Dear Delilah,

I haven't written to you in like a month, but it's exam prep season, so I've been really busy! I'm so sorry about that.

As for an update, I've started my Apparition (teleportation) classes, and I think I'm doing pretty well! Drake lost an eyebrow, and that was funny, but the funniest thing was Sirius coming back bald. I should've gotten a picture!! He got his hair back, though, but James always pulls on it to try and "prove" that it's a wig.

Also, funnily enough, I think I'm officially Cupid? Which is crazy, you know? Like I pushed Acacia and Drake together (sort of) and I'm helping James and Lily! They danced again for the spring party that our teacher threw, and it was so cute. Acacia and I were giggling the entire time.

In fact, Lily looks at James almost like the way Drake and Acacia look at each other. It's beautiful, how time can sometimes do the work for you. Plus, I get free butterbeer, which is always a win.

Drake, on the other hand, was just brooding. He needs to get some sleep; he's been looking tired. Not as tired as Acacia, though. She literally has shadows for her eye bags. It's probably because of everything outside of the castle, and especially with Diana's family's death a few months ago ... it's not looking too great.

I'm really worried for you, Delilah. Please stay safe.

Love you,
Rosalie

P.S. Black is avoiding me, now, the git, and I hate it. He's such a loser. All because I told him about Dad. Suddenly, he doesn't want to talk to me???

To my sister,

Please teleport me to Hawaii, thank you.

You might need to match me with someone, too. I've been painfully single for the past two weeks. My girlfriend left me for some guy who says he has a big house. Or a big dick. I wasn't really paying attention.

Solemn (I'm assuming that's his name) is processing. You've gone from the girl he banters with to a girl who's actually real, with real feelings. Either that or he has the emotional maturity of a rock.

I hope your situations get better, and I hope you can sleep properly!!

Sincerely,
Dee ♥

Dear Delilah,

Maybe she left because you didn't pay attention. Just a thought. Also, that's gross. I don't want to hear about dicks from my sister.

Also, it's Sirius. I'm going to pester him with the name "Solemn" when he stops avoiding me.

(I've been throwing crumpled paper at him in class and I've convinced Remus to bribe him with dog-shaped chocolate bars, but he even refused some of James's chocolate cake from his birthday party. For some reason, he thought he'd get food poisoning from it.)

As for the other thing, I'm trying to sleep, but no amount of sleeping potions are warding off my nightmares. I might need a doctor when I return home. Which is like, in a month. It's crazy.

Thank you for the update. I appreciate it, and I hope we really can get through this together. My preference for you guys to obviously hide, but I've given up on stopping you.

You're a loser,
Rosalie

Dear Rosalie,

And, ha. Ha. Ha. Also you'd better be sleeping properly, you loser.

On another note, my ex left him. Apparently, he's also a dick. Serves her right. Now, she's begging me to take her back?? Like I'm going to after all that anguish.

Mum and Dad are doing just fine, by the way. Joon's death-a-versary came up, and Dad had to comfort Mum while they both kind of just ... sat there? I mean, he was killed by his own cellmates, so he deserved it. But I think Mum was more sad about how he affected us than his death in the first place.

It's hard, especially with the war. But we're sticking it out, and that's what matters.

Signed off (or something),
Lilah

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Rosalie hasn't told anyone in Hogwarts this, but her real name's Jang-mi.

When she was born, Rosalie was registered as Jang-mi Rosalie Kim in her birth certificate. And after Hana married Thomas, her name went from that to Jang-mi Rosalie Edson, because of her parent's wishes.

In fact, she claims both names. Even if "Jang-mi" and even "Rosalie" were once Joon's, it is hers to keep. In fact, her Korean name became the only thing left of her cultural identity, because even her last name isn't Korean anymore.

But Rosalie doesn't even think about it, not really, and her parents don't discuss it. She's now in a school where race doesn't matter, but blood does. It's stripped away one of the things that makes her her.

No one calls her Jang-mi, anyway. Even in her Sorting, she was called by Rosalie, because her parents discussed it with McGonagall beforehand, and all her professors refer to her as "Rosalie" or "Miss Edson".

Rosalie is fine with it.

Well, she pretends to be fine with it.

Nevertheless, Rosalie powers on, pretending that her lack of knowledge regarding her culture is fine. Maybe after she graduates Hogwarts, she'll have her mother re-teach her Korean, again. Perhaps she'll start using Jang-mi as her name, again, even if it's only for her close relatives.

