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☄. *. ⋆chapter two. *. ⋆࿐
a not so miserable ...*:･
*:･start to the year!
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"i have come to speak with you about your daughter
she's no girl, she's a woman sir"
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ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVELS
MISS HOPE LYRA LUPIN
ASTRONOMY .............................................E
ANCIENT RUNES.......................................E
CHARMS ....................................................A
CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES............O
DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS ...O
HERBOLOGY..............................................T
HISTORY OF MAGIC .................................P
POTIONS.....................................................A
TRANSFIGURATION..................................O
We're pleased to accept your N.E.W.T. Application to study: ANCIENT RUNES, CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES, DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS, TRANSFIGURATION
We are also pleased to offer you a place on our JUNE APPARITION course.
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ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVELS
MISS VENUS LORELAI HAWTHORNE
ASTRONOMY..............................................E
CHARMS.....................................................A
DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS....O
DIVINATION..............................................O
HERBOLOGY..............................................O
HISTORY OF MAGIC.................................P
CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES................E
POTIONS ....................................................O
TRANSFIGURATION.................................A
We are pleased to accept your N.E.W.T. Application to study: DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS, DIVINATION, HERBOLOGY, POTIONS
We are also pleased to offer you a place on our NOVEMBER APPARITION course.
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"Mum! Look, mum!"
Margo Lovegood looked up from her painting with a soft smile and a slightly dazed look in her eyes. Her daughter came bouncing into the room, with her best friend in tow - both girls were clutching at thick pieces of parchment. Her hair was a bright, honey blonde and her eyes slate grey. For a very brief second, Margo was reminded of her old friend Cissy Black.
"What is it, sweetheart?"
Hope gave her mother a sweet kiss on the cheek and thrust the parchment paper right under her nose. "I passed almost everything - and I can take all the N.E.W.T.S. I need to get onto that French auror course Fleur was telling us about!"
"That's lovely," Margo ran a hand over her daughter's hair. Today had been a good day for the older Lovegood - it was almost dinnertime and she'd managed to avoid any major breakdowns, even with Remus working at the bookshop all day. "What about you, Venus?"
Venus Hawthorne gave her a tired smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. The girl had been staying with the Lupins for the week following the World Cup, wanting to avoid worrying her mother, brother and step-father after the events of the night in question. "Nadia's tutoring payed off - I managed to get As in Transfiguration and Charms-"
"But she got Os in Herbology, Defense, Potions and Divination!" Hope interjected, giving her friend a bright smile. "Mum's favorite subject was divination too, wasn't it mum?"
Margo hummed in affirmation, swaying slightly in her chair. "Oh, yes. Your father did always make fun of me - used to say Divination wasn't a real subject. Of course, he only teased me because it was the only subject he couldn't get an O in."
"Really?" Venus wondered. "Remus is always so supportive about it - he brought me this book back from the bookshop he works at - Prophecies in the Stars and How to Read Them."
Hope gave her mother a concerned glance, but the woman merely blinked hard twice and resumed painting. The word on the street was that though her mother had always been a little away with the fairies, but as Xenophilius and Luna were, something had happened during the war to have pushed her to the edge of insanity. Of course Remus did his best to keep her safe and as happy as she could be - but Margo Lovegood still had her moments.
"I must have been thinking of someone else," she muttered and Venus looked over her shoulder to look at the painting.
"Are those mermaids?" She asked, feeling as though she'd seen them before somehow. Maybe passing by the windows of the Slytherin common room which looked onto the depths of the Black Lake. "They look so familiar."
Margo glanced back at her in alarm, quickly pushing the still-wet parchment into a drawer. "No. They're inferi. You wouldn't have ever encountered one. They're rare creatures."
"Oh," Venus shrugged, shaking her head slightly. Rubbing at her still slightly sore muscles she walked over to the oven and pulled out a cake. "Anyway, I made this earlier to celebrate."
"Is that chocolate?" Remus Lupin walked into the kitchen, looking exhausted after a long day at work. The silvery scars on his face seemed to shine brighter under the kitchen light. He set his coat over the back of a chair, kissed Margo with a fond smile and sat down at the table.
Hope turned to her parents, frantically shaking her head. If there was one thing to know about Venus Hawthorne, it was that she wasn't capable of cooking anything without something going very very wrong.
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The following morning, Hope and Venus stood on Platform 9 3/4, trunks in hand and broomsticks over their shoulders. Unlike many other Hogwarts students, neither of them had a pet - Hope was far too impatient, and Venus was far too careless to deal with the upkeep of a whole other life.
The girls had come alone - Margo didn't do too well around large groups of people, and Remus was still anxious about being seen in society after his resignation the year before.
