cosmic;

“You know,” Kingsley said after a long moment, not looking directly at Mary but rather somewhere past her left shoulder. He couldn’t promise her anything, because he didn’t like to make promises he couldn’t keep. But at the very least he ought to try and help. In any way that he could. 

“I could always just owl you my notes and coach you through your NEWTs next year. You don’t have to stay.”

Mary couldn’t help but smile over at Kingsley, though it held a touch of grief. Gratefulness for his friendship; sorrow over what brought about this conversation. “I’m not going to run,” she declared, not knowing how true those words were until they were spoken. “I won’t give them what they want. No matter how... terrifying or downright miserable it may be at times, I deserve to be there as much as them. I’m going to wallow in homesickness for a bit, then I’ll dust it off and move on.” I have no other choice. “Thank you though, Kingsley. For that offer. For... everything. I’d have gone mad by now if it weren’t for you.”

Regulus hesitated a moment before he strode over toward her and dropped to the ground, his elbow resting on his knee as he made himself comfortable. It was odd, whatever this psuedo-friendship with Mary was. Evan hated her. She hated Evan. But Mary made him feel welcome in the strangest sense of the word. “I did fly your broom.” He chuckled, rolling his eyes at her banter. “Uh huh, pure talent. Turns out boobs don’t help you either.” He smirked, teasing her not actually meaning to be crude. “Your catch last match, it was impressively, truly.” He added, more genuine. “But don’t get comfortable, we still won and we’ll win again.” He promised. He hesitated a moment, lowering his voice. “Do you have that..picture book thing? The one with the bat? I still don’t understand how he’s not an animagus.” He asked, not having gotten to finish reading it the last time they spoke. 

Mary couldn’t help but inwardly smile as Regulus sat by next to her, an indication that her efforts weren’t being wasted here. Was it hypocritical, for her to distrust anyone that associated with Evan or any of her housemates that associated with any of them while she conversed with Regulus? Most likely, but a tiny part of her told her he was different. There was a high chance she was wrong, but if he was anything like Sirius, it was a risk worth taking. “That they do not. More of a hindrance than anything, really.” They get in the way, and if sport bras weren’t a thing, she’d have lost her mind by now. It was a mixture of pride and regret when he spoke again. She caught the snitch, but it was too little too late. “Yeah yeah. We won’t let that happen again. James is driving me a bit mad with all the practices, but after that defeat...” It was a bit humiliating, but she was more capable of shrugging it off than the rest of your house mates. As his voice lowered, her smile increased in size slightly as she began rummaging through her bag. “I always have at least one on me, and he’s not an actual Batman. That’s just his costume when he goes out to hide his identity. He has this whole brooding moment where he goes on about how he has to be a creature of the night, something that others will fear and then a bat flew in the window. So he goes by Batman.” Retrieving the comic from her bag, she quickly put a concealment charm on it so that it would appear as a textbook to anyone else who may see him with it before handing it off to him.

⚖: Has your muse broken the law before? Broken a vow or promise?

⚔: Would your muse kill if they had to in order to protect a loved one?

🌟: Do they consider themselves a good person?

👑: Is your muse honorable?

☯: What do they think of 'good' and 'evil'?

🌹: When would they tell a lie?

🍷: Would they manipulate someone to get what they want?

⛨: What would they sacrifice their life for?

💋: How easily are they tempted?

☽: What is their alignment?

Lily had noticed Mary’s reactions everytime she  had spoke with her after such events- she knew it affected her friend more than she had let her see, more than she wanted her to see; though, the redhead always screwed up with being positive and trying to think right- she knew the other didn’t bellieve in that, she wanted facts, she wanted reality and she was strugguling in giving it to her now.

She approached the other as she bit the inside of her cheek. ‘ I’ll stick around if that’s okay with you.’ she ran a hand through her hair. ‘ You meant something else by not wanting to be here anymore, didn’t you?’

“Far be it for me to tell you what to do,” she said simply, not wanting to give a direct answer. It was a constant inner battle with her - the need to reach out to someone, to be understood, battling with the need to be alone. Having one wasn’t possible while having the other and right now? It was hard to determine what was best. Though talking about your feelings was hard enough, add the fact that you only trusted one, maybe two people, and it became a lot more difficult. 

