Haunted Bones

iii, Flesh Weaving Thread

Three. Flesh Weaving Thread

𓃵

The next morning, Camille followed a pack of second-year Ravenclaws into the Great Hall, looking instinctively at the enchanted ceiling as she entered; it was a miserable rain-cloud grey. Very rarely did she make an appearance at breakfast; she would often roll out of bed fifteen minutes before her first class of the day, lazily running a hairbrush through the nest on her head, and challenge herself to pull on her uniform in forty-five seconds. Today, however, was different. She'd promised to meet the Macauley siblings—her new pets, she cruelly thought—in the Great Hall at eight o'clock. Camille stayed up until around two wondering what to say, how to explain the current grim mood at Hogwarts, and how to avoid coming across as unpleasant, as she usually did.

Mika, she'd decided, was somewhat coquettish, lithe, with bouncy blonde curls, a distinct scent of lavender and a dreamy languor. Camille thought she was probably a little ditsy, if not crazy. Karl, on the other hand, was like a storm in a teacup. He was a mongrel of English and German ancestry, with the features and boy scout attitude to prove it. They sat together at the end of the Gryffindor table, whispering in foreign tongues and giggling.

"Morning," Camille said, as she sat down.

"Hello," said both Mika and Karl together.

"Do you always do that?" said Camille, half-laughing. "Talk at the same time?"

"No," said Karl. A thick German accent and the kind of low-pitch that comes with the first few days of a cough. "You're late, by the way."

Camille stopped buttering the slice of toast she'd picked up and frowned. "My apologies," she said, with a tone that suggested she wasn't sorry at all. "Do you like England so far? Sorry we don't have a wall here."

"Berlin doesn't have a wall anymore," replied Karl, while Mika played with her food. "They knocked it down."

"When was this?"

"1989."

Camille awkwardly scratched the back of her neck. Before she could answer, a tall black girl with long braided hair had marched up to Karl.

"Hello," Angelina Johnson said briskly, "you're Karl Macauley, aren't you?" And without waiting for an answer, "I've heard from Professor McGonagall that you were captain of your team at Durmstrang."

"Correct," he said, beaming at her.

"Yeah, well, tryouts for the Gryffindor team are on Friday at five o'clock. We're down a few players for this season. Will you come?"

"I'll check my diary."

Angelina nodded at him and departed.

"Hand turns loom, spool of white, spool of black," muttered Mika vaguely. "Flesh weaving thread ... Father hands daughter knife, but it is cousins who slice ..."

Her misty voice trailed away delicately. Camille stared at her in disbelief. Mika, she corrected her past self, was most definitely crazy, but it was all right if she was; Camille didn't care what she was getting into. She was a little crazy herself. But not in any complicated way like Mika seemed to be. She was like Regulus: cryptic muttering in what would otherwise be silences.

Camille didn't know what she meant by this, so she didn't ask. Neither did Karl, it seemed, who watched the back of Angelina's head with the admiration of someone who'd just been offered a thousand galleons rather than an unconfirmed position on the Gryffindor quidditch team.