"Can you see mum or Atticus anywhere?" Venus craned her neck to search the platform. "They're supposed to be bringing Finn today. He's going into first year, remember?"
Hope grinned. After Nell Hawthorne had finally come back from - well, Merlin knows where - with a baby girl in tow, she'd been rather quick to find her husband. Atticus Rivers was a muggle, and rumour had it to that old grandma Hawthorne had attempted to burn down the wedding venue. The pureblood family had been vaguely placated after Finn's birth - sure, he was a half-blood, but after Bat Hawthorne's numerous affairs, a bastard son, and the realisation that little Viola was a squib, well - it seemed as though Sylas and Finn were the family's only chance at retaining the slither of prestige they had managed to cling onto since before the Great Wizarding War.
"Venus! Hope!" The girls laughed as the eleven year old boy spirited through the crowd, struggling under the weight of the rather fat yellow cat he held in his arms. "Look! Look, I have a cat!"
"It'd be hard to miss," Hope grimaced as her friend hugged her brother. "It looks like it's been eating Hagrid sized meals."
"He's not an it," Finn insisted. "His names Buttercup - because he's yellow, you know."
Hope raised an eyebrow, to which Venus only shrugged. It wasn't news that Finn wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. "Ah, of course. You excited for your first year then, squirt?"
As Hope continued to tease Finn and his ridiculously large cat, Venus turned to face her mother and stepfather who'd managed to weave their way through the busy crowd. Atticus looked as uncomfortable as ever, surrounded by wizards and magic and all that he'd never quite be able to understand. Nell on the other hand, was decked out in her finest robes - she'd even brought out her old family broach. For someone that had been considered a pariah and a blood traitor for a fair few years, Nell Hawthorne sure worked hard to rebuild her reputation.
"Oh, Venus darling! Look at those dark circles," her mother began to fuss over her. "Have you not been sleeping right? Is it the World Cup?"
Venus tugged at a strand of her hair. It was the World Cup, but she'd never been very good with her sleep - ever since she was a little girl she'd had the strangest of dreams which she could never quite wake up from. Of course, ever since she'd been hit by the cruciatus curse, she frequently found herself dreaming of the pain - which, despite being a mere echo of the real deal, was still completely and utterly unbearable.
"Yeah," she stuttered, wringing her hands. "I mean you know, it was a scary night for everyone."
"I thought you said you didn't even see what happened," Nell began to fuss over her tangled hair. Venus could feel Hope's pointed stare as she was caught in her blatant lie.
"That's right mum," she muttered. "Never mind - I'm sure it'll pass soon enough. Will I be seeing you at Christmas?"
It was at this point that Nell gave her a knowing smile. "Ah, I don't think so, darling. A little birdie told me something extra special will be happening this year."
Venus raised an eyebrow. "Extra special things have been happening for the past three years, mum. So far we've had a troll, an escaped convict and a swarm of dementors-"
"I believe it will be a nice occurrence," Nell sighed, slightly exasperated. "Now, promise me you'll look out for your brother - and I don't want any more letters home about you stealing from Snape's potions cupboard, yes?"
"I suppose," Venus shuffled uncomfortably. She didn't know what it was exactly, but things had always been a little off when it came to her relationship with her mother. "I guess I'll see you this summer, then?"
"Yes darling," Nell gave her daughter a right lipped smile and a pat on the shoulder. "I must go and see Narcissa before she leaves," she began to turn to her younger child, before briefly turning back to her eldest. "You're sure you didn't see anything - that night, I mean?"
Venus gave her mother a shake of the head, before giving Atticus a quick hug and a goodbye. She giggled lightly as Finn stumbled ahead and onto the train, almost knocking Pansy Parkinson off of the step as he went to look for new friends.
"I can't remember being that excited when I was a first year," Hope grumbled from beside her.
"That's because you were crying about leaving your dad at the platform," Venus snickered, ignoring her friend's glare. "Don't worry - I won't tell anyone. I don't want to ruing the great bitch Hope Lupin's infamous reputation."
"Why did you lie to your mum?" Hope nudged her side as they boarded the train. "I mean, it took you ages to feel better, and you're still not quite right."
"I've never been quite right," Venus gave her friend a playful smirk. "Neither are you - that's why we're such good friends."
"Don't avoid my question, Hawthorne."
"I don't know Hope - it's just, this summer was so weird. I didn't realise at the the time because-"
"Because you and that troublesome Albanian cousin of yours spent around two thirds of it drugged up on Merlin knows what?"
"Exactly," Venus frowned. "But I've been at yours for a fair few days now - cold turkey and sleepless - and it's given me some time to thinks things over. You remember that argument I told you about - where Mum, Bat and Grandma Hawthorne got into it over blood purity - well doesn't it seem a bit odd that my mum was so invested in it?"
