For the first time ever, Mary wasn’t excited about returning to Hogwarts. Well, she was, because it was always nice to get back to her friends and Quidditch and the gorgeous grounds. But the excitement was greatly overshadowed by her concern that it wouldn’t take long for everyone to find out Mary’s embarrassing secret. She hadn’t been able to perform magic, not even the smallest of spells, in months.

After powering through O.W.L.s using who knows what power, she started her summer off magic-free, as she always had to do when she went back home. But the next time she made a trip to Diagon Alley where, she had discovered, she could get away with some small spells here and there, it didn’t work. And hadn’t worked since.

It figured. At the end of the previous year, the worst thing that had ever happened to her happened. And it happened because someone had decided she wasn’t worthy of the magic she was born with. She survived the attack, stood up for herself against her attacker, and stayed through the end of the school year, only to lose the one thing she was fighting to prove she deserved. She was defective, a busted witch, just like Mulciber had wanted.

At least he was gone.

Or so she had thought.

She exited the train at Hogsmeade station wondering, like she did every year, why she had to make the trip all the way to London just to take a train back up to Scotland. It felt like her own personal tradition at this point, and she got lost in the normality of it for a moment before almost bumping into a fellow student.

And then, suddenly, she was face to face with him. Nicholas Mulciber. Who was supposed to be expelled. Who Dumbledore had promised her had been expelled. “What are you doing here?” Mary asked, all she was able to force out.

@justmulciber