❝ You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. ❞ — Leon Trotsky

I enter the dorm knackered from two hours of Herbology tutoring. The books almost fall out of my arms when the smell hits me. Stronger than tobacco, mixed with something sickeningly sweet. I pinch my nose. As if the stench alone isn't enough, the whole dormitory is filled with smoke.

My eyes zone in on the source. Christine is sitting on the windowsill, sucking on a tube attached to some sort of water pipe. She withdraws the tube from her mouth. Her lips part to release a thick puff of smoke.

"Christine!" I cry. My voice comes out muffled because I'm still holding my nose. "What in Merlin's name are you doing?"

She tilts her head lazily to look at me.

"Wanna join?"

"As a matter of fact, I don't." I put my books down and take my bag off my shoulder to hang it on the chair beside my bed. "How many times have I told you not to bring drugs in here?"

Instead of replying, she takes another draw of the tube. The water bubbles in the bowl at the bottom of the water pipe.

"Have you seen Rosa?" she asks. "She hasn't been around much lately."

"Rosalinda? I was sitting with her in Charms the other day. It's you that I don't see around much anymore."

I stare intently at her as I say it, but she averts eye contact. Her gaze is blank as she looks outside the window.

"I saw her get in a bit of a scrap with Maddie Simmons this morning."

She blows a puff of smoke in my face. I cough and wave a hand to swipe it away. Bringing out my wand, I produce an oxygen bubble around my head.

"Simmons had her pinned against a wall at wand point when I saw them," she continues. "Rosa tried to play it off like nothing happened. She wouldn't tell me what was going on."

"If it's about the article, she should drop it already."

Christine shrugs. "I'm not sure. Sometimes I wonder if she's switching sides."

"That's ridiculous. Rosalinda wouldn't do that to you. You guys are best friends."

She shrugs again. With her free hand, she pushes a greasy strand of hair away from her face. I hold myself back from grimacing.

"When was the last time you showered?" I ask softly. My tone is one of concern, rather than disgust.

"Really?" She scoffs, finally turning to look at me. Her eyes are bloodshot. "I've barely got enough energy to get out of bed, and you're asking when I've last showered?"

The confession puts me in a difficult spot. I purse my lips together and just look at her, not knowing what to say. I sit on the corner of my bed so that I'm opposite her and cross my legs.

"I know you haven't been doing well lately, Christine. Mike says you've been underperforming in Quidditch as well. That's not you at all. I worry about you, you know."

She clenches her jaw. Looks down. "I'm just so fucking sick and tired of everything."

"Talk to me."

Christine shakes her head and rakes her fingers through her short hair. The thin smoke hangs above our heads like a layer of fog.

"I don't—" Her bottom lip wobbles. She sniffles and draws deeply on her pipe. "There's no point, you know? No fucking point. Why bother pretending everything's all fine when it's not? My sister is in Azkaban and our dear deputy is Merlin-knows-where, not doing a bloody thing about it."

She curses under her breath, then takes another aggressive draw of the pipe. The amount of smoke must have been too suffocating, because all of a sudden, she starts coughing and wheezing a concerning amount. Panicking, I rush over to my night stand and grab a glass of water.

I point my wand at it frantically. "Aguamenti."

A jet of water starts filling the glass. My hand shakes as I give it to Christine, who chugs it down like she's on the cusp of severe dehydration. Some of the water drips down her chin and wets her shirt.

"You're too young to be destroying your lungs like this, Christine."

"Yeah?" she rasps and lowers the glass. "Well, Stella is too young to be in death row, yet here we are. Damn, this shit makes me so thirsty."

She hands the glass back to me and I pour more water on it with my wand. I hand it to her and she gulps it down like a shot again.

"Has Alex kept you updated on what we've found out? Professor Raymond helped McBon go into hiding. She's planning something big, and—"

"Yeah, yeah, he told me all about it," she cuts me off. "Like I said, no bloody point. The fact they're not telling us means that whatever brilliant plan McBon must have isn't exactly working. Else why would they hide it from us?"

My lips part. "I—"

"Exactly. They're improvising at best. The Ministry has made sure to stifle whatever we started."

She points at a stack of crumpled newspapers on her unmade bed.

"What we did . . . all of that for nothing."

"It wasn't for nothing."