Hope gave her a strange look, blowing a large pink bubble with her gum and changing her hair and eyes to match the shade. "Your mum married a muggle, V. Seems like a pretty good reason to me."
"No, you see! Any other witch could have been screaming away and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid, but mum's always had a stick up her arse! It's like she forgets half of society thinks she's a blood traitor - she doesn't us usually give a flying fuck about what people say about Atticus! Sometimes I can't quite understand why she married him in the first place - everyone always says she was halfway to being a death eater herself when she was at Hogwarts! And she's been so weird about the World Cup, and at first I thought she was just worried, but my mum's never really worried. Last year she didn't even try to warn me about Black stalking the castle!"
Hope blinked twice and cocked her head to the side. "Are you implying that your mum might have had something to do with what happened at the World Cup - that's ridiculous V. Sure, you're mum's a frigid witch bitch and all, but even she wouldn't approve of the torture of her own daughter!"
"No, but the family is fighting tooth and nail to restore the Hawthorne name to what it once was," Venus' eyes were wild now, her hands moving in the air frantically as she spoke. Students had to squeeze past the pair as they blocked the train corridor. "I'm a fatherless hopeless mess, Finn's a half-blooded idiot, Milo's a bastard, Viola's a squib, and Sylas is their last chance. Hope, the family stayed neutral last time round, at least in appearance, but what if with all that's been going on recently they've decided to participate? Maybe not my mother, but who else other than my Uncle Bat? His wife's a Malfoy, for fuck's sake!"
"As much as I enjoy watching you make use of your remaining brain cells, Venus," Hope rubbed her friend's shoulders and began to guide her towards a compartment. "You might be reading too much into this. Give it some time, we don't even know if it was an isolated incident or not. Maybe your mum's just finally had enough of your brother and his pureblood mania."
Before Venus could say anything else she was shoved into a compartment and forced to see several familiar faces staring up at her.
"Blimey, you look like you've been to hell and back, Hawthorne."
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The population of the compartment consisted of a large portion of Slytherin's sixth year students - a group that Venus and Hope considered friends. Overall, despite being in a house so frequently associated with cruelty and tradition, the group was rather amicable - well, on a good day, anyway.
The boy that had spoken was Ronan Carrow - Hope's fellow beater on the Quidditch team. The green haired boy lived with his grandmother on the Carrow estate, the rest of his family being dead, or rotting away in Azkaban. He had a loud mouth and a newfound love for muggle cigarettes, despite his questionable apprehension of Vanya's Muggle Studies classes.
Beside him sat Rabastan Lestrange II, emphasis on the II. Much like Ronan, Rabastan 's father and stepmother had been locked away in prison after the defeat of the Dark Lord - potentially by Jem's father now that they thought about it - and so the two boys had practically grown up together. The duo were notorious for accidentally blowing up their cauldrons in potions - though where Ronan cackled away with glee, Rabastan was known to moodily storm out of the room and slam the door behind him.
The redhead in the room was Vanya Selwyn - a nervous wreck of a girl who seemed to be chasing after a new hopeless romance every other day of the week. Opposite her was Nadia Shafiq - possibly the smartest of the group. Her prefect badge was pinned to her perfectly ironed robes and she had a copy of The Modern Witch's Guide to Wizarding Economics and Investment open on her lap.
"Nice to see you too, Carrow," Venus gave the smirking boy the driest of smiles. "I guarantee you, my face is still a lot nicer to look at than yours."
Hope snorted and lifted both their trunks up unto the luggage rails. "You got that right. Carrow's nose has seen a few bludgers too many."
"Do you think I'm ugly, Nads?"
The group as snickered as Nadia didn't even look up from her book to address the openly hopeful boy. "I don't know," she muttered. "I don't bother to look at your face enough to form an opinion about it."
"Ha! There's your answer, you ugly bugger!" Rabastan slapped his disappointed friend on the shoulder. Vanya let out a violent giggle and patted his knee with her dog eared copy of Witch Weekly. Hope could just about make out Victor Krum's frowning face on the front cover.
"You break my heart Shafiq," Ronan sighed with a playful smile. "One day you'll realize you're missing the opportunity of a lifetime."
Nadia quickly adjusted her already pristine robes, tucked her book away and headed towards the door. "Well in the meantime, I have prefect duties to attend to. It was good to see you, Venus. And you, Hope - if it means anything, I'm sorry your dad felt like he had to resign last year. He was an excellent professor."
Hope gave Nadia a small smile, her hair a honey blonde. She could have been mistaken, but she almost certain she saw the prefect cast a quick glance back at the laughing Carrow boy as she closed the compartment door.
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about your old man's little problem," Rabastan drawled with an easy smirk. "Explains the scars, I suppose."
