Most Noble ━━ George Weasley

v. Mia, Mia, Mia!

       And then, they brought up Mia.

       "... Nor can I imagine allowing a murderer near a child, even if it was their own daughter..."

       Emilia had snapped, and the lightbulbs broke throughout the house — the first time Emilia's ever done that, in Mia's memory — and they left shortly after that.

       Mia remembers how one Auror had brought up who her mum is, referring to her job, and it made Mia feel strange. Her mum's a good Healer, and considering she became the head of St Mungos' children ward a couple years back, she's known at the Ministry. She's the woman to go to when children are poorly — not only that, but there's been times where muggleborn kids have magicked shit up, and because it's not Hogwarts' point of call yet, Emilia has to explain to the parents of a kid that just, like, made the car explode, that this is totally normally. Her mum's amazing, to say the least, and she's known for it.

       But that makes Mia feel strange. Because it's so odd, isn't it, that both of her parents were so against becoming the sort of Ministry official that people know about, and yet, Emilia's accidentally done it. She's not in the Ministry, sure, but they got special tickets to the World Cup. Fudge sends the family Christmas cards — or at least he did until he offended Emilia with the whole Sirius-is-a-murderer bullshit, and Emilia told him to get fucked. (Not her words, but Mia likes to imagine she did.)

       Mia doesn't know. All she knows is that she'd rather die than have anything to do with the Ministry. Like, you know what's weird? A whole country of wizards, where almost all of them go to work for the government. Like, she isn't saying that's Stalin's wet dream, but...?

       Emilia unlocks the door and Mia goes straight upstairs, missing the creaky step like always. She walks across the landing, her hand on the banister, feeling overcome with everything she's missed. She looks at the photo frames along the yellow walls, eyeing the ones of her as a baby, her mum as a teenager, her parents as bride and groom. She misses the comfort of the carpet, compared to the awful old shit that makes up Grimmauld Place, and she feels her feet sink into the carpet as she walks. She should've taken her shoes off, really, but she'll only be here for a little while, it's not a big deal.

       And then she walks into her bedroom, opening the white door with the gold stickers, reading MIA'S ROOM. She did when she was little, already in love with gold and glitter, and since then it's stuck. She has an attachment to the shitty stickers on her door, same with the posters she's badly put up, or even the smiley face she drew on the windowsill when she was seven. (Emilia was not happy about that one.) Nothing's as comforting as your own bedroom.

       She kneels on the ground, to pull the sketchbook out. She's always stored it under her bed, on top of old magazines, so she takes it out.

       The cover's covered in her own collage. Glitter and drawn-on stars surround a Steve Madden cut-out, with the models with the massive heads and shoes. Someone's review of Pulp Fiction is in the corner, with a star next to Mia Wallace and the photo of Uma Thurman. Mia's also scribbled MIA BLACK — HUFFLEPUFF.

       She opens it up, the paper cracking from being slightly stuck together... The inside cover's collaged, too, but the centrepiece is a photo of Mia and Cedric. It was one of those Polaroid-type cameras that a wizard got their hands on, so the photo moves. They're both grinning as she kisses Cedric's cheek, and you can see his smile looks even happier. Mia takes a minute, to stop herself from crying. It was taken before they were going out... She forgot how affectionate she used to be.