Back at school, I am still taking the ten potions a day assigned to me by the healer at St. Mungos Hospital. The rest of my stay in Diagon Alley was expensive, having wiped out a decent third of my savings account to stay at the Leaky Cauldron. Now that I am back at school, I am feeling quite a bit better, even if I still get pain around my back. I've been told by the healer that I will have a scar. Whatever the spell was cast on me wasn't intended to leave a mark at all. Down my back, I have a long, diagonal slash. My brother botched the spell, which is probably why I'm in as good of a condition as I am.

Apparently, if done at full force, he could've killed me. The thought makes me toss and turn at night. In just a few months, I will have to go back home until I am married. That is the way women are treated in my family. It is an unfortunate reality.

Robbie notices my distance. She asks me about all the tinctures I've been taking, and I'm sure with her medical knowledge she's deduced that I've been hit with a hex. I don't tell her by whom. I don't tell her about my stay at the Leaky Cauldron either.

Robbie's distant too. We spend hours upon hours cramped up in the library every day, studying for our N.E.W.T.s. I hate it, but I don't know what else to do except work with Professor Snape and then again with Robbie until I go to sleep.

Even now, I'm in the library, trying my best to grasp Ancient Runes. Robbie doesn't take that class, so I am stuck on my own, trying desperately to comprehend anything. I get all the words mixed up, like Eihwaz and Ehwaz. It's all nonsensical to me.

"Is it too late to drop a class?" I yawn, looking over my paperwork. All of this is getting me behind in alchemy, which is also an elective but one that would greatly benefit me in becoming a potioneer.

"It's January," Robbie points out, not looking up from her notes. Sometimes I'd think she belongs in Ravenclaw with how much she enjoys studying. Her blood prevents her from being in Slytherin though, or at least, her attitude towards it. Her status isn't something she resents. I wish I could be as confident as her sometimes.

I sigh. "I know. I just can't fathom Ancient Ruins. Like, it's random shapes and letters all jostle together."

"Why'd you take it?" she asks.

I shrug. I guess I needed an excuse to see my friends even less, not that it matters now since none of them (not even Silas) are talking to me. "I thought it would be fun."

"Right you were," she smiles, and the tiniest of laughs escapes her mouth. It is quite a musical sound. All soft and high-pitched, ringing as if each beat was preplanned.

I go back to my notes, reading over images of unicorns and demiguises, and all the other creatures which represent different numbers. The numbers I can handle. I should've just taken arithmancy and have been done with it.

"Have you seen George or Fred as of late?" I ask. They've been back in my classes but they still haven't spoken to me. It appears that George's broken bones have healed, luckily, but no word. There haven't even been whispers about them and their pranks, which are almost a constant at the castle.

"No," she points out. "Although, I did hear that the Weasleys and Harry Potter all left for break early."

I don't ask her where she gets the information. Robbie doesn't seem like a gossip, but she tends to always have information on Harry Potter and his immediate friends. Even occasionally, I've seen them chatting in the hallways. Always whispers. It's not my business to ask her what is going on, though I would like to know.

Footsteps are approaching from behind me. As I turn my head, I watch Bronwyn sit down next to me. She twirls a strand of blonde hair between her fingers as she looks at me. She purses her lips and cocks her head to the side.

"Larky," Bronwyn grins, "how've you been?"

I stand up, and Robbie grabs my wrist. She shakes her head at me, but I stand anyway.

"You aren't welcome here," I tell Bronwyn, refusing to tear my eyes away. Robbie begins to pack up her stuff as I shove my hand in my pocket to make sure it's on my wand.

"I don't want to be welcome here," Bronwyn points out. She looks over at Robbie and scrunches her nose. "Actually, it's putrid over here. Smells dirty."

She's playing coy, but I know what she's getting at. "Leave before I throw a curse at you."

"Wouldn't want to serve detention with Professor Umbridge like your little lovebird," Bronwyn stands. "I've heard it can be quite a challenge. Fred would know, wouldn't he?"

I don't know what she is getting at, and I don't care.

"I've actually been selected to be part of the Inquisitorial Squad," she points out.

"You hexed me," I roll my eyes.

She pauses, shaking her head back and forth. She leans in close and touches my hair. I shove her hand away and recoil.

