Joy nods quickly: „yea sure! Go ahead". Perplex, she musters how Remus sits down on the bench next to her. He made hard moves, seemingly in pain. „How are you doing?", Joy asks interested. Her mind presses her to ask more questions: Why were you in the Hospital Wing? What did Dumbledore tell you? Did he say something about my powers? But Joy knows better than that, she herself would not want to be bombarded with questions either and also does not feel like it at the moment. She does not even know what she should feel/
Remus fishes his books out of his brown, shabby leather bag and looks at Joy with a forced wide smile: „Never have been better".
„Who are you kidding?", Joy giggles dryly.
He shrugs his shoulders. „I'm alright", he nods, now more certain of himself. Silence entered the conversation and both, Remus and Joy, sink their heads into their books. Remus was the first one to raise his voice again, weirdly sudden: „Dumbledore is a great guy".
Joy looks at him, not thinking much of it. She shrugs her shoulders and mumbles a short: „opinions differ". She looks back into her book, and for a second she reflects on her thoughts. Should she ask something? Dumbledore is a great guy. Who is he kidding? Joy shrugged her shoulders, thinking that Dumbledore must have concussed him with lemon sorbet.
Joy hears steps approaching on the stone floor towards the end of the library, not caring enough to look up, hoping it would not be one of her 'friends'.
"Ah ew mudblood, care to fuck away?", Lucius looks at Remus. Joy rolls her eyes and frowns at Lucius: "care to be less of an asshole?"
Remus chuckles and Lucius looks at him, immediately Remus gets up. Joy holds his wrist: "you don't have to go". Joy intended to keep the option open on asking him about Dumbledore but her chance ran out.
Remus shakes his head: "it's alright, I'll have to get to the others eventually". She leaves his wrist and slightly smiles at him. He nods his head towards Joy and leaves, ignoring Lucius.
Lucius giggles, Joy looks at him confused. "What are you laughing at?", she snaps tiredly. "Not sure, probably just asking myself since when you adapt more and more mudbloods into your close groups.", he smirks and sits down where Remus sat just a minute ago. Joy shifts on her chair to have a better look at Lucius. "You should stop calling them mudbloods, you know...", Joy suggests with a strong but still friendly tone. Lucius nods. That was easy, Joy thought as she had already prepared for a discussion.
"I came because I was worried! Nila told me you were in the hospital wing? What happened?", Lucius asks seemingly worried.
"She didn't tell you what happened?"
Lucius shakes his head shortly, looking at Joy with an intense gaze. Joy didn't know whether she should believe him but eventually, she shrugs her shoulders, giving her a second to reflect on what she should say. "Just a spell that went wrong".
Lucius nods understandingly: "happens to the best". Joy was waiting for a typical 'except for me', from Lucius but it didn't come.
"Are you looking forward to going home over Christmas? Mom asked me to invite you over for dinner! Your parents are welcome too, of course!", he tells happily. "Oh..", Joy just remembered again, that she wasn't allowed to go home, "I'm staying in Hogwarts", she forces a smile, "ohh, bummer, I'm taking the first train home!". Joy still forces a smile. "Maybe my dad can screw something around so that you can still visit for dinner! He'll talk to Slughorn, they're good friends y'know".
Joy nods, knowing already that it was impossible, Dumbledore and her parents would never let her go. She didn't even know if she wanted to go, but it was a tradition. Every Christmas break, the MacGee's were invited over for dinner at the Malfoys Manor.
"It's your first Christmas that you're not going home right?", Lucius reflects, looking confused. Joy nods slowly, positively surprised by Lucius' thoughtfulness. "Why actually?", he asks, "I thought our parents saw eye to eye on this topic, mudbloods stay over Christmas". And there it went again, Joy's positive thoughts of Lucius, he did strike a nerve there. She glances madly at him, snaps her book shut, grabs her bag, and hurries out of the library, leaving a confused Lucius behind.
In a hurry she enters the Slytherin girls dorm, running straight into Nila and Lu. Couldn't she be alone for just one second? "There you are Joy!", Lu falls around Joy's neck, " We've been looking for you all over!", she lets go of her, " are you doing better? You look better!", she notices. Joy looks into Lu's face, and she couldn't spare a small smile, how could she be mad at her? "We need to hurry we're already late for Arithmancy! You have Divination right?", I nod quickly: "yea"
"Oh good, Prim will be happy to see you then! She was worried all morning! We too of course, but she was really out of herself! Never saw her like this before!", Lu explains quickly. "Oh", Joy frowns. Her view shifts to Nila, who said nothing so far. Nila smiles slightly, "well what happened yesterday was quite sick!" but Joy could just shrug her shoulders, not agreeing with Nila's comment. "Alright, we have to run!", Lu smiles and they both leave.
Joy steps to her bed, sitting down next to where Finlay, her grey, long-haired cat, was laying. She pets him, ruffling behind his ear (his favorite spot). "At least I will not be all alone during Christmas break, I got you". The cat meows. Joy drags herself off the bed to change into a fresh uniform. She magically ties her tie, she never figured out how to do it without magic, and puts on her Slytherin robe, placing her wand in the inside pocket. "Bye Finlay", she mumbles and with a second thought decides to be rather too late than caught disapparating again.
