#*rosalind

and she herself understood none of it; only, she knew that hollow feeling inside her sometimes vanished, and all her thoughts went quiet, and she found herself observing her own body from a bird's eye point of view — like a puppet being yanked at, a marionette with her strings tugged. like something out of control.

The first day evening of recruitment had begun with promise. A fair number of Lily’s diversity candidates had shown up, and she was confident that in the coming days they would win over other JWL members. By the time Friday’s deliberations came around, Lily thought, the girls would be shoo-ins. A new era for the JWL was slowly dawning.

Things were going well, until Minnie and Helena, two shy first-year girls she had invited, began raving about hinkypunks. They were living in the lamps, the girls insisted. Their distress grew as they began to complain about the Billywigs buzzing around their heads. The situation had devolved from there until the witches were shrieking and swatting at insects no one could see and covering their ears to stifle the inaudible hollering of invisible hinkypunks. 

They were inconsolable. Lily had been forced to take them back up to the castle to see Madame Pomfrey. The matron took one look at the girls’ blown out pupils and gave them a sleeping draught, advising Lily to come back to collect them in the morning.

Lily returned to Wimbourne House completely wrung out. Her exhaustion faded and left behind an ember of anger that caught and turned into a furious blaze when she saw the witch she knew to be the mastermind behind the entire mess.

“Rosalind. A word.”

"You’ll be choosing your partners for the class soon, so we’ll be doing one last match-up to introduce you to some new friendly faces. Consult the roster, find your partner for today and you can go ahead and get started.” 

Lily slung her bag over her shoulder and walked to the front of the room to consult the list. Professor Slughorn seemed to have the idea that his classroom should be a place of learning as well as socialization. The students had been assigned random partners week by week so they could acquaint themselves with their peers before settling on who they would do partners work with. Lily found her name on the piece of parchment tacked to the chalkboard and slid her finger across the row.

Rosalind Nott.

She frowned and turned to face the room. She and Rosalind hadn’t spoken so far, but she had a fair idea of who she thought that was. Seated near the back was a witch with long, auburn hair. Lily approached her with a smile, stopping short at her work table. “I think we’re stuck together for today,” she said brightly, extending a hand. “I’m Lily Evans.”