MALKA HAD BEEN GOING TO THE HOSPITAL WING EVERY DAY. Now, Regulus was making his way back into school life, and everything seemed like it was going to be okay. Ravenclaw would play Hufflepuff in a loser's bracket game the upcoming weekend, and Gryffindor and Slytherin would play in about three weeks. Then, two weeks later, they would have exams, and their O.W.L. year would be over.

"I'm exhausted. Wanna take a dip in the prefect bathroom later?" Cass asked sympathetically.

"Sure," Malka replied, and as promised, the two girls were all giggly as they walked to the prefect bathroom. Cass had been obsessed with it ever since she had first started dating Clorfan and he had been made prefect. 

The bathroom was empty, with it being a Monday night and no one looking for long baths at eight p.m., so Cass and Malka walked in, towels in a shared basket and with robes on underneath their cloaks. The bathroom was gorgeous, too, with its golden ruched ceilings, gleaming taps and pristine floors. It was divided into a lavatory section and a bathing section, and Cass and Malka took one of the baths in a separate room, watching as blazing hot water filled the tubs quite rapidly and multicolored bubbles scattered over the top. Both girls preferred their baths hot. 

"How are things with your family?" Malka asked, retracting her toe as she dipped it into the water, testing how its heat. Both girls were still sitting on the edge of the pool, robes on.

"Shite as always," Cass sighed, drawing an eight on the surface of the water with her index finger. "Mum and Dad are fighting again because Mum got demoted at work; Dad says she's not doing her fair share supporting the family,"

"You can get by?"

"Hm, barely. Adelia and Alice are still in Auror training and they barely makes enough to cover their own tutition. Probably going to take another few years, so it all hinges on Florean. We haven't been writing as much since I know he's busy with his shop and all. Fewer people are visiting Diagon Alley recently, they're starting to say it'll be one of the next places this You-Know-Who attacks. So they're staying home, and business is getting harder for Florean,"

"I'm sorry," Malka grimaced.

Cassana's family was rather complicated. The Abbotts were very respectable until Ronan Abbott humiliated his wife, Grainne, by running away with Elspeth MacLeod. All reports had said Ronan Abbott was captured by centaurs. Thirty years had passed, even Abbott's son with his original wife, Conor, had sired children of his own. It was only then when Ronan Abbott died that the scandal was uncovered; that he had changed his name to Edmund Fortescue, and by then he'd had two sons, one of which whom was Cassana's father. 

Cassana's family could probably never shake their patriarch's reputation, and her uncle lived all the way up in Wick just to start again. Cassana had three siblings, Florean as the oldest, then Adelia, Alice, and Cassana. Not poor, but definitely not secure. And her mother's family name had been Ollivander, another line of disputed purebloods.

"It's whatever," Cass said a bit gruffly. "Florean's smart, he'll work on his marketing. And Dad still has his job at the Prophet. Wanna jump in?"

Malka tested the water again, and agreed. The girls shed their robes and tiptoed in. The water pooled between their legs, creeping up their limbs bit by bit as they sank deeper and the warmth surrounded them from all sides. Malka had put her hair up beforehand- washing her hair was specifically for showers (in her opinion).

Cass sighed luxuriously. "How do you get your hair so shiny, Malka?"

Cass was known for her frizzy dark blonde hair. Apparently when she was a child it had been entirely blonde, but now, only two face-framing pieces were still golden, the rest was a muted chestnut. Malka shrugged. "Genetics, I guess. It helps that's it's straight,"

Malka, on the other hand, had razor straight black hair that, if she took an hour to style, had a bit of a wave to it. But most days she didn't have the time and put a straightening charm on it alongside her drying charm. 

Cass groaned. "Ugh. I want to talk about something else. I only have Potions and Transfiguration with you nowadays; all my other classes are boring and I have no one to talk to,"

"Clorfan is in both your Divination and Runes classes," Malka said monotonously, stretching out on a step in the pool.

"Yes, but he doesn't want to talk to me. Says he needs to pay attention and take notes,"

"That sounds very mature," Malka pointed out. "Well, if you have differing goals than him for a class, try sitting somewhere else,"

"I guess I will," Cass muttered, before her eyes took on a mischevious glint. Before the dread settled in Malka's stomach, Cass had taken a handful of bubbly bath water and splashed it in Malka's face.