She breathes in, a smile appearing on her face. Fake it 'till you make it! After all, Rosalie's commentating for the fifth Quidditch Match, and she needs to be enthusiastic.

"You told me you might be under the weather," McGonagall says, now, as Rosalie takes the stand; for the last match, Remus took over commentating and did a wonderful job while Rosalie recovered. "It seems you're feeling better."

"Yeah!" Rosalie says, although she knows this high won't last long. By the end of the week, she'll be completely burnt out, subjected to her weekly cry. "I'm great! Woo!"

McGonagall gives her an unsure look. "Right."

Rosalie gives her a smile, grabbing the mic. "Let's do this."

Everyone arrives, slowly seating themselves on the stands. Spotting Drake alone, narrowing his eyes at the field, Rosalie smirks. Aw, the poor sot is worried for his girlfriend! How cute.

"Welcome, welcome to the fifth Quidditch Match of the year: Slytherin versus Hufflepuff!" Rosalie grins. "First, the Slytherins: with Captain Jennifer Fawley, who has became one of my favourites thanks to slapping Gilderoy Lockhart —"

McGonagall side-eyes her as scattered laughter sounds in the stadium.

"And then we have Mensen! Rosier! Rosier! Avery! Mulciber! Black!" After listing the rest of the Slytherin team, Rosalie names the Hufflepuff team: "And then, the best and the brightest, the light of my life, Acacia Abbott's, and her Hufflepuff team: Rosier! Wood! Jain! Love! Diggory! Raine!"

As cheers sound through the stadium, Rosalie relaxes in her seat. "And the game is finally kicked off! Acie, as usual, is an amazing Keeper and has no problem blocking the goals! But, unfortunately for all the single bachelors, she is taken by Drake Wilkins! Poor souls."

McGonagall raises her eyebrow and sighs, but doesn't comment as people near the Commentator's Box snicker.

"On the other hand, Ugly Rosier is flailing because of his incredible incompetence —"

"Edson," Rosalie's professor warns.

Rosalie swears that Rosier, as he zooms by, flips her off. She rolls her eyes. Disgusting, stupid, idiot.

"— I'm just saying!" Rosalie continues. "I don't need detention; I got, like, two hours of sleep last night so I'm feeling like a total zombie — oh, anyways, Wood is heading for that goal — but, ooh, Mensen blocks it! Poor Wood. You got this! Crush Slytherin — I mean, team spirit!"

McGonagall looks like she wants to slam her head against the glass.

"And, that's one goal for Slytherin, thanks to Chaser Albert Avery!! Oh, he's saying something? I can't tell if he's cussing Acacia out. Poor girl deserves better — I mean, what," Rosalie amends at Professor McGonagall's glare. "Whoa, Jain sent a bludger that narrowly misses Mulciber!"

Rosalie hears an oooh in the crowd.

"That was a close call — and did Rosier send one back? I don't hate you, but tell your brother to control himself! Go Hufflepuff! Crush Ugly-Rosier — I mean, crush Slytherin — I mean, I'm totally unbiased!"

McGonagall sighs, and has pretty much sighed at least twenty times in the next ten minutes as Rosalie rambles. As time goes on, Rosalie finds her grip on the microphone weakening, the world blurring, and as a faint thought of: no, no, no.

She doesn't truly register it until her grip slackens and she stops speaking, the voices and colours all dancing in front of her. Rosalie presses her hand outwards, but touches nothing besides the cool air, before collapsing to the floor.

The stars, all laid in front of her, are bright and blinding, red strings that have already been placed in the world, and now are sealed in her head. They are in her skin, bubbling in her blood; the universe pried her lips open and force-fed them to her.

Rosalie swallows. The world rearranged itself, and she's back again again again, just an observer until the world ruins itself again and she would return.

But she recognizes her house: the white picket fence, the scattered dog toys on the front lawn back when Artemis was alive, the chipped paint of the door, and the two story home that was more of a safe haven than a house.

And then the vision hurls her to a backyard with a gust of wind. Rosalie watches. She's always the watcher, the observer, the listener, and she's destined to do it forever. Until the day she dies, until the day these visions die.

It's her dad, crying.

He's curled up in the backyard, the lights surprisingly turned off from the window up in Delilah's room. Rosalie's mother is next to him, rubbing his back.