So she simply shrugged, propping her hand behind her head, allowing her neck to be elevated slightly as she remained laying on the grass. “I wish I was home.” It was as simple and complicated as that. “I want to be home, with my family. I want to be a regular muggle person with regular problems. I don’t want to be here.”

“I used to visit America all the time before my grandmother died, I tried to live there once with her but I got dragged home by my father. he’s an arse” she said, shrugging, nails gently ripping up blades of grass from underneath her, absentmindedly. She was building a pile of mutilated grass without thinking about it. She didn’t know how to relate to Mary, they were very different people and most of her house mates would have been mad at her for even talking to the girl, but she didn’t care what people thought. She loved to do whatever she liked and hated being told she couldn’t. “Hot, but less humid, so you get less sticky there than you do here. i’m sure you’d manage”.

She was glad she had got the girl to laugh, having hoped her joke wouldn’t backfire. “Same, and Slughorn plays favourites far too much. It’s gross” he said, shivering a little. Even though she was a Slytherin, she was overlooked in favour of Narcissa (though she didn’t mind - Slughorn creeped her out). “Plus, potions make my hair frizz” she added, pulling a face. “You mean like people?” she said, raising a questioning eyebrow, pushing her hair away from her face. “Transfers are doable… but I would suggest not running away. Whatever it is that makes you want to leave, is the reason you should stay. Strength is built in the face of adversity”.

“Fair enough. Britain is all I’ve ever known though, so I suppose it’s different for me.” Having three brothers and two teachers for parents did leave a lot of money for travelling, especially with the way her siblings ate. Merlin, people here thought she was bad with her lemon cake addiction - they had no idea. “It’s my home.” When you’ve been somewhere else, surely it was easier to imagine living there. The grass was always greener, after all. Though considering their attitude towards muggles and wizards marrying each other, Mary had a feeling it wouldn’t be a lot better there for her, either. “The humidity though... yeah, that kills me at times. I don’t miss it.” Summer ending was always bittersweet.

Nodding in agreement, Mary’s mind briefly flashed back to a few incidents in the class. “He certainly does. I mean, I don’t blame him for hating me, I’m completely incompetent in that class. But the whole slug club thing? It’s a bit much.” Certainly the fact that he was the only Professor with that sort of club said something. It was nice, easy, safe keeping the conversation light. Merlin knows the last thing she was about to do was bare her soul to anyone, let alone a Slytherin. Yet she couldn’t help but want to laugh at the irony in the other girls statement. So that was their latest justification? They were helping people be stronger? Merlin, how she yearned to be home. “Of course. I mean, I’m here. I will continue being here. I think it’s normal to just ... miss home sometimes.”

It was a completely different situation for him and he knew it too, but sometimes he forgot that not everyone was in the same boat as he was. he might have been a blood-traitor, but he had grown up in the wizarding world, had been surrounded by the people she was referring to for a lot longer than she had and he was technically a ‘pureblood’ though he hated the word almost as much as he hated the word ‘mudblood’. He understood where she was coming from but since he was friendly with some of those who could be considered sympathisers, if not potential Deatheaters in the making, he wouldn’t do her the dishonour of telling her he knew how she felt. Only she knew that.

“I know they are here in the castle. Everyone tells me I am safe at Hogwarts whilst my parents are off battling dark wizards, but even Dumbledore hasn’t been able to provide the security that was promised at the beginning of the school year” he said, thoughtfully, biting his bottom lip. “That’s why you have us, we’re trying to survive this school the best way we can but I promise you, if anyone ever raises their wand to you, no matter who it is, I won’t turn away. I’m still mad that no-one would let me curse the fuck out of Mulciber” he half growled, having been annoyed by that. He hadn’t been the only one. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry you’ve been feeling this way. I’m sorry I haven’t been here”.

‘That’s why you have us’. A touching sentiment, and one that had gotten Mary to her sixth year - but was it still true? Saying things was easy. It was easy to pledge your loyalty to someone, to claim to stand by them, but when it came down to it? People had a tendency of taking the easy way out, something she had learned long ago. Severus, who allowed his loneliness and misguided anger to twist him into someone who called a ‘friend’ a mudblood. Evan, who held a different version of reality in his head and used it as his reason to hate people like her. Alice, who was supposed to be her best friend yet claimed that Evan was good and stood by his side. It was exhausting watching people with potential end up that way. It made more sense to see the worst in people, especially in times like these. So that’s the route she took.

