Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

27 March, 1978 - Friend (II)

Monday dawned chilly but sunny and Eloise Nott woke late, the meager light filtering through the lake doing nothing to dispel her exhaustion. Thanks to the Easter celebrations the day before, she hadn't started on her school work until late and the result had been a frankly depressingly late night filled with more Defense Against the Dark Arts homework that she had thought it was possible to have.

Of course, despite how late she'd been up, Lavinia still hadn't been in bed when she'd fallen asleep. That girl studied too much, in Eloise's opinion. But it wasn't really her business and she knew only too well the kind of pressure Lavinia faced at home. Eloise faced it too, especially now that she and Thomas were an item. Her job was to keep him, as if she didn't have enough incentive to do so without her parents reminding her. And in their opinion, there was no better way to keep a man than by demonstrating one had every admirable quality. Eloise privately thought there were plenty of other ways to keep a man, not least of which was showing him love and affection, but her parents didn't need to know that.

Allowing herself a private smile at that thought, Eloise slipped out of bed, glancing over at the only other occupied bed where Lavinia was still sleeping. Keeping her steps quiet with the ease that came from several years of practice, Eloise washed her face, brushed her hair and got dressed before descending the stairs out of the room. She met Thomas in the Common Room and, taking his hand, allowed him to escort her to breakfast.

"No sign of Vin?" asked Thomas as they made their way down the dungeon corridor towards the Entrance Hall.

Eloise snorted. "Well yes, but the sign says 'I'm sleeping' in big red letters with 'you're dead if you wake me' as the subtext so..."

Thomas laughed at that and Eloise smiled, glad of his mirth. Lavinia's crazy sleep schedule was a bit of a running joke with their group and her perpetual absence at breakfast, though normal, almost never passed without comment. Still, they did always make it funny and it was nice to start the day with a good laugh.

"We'll see her later, though," Thomas sighed, suppressing a yawn.

"Yeah, in the library," Eloise agreed sardonically as they made it up the steps to the ground level.

Shaking his head and smiling, Thomas didn't argue and the two sat down side by side at the Slytherin table to begin loading their plates for breakfast. A few minutes later, the hooting of owls and rustle of wings announced the arrival of the morning mail and Eloise glanced up more out of habit than anything.

She was slightly surprised to see her family owl swooping down from the rafters but, assuming it was probably just slightly belated Easter greetings, she laid a napkin over her arm and held it out to give the bird a place to land. Though a lovely, graceful bird most of the time, the poor creature wasn't very good at settling on flat surfaces and had more than once skidded to a halt rather than dropping down more gently. Indeed, the creature gave what Eloise decided to interpret as a grateful little hoot as he perched on her arm. As soon as she'd untied the letter from his leg, the great grey beast leapt up and returned to the air, as impatient as ever to take to the skies where he didn't have to worry about stupid things like where to put his feet.

"What's that?" asked Thomas, taking a pause in devouring his bacon to glance at the parchment in his girlfriend's hands.

"Probably for Easter," Eloise said with a shrug, picking up her knife to slit the envelope open. "It was odd they didn't send something yesterday," she added, almost offhandedly. It had indeed been odd and it had bothered her more than she would ever let on. Her parents had never missed a holiday or birthday before and when the post hour had ended at dinner that night, Eloise had felt a vaguely sick sensation in her stomach..