Winslow's eyes were wide, "Lisa Daniels? She stays in the girls dorm next to ours."
Marigold nodded, stabbing a sausage onto her fork with more force than what was probably necessary, "That's the one. Not her fault, though. It's my stupid fault for allowing myself to fall for a guy who I obviously have no shot with."
As much as he wanted to tell her that she was being dramatic, Winslow couldn't help agree that George's statement was pretty damning evidence against him liking Marigold. He patted her shoulder in a weak attempt at consoling her, "Don't think about that now, there's plenty of grindylows in the lake."
Chewing quietly on her breakfast, Marigold nodded but said nothing. Despite trying her utmost not to, her eyes scoured the length of the Gryffindor table for what felt like the fifth time. He still wasn't there. George was usually early to the breakfast table, but Marigold didn't allow herself to wonder where he was.
"Anyways," Winslow continued, trying his best to veer off the topic, "You said you're staying at the castle?"
Pausing mid-chew, Marigold's mind scrambled to grab onto the first feasible lie it could formulate. "My parent's are going to see some friends in Ireland, they asked if I wanted to go with but I have too much work."
She fought off the bitter taste on her tongue, Marigold hated lying.
"Oh, alright." Winslow nodded, unawares. "And you're gonna be fine here with Diego and Elin?"
"Yeah," she chuckled, "I'm actually looking forward to four weeks of no responsibility: no captainship, no Umbridge, no potions pracs. Are you excited to go home?"
Winslow smiled, "Yeah, my gran's visiting from Scotland. She always makes Christmas great."
Lifting to sip from her teacup, Marigold allowed herself to eavesdrop in on Angelina and Bernie's conversation.
"What! And how was the kiss?" Just to the right of her, Angelina was relaying the events of the previous night to Bernie.
Angelina was trying her best not to seem over-eager, "It was good ... a good kiss."
Marigold wished she had retold the story with as much fake disinterest to her the night before as she was to Bernie just then.
After they had left the twins in the corridor, Angelina forced Marigold onto one of the couches in the Gryffindor common room so she could share every, tiny detail of what happened with Fred. Marigold had rarely ever seen Angelina so giggly, she told her about how he held her close in his "strong embrace", how she couldn't possibly stay mad at him after that.
Truthfully, Marigold felt terrible. What kind of best friend was she to be so disinterested in Angelina's story? But as she sat on that couch, hearing every last detail about Angelina's incredibly romantic kiss, all Marigold could think about was how sour her own night had turned.
Despite it, she tried her best to ouh and ah in all the right places, but after nearly an hour of hearing about how Fred "tasted like cinnamon", Marigold had to turn into bed before she dissolved into a puddle of self-pity. Angelina had been so engrossed in her own story that she hadn't spared a breath to ask Marigold how her night with George had gone, and Marigold was grateful for that.
She would tell her, just not right then. Marigold couldn't bear the thought of having to admit that Angelina was right about her liking George, and not only that, but that he didn't see her in the same way.
For the first time in almost six months, the image plaguing Marigold when she shut her eyes before falling asleep that night wasn't that of Cedric's pale, motionless corpse splayed across the floor of the Quidditch pitch - it had been replaced by a sick image of George pushing Lisa Daniels up against the corridor wall and snogging her senseless. Needless to say, it hadn't been much more comforting.
Immediately, the memory made the marmalade toast in Marigold's hand lose it's appeal.
At that moment, Diego fell down into the seat opposite her, offering a distraction from her abandoned breakfast. "Did you guys hear about what happened to the twins last night?"
Marigold choked on her tea and Angelina's head whipped in their direction.
They swapped worried glances, the same thought running through both of their minds: had the twins been caught after they left?
"No, what happened?" Marigold asked, trying to smooth over the shake in her voice.
"Apparently, something happened with their dad." Diego reached over and started stacking pieces of bacon onto his plate, "I don't know what, but it sounded serious. They left the castle last night, with their little brother and sister."
With a slackened jaw, Marigold met Angelina's eyes. They exchanged disbelieving glances.
