"That's Stevie?" Jules asked, pressing a hand to her chest. The angular features, the dark hair, kind eyes, it was the woman who had been following her, a woman who she barely remembered. "Your mum?"
Aster's face softened. "I only remember bits and pieces. Lavender shampoo and cedar perfume. Aunt Mary buys me the exact shampoo mum, Marlene, used to use."
"That's your mum?"
"I just said yes," Aster muttered. "Something wrong?"
Jules stared as Stevie Monroe's form materialized next to Aster, the girl seeming unperturbed. Only Jules could see as she smiled, her fingers cradling her chin. "This is going to seem absolutely insane," Jules sighed. "But I've been seeing Stevie all around the castle, and in my room at home. She's not a ghost, this is something different."
Stevie smiled from beside Aster. "Tell her I'm proud of her."
"She says she's proud of you," Jules added.
Aster stared at Jules, her fingers shaking around her hot cocoa. "Tell her I love and miss her, and if mama is with her, that I give her all my love."
Stevie smiled, before melting into the kitchen surrounding them. Jules stared, her head beginning to pound like an alarm. Something was not right. No normal girl saw dead people just wandering around everywhere she went.
But she wasn't a normal girl. She was Juliet Black, heir to two powerful fortunes. She had researched the Black's and found no trace of anything innately powerful about them, besides their money, tendency to marry one-another, and the ensuing chaos of madness that followed them everywhere. Maybe that's what it was. Maybe Juliet Black was just like the rest of her family, blue-blood scorching her veins like fire and burning away the last traces of her sanity.
"Jules."
She snapped out of her trance, eyes focusing upon Aster's confused face. "M'okay," she stammered. "I think I'll go to bed, get a few hours of sleep."
"Jules-" Aster stuttered.
"This is insane," she gasped. "This can't be happening oh-no."
"Jules!" Aster exclaimed, as the girl sprinted out of the door. Her voice was forceful, and punctuated the still night air, as she grabbed her friend and kept her from leaving. "Let's go to my common room, we can talk this out."
Jules was crying. There were streaks of black eyeliner and mascara running down her cheeks, and Aster pulled her into a tight hug. "We live in a world where people can turn into animals at will," she smiled softly. "You seeing my mum is nothing unusual I promise."
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SHE HAD NEVER been so on edge, tense and ready to spring, wound-up tight as a clock. The rest of the weekend had saw her draw further into her shell, and she had returned to smoking incessantly, never seen without a cigarette in her hand, always smelling like the noxious gray fumes that surrounded her like a cloud.
Harry was on terrible terms with the entire school, besides his own house. Jules, Hermione, and Aster, continuously played as a buffer between Harry and Ron's childish bickering. Most Ravenclaws thought Harry had put his name in the goblet for extra fame, but Jules knew better. Harry hated his fame, despised the stares and the glares, a target pinned to his back since he was just a small boy. Most of the school had begun to wear badges that said Support Cedric Diggory, the Real Hogwarts Champion. When pressed, they lit up with the words, Potter Stinks.
Jules had hit Pansy with such a powerful Bat-Bogey hex, the girl had been sent to the hospital wing, when she suggested that Harry was going to die during the first minute of the first task during Astronomy. She'd gotten a hefty detention and been forced to write lines.
The worst of it was when Hermione was hit by Malfoy outside Potions with a hex that caused her front two teeth to grow out uncontrollably. She'd shrunk them a little too much to make them not so big anymore, which Jules didn't like. Hermione's slightly too big teeth were a big marker of her smile, and Jules loved her smile.
It was Juliet and Sirius's birthdays on November 3rd, but the whole occasion was lowkey. They sent each other presents, and Jules was pleased to receive some muggle pins for her satchel, and an heirloom ring from her parents. She and Hermione usually celebrated their birthdays together, just the two girls together in the Astronomy tower getting sick on sweets and cake, looking at the stars and giggling about stupid boys in their year. They had invited Aster this year, but she had politely declined, leaving the two of them together in an evening of bliss. Jules thought Hermione was the prettiest girl on the planet, even if she would never say it aloud, burying her attraction in the depths of her tar-black soul.
Ron and Harry continued to squabble as the first task drew closer. The most hilarious part was Harry's interview with Rita Skeeter insinuating that he and Hermione were an item. She might have flared slightly with jealousy at that, but had thrown her arms around his shoulders in a joking manner instead.
"So! I thought you only had eyes for me, darling Harry."
The Saturday before the first task, was a Hogsmeade weekend, and Harry refused to go without donning his invisibility cloak, so Jules and Hermione had looked rather strange as a pair together in the village. Aster seemed to be rather close to Ginny Weasley, putting a damper on Juliet's matchmaking plans. The taunts were ruthless to both Harry and Jules. A rumor had spread that she had put his name in the Goblet and was working for the dark lord.
Harry found out that the first task was dragons from Hagrid, sending the quartet of Jules, Hermione, Aster, and Harry, into the library, desperately trying to find a solution to his lack of magical knowledge in comparison to the other champions. They all started taking long walks to discuss the task, and Sirius's nerves about Harry being in the tournament.
The answer to his predicament was simple. The summoning charm. They spent days practicing until the Task, and when the morning of the task arrived, Jules was a bundle of nerves. Stevie had lingered in her dormitory last night, offering last minute advice for Harry, which Jules relayed, not disclosing the source of the information.
Tucked into the stands between Calliope and Hermione, she could feel a hum of excitement into the air. "Ladies and Gentlemen!" Ludo Bagman exclaimed with a flourish. "May I present, the first task of the Triwizard tournament!"
