewhere near the very top of the vaulted ceiling. “I’ve got a letter for you.”
With a low hoot the owl stretched his big brown wings and soared down.
“It’s a bit of a weird one,” she said, staring into the big, lamplike yellow eyes of the owl. “If you could deliver it with the morning post that would be great. Just like last time.” The owl blinked once and Mary took that to mean that he understood.
She carried him towards one of the windows and watched him take off into the crisp morning sky.
“Morning,” Mary said brightly to Lily, Marlene and Alice as she joined them at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall for breakfast twenty minutes later.
“What are you looking so pleased about?” said Lily, eyeing Mary in surprise.
“Mary got a love letter last night,” Marlene said, who was sitting beside Lily.
“Did you now?” Lily raised her eyebrows. “Who was it from?”
“Caradoc Dearborn!” Alice exclaimed before Mary had time to so much as even open her mouth to answer.
“He’s in Hufflepuff, right?” Marlene and Alice nodded.
Mary felt a soft blush creep onto her cheeks. “It’s probably nothing,” she said hastily. “Y’know how blokes are, just looking for a fun time.”
Alice and Marlene were about to protest when the morning post arrived and hundreds of different coloured owls came soaring through the open windows, into the Great Hall. The owls circled the tables, looking for the people to whom their letters and packages were addressed. A screech owl flew their way to deliver the Daily Prophet to Lily, landing perilously close to Alice’s porridge — which she quickly snatched away. Lily pushed a Knut into the owl’s leather pouch and watched it take off again before inspecting the newspaper.
Meanwhile Mary’s eyes were searching the ceiling for Atticus, and yes, there he was; circling the Hufflepuff table, slowly making his descent until he landed graciously next to Caradoc. He took the sealed parchment from the owl, handed him a piece of bacon from his plate and sent him back up. He scanned the outside of the letter quickly, eyes following Mary’s curvy handwriting. She’d expected him to open the letter and read her response right then and there but, to her surprise, he refrained from doing so. He simply stared at it, his eyes retracing those same two words on the back of the letter; his name.
Suddenly his eyes snapped up from the parchment and met her own. She almost choked on her pumpkin juice, coughing madly as she quickly averted her gaze. Mierda. Unless he was totally oblivious — which she doubted — he’d definitely noticed her staring at him.
“Charming as ever, Macdonald,” Sirius smirked as he and Remus took a seat at the Gryffindor table..
“Bite me, Black,” Mary struck back as she wiped the corners of her mouth. “I saw your nasty face rounding the corner and promptly started choking.”
“My glorious physique has that effect on people sometimes.”
Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius’ comment, trying, but failing, to suppress a smile. Marlene let out a sarcastic snort, giving Mary an encouraging wink.
She smiled back, ignoring the bubbling in her stomach.
Remus stocked his plate with scrambled eggs, beans, toast and bacon while Sirius made himself a bowl of Cheeri Owls, stealing glances at Remus with every bite.
“Band starts up again tonight, right, Mary?” Alice asked, eyes focused solely on the two boys.
They were so in love… and they had been for years; maybe even from the first moment they’d laid eyes on one another — not that either of them would ever admit to that.
Mary tore her eyes away from Sirius and Remus and nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. We’re going to start practising for the Halloween feast. I pray to Merlin that we’re not doing another one of those frog choirs like last year, that was dreadful.”
“I’ve been thinking of joining band,” Marlene added in between big gulps of pumpkin juice. “I’m fucking fire on the guitar. Though I’m not sure I’d be able to get any homework done if, on top of Quidditch, I’d also have to attend band practices.”
“You barely get any homework done as it is,” smirked Lily, lowering the Daily Prophet to wiggle her eyebrows at Marlene.
“Har har.” Marlene made a silly face at Lily, who playfully stuck out her tongue in response.
“So, have you responded yet?” Alice whispered to Mary, ignoring the other two girl’s playful bickering. Her voice barely reached Mary’s ears, being almost completely drowned out by the noise of scraping cutlery, clinking glasses and the chatter of surrounding students.