"Shit, intense." Bernie commented, abandoning the fork on the way to her mouth. "I wonder what happened."
It explained why the twins weren't at breakfast. Not that Marigold cared.
"Where'd you hear this from?" She asked, her mind whirring with the new information.
"Rodrigo's friends with that Seamus Finnigan, you know, the Irish one?" Everyone nodded. "Yeah him, he's in the same dorm as Fred and George's little brother, Ron. Said they woke up in the middle of the night to find him packing and this morning he was gone."
Rodrigo was Diego's little brother, he was in the same year as Harry Potter and the twin's little brother, Ron. She glanced further down the table to where the younger Ortega was sitting opposite the aforementioned Seamus Finnigan, surrounded by a few other fifth years. Rodrigo had grown so much, Marigold wouldn't have recognized him if he wasn't becoming the spitting image of his brother.
"That's crazy ..." Angelina uttered beside her. Marigold agreed, but a small part of her was relieved that they hadn't gotten into trouble about being out past curfew - it had been her idea after all.
She wondered where he was at that very moment, what he could possibly be thinking, feeling. Whether he'd thought about her at all since the previous night. Are you stupid? she scolded herself, he's having a family emergency!
Marigold visibly shivered, she was being silly. The weight of the pieces of parchment in her coat pocket shuffled as she adjusted her seat, reminding her that she needed to head up to the owlery.
"Actually," She turned to Angelina beside her, "I have a few owls to go send. I'll find you guys by the quad in twenty minutes?"
Angelina nodded, "Yeah, alright."
Gulping down the last of her tea, Marigold picked herself up from the Gryffindor bench and swept past the busy tables, out the hall doors.
The corridors were windy, the cold air turning Marigold's nose numb and she pulled her coat tighter around her frame. The buzz in the castle was tangible. For most students, they would be catching the train back to London in the morning. Back to their families for Christmas: to enjoy the month they had before school started again. For others, a quiet Christmas at Hogwarts awaited them.
The steps up to the owlery were slippery, and the only other person she encountered was what she gathered to be a Slytherin first year, rushing down the steps. "Hey, don't slip." Marigold warned her, but she was gone before she could reply.
At the top, the only sounds that could be heard were the chitter of the owls and the wind howling past the tower. The owlery was one of Marigold's favourite spots in the castle, from the window she could see the whole grounds and over into the Forbidden Forest.
Cautiously, she pulled the envelopes out of her pocket, there were two. The first had "Mum and Dad" scribbled on the front in Marigold's handwriting. She slipped the parchment from inside.
'Dear Mum and Dad,
I wish I could be there too, but this project is really keeping us busy and I've got to work on it over this time with my group members--" Marigold cringed, "--I'll see you in June.
I miss you guys a lot. I love you.
Marigold 𓆸'
At the bottom, beside her name, Marigold had illustrated a little flower - a marigold of course. She signed off all her letters that way.
Marigold had thought long and hard about what excuse she could concoct to get out of going home for the holidays, and the one of a "group project" had really been the most simple.
It wasn't that Marigold didn't want to see her family, it wasn't that at all, but rather the challenge of facing her room again that stopped her from going home.
From her bedroom window, she could see right across the street onto the front of the Diggory's porch and into the attic when the light was on. Marigold had spent the whole two months of Summer holiday after Cedric's death holed up in her room. The curtains stayed firmly pulled together, so that she didn't have to look at the front of his house or have to watch Mrs Diggory crying through the kitchen window as she did every day for hours on end.
All the picture frames had been pulled off the wall, nearly every single one held a picture with Cedric in it. She'd tossed them into the closet, behind her broomstick that she didn't look at until the day she caught the Hogwarts Express. Marigold hands were shaking, she took a deep, shuddering breath.
No, she couldn't go home. Not to have to face the front of his house, or the empty street, or the blank walls or the shut curtains. The thought of her room made her physically ill.
The guilt of lying was heavy, but the memory of her room was enough for Marigold to slip the letter back into the envelope and seal it shut.
The next envelope was heavier, Marigold had written a longer note. On the front in black ink were the addressees: "Mr and Mrs Diggory".
