tfw no wizard gf

>sitting in the Hogwart's courtyard reading a book and drinking Butterbeer as you often like to do to relax
>A pleasant day, a breeze stirs the fallen leaves around you, and birds chirp in the early afternoon sun
>Your novel, featuring the adventures of famous wizards of years past, captures your attention
>With most of the other students occupied with whatever it is they do with their evenings, you get to enjoy the quiet moment
>Your attention is broken when you hear the clatter of a rock falling from the parapet above you
>You glance up just in time to see a mess of short brown hair with a light spot in it duck back down behind the parapet
>Merula
>no doubt spying on you, planning her next attack
>"I saw you, Merula. What do you want"
>Silence
>"Stop hiding. I saw you"
>Continued silence
>After a moment, the mess of brown hair peeks over the stone, and you match eyes
>"Come down from there, and tell me why you're spying on me"
>Her eyes dart back and forth a bit, and she disappears back behind the stone
>You roll your eyes, recline back on the bench, and resume your reading
>but after only a moment, Merula emerges from the doorway leading to the parapet's staircase
>She stands quietly for a moment, holding her arm and looking at the ground
>Uncharacteristically sheepish of her
>Suspicious, to say the least, but your curiosity gets the better of you
>"What do you want, Merula?"
>"Oh nothing, I just wanted to see what you were up to..."
>"Oh come on, what are you planning?"
>"Nothing!" she says, with a very uncharacteristically emphatic stamp of her foot and furrowing of her brow
>"Then what are you doing?" you ask, intrigued by her strange behavior
>She moves to the bench next to you, and you instinctively slide away from her. She fooled you like this once before, and you got a face full of stink pellets the last time she got this close
>"Oh relax you dumb scaredy-cat. I come in peace. This time."
>You've learned not to take her word for anything, but nevertheless, you wait as she takes a seat next to you.
>"So what'cha readin'?" she asks, her feet swaying beneath the bench and her eyes trying to peek over the edge of the page
>"You aren't actually interested in what I'm reading...What is this about Merula? What's going on while you are distracting me?"
>"Ohhh, none o' that this time. I just thought we could be friends for a change. Ye'know, like a truce?"

To be continued...