Yet she forced hersef to smile at James, attempting to keep up a facade. Determined to not let anyone see what was happening to her. There was no one that would understand, anyways. No one she would trust, and that was the hardest part to admit. “I appreciate that.” Though the words held little meaning to her, she appreciated that he at least seemed to believe them. “I don’t need you to be there. I don’t need to be held and whatnot. I’m fine,” she insisted, pulling away slightly. “Just feeling a little down right now, but I’m fine. Fine enough that I should probably head back in and start on the charms paper.”

He gave her a weary smile in return. She deserved better than this. They all did. But Mary… Kingsley didn’t often disagree with the school faculty, but he’d never understand why they’d let Mulciber stay. Just because Mary had lived didn’t mean she needed the constant reminder. Didn’t make Mulciber less despicable. 

“I’d say that I know, but I don’t. But I think I can imagine.” He paused, searching for the best thing to say. “You deserve better than this.”

“I appreciate that,” she remarked, genuinely meaning it. It was difficult to put yourself in the shoes of others in normal circumstances, so in these? It was nice to have him acknowledge that he couldn’t imagine what it was like. No one should have to. No one should know what this feels like. Though there was no denying it appeared to be affecting her more than most, something that she hated yet failed to control.

“I stopped thinking about what I deserve a long time ago. That concept doesn’t exist in this god forsaken place.” People ran around like wild animals, doing and saying as they chose. How they got away with it was still mind boggling, but dwelling on it got her nowhere.

Unlike many of her housemates, she didn’t mind sitting next to those of non-pureblood because she knew that they couldn’t exactly hurt her and those that believed otherwise had obviously not paid attention in History of Magic - though rarely anyone did, but her, she felt. The grass was a little damp, but her robes covered her and she could easily wave her wand over them later and dry them in a second. She leaned back and smiled as as the other girl’s lips twitched upwards at her words. “My grandmother went to school there, but my mother and father were insistent that I come to Hogwarts as they had done. It’s supposed to be very nice, she enjoyed it” she said, softly, remembering the arguments she had overheard. “I like America, England is too… damp”.

“Every time I walk into the potions classroom” she quipped, quickly, smirking at the other girl before realising that probably was not what she had meant. She didn’t know if she cared, or if she did then why she cared, but she shrugged and spoke seriously for a moment. “Yes, most of the time. I don’t like school much” she admitted. She loved her friends, Kettleburn’s class, her extra curricular activities but she was dreading her OWLs and everything else that came with them. “Where do you want to be right now? Why can’t you just… go?”

It caused a bit of a pain, listening to people with wizarding families talk about their background. About where their parents went to school, their opinions on everything. Mary wouldn’t trade her family for the world, would never even think about it, but sometimes it would be nice if they understood. If going home for the holidays wasn’t a complete culture shock and a wake up call to how different of a life she was living from her brothers. They were safe, though, and that mattered more than anything. Better to be safe than to be magical. “Understandable. I’ve never been to America, so this is the only weather I’ve ever known. I don’t know how well I would do in their summers, too hot for my liking.” The rain was soothing, it provided a comfort. The sun? Not so much.

Laughing slightly at the girls response, Mary gave a slight nod of the head. “That, I can completely relate to. By far my worst subject.” Needless to say her and Slughorn didn’t get on so well. “I don’t mind school in general, though. It’s everything else that comes along with it.” Though perhaps Lucretia was by far the last person who could understand that. “I don’t know. Anywhere but here, really. Only I can’t just up and leave school. It’s not that easy.”

Lily stopped into her tracks as she heard her friend’s words- a confused an anrrowed eyebrow coming in place as she tigthened the grip around the coat into her hands, slowly approaching her friend as she took a big breath of air-the redhead herself wasn’t keen on so much snogging and dancing from the masquerade. She felt null in the end of the ball and she still felt null now.

But, she didn’t quiet got the other’s meaning of words at first- thinking it was just because she had a great posivity in everything. ‘ Oh, well- we should go inside anyway. We can go dry ourselves up?’

The moment the words slipped out, Mary wished she could take them back. She loved Lily endlessly, and would go to the end of the earth for her, but when it came to these sort of discussions? It didn’t go particularly well, considering their different outlooks on life. She often needed her friends optimism, but lately? There seemed to be no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. They were stuck here with monsters and there was no dancing around it.

So with a quiet sigh she turned her head back, gaze returning to the sky ahead. “You can go on in. I quite like it out here.” She didn’t want to be inside, didn’t wan to see one of them. Not right now.