"I don't get why you keep lying to yourself, Sibi," she snaps. "Is it so bloody hard to admit we're screwed over? How's anything different from how it was before Polly came here, hm? Oh, wait. The only difference is that now we've antagonized the Ministry with a magazine that got us nowhere. And also, the whole school hates us."

"Listen, I know this all might seem hopeless, but we can't give up now." I give her a hesitant smile. "You can't either. Stella is counting on you to fight for her."

She springs to her feet so quickly I almost flinch. With a swift hand movement, she pulls out her wand from the pocket of her jeans and points it under my chin. The veins on her neck are popping.

"Don't talk about Stella," she threatens between clenched teeth. "Don't fucking do it. You don't know . . . I did .  . . she may not—she may not even be alive anymore."

My heart jumps to my throat. I gulp, wary of what I'm about to say. Slowly, I grab her hand that is pointing the wand at me. Her skin burns. Her whole fist is shaking.

"You don't know that, Christine," I whisper. "Polly is with her. She promised to look after her."

Christine breaks her hand free of my grip. Strides over at her bed and grabs a handful of crumpled newspapers. She tosses them on my bed, shoving one in my face. "Maybe if you stopped pretending everything's bloody alright and opened your daily mail for once, you'd know."

I inhale to regain my composure. With a trembling heart, I reach for the copy of the Daily Prophet Christine is handing me. It's from this morning. The front headline reads, Azkaban Prison suffers first Dragon Pox outbreak of the century; five dead, Auror hospitalized. Beneath it, in a smaller font, the subhead, Prison Governess Seraphina Celander: Preventable disease spreading 'like wildfire' inside prison walls.

The newspaper drops from my hands. Dragon Pox . . . Five dead . . . My brain struggles to process the words.

"They won't even report the names of the dead." Christine's voice breaks. She lowers her wand and collapses on my bed. "Like they're not even worth mentioning, or-or paying respects to. But they wrote a whole fucking paragraph on that Auror who was sent to St Mungos. Why is his life worth more? Cause he's an Auror? He's even alive."

She buries her face in her hands and starts sobbing. Five years of being roommates and friends, and this is the second time I've ever seen Christine cry. My throat has gone dry. There's nothing I can say or even want to, so I scoot closer and wrap my arms around her. She reeks of tobacco smoke and her hair smells sour. Her small body shudders violently under my embrace.

"How do-how do you-how do you d-do it?" she chokes out in between sobs. "H-How do you . . . k-keep it together?"

All this suffering for someone so young. It's not fair. I suck in my lips. A tear rolls down my cheek and I make no attempt to stop more from flowing.

"I-I don't," I whisper. "I just pretend that I do."

▼

Tirol grabs the Owl Treat from my hand before I even fully unwrap it. He lets out an excited hoot and starts pecking on it with his small beak. I smile and pet his head.

"Calm down, you silly owl. You will choke."

The Owlery is crowded. More so than usual. Some owls are flying around the room or nibbling on leftover snacks, while others sleep soundly in their cages. The room stinks of stale food and the floor is an array of colorful owl feathers and breadcrumbs. I walk up to the cage labelled 'Greg.' A barn owl sits inside, big black eyes staring at me, barely blinking. Out of all the owls in the tower, he has got to be the quietest one.

"Hey, Greg," I whisper to him. The Owl Treats I put on his food tray the other morning are still there. "You don't seem to enjoy those too much, do you?"

I sigh and look down at the Owl Treats I'm holding. Tirol would finish them within half an hour if I gave them to him. But they don't seem to be a favorite of Greg's. I promised Polly I'd take care of him, but he still isn't used to me. Before she left, I didn't get the chance to ask her what she fed him.

"Maybe he likes to hunt," comes Mike's voice.

I turn around. He's leaning against the door, dressed in a worn out jumper and patched trousers. He raises his hand to wave at me and I smile. I swear, the first thing I'm doing if I become rich someday is buying him a new wardrobe.

Mike makes his way over to me. "I don't know much about owls, but maybe Greg likes to get his own food. It wouldn't hurt to try and let him out." He taps the cage to get Greg's attention. "Hello, mate. Would you like to go hunting?"

Slowly, he opens the door of the cage. The owl's eyes dart back and forth between me and Mike. He opens his wings and flies out of the window. I watch his white and bronze body soar into the morning sky until he disappears from view.

"Do you need to borrow Tirol?" I ask.

Mike nods. "Unless you need him. I've got to write back to dad."

"Go ahead. I sent Vicky a letter yesterday."