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>"What do you really want, Merula?"
>Her eyes close for a second as she exhales
>"I just got tired of it, yeah? Us bein' at each other's throats."
>She pauses, as if searching for the right words
>Your suspicion has not left you, but you wait for her to continue
>"I realized I didn't hate you one day. I was walking to potions, and it just dawned on me. I was thinking up another prank to pull on you, and I was thinking of really getting you in trouble, something that might even get you expelled, but that's when I realized it"
>She turns to look at you, for the first time since sitting down
>"I imagined my victory. I imagined you with your bags packed being sent back on the train. I expected to feel happy."
>She looks away again, at a leaf caught in the wind
>"But even in my little daydream, I was sad to see you go. When you got on the train, I felt like crying."
>You don't quite know what to say, so you wait for her to continue
>"It made me realize. All this time, all these years. Something changed. I wanted to bully you out of school when we first met. And for the first few years. You were a little shit and I was protecting Hogwarts from you"
>You almost speak up to defend yourself, but she quickly continues
>"But somewhere along the line, you stopped being an idiot. You were mean back for a bit, but you rescued me in the ice cave. You made fun of my parents a couple times, but you also stayed with me after potions when I had detention."
>Her voice wavers a bit, and in seeing that she is getting emotional, your suspicion leaves you, and you just listen
>"For years I tormented you, and only now, looking back, do I realize that you never gave me the same treatment. You were rarely nasty back to me. You saved me. You asked me if I was alright"
>When she said that last line, her voice cracked
>"Do you know the last person to ask me that?"
>You never thought of it
>"No, I don't Merula"
"No one. No one since my parents left has anyone actually asked me if I was ok. The people who take care of me would ask if I needed anything, or they would ask me if I was hurt when something happened or this or that, but nothing about how I was feeling."
>Her voice is wavering even more than before, and you can see her lip quivering
>"No one actually cared about me. It was always just practical stuff. Like fulfilling an obligation. Never anything about me"
>She pauses for a second
>"Until you."
>At this, she looks back over to you. Her eyes are red and obviously watering, and her lip is quivering even more than before.
>"Merula...I didn't know. I didn't know what it was like. If I had known..."
>'No, I wouldn't want anything to be different. You didn't know, and that's the point. You were nice to me, more than anyone else at least, and you didn't know all this. That means you weren't doing it to be nice. That means you were nice because that's just who you are."
>At this point, you see one tear drop off her chin, lost into the black fabric of her robe
>You put your arm around her, and bring her close to you. She rests her head on your chest
>"I didn't plan on saying any of this. I came out here today to tease you again."
>She's sniffling a little bit, and you feel a drop hit your left arm that is resting in your lap
>"I probably sound so pathetic. You're probably just going to tease me"
>"Merula...I'm glad you told me. I'm glad you shared this. And you're right. I do care about you. I realized the same thing. When we first met, I thought you were horrible. I thought you were mean for no reason and I thought you were crazy."
>She laughs once, and wipes her eye as you speak
>"But then, in the ice cave, when you were in trouble...I felt the same way I would feel about any of my friends in that situation. All I could think about was helping you. After that day, I realized I did care about you."
>"So you were thinking like this first? This whole time, you cared about me, and I was teasing you for years still after that?"
>"Well, I suppose so."
>"Why didn't you say anything? You dumbass..."
>"I never got the chance. And you just said, admitting these things, it feels like you would have just made fun of me."
>"Yeah, of course I would have. I would have been merciless!"
>She laughs one quick laugh again, before sniffling and wiping her eye again
>"Merula..."
>"What?"
>"I'm really glad you told me this"
>The two of you sit quietly on the bench, losing track of time and the rest of the world



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>regular day at Hogwarts
>Faculty, staff, and students going about their day
>evening rolls around, people retire to their evening activities
>lots of kids eating in the dining hall, faculty gathering and having coffee in the teacher's lounge, etc
>business as usual
>but then, several members of the faculty feel uneasy
>part of becoming faculty at Hogwarts involves casting warding spells that alert each of them when forbidden magic is being cast by a student
>it tells them the general direction and general sense of what the spell was, so they can go and stop it and be prepared
>this time....Snape senses it first, but McGonagall's eyes dart to meet his seconds later
>The Cruciatus Curse is being cast somewhere in the castle
>the pair rush out of their seats, and run to where their spells leads them
>The pair find themselves at a locked door to an old storage closet, not far from the Hufflepuff dormitory. Rarely used but full of beds and desks and chairs and other mundane furniture the school might need in the future
>Snape opens the lock with a flick of his wrist, his wand cutting the air with a loud Knock, as if metal were striking wood, and the door swings ajar
>McGonagall and Snape burst into the room, ready to attack and fight off whatever monsters or Death Eaters may have infiltrated the castle and are attacking the students
>What they found, however, was certainly not what they expected
>Two seventh year students were on one of the spare beds
>the first, Snape recognized as the younger sibling of that crazy kid a few years who went mad searching for the ice vaults
>the student was laying on their back, with each wrist pulled taught by Dead Man's Snare, and they were struggling to form coherent speech around a Golden Quidditch Snitch that was strapped into their mouth
>The second student, who Snape recognized as the newest member of the Snyde family, was standing over the first student, wearing black stockings and black lingerie, wand in hand
>With no time to give an advanced assessment of the situation, the professors act fast, and Snape uses Expelliarmus to end the dastardly spell
>Over the coming weeks, the wizarding world was abuzz with gossip
>What if one of the "forbidden" curses was consensual? Should we try to intervene in the privacy of people's homes? What two adults do in the privacy of their own homes be overseen by the Ministry of magic?
>Only time will tell