“No,” she whispered back, taking a large bite of buttered toast. She wasn’t sure why she lied. Maybe because she wasn’t ready to admit how much she already depended on the letters; how much joy she got from receiving them. It was too new, too fragile.
“Why not?” Alice whined, making puppy eyes at her. “He definitely likes you!” her voice increased significantly, catching their friends’ attention again.
Sirius perked up. “Who likes Mary?” he asked, watching the two girls with a curious smile.
Alice gave Mary an apologetic look, mouthing “sorry,” to her.
Mary sighed, but waved her apology away. “Well, there’s this boy Caradoc Dearborn— It’s probably nothing, but yeah… I think I might like him.” She couldn’t help but steal a glance at Marlene.
Remus and Sirius shared a look, the corners of Remus’ mouth twitching upwards. “Caradoc Dearborn?” Sirius asked, smirking broadly.
Mary nodded.
The two boys shared another look, now both chuckling.
“OK, what’s happening here?” Lily interjected.
“Nothing.” Remus shook his head, covering his mouth with his hands as he tried to suppress another laugh.
The chuckles of the two boys followed them all the way to their Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, where they met up with a very sweaty James Potter and Peter Pettigrew.
“Merlin Potter, you stink!” Marlene pulled a nasty face as she dropped her bag next to her stool and sat down.
“Yeah, what did you two do? Take a bath in stink sap?” Alice said, pinching her nose closed.
James glared at them. “No,” he said swiftly, “I was training with Pete, so hopefully he’ll have a real shot at making the team as our new Keeper.”
“Aren’t you the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team though?” Mary asked, sliding into a seat next to Lily.
“Yes,” James nodded, wiping his forehead with the rim of his jumper, making the woollen material rise up slightly and expose an inch of his brown skin. Mary’s eyes flicked to Lily, who quickly averted her gaze, pretending to search for something in her bag. “But I can’t just make him our Keeper if there’s better contenders,” he said, crossing his arms.
“You and your bloody righteousness,” Marlene huffed as Professor MacQuoid called for everybody’s attention.
As Professor MacQuoid dutifully started congratulating all the students on their O.W.L results from last term, telling them all how proud he is to have them in his N.E.W.T. level classes, Mary’s mind floated back to the night before; spending almost the entirety of her morning and afternoon classes daydreaming of the boy on the other end of the parchment.
Her last class of the day was Care of Magical Creatures with Remus and Peter. After packing her things and calling a quick “Bye!” to the two boys she made her way to band practice, softly humming to herself as she entered the classroom.
“Good, MacDonald! It’s never too early to warm up your vocal cords,” squeaked Professor Flitwick.
She smiled kindly at him and sat down on one of the back chairs. In the next few minutes about two dozen people filed into the room accompanied by their chosen instruments. She smiled at Septima Vector as she caught her eye, waved at two fourth year Gryffindor girls, said a few pleasant “hello’s” and made some brief smalltalk with Bertha Jorkins.
Then her eye fell on Emmeline Vance, who had stepped into the room without an instrument of her own, but took her place behind the grand piano. She had pulled her long, raven hair up into a ponytail and wore a blue jumper so dark it reminded Mary of a starless sky.
“Welcome, students!” chirped Professor Flitwick as soon as the last students had taken their seats, forcing Mary’s attention back to the front of the classroom. “The Halloween feast is in two weeks, which means we need to start practising for our performance. One of your fellow bandmates,” he glanced fondly at Emmeline, “suggested we do a piece from the beloved muggle band Fleetwood Mac. I’m sure most of you are acquainted with their music, but if not, I’d advise you to listen to some of their records in the upcoming days.”
An excited murmur spread through the group of teenagers.
“All right, settle down everyone. Septima? Mary? Could you hand out the sheet music?”
Septima had already begun handing out the notebooks by the time Mary had collected her half from Flitwick. Since Septima had started at the right side of the group Mary went left, going from back to front until there was only one notebook left in her hands and one student who hadn’t received theirs.