When was this? When did Thomas come here to cry?

"Maybe," he whispers, "Rosalie wasn't welcome here."

No.

Rosalie wants to freeze every inch of herself and burn off her skin with bright flames until she can't see her monstrous face.

I was always welcome, Dad, she wants to insist to him, to plead that he doesn't need to cry. But younger-Rosalie wasn't in her house that day.

No, in the past, this was the time that Rosalie had turned to Joon. And the lights in Delilah's room? She was gone, too.

You made this a home. You held me when I was down. You kissed my forehead and sat on the chair next to my bed until I fell asleep, the night I claimed I had a nightmare. You dropped me to school. You supported my magic.

How, how on earth had Rosalie ever forgotten that?

"Maybe I smothered her too much," Thomas continues, "or maybe, maybe —"

Rosalie wishes that the world would swallow her up, because he didn't. He never did.

"Enough, Tommy," Hana soothes, expression dark. "Rosalie does not understand what a wonderful father you were. This is a lesson she needs to learn."

Thomas swallows. "He could hurt both of them. Delilah doesn't need a lesson, but both of them don't deserve that."

"He would not." Hana clenches her fist. "I threatened to destroy him if he hurt my family. And I always follow through."

Maybe Rosalie should've headed home for Christmas. What if, what if her dad needs comfort again? What if he thinks she doesn't consider herself his daughter?

"Joon often underestimates the people around him," Thomas counters, no longer crying, instead wiping the tear stains on his cheeks. "What if he thought you didn't mean it?"

"I cannot even go back," Hana admits, running a hand through her straight hair. "They will kick me out before I get a chance to see them. It is up to Rosalie and Delilah to leave."

"What if Rosalie falls for it?" Thomas asks, looking up at the sky. "His promises, that if she does whatever he says —"

(She did fall for it, in fact. It haunts her to this day.)

Hana's voice cracks. "I warned her. God, I warned her."

"She'll remember," Thomas insists. "I know my girls. They're strong enough to get out of this."

"I am supposed to be comforting you," Hana laments, laughing softly as she leans on his shoulder. "Not the other way around."

Thomas kisses the side of her forehead. "You did."

The world breaks into pieces as Rosalie's parents find solace in each other, like they always have. As it settles back into the present, Rosalie feels the piercing of blackness in heart before she's ripped away from the vision and startled back into the real world.

Her eyes flutter open.

"What —" she's about to ask, but footsteps sound and her bleary eyes spot Acacia, Drake, James, Lily, and even Sirius all hovering over her. "What's going on?"

"You fainted," Madame Pomfrey says, eyes narrowing, "again, I've been told."

Oh, she's screwed.

"I've also been told about your lack of sleep," she continues, potions rattling in a basket she's carrying. "As has the entire school, but that's not relevant."

James blinks at Rosalie. "Why haven't you been sleeping?"

"Uh — wait." Rosalie pauses, her mind struggling to remember. "What happened to the —"

"The match?" Acacia asks, and after Rosalie's nod, she laughs softly. "We took a two minute pause so you should be rushed to the Hospital Wing — since you were unresponsive —"

Acacia starts kneading her fingers in her hair, eyes panicked as Drake takes over: "We won the match, McGonagall commentated —"

"Wait, what?"

"Minnie's commentary was hilarious." Sirius snickers. "She kept —"

"Not the point!" Acacia hisses, her fingers now intertwined with Drake's.

Rosalie presses her lips into a thin line. Yeah, you emotionally constipated nincompoop! Screw you, Solemn!

"We're worried about you, Rosalie," Lily inserts finally, crossing her arms as she stands next to James. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

Sirius gives her a scrutinising look. "Yeah, why haven't you —"

"Rosalie, I'm so sorry," Acacia cuts off a scowling Sirius, rushing up to hug the girl as Madame Pomfrey shrieks at her to stop "manhandling her patient", but the younger girl ignores the nurse's words. "I should've told you to sleep, or do something, or —"

"It's not your fault," Rosalie murmurs, burying her head in her shoulder. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Madame Pomfrey pries Acacia off. "Your visiting time is over! Out, all of you!"

As Rosalie's friends (and Sirius) hesitantly leave, Madame Pomfrey turns to Rosalie, her eyes blazing with fury.

"Er," Rosalie starts. "How have you been, anyway?"

Pomfrey's eye twitches.