He was glad when her gloomy face fell for a moment into a smile and a small laugh at his comment. He had said the words in order to elicit that exact reaction. “It’s always my go to argument, you should know that” he winked, nudging her slightly with his elbow. “A life without me is a tragedy” he said, dramatically, back of his hand slapping against his forehead as he fell backwards. He watched her closely as he did so, not liking the look on her face. Mary was like a sister to him, she was practically family and when she felt terrible inside, he felt terrible for her and wanted to do anything and everything within his power to make her feel better.

“With these people…” he repeated, shuffling over and putting his arm over her in an attempt to awkwardly hug her. “I assume you’re referring to one person in particular. Say the word, I will push him off of the astronomy tower, say he tripped…” he said, offering a small smile though he felt bad for her. He had hated Evan even before he had hurt Mary and afterwards, his hatred had only intensified. It angered him that people could still look at him and see a human being when all James saw was scum. “I’m sorry you don’t feel safe, I wish I could change that for you. Does this have anything to do with the ball, or have you been feeling like this for a while?” she asked, cringing slightly. If she had felt that was for a while, he felt guilty. He should have been there for her more.

Mary watched his actions with amusement, always having admired how he could shrug off any situation and make light of it. It would be nice, in times such as these, to have that quality. Certainly must be better than moping outside, staring at the sky and muttering your thoughts out loud like a man man. I’ve gone mad. Shuddering slightly at the thought, she tore her gaze away from him, finding it easier to speak when not looking directly at someone. Not being able to see their facial expressions could make it as if they didn’t exist in the first place. What a wonderful thought. 

At the mention of Evan, her body no longer went frigid, and that at least was some sort of progress. Or perhaps just a sign of how she was permanently on edge now, not just when he was brought up. “Him, more than anyone, sure. But it’s not only him.” It would be foolish to pretend like Evan was the only problem, that was far from the truth. He may have been more forthcoming about his beliefs, but others certainly shared them. “Between the attacks, what happened at Hogsmeade, and now the Ball.... There are terrible people here, James. Terrible and I am so... tired of people trying to find some humanity in them. If they don’t feed into this blood purist crap, they still stand by people that do. Look at all of Evan’s friends, all of Amycus’ friends. They’re not any better than them. They may not raise their wand to me but they wouldn’t bat an eyelash if someone else did. I’m tired of being around that. Of being around them.”

He made his way down to the lake, having been told by a fellow sixth year who he had stopped in the corridor that Mary had headed down their after class and was lying down by the lake’s edge. The rain began to fall gently against his skin as he made his way down the lawn, careful with his foot placement as he made his way to her, spotting her from a distance. He wondered why she was out in the rain, in the middle of Autumn, near Winter, alone. he felt bad for not having come to see her sooner, they had spent so much time together the year before, but with his parents away and not able to keep contact and the goings on of the ball, he had found himself caught up before he had been able to stop it.

As he approached, he smiled at the sight of her, though the smile faltered at the look on her face and the words that she muttered, loud enough for him to hear though he was uncertain that she had wanted him too. “I can understand that, given recent events, but come on, could you really live without this face?” she asked, trying to make a joke as he took a seat beside her, leaned back on his elbow and turned towards her. She looked sad and he didn’t like it. “What’s going on, Mary?”

Of course James’ first reaction would be to crack a joke, and despite her current mood, it elicited a laugh from her in response. “Ah, of course, the ultimate argument - having a life without the face of James Potter. How could I have ever entertained the idea?” It was, realistically, the thing that had kept her going the past year: her friends. Only everything was slowly changing, and Mary no longer knew who to trust. Who was actually on her right side, and who was looking to make friends with the likes of Evan and his little cronies. Was it fair to hold it against them? Sometimes, maybe not. In other instances? It was one of those things that couldn’t be moved past.

Yet she was never good at vocalizing her feelings or wondering how much was acceptable to share. “I hate it here,” she admitted bluntly. Might as well vocalize it in the simplest way possible. “I hate going to school here, with these people, with... everything going on. It’s not safe and I’m tired of being kept here.” Of living in fear, of having to look in the face of people every day and wondering ‘hey, I wonder if they would like to kil me’. The Dark Mark may have been a prank, but it showed the true colours of at least one student here, and Merlin knows that person was not alone in their beliefs.