Vanya was quick to slap Rabastan round the back of the head as Ronan gave him an uneasy shake of the head. Venus had already tucked herself away in the corner of the compartment, covered in her Slytherin robes that she had yet to change into. "Don't be such a git, Lestrange!" Vanya snapped. "Professor Lupin was nothing but good to us - it's not his fault you were such a lousy student!"
"Sorry Hope," Rabastan muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "Didn't mean to cause offense."
"That's alright," Hope said with an uncharacteristic sense of tranquility. "But next time I hear someone taking the piss out of my dad - well, they're going to have hands for feet and feet for hands."
Ronan and Rabastan exchanged mildly terrorized looks and settled back into their adjacent seats with matching expressions of innocence.
"What's up with her?" Rabastan gestured at Venus' sleeping figure. "Last I heard, you two ran off to the World Cup and we didn't get a single word from either of you ever since."
"It's only been a week," Hope rolled her eyes, but then made sure Venus was asleep with a nudge to the knee. "But something did happen at the Cup - and she's been having the strangest of dreams ever since. She's become nocturnal."
"Yeah, but Venus has always had shitty nightmares," Vanya frowned. "I remember two years back she started saying the pipes were talking to her - the pipes, Hope."
Though Hope had to admit that Venus Hawthorne's behavior during the course of their fourth year at Hogwarts had been particularly strange indeed, she knew that things had only gotten worse from there.
"She got hit by the cruciatus curse," Hope leaned forward to whisper, taking in the ashen expression on Rabastan's face. "One of the death eaters managed to get a shot at her, and she won't admit to it, but I think she still dreams about it - I caught her screaming in her sleep the other night - and then Mum started screaming too and Dad thought the house was about to come down or something."
"Fucking hell," Ronan muttered under his breath. "She really has been to hell and back then. Hey, what's got you looking so murderous, Selwyn."
"What you mean besides the fact that our friend was a victim of terrible torture?" Vanya gave him an exasperated look. She turned to Hope with an uneasy grimace. "You know how loads of pureblood families that supported him but weren't officially marked or claimed they were under the imperious are still around, right?"
"You mean like the Malfoys?"
Vanya nodded. "Well, my aunt and uncle went missing for a large portion of the wizarding war - and then returned with nasty scars and a rather gloomy disposition. We were supposed to be having a family dinner the night of the World Cup - they both left early without saying where they were going, and then came back at three in the morning laughing and drinking."
Hope stared down at her badly painted fingernails with a frown. The last thing the Wizarding World needed was a deatheater renaissance.
"No need to worry about us," Rabastan smirked, trying to lift the mood a little. "Both the Carrow and Lestrange families seem to have mutually decided to make Azkaban their new ancestral home. Don't be surprised if we get sent off there under the charge of being blood relatives."
"Just try not to join a murderous cult, and I'm sure you'll be ok," Hope grinned, ducking as Ronan threw a liquorice wand at her. She glanced around the compartment, counting the school trunks before turning around with a frown. "You lot haven't seen Jem or Cassian yet, have you?"
"No - they're probably hunting down the trolley lady as usual," Vanya rolled here eyes. She turned to Hope, wiggling her eyebrows. "On the topic of Warrington, what's this I heard about you and Cedric Diggory?"
"Diggory?" Ronan stared at her in disbelief. "Well done, Lupin."
"I don't know," Rabastan grimaced. "He's a little too pretty, if you ask me."
"There's no such thing as too pretty," Vanya scoffed. "Now give us all the juicy details!"
"A lady never tells," Hope smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"You're not a lady," Ronan rolled his eyes. "And you always give us way more information than we ask for, so spill!"
"I never took you for a gossipmonger," Hope laughed. She was doing all she could to stop her hair from turning a violent shade of magenta. "Well, we were having a great time in my tent - he'd a real giver, by the way - and then we got cockblocked by a swarm of fucking death eaters."
"How romantic," Rabastan drawled. "Is this what we've come to - fucking Hufflepuffs in tents? Times really are dire."
"And when's the last time you got any action, Lestrange?" Hope grinned wickedly. "And your right hand doesn't count."
An hour later, Hope rubbed her full stomach as she wandered down the corridor in search of familiar faces. She was rather surprised to find Luna and Ginny sharing a compartment with Harry and his friends.
There was no sign of Jem, but Cassian had been 'busy' in the compartment next door with a rather pretty fifth year Slytherin girl, and she couldn't help the pinch she felt in her chest. It was quickly forgotten, however, when Cedric Diggory pulled her into his compartment, reassuring his fellow Hufflepuffs that though she was a Slytherin, Hope couldn't hurt a fly - turns out he didn't know her as well as he thought he did.