Fist Fight

Fourth year went well for exactly three weeks before everything fell apart.

It started out like any other day, with Anon coming up to the great hall for breakfast. He found Rowan at the end of their usual table and sat down opposite him. Without saying anything, Rowan handed him the latest copy of the Daily Prophet. Anon was about to ask what was going on when he read the title.

Dementor's Let Loose At Azkaban! Inmates Kissed!

Anon read a little further, before finding the reason for his friend's silence. Two of the inmates kissed were the Snyde couple, convicted Death Eaters who had served The Dark Lord tirelessly. Anon took a moment to process this information. He looked back to Rowan, who simply stared back at him without a word.

"So...is she...?" Neither of them had any doubts in their mind as to who Anon was referring to.

"No one's seen her today. She wasn't in the common room when I left."

"Do you...do you think I should look for her?"

"You? Why? All you two have ever done is fight."

"I know...but still, you think anyone else is going to? I must be the only person she really has any interaction with anymore..." Anon felt a pang of guilt over the events of his third year. Merula had finally found people that she could talk to, in the forms of Barnaby and Ismelda, and Anon had done everything he could to sway Barnaby to his side, leaving her with only a psychopathic Death Eater wannabe to talk to. Of course, he hadn't seen Ismelda at all this year, so he assumed Dumbledore had found out about her insanity and had her expelled.

"She's probably upset right now. I don't know if you talking to her is going to make her feel any better." Rowan pointed out while taking a bite of a Hogwarts Hugewich.

"But it's kinda like when my brother went missing, right? I know how she feels."

"I'm not sure that's how I'd put it, but if you want to go look for her, I'll come with you."

Anon smiled, putting his hand on Rowan's shoulder. "Thanks, Rowan. You're a good guy."

Together, the two set out to look for the wayward Slytherin. They checked all the places they could think of. She wasn't in the Library, she wasn't waiting around any of the classes they shared, and she hadn't been up in the Owlery.

"I never...realised...how big...this school is." Anon was doubled over, gasping for breath.

Rowan collapsed against the wall, slowly sliding into a sitting position. "We're never going to find her like this."

Before Anon could respond, they heard a noise. A sniffle, coming from a nearby disused classroom. Anon and Rowan exchanged a glance before Anon reached down and pulled Rowan to his feet. Together, they tiptoed toward the classroom, finding the door half open. Anon went first, sliding the door open without a sound. Rowan followed right behind him.

The classroom hadn't been used for years, but there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere. There was an open window overlooking the castle grounds, and an unusually cold wind for September blew through the room. And there, sitting on a desk, was Merula.

She looked terrible. As Anon approached, he could see the eye shadow she usually meticulously applied wasn't visible, and her usual messy hair that actually took a long time to get right had been replaced by a completely dishevelled look that implied she hadn't spent any time on it. Her cheeks were red, but Anon couldn't see any tears.

"Merula...?"

"Hmm? Hey, Ymous. What's up?" She didn't turn, and Anon was taken aback by the tone of her voice. It almost sounded like she didn't care.

"I...I saw the paper. Are you...alright?"

"Of course! Of course I'm alright. Why wouldn't I be?" Her voice was unusually chipper now. Anon looked back at Rowan, who could do nothing more than give him a helpless look and shrug.

Anon slowly moved up and sat next to her, not noticing her stiffen at his sudden presence. "Your parents...they're really gone?"

She let out a short laugh, devoid of anything resembling humour. "Ha. Yeah, they're gone. Good riddance, right? Supporters of Voldemort dead and all that?" Anon was shocked to hear the bitterness in her voice. He'd always gotten the impression that she didn't care about her parents' fate, that she'd always seen their capture as a failure on their part. Anon wasn't entirely sure what to do in this situation. He was a social creature, and he had often comforted his friends before, but never for something like this.

"Merula...I know we've never really gotten along in the past, but if you want to talk, I'll listen. Okay?" He slowly put his arm on her shoulder, completely missing her fist clenching as he did so. "I know how you feel..."

And then his head snapped back as Merula punched him in the face.

"SHUT UP! HOW THE HELL COULD YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL?!" Anon fell back, falling off the desk and smashing into the floor. He scrambled to his feet to see Rowan raising his wand. He waved him down, and gestured for him to leave the room. Rowan looked apprehensive at first, torn between listening to his friend and stopping the angry witch from assaulting him any further, but at Anon's further gesturing, he backed out of the room.

Anon spun round to see Merula standing directly in front of him. Before he could respond, he felt all the breath in his body get forced out as she pulled her fist back and struck again, this time punching him hard in the stomach. He doubled over again, before falling back as she brought her foot up into his stomach.

He collapsed between two desks, gasping in pain. "M-Merula, plea-" That was as far as he got before she jumped on him and began punching him repeatedly in the face. After a couple hits, he finally threw her off, wincing as she knocked through another desk. He hadn't realised how light she was before now.

"QUIT ACTING LIKE YOU CARE!" Merula staggered to her feet, a large tear visible in her robes. "ALL YOU'VE EVER DONE IS HUMILIATE ME!" Now that he could get a good look at her face, he saw the tears. They hadn't been there earlier, but now that her emotions had come to a boil, they were spilling freely from her eyes.