Arriving at the ladders, students were still climbing it up. She wondered that she was not too late, but also happy about it - not giving her teacher another plus to dislike Slytherins. Joy was the only Slytherin in her grade taking Divination.
As the last one arriving, Joy climbs up the ladder. A tower out of tea cups stands in the middle of the room, some students gathered around. Joy's gaze wanders through the class, her eyes go to the place where Prim and she usually sit, but her spot was taken... by Sirius. Joy frowns confused, when did that happen? She sighs, looking for another place, not that she necessarily wanted to sit next to her, with all the secrets she probably withholds from Joy.
"MacGee, you can sit with me!", James' voice grasps Joy's attention. She feels her face blushing slightly as thoughts of last night make their way into her head. She slowly makes her way over to his table, when she was held up by Prim. "Joy! There you are, finally!", Prim throws her arms around her. "yea, I'm fine", Joy mumbles, trying to not sound too annoyed. "You sure?", Prim looks at her with a frown, "you don't sound 'fine'!". Joy nods.
"I was looking for you all morning!", Prim moaned. "Well didn't take you long to find a replacement", Joy says with a raised eyebrow. Prim musters her confused, then notices Joy was talking about Sirius: "owww yea I promised him to sit with him!", she leaves a pause waiting for Joy to be as excited as her, but Joy stood untouched, "well, uhm, I can still sit with you if you want!", Prim smiles. Joy hesitates but shakes her head: "No that's alright", she indicates with her head to the side where James was sitting, "I'll sit with James..". "Good for you!!", Prim grins and wiggles her eyebrows, which made Joy giggle a bit. "See ya", Prim grins, and Joy just nods shortly making her way to James and sits down. For a second she thought of what a bad best friend she must be, who she became over the past months, Joy would have been happy for her, but now she just feels empty.
"Heya", James snaps Joy out of her thoughts. Joy shifts her head up, looking into a grinning James Potter. James just wanted to add something when the professor started talking: "Hello everyone, today we're going to repeat tessomancy. No complaints please, I know you have seen the art of tessomancy already in your 3rd year, but I desire a good cuppa tea. So, please get a cup of tea and drink it out, once your done, switch cups with your partner and read their leaves, thank you". The professor fills her cup and sits down in her armchair.
Joy gets up, but James interrupts her:" I'll take one for you", he smiles and Joy smiles back, nods, and sits back down. She musters James, looks after him. Her face blushes again slightly, thinking that James had almost kissed. She probably must be looking like an idiot, grinning for herself. She shakes the thought of the kiss. She looks back at James, he goofs around with Sirius as they are standing in line to get the tea.
Looking at the two, she wonders whether the Potters were also part of the order of the phoenix. Dumbledore said that he was recruiting more and more wizarding families for their cause. Maybe James knew about it? Dumbledore made him head boy, he must have confidence in him.
"Here you go!", James places a cup in front of me. "Thanks", Joy smiles at him, their eyes lock for a second. She looks down, taking a sip of her cup, regretting it the exact second. She closes her eyes, pressing her lips together. She hears James laughing, she shakes her head, her tongue pounding. Eventually, James' laugh made her laugh as well.
"Alright, give me your teacup James", Joy smiles, holding out her hand for James' empty cup.
"hm", James indicates into the teacup, frowning with a concentrated gaze between the cup and the book he has laying on the table. "What hm?", Joy looks worried. What if it says I'll day?
"I see a little heart, down here in the corner", James looks up wiggling with his eyebrows, he looks back down: "but also a snake, hmm what does that mean?", James flicks through the pages of his book. I sigh: "Enemy or falsehood", Joy stumbles, her mind shifts to Prim but also knowing that it must not be her that is meant.
James' grin fades: "but you still got the love", he puts the cup down and forms a heart with his hands. Joy chuckles, laughing a bit but still a bit worried. She lets her shoulders sink and looks back into James' cup. "I see a cross and hm this could be a bat? not sure tho".
"What does that mean??
Joy reads what is written in her notes: "The cross represents trials and suffering", Joy looks up to check James face. He looked at her concentrated, but Joy was not sure whether he was taking it seriously. SHe looks back into her book: "the bat represents that an attack is coming", Joy frowns, "it says as a tipp that you should brush up on your defensive skills".
James chuckles: "well, I guess you can show me how you made that wave, that'd be sick!"
That hit Joy in the face, she looks perplex. She is not sure how to rebuttal that, her mind turns around possible answers. Joy takes a deep breath: "piss off!". She gets up and makes her way to the ladder. "Joy, wait!", she hears James say and getting up. Joy feels a strong rage coming up in her, thinking that she had lead him mistaken her again, she again felt for his Potter charm and she hated herself for that. She makes her way down the ladder and could still hear James mumbles in between professors "Ms. MacGee, is everything alright?"
Joy feels a wave on anger raising in her, her mind swirls again around and around all the mistakes and betrayal of the past weeks. She makes her way to the Slytherin common room as fast as she could. She felt the palms of her hand burning.
"Love", she clenches her jaw, not for that prat, she thinks.
"Snake", she stumbles, every damn person in her life, she thinks, even herself.
Joy marches through the stonewall of their common room, up the stairs to her dorm. With an arm movement, Joy lets the door of her dorm fall back into their angles loudly. She rages.