“Here you go,” Mary said as she handed Emmeline the bundle of parchment.
She hesitated, her hand lingering in mid air, before eventually taking it in her palms with as much deliberate dexterity and care as she did when playing the piano.
“Thank you,” Emmeline said, looking up at her through her eyebrows. She tugged slightly at the sheet music, reminding Mary that she was still holding onto the notebook and quickly let go.
“Good. Now that everyone has what they need,” Flitwick called, stepping onto a raised platform and clapping his hands together enthusiastically. “Let’s make some music!”
An hour and forty-five minutes later Flitwick called for the end of practice. They’d gone over every song in the notebook and ended up settling on three possible songs for the Halloween feast. “We’ll finalise our decision next practice,” he said as the students put away their instruments and chatter rose among them. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Mary stayed behind to help clean up, using Wingardium Leviosa to levitate and stack the chairs as Flitwick shrunk the wooden platform he’d conducted from to the size of a small dinner plate, taking it from the floor and placing it in its designated spot in his suitcase.
“Do you need any— Oh…” Emmeline stood frozen in the doorframe, falling silent as her eye landed on Mary.
Mary glanced over her shoulder to look at the Hufflepuff girl, almost making one of the chairs she’d been lifting through the air drop to the floor. “Oops.” She shook her head, refocusing on her task.
“I can see you’ve already got help,” Emmeline recovered.
“Oh, yes. Miss Macdonald is always very attentive.”
Mary quickly stacked the last two chairs and moved them to the back of the classroom. “It’s no problem, really.”
The tiny professor packed his baton, sheet music and other belongings and shuffled towards the door. “Thank you for the offer though, Miss Vance,” he said as he slipped past her. “See you in class, ladies.”
“Yes. Of course. Good evening, Professor.”
“Bye, Professor!” Mary called after him as she grabbed her bag from the middle of the empty floor and swung it across her shoulder, adjusting the strap as she went.
Emmeline lingered in the corridor, picking at the hem of her robe. “I thought maybe we could walk back together. It felt weird to just leave.”
Mary closed the door behind her. “Yeah, ‘course,” she smiled.
They walked side by side, the silence between them buzzing. “So you’re a fan of Fleetwood Mac?” Mary said after a while, gazing up at the younger girl.
She nodded. “Yes, I like them a lot. My friend Hestia bought me theirs and Billy Joel’s LP for my birthday two years ago and I’ve loved them ever since.”
“Billy Joel, eh? Oh, yeah, his music is bloody brilliant. Personally I’m a big fan of ABBA,” Mary said. “Marlene, Lily and I actually performed Dancing Queen for our friend Alice’s birthday a few weeks ago.” She grinned fondly at the memory.
“Really? That must’ve been something,” Emmeline said, smiling curiously.
“It was hilarious! Marlene is a truly horrifying singer, but she made up for it with her enthusiasm.”
Fuelled by the happy memories of that evening, she spontaneously started humming the melody of the iconic song. “You are the Dancing queen, young and sweet,” she sang softly, taking a few steps forward and spinning around so that she walked backwards, keeping her gaze fixated on the other girl.
The corner of Emmeline’s mouth ticked up into a smile, making Mary’s stomach bubble for the second time that day.
“Only seventeen—” she continued.
“—I’m fifteen actually,” Emmeline interrupted. “Well, sixteen on the 22nd of October.”
Mary stopped singing, glaring playfully at her. “Yes. And I just turned sixteen in August, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the song, arse.” She smirked and stepped towards the younger girl, carefully taking Emmeline’s left hand in her right before continuing to hum the popular song.
“Dancing queen. Feel the beat from the tambourine…,” she sang, arching an eyebrow to indicate that she wanted Emmeline to finish the song with her.
“…Oh yeah,” Emmeline finished somewhat reluctantly, though Mary could see her eyes light up with every word as they sang along.
“You can dance. You can jive. Having the time of your life.”