"I-I never wante-" She dived at him again, and he yelped, twisting to avoid her. She narrowly missed him and instead collapsed against another desk. She shoved it back and stood, turning back to him. Her left eye was bruised, and he could tell she was going to have a nasty black eye later. He could feel blood trickling from his nose, presumably from her first punch.

"YOU NEVER CARED ABOUT ME! YOU TURNED EVERYONE AGAINST ME!"

Anon had had enough. He could tell he wasn't going to get through to her like this. So he decided to bite back.

"QUIT ACTING SO DAMN SELFISH!" He shouted back. She apparently hadn't expected a response, because he seemed to have shocked her into silence. He decided to go on the offensive. "I JUST WANTED TO HELP YOU!" He charged for her, and she stumbled back, clearly not ready for his sudden attack. He barged into her, knocking her back into the next set of desks. She seemed to be fuelled by anger and rage, since she jumped straight back up despite the cuts and bruises she gained. Her lip was split, and there was a nasty gouge on her arm.

"Help me?" Her voice was substantially quieter than it had been before. "The Greatest Witch in Hogwarts doesn't need your help!" She finally fumbled around her robes to bring out her wand, and Anon quickly pulled his out in response. Unlike all the other times they'd duelled, Anon couldn't see the fire in her eyes. They were dull and lifeless, and Anon realised that she truly didn't care. She didn't care what happened to her, and all she wanted was to stop feeling.

Before she could scream whatever it was she wanted to, however, both of them were uncerimoniously thrown into the wall. Looking up, Anon saw the towering form of the Potions Professor and head of Slytherin House, Severus Snape.

"This is the second time I have caught the two of you duelling in school. Are you so eager to get expelled that you simply must take every chance you get to complicate my life?" He swept through the room, casually repairing and placing every desk back where it had originally been. "Both of you, to the headmaster's office. Ymous, your friend Khanna will be meeting us there." Anon groaned, wondering if Rowan had told Snape to come find them.

The Headmaster's office was a somewhat foreboding place. If you were there, it meant he'd either specifically sent for you or whatever you'd done was so bad the House heads couldn't deal with it on their own. For both Merula and Anon to be sent there could only mean expulsion was potentially on the line.

The three entered the office to find Dumbledore sitting with his fingers pressed together, and Rowan sitting in a chair opposite, looking down at his feet.

"It pains me to see two students unable to resolve their differences. Can either of you tell me what you were doing?" Anon was uncomfortably reminded why they had been duelling in the first place, and decided that the best course of action would be to get both of them out of trouble.

"We were practising spells." Merula looked away from the wall she had been staring at to hone in on his face. "I wanted to get a better grasp on the Protego shield, so I asked Merula to cast a couple spells at me while I tried to defend."

"And...your injuries?"

"I-I wasn't too great at the spell. The first few got through and knocked me into a desk. Eventually I managed to block some, but they reflected back and hit Merula instead. It really wasn't a fight, honest!" Anon was sure he deserved some kind of reward for his acting skills.

Dumbledore Looked at Merula for a few seconds, but didn't ask her anything. Then, he looked at Rowan. "Mr. Khanna, is your friend correct?"

Rowan's eyes darted around the room before he finally looked at Dumbledore. "Y-yes. I didn't see everything, so I thought they were fighting again. I just saw her shooting spells at him and him failing to defend against them. I didn't know they were practising."

"Normally, I'd let you off with a warning. However, since this isn't the first time you two have broken the rules like this, I have no choice but to remove 50 points from each of your houses and assign you both a week's detention with Professor Snape."

Anon gasped. "50 points? But that's..." A 50 point loss was enough to knock them out of first place.

"Surely it's not a problem for such bright young students as yourselves? You are, after all, at the top of the leaderboards."

"Y-yes, Sir."

"Good, you're all dismissed. Severus, could you remain here for a moment?"

Anon, Merula and Rowan all left the room, limping down the spiral staircase and past the gargoyle leading out into the corridor. Rowan quickly moved to support Anon, who had found himself in considerable pain now that the adrenaline had worn off. Merula refused to look at either of them, but she seemed rather wobbly too, as if she was about to collapse.

"Well, I'm off to the hospital wing. Merula, if you ever want to talk...please, let me know?"

She began limping off in the other direction, mumbling that she didn't need either of them to help her as she did so.

"So, looks like she didn't want your help after all." Rowan commented as they began making their way to the hospital wing.

"I dunno, I think that fight made her feel a little better."

"Really? How'd you figure that one out?"

"I guess having someone to vent her feelings on helps more than talking? I always figured the best way to deal with your problems was to talk them through, but I guess not..."

Anon laughed, and then winced in pain. "Gah...I think she got my ribs at some point."

On the other side of the corridor, Merula wandered aimlessly. She felt numb. Her face hurt, and there was a dull ache coming from the cut in her arm, but she couldn't be bothered to fix it. She had felt better during her fight with the idiot, but now she felt nothing. She didn't even feel like crying over her parents. They'd been gone for years, she reasoned. Why should she care what happened to them? She clenched her fist for a moment before releasing it. Punching the idiot in the face had felt...good. She hadn't had time to think about anything while they had been fighting, and she had liked that.

She didn't want to think about her parents, and fighting seemed to be the best way to accomplish that.