Mike unzips his schoolbag and brings out an envelope. He approaches Tirol, who's done with his Owl Treat, and ties the letter gently to his tiny leg.

"Be careful," he whispers, stroking the owl's feathers. Tirol lets out a hoot, opens his wings and flies out of the window. Mike turns to me. "I never asked why Vicky and Roger chose not to move to Berlin. I thought that was the original plan."

"They didn't like the city that much," I explain. "Roger's degree from the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts wouldn't be recognized over there. Plus, Vicky landed herself a job at Witches' Weekly."

Mike nods. He's silent as his eyes follow the movements of the owls flying around the room. A smile tugs at his lips.

"It's weird to think this is where our friendship started, three years ago. Seems like just yesterday."

"Yeah, and then I attacked you."

I grab my bag and start heading out of the Owlery. Mike follows behind. We're descending the stairs when he responds.

"It wasn't your fault, Sibi. You were transforming by the time I got here."

"And eating an owl."

He looks down. "I know. I-I saw that."

I stop dead in my tracks. "You did?"

"I—yeah. I mean, I didn't want to bring it up—"

"So your first impression of me was that of a hideous beast, slaughtering an owl and attacking you when you walked in . . . and you still decided to be my friend?"

He shrugs. "I walked in on your darkest secret. It was sort of inevitable."

"You could've decided to stay as far away from me as possible and told everyone to do the same."

"Wouldn't that be cruel? We were in the same house, had the same classes. I had seen you in your normal state. Sweet, polite, smart. That incident didn't change my opinion of the you I knew." He smiles softly. "Remember how scared you were when you approached me in the common room the next day to apologize?"

"Yeah." The memory makes me let out a laugh. "You said you weren't even mad at me in the first place."

"I wasn't." 

We keep walking towards the castle. The morning breeze is chilly, so I wrap my cardigan more tightly around my body. After a while, I turn to him. "Can I see it?"

"Sibi—"

"Please. I just want to see it."

Mike breathes out a deep sigh. He doesn't like it when I remind him of the incident, but it's one of those things I can't get out of my mind, no matter how much I try. I hurt someone, and I felt culpable. Both were a first.

He rolls up the sleeve of his jumper. A scar cuts across his skin from his elbow to a little above his wrist. Paler than I remember. More shallow. Like it's not even there. But it is, and whenever I look at it, all I see is a deep, bleeding wound and my wolf claws slashing at his skin.

"You should stop thinking about it, Sibi," Mike says and pulls down his sleeve. I turn my head to the side. "It really wasn't your fault."

"Tell me something, Mike. Did you decide to be friends with me because you felt like you had to?"

"No, of course not," he responds quickly. "I felt sorry for you at first, I'll admit. But at the end of the day, it wasn't out of pity. I liked being your friend. And I still do."

He bites his lip and looks down at his shoes. "I was afraid of being judged since the Sorting. With my family history and our money issues . . . I thought everyone would take the piss out of me. And then seeing you like that, someone that I thought of as the most normal person on earth with a picture-perfect life . . . I guess it was eye-opening. Suddenly I didn't feel so alone."

I give a rueful smile. "Never judge a book by its cover."

"For sure." He kicks a rock out of his way. "I've also got you to thank for my growth in confidence over the years. It wasn't like that before."

"I keep telling you that you're too harsh on yourself, Mike. You're the smartest person I know. I can always count on you to see the rational side of things—even when I can't. You're kind, too, and very generous. Give yourself more credit."

He looks at me, then turns his head to the side. I can see the smile that builds on his face, which causes me to also smile. His cheeks turn scarlet.

"Well, since you count on me for rational arguments," he finally says. "I think you should also practice what you preach."

I raise an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Meaning you're being too harsh on yourself as well. All this guilt and blame you've been carrying? That's not like you at all."

It's my turn to look to the side now. I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe out a deep sigh.

"Blaming yourself for what happened won't make anything better, Sibi. It will only make you feel worse."

"I'll stop blaming myself when I find a way to help Polly."

Mike takes my hand. His skin is cold against my even colder one. I look at our joined hands, then up at him. His eyes are gentle and full of warmth.

"We will," he promises. "Together."

I give his hand a squeeze. "I hope so."

◈

i'm s o f t ™

i forced Christine to come out of the shadows even tho she just wants to curl up in a ball n be depressed. also some Mibi appreciation bc I don't talk enough about how much I love their friendship <3