"Cass! My hair," she said, affronted as Cass giggled with laughter. Grinning, Malka shoved the bath's surface, sending a ripple which turned into a giant wave crashing into Cassana's sholder. Cass retaliated boldly with simply lunging at Malka.

She shrieked and stuck her entire head underwater, trying to avoid Cass by going deep in the ten-metre deep bath, but Cass grabbed her neck and yanked her up. And so began their water fight, with girls screaming and water flying, and for that moment everything was perfect.

-

Professor Satyavati Shah was a stooped old woman with frazzled white hair, huge spectacles, and a voice suited for lullabies. From what Malka deduced from the pictures the Professor had shown her once, she used to have a strong, dark copper complexion, but it had faded and waxed with age. She had to be at least a hundred, and she might've looked her age, but she certainly did not act like it. 

"Move, Sparks," Professor Shah said sharply, poking at a skinny Hufflepuff boy with the tip of her blue walking stick. "Arslan, come here, let me see your star chart,"

Malka nodded quickly, not wanting to cross her, as she made her way across the top of the Astronomy Tower to her. It was a bit past midnight on a Tuesday night, and Malka, as well as the other ten students in her class, were rather exhausted from their double block. 

Malka shuffled over, red cardigan wrapped around her waist with a belt, Regulus's scarf upon her shoulders, and handed her double sided chart to the Professor, who wore dark robes embroidered with gold galaxies that moved. 

"Hm. Hm," Shah adjusted her spectacles four times before commenting. "Hm, not too shabby. Needs some cleanup for Orion's diagram, more descriptions of Halley's Comet would be ideal. Hm, and you must redo Pollux, you have the nebulas wrong. Hm. But decent,"

And Malka took the chart back, smile beaming. For that much criticism was basically an 'Outstanding' O.W.L, as her classmates looked on in surprise and a few in envy. She redrew Pollux with a small grin on her face.

"Now, you will need to do these star charts off of memory during your O.W.L examinations! I recommend you bring your copy to all of our classes until the end of the semester from now on, do copy off Miss Arslan's if you need inspiration. Your exams are coming up, now. Two months feels like nothing-" she snapped her fingers "-when you're distracted. I will expect nothing but exception on each of your exams. Do not fail me,"

And the class got back to work a bit more anxiously, chewing on the tips of their quills as they scribbled down the crossing of the meteorites. But Malka was not worried, as her feather quill naturally drifted to the constellation she gravitated to the most nowadays, and her smile grew the teensiest bit wider.

A loud mrrow interrupted their lesson. Fergus jumped from wherever he was before onto the stone ridge of the tower walls, his long, skinny white tail curling side to side. Cass let Fergus wander around the castle however he wanted, and he sometimes fed himself on the castle's occaisonal rat.

"Ooh, what a splendid feline," Professor Shah screamed, walking stick hitting the cobblestone aggressively as she snatched Fergus up. Malka stared, amazed. If she ever tried to manhandle Fergus like Shah just did, Fergus would probably unleash war.

Annoyed, Malka turned back to the constellation Leo. Despite not announcing it to the class, Professor Shah had circled in black a few stars that Malka drew in the wrong spots, including the brightest and darkest stars of the constellation. She vanished her ink off the parchment template, and dotted a few new dots. Meanwhile, a few students shot Fergus some nasty looks as his mechanical purring interrupted their focus.

Next to her, Mary Macdonald, one of the other Gryffindors in their year. Her forehead looked bruised and there was an angry sadness to her dark eyes. Malka turned towards her. The two had always been comfortable with mostly ignoring each other, especially now since they did not room together. But the few words they'd shared had always been polite.

"Mary, are you alright? Your head looks a bit bumped up," Malka tried.

"Mm?" Mary looked up, blue hair swishing. "Oh- yes, I'm fine, I don't really want to talk about it,"

"...Should you go to the Hospital Wing?" Malka asked again, quieter this time and trying to not be too pushy.

"I did. Drop it, Malka," Macdonald said sharply, and Malka retreated. Though she remained curious. Mary was probably the loudest Gryffindor, Cassana the most carefree, Margaux the kindest, and Malka the quietest. There were multiple times where Malka would be trying to study and overhear Mary's loud venting of her troubles. She never, ever had a sharpness to her tone. 

Frowning, Malka turned back to Leo, her fingers tapping against the aged parchment. Weird.