"If you do recall, I was only having a bit of fun, before you did a muggle assault on Elora, and then hexed me," Bronwyn continues. She puts her hand on my notes, her eyes scanning them.

I want to ask her if she's the one who sent the letter to my brother. It was either her or Elora. It seems exactly like the kind of underhanded shit that Elora would do and deny, but it's the kind of thing that Bronwyn would brag about doing, even if she hadn't. I'll never find a proper answer.

"And I will hex you again if you don't leave," I snap.

She blinks once and then leans in close until our noses are only centimetres apart. I don't flinch. No, I wouldn't let her frighten me, even if I do worry about my head inflating like a balloon due to her interference.

"You wouldn't dare," she says. "You'd rather punch me in the face, like the muggle lover you are. People like you are a disgrace to wizards."

Honestly, I don't know if she's right. Not about the part where I'm a disgrace. I'll be better at life than her, since she will amount little more than a pure-blood baby-making machine, and I will (hopefully) be a great potioneer. No, I don't know if I'd rather have the satisfaction of punching her, rather than see bats fly out of her nose.

"I... I don't care for your tone," Robbie points out.

"And what of it?" Bronwyn asks. She shakes her head. She walks around the table and straightens out a few curly strands of Robbie's hair. Robbie remains frozen. "You would be pretty if you didn't have such dirty blood."

"Bronwyn, knock it off," I tell her.

"What, like you didn't believe those things in private?" she asks.

Robbie looks up at me.

"I didn't," I tell Robbie, rather than Bronwyn. "I actually cast the silencing charm on her when she went off about muggle-borns-"

"Because you didn't want anyone to hear, not because you didn't believe it," Bronwyn rolls her eyes.

"Well, I certainly don't believe it now, if I ever did," I counter.

Robbie grabs her things off the desk and runs away with them. I quickly throw my books in my bag, and glare at Bronwyn once more, before I tear off after Robbie.

"Robbie," I call down the hallway, but she continues to hurry. One foot after the other, all in succession. "Robbie. Robin Browning!"

She finally stops and turns around to face me. She cocks her head to the side, and glares at me. "What?"

"Don't believe anything she says," I insist. It isn't really in Bronwyn's nature to lie, but that doesn't mean she was right. She was wrong.

Robbie shakes her head. "You were her friend for years, Larkin. You listened to her say that kind of stuff for years, and only now are you challenging her?"

"I'm trying to be better," I tell Robbie. It feels like no one is giving me the chance to improve though. They expect me to be perfect. That includes my family, and my friends, and Fred, and now Robbie. I need to unlearn a lot of things, and I don't have enough time. It's hard to straddle the line between pure-blood and blood-traitor, and I am trying not to give in anymore, and to think for myself. "I'm trying so hard, Robbie."

"Did you think I was dirty?" she asks.

Maybe when I was a little kid. I thought that muggle-borns essentially had cooties and that I would catch it through association. Maybe I was first challenged at the age of fourteen when we stopped talking to Bade over kissing a muggle-born. Oh Merlin, was I that old?

"Have you ever had to unlearn something your parents taught you?" I counter, hoping she will understand.

She blinks and looks down. "I want to forgive you. I do. I just... would you have been my friend back then?"

Even at age thirteen, I followed my heart. Like with kissing Sullivan Fawley against the wishes of my friends. I think that's when I learned to keep who I love and care for a secret.

"I definitely would have wanted to be friends with you," I point out.

"If you were never kicked out of your friend group, would we be friends?" she presses on.

I wasn't kicked out. I left. Still, she's right. If I had never been bewitched, would I still be there now? "No," I answer, and my honesty ashames me.

Robbie looks up at me with her dark brown eyes. Her curly hair overtakes her whole body. She shakes her head at me and looks down. "I was afraid you'd say that."

"I know that it's only been three months, but I swear that I'm different now," I promise her. I can feel myself biting back tears. I cannot lose her too. Not another person who tried to believe in me gone, because I wasn't a brave person. I'm a coward, and I know it.

Robbie looks at me. "Everyone deserves a second chance. I don't want to be judged by my worst decisions either."

I furrow my brow. What worse decisions could she have? I don't ask. I don't want to know. She deserves that secrecy, just like I do.

~~~~~

This is fun. I think it was really big of Robbie to forgive Larkin, who didn't necessarily deserve it. It's, again, hard to tell who is right here. You know?