Mary laughed and made a circular motion with her right hand, evidently forcing Emmeline to do a twirl. Then she made her do another one. And another one, her ponytail loosening more and more with each spin until the black ribbon fell to the ground and her dark hair circled after her, forming a halo around her head.
It was mesmerising.
“Okay, okay!” Emmeline chuckled after the fourth pirouette, signalling to Mary to stop, “That’s enough.” She staggered a few steps, stumbling over her own feet. “Before I throw up.”
Mary stopped spinning her around but wouldn’t let go of her. “Sorry,” she giggled, closing the space between them to help the other girl regain her balance. “I got a bit carried away.”
A beat of silence passed between them as Emmeline caught her breath. “It’s OK,” she said after a little while. “I’m fine. It was… fun.”
Mary nodded in agreement, smiling broadly. Her eyes momentarily flicked to their laced fingers. She hadn’t noticed they were still holding hands… gripping onto one another so fiercely their knuckles had turned white.
Emmeline’s eyes followed suit, now also staring at their clasped hands. “Oh, er— sorry,” she said, quickly letting go. “I hadn’t noticed—”
“Oh, right! Yeah, no. It’s fine. Don’t worry,” Mary chimed, immediately feeling the absence of Emmeline’s hand on her own.
They walked down the sparsely lit corridors for another few minutes, the world outside steadily growing darker.
“Well, I guess this is where we part ways,” Mary said as they stopped in front of the wooden doors that led to the Great Hall; the smell of meatloaf, boiled potatoes and gravy making way to their noses and rumbling their stomachs.
They both looked down at their bellies, then at one another. “Yeah. I think that’s our que.”
“All right,” said Mary as she walked towards the doors. “See you next practice then.”
“Yeah, see— see you around,” Emmeline nodded, watching Mary expectantly.
“Oh,” the older girl paused, already halfway through the door before looking back over her shoulder at the Hufflepuff girl, their eyes locking. “Thank you for dancing with me, Vance.” She smiled and slipped into the Great Hall.
She plopped down next to Marlene, who was shoving back meatloaf like her life depended on it. “Mhello. How wa’ pactis?”
“Practice was fine,” Mary chuckled, arching an eyebrow at her friend. “You okay?”
Marlene nodded fiercely, spewing meatloaf everywhere as she told Mary all about Quidditch try-outs and Peter’s exceedingly great performance.
“Atta boy, Pete!” Mary smiled at her friend, his blue eyes glistening with pride.
“Thanks!”
“Yeah, Wormy did great!” James said, slapping the smaller boy on the shoulder with so much force he almost toppled forward into his potatoes.
James and Marlene continued telling everyone who’d listen about try-outs, but Mary’s mind wandered off fairly quickly, never having been able to keep herself interested in Quidditch longer than a few minutes.
Instead, for the first time since band, she thought about Caradoc Dearborn and their thread of letters. Her gaze moved to the Hufflepuff table and within a few seconds she’d found the boy with dark curls and lively eyes.
She followed him as he stood up and wandered down the table, stopping before a group of two yellow- and two blue-robed students, one of which was… Emmeline Vance. She arched an eyebrow. She didn’t know they were friends. Were they friends? She’d certainly never seen the two of them together.
Caradoc swiftly pulled her aside, a few steps away from the bustling table. He whispered something to her Mary couldn’t for the life of her make out from such a distance, though his expression seemed joyful.
Emmeline smiled at him. She smiled at him?
Caradoc rummaged through his pockets, dropping various knickknacks he’d stored in his robes onto the ground until he found what he was looking for, excitedly waving it through the air.
Emmeline immediately grabbed him by the arm, smile dissolving into a scowl as she yanked the mystery object from his hands and stored it safely in her own robes. She looked around anxiously, eyes scanning if nearby students had noticed anything.
They hadn’t. But Mary had.
Caradoc Dearborn had just excitedly waved around a piece of parchment that looked an awful lot like Mary’s letter from that morning. The letter that was now in possession of Emmeline Vance.