Toujours Pur | Euphemia Black

Chapter 44 | Walpurgis

She obviously couldn't escape Heather and Walburga as they were in her dormitory and the majority of her classes but those two didn't cause any trouble either which not only made Mia feel relieved but also extremely worried and suspicious that they were perhaps planning something. Maybe she was just paranoid?

Mary had also started hanging around with Eileen a little more which meant that Euphemia got to know the timid girl much more.

It was great because it meant that Eileen had another friend of sorts to rely on and that Mia could hang out with her other friends more without feeling guilty.

However, Mary was forced to stay with Heather and Walburga a lot of the time and Euphemia would often see an extremely miserable expression on Mary's face whenever she was with them.

"I feel bad for Mary," Eileen told her in an undertone as they headed down to the greenhouses for Herbology, the girls' eyes fixed on the three in front of them - Walburga and Heather were saying something whilst Mary looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

It was nearing the end of January by now and so it was pretty chilly which meant that Eileen and Mia were walking rather fast in order to get to their Herbology lesson without freezing to death.

However, they were talking about the three girls in front of them so they had to slow their pace a little so that their gossiping wasn't overheard.

"She seems like she doesn't want to be there with them," Euphemia murmured back in agreement and Eileen nodded with a grim expression plastered on her face.

They were silent for a moment as they scampered down the slightly icy path to the greenhouses and cut across the garden patch, eyes still fixed on Walburga, Heather and the miserable looking Mary in front of them.

Florean and Pomona were stood outside of the greenhouses with the rest of the Hufflepuffs as they all waited for the Slytherin students to join  them for the class.

Florean opened his mouth to shout out to Mia in welcome but luckily Pomona saw that Walburga was not far from Euphemia and so the blonde shut him up with a slap to the arm.

Florean may not have been able to say anything to Mia outside of the greenhouses because of Walburga being nearby but he had the opportunity to talk to her when they were inside the classroom as Herbology was a very practical subject, meaning they could speak without fear of being overheard.

Thank Merlin for the loud class Pomona thought to herself as she tried to tune in on Florean's and Euphemia's conversation from where the three were sat in the corner of the greenhouse.

Funnily enough and quite luckily actually, their table was the farthest away from Walburga's. Coincidence much? They thought not.

"He really really likes you, Mia! Why can't you realise that? Please give him a chance....pleaseeee!" Florean was pleading with Euphemia, his eyes wide as she stared back at him with a sceptical expression.

"Look, Charlus is just my friend and I don't want to become another one of his girls that he'll just ditch after a day," Mia told Florean, crossing her arms.

This conversation carried on whilst Pomona did all the work for the group - not that she minded.

Florean got louder and louder with his pleas until one specific "PLEASE!" actually got the class to silence and for everyone to look over at the begging Florean, the annoyed looking Euphemia and the flushing Pomona as she realised all the attention was on them.

"Nothing to see here!" Pomona called with slightly red cheeks and the class eventually stopped giving the three of them weird looks and turned back to their classwork with a mixture of chatter and mild bickering over the correct handling of the asphodel that they were chopping up for that day's lesson.