Since classes had begun, the Diggory's had been sending her owls. They were frequent, almost every two weeks, and at first, Marigold never read them. Instead she banished them to the bottom drawer of her bedside cabinet. It was only after a particularly long and hard Quidditch practice, when the dorm room was completely empty did Marigold allow herself to divulge into the content of the letters.
She had been right to suspect that reading them would be difficult. Her chest tightened with each word her eyes took in, but they were beautiful letters. Marigold figured that Mrs Diggory wrote them and simply signed for them both, they were nonetheless comforting. The first was congratulating her for becoming captain, the next wishing her well with her studies and the most recent, wishing her a good holiday - "We hope to see you for Christmas."
In all the letters, though, Cedric was never mentioned. Not even once. They all started the same, "Our dearest Marigold," ending identically as well: "With love from the Diggory's." Once she'd read them though, Marigold had been filled with insurmountable guilt. She realized that she was the last connection they had to Cedric's life at Hogwarts, she had been selfish to ignore the letters for so long.
The parchment was heavy in her hand, she pulled just the top of the note out:
'Dear Mr and Mrs Diggory,
Thank you for the letters, they were lovely. I'm sorry it's taken so long to reply--' Marigold stopped reading.
It had been hard enough to write the letter in the first place, she didn't need to endure rereading her words. She tucked it back into the envelope and sealed it shut before reaching for the nearest owl. He was a light brown and blinking down at Marigold eagerly, she had barely been able to secure the letters onto his leg before he flew off through the owlery window.
Marigold watched as the owl fly away until he was nothing more than a speck over the treetops.
Shuffling footsteps pulled Marigold's gaze away from the sky. She turned and met the face of the very last person she expected to, or really wanted to, find at the top of the owlery.
"Hey, Marigold."
She forced a smile, "Hey, Zach."
Things had been unbearably awkward since she rejected his apology two weeks before, so much so that Marigold regretted taking Angelina's advice at all. At practices, conversation was kept strictly to orders and comments on where he could improve his flying.
The change in demeanor hadn't gone unnoticed by any of the team members, either. More than once, Marigold had needed to brush off Maxine's curiosity with a shrug and an 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
"How've you been?" His shoulder-length black hair fell into his face and he pushed it away, absentmindedly.
"I've been alright, and yourself?" She replied.
He nodded, "Yeah, yeah, fine."
It grew quiet, only the sound of the owls ruffling filled the space between them.
"Are you going home? For Christmas, I mean." She forced out the only question her mind could conjure up in the moment.
The Hufflepuff boy shook his head, "No, actually. I'm staying at the castle."
She cocked her eyebrow in curiosity, "Really? And Troy, is he staying too?"
"No, he's going home. Are you?"
"I'm staying at the castle, too."
"Oh."
Silence fell again, this time, though, it was shorter lived.
"Goldie," Marigold knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. "I want you to know that I really am sorry, about what I said. I was out of line."
Watching how Zach fidgeted with the end of his sleeve, Marigold decided that it was time to forgive him and move on - if not for him, for herself. She hated the lingering anger and awkwardness she was forced to feel every time he was around.
Marigold smiled, stepping forward to offer him a hug. "All's forgiven."
She heard him sigh in relief over her shoulder, "Thanks."
"Well, I guess, I'll see you around the castle?" He commented conversationally, pulling away from her.
Marigold considered him for a moment. Troy was Zach's best friend. They were practically attached at the hip, and a part of Marigold wondered why he didn't just go home with him for the holidays.
"Why don't you come join us at dinner tomorrow night, after everybody's left?"
Zach's expression twisted from relief to discomfort, "Uhm, at the Gryffindor table?"
"Yeah," Marigold replied, growing more and more confident in her request. "It's just two of my friends staying for Christmas, and the Hall will be empty anyways. It'll be nice to have some extra company."
His green eyes darted back and forth, and for a moment Marigold worried she'd been too presumptuous, but Zach's gaze met hers again. He was smiling slightly. "Sure, that'll be fun."
__________