Chapter 350: Chapter 350: The Lively Gryffindors [bonus]
Gryffindor Tower, third-year girls’ dormitory.
Lily had already changed into her pyjamas. She sat cross-legged on her bed, hair loose around her shoulders, looking a shade worse than she had before term. Faint shadows under her eyes. A worn-out quality to her face.
Things in Cokeworth had gone sideways starting late December.
Coal miners on strike. The national three-day work week. Factories near her house taking turns losing power. Mr. Evans’s plant had been hit too, running three days a week, paying three days’ wages.
The heating stuttered on and off. Petunia huddled under blankets and complained. Their mother cooked dinner over a wood fire in the kitchen. The living room lights wouldn’t come on.
The entire holiday, Lily had helped with chores, helped her mother with the accounts, gone out with Petunia to gather firewood. Hard days.
Back at Hogwarts, with the warmth pouring in, the lamps blazing, food in abundance, she finally felt herself unclench.
On the dormitory floor, a small dark shape was making its rounds.
Knox.
Pure black short fur that caught the faintest silver-grey sheen in the firelight. Four long, slender legs on a fine-boned frame, each movement carried with an effortless grace.
Tail lifted in a gentle curve, the cat threaded from beneath one bed to the next, deep blue eyes flaring bright in the shadows, then gone.
Knox padded from Lily’s bed to Marcia Fawley’s, circled it, then moved on to Susan’s, crouching at the foot for a moment. A twitch of the nose. Then up and walking again.
Every corner earned a pause, as though confirming the boundaries of its territory.
Marcia lay on her stomach at the foot of her bed, ankles crossed and swinging behind her.
She’d been tracking Knox through the entire circuit. When the cat paused beside a bedpost, she slid off the mattress on tiptoe, crouched low, arms outstretched, angling for a sneak attack from behind.
Knox didn’t bother turning its head. A light push of the front legs, a tilt to the left, and it slipped beneath her reaching hands. Unhurried, unbothered. The tip of its tail brushed her fingertips on the way past.
Then it sat, turned its head, and regarded her from above with those deep blue eyes.
If cats had expressions, this one was saying either what exactly do you think you’re doing, or I saw you, and I’ve chosen not to care.
Marcia let out a squeal. "It dodged! It actually dodged!"
Susan sat on the next bed over, arms around her knees, laughing. A thread of envy crept into her eyes. "Your cat is unreal. My fat orange tabby rolls off the bed doing somersaults."
Lily was laughing too, watching Knox sit on the floor with that composed little air, feeling unexpectedly happy.
Then she looked into those deep blue eyes, caught that casual bearing of ’you may approach but don’t touch’, and thought of someone.
Regulus.
Her lips pushed into a pout.
He’d promised to write.
Last time it had been the same. Said he’d write, then nothing. Apologized, and somehow she’d let it slide.
This time, again. They’d agreed before the holiday. She’d reminded him specifically. He’d nodded, looking perfectly sincere.
And then?
The entire break, not a single letter. Not even the shadow of an owl.
She’d made up her mind. He wasn’t getting off easy this time.
Marcia picked herself off the floor, dropped down beside Lily, shoulder pressing in, her expression turning conspiratorial.
She raised her eyebrows at Lily, lips moving without sound, mouthing the syllables: Bla... ack?
The tips of Lily’s ears went red. Her hand shot out to swat at Marcia, who shrieked and scrambled back. The two of them tumbled across the bed in a tangle, kicking the duvet clean off onto the floor.
Susan watched from the side, laughing.
Knox startled at the commotion, leapt onto Lily’s bedside table in a single bound, and crouched there with its tail curled around its paws, surveying the chaos below.
Marcia finally laughed herself out, panting, draped across Lily’s pillow. Something else flickered through her eyes.
She glanced at Knox perched on the cabinet. She’d been studying the cat all evening.
The coat was dense and fine. The frame long and lean. Neck slender, ears tipped with a slight outward flare, reflexes far too sharp for any ordinary animal. The colour of those eyes was too deep, too pure.
And that faint silver-grey lustre at the tips of the fur, nearly invisible in the dark, caught the firelight like a dusting of starlight.
A magical pet.
The Fawley family wasn’t at the top of the Pure-blood circles, but they weren’t far off. Marcia had grown up around magical creatures. She kept one herself, a Jobberknoll.
But this cat she couldn’t place. Nothing in the appendix of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them matched it. Which meant it was either a new breed or a bespoke one. Either way, not cheap.
A gift from Black. To Lily.
A Muggle-born Gryffindor girl, with a magical pet from the heir of one of Britain’s oldest Pure-blood houses.
Marcia knew Lily and Slytherin’s Black were close. How close exactly, she couldn’t say, but it went well beyond ordinary classmates.
They’d been tight before. Black taught Lily magic, spent time with her in the Library. Now the distance between them seemed to have shrunk even further.
A thread of worry tugged at her.
The Pure-blood world’s prejudice against Muggle-borns ran deep, and Black was Pure-blood among Pure-bloods.
A Black getting that close to a Muggle-born girl. How the Pure-blood circles would read it, what it might mean for Lily, she wasn’t sure. But she worried.
Marcia genuinely cared about Lily. When Lily laughed, she laughed. When Lily was unhappy, she was unhappy.
Lily was her friend.
But Marcia was old enough to know where the lines were. Say what should be said. Leave the rest alone.
She tucked those thoughts away.
Susan squeezed in too, and the three of them sat on Lily’s bed, the hangings half-drawn, firelight filtering through the gap.
Knox hopped down from the cabinet, picked its way across the bunched-up duvet, and curled into the bend of Lily’s knees.
"How was your holiday?" Marcia lay on her side, head propped on her arm.
Lily sighed. "Don’t get me started. Our area’s had power cuts since the end of December. My dad’s factory shut down. He’s home all day, reading the paper and sighing."
Susan slapped the mattress. "You too? Wakefield was the same. Christmas Eve the power went out for four straight hours. My mum nearly lit the Christmas tree with a candle."
Lily’s face scrunched in misery, nose and brows all crumpling together. "I don’t know when it’ll get better. I’m here at Hogwarts, but my family... I worry."
Then she dropped into an impression of Mr. Evans’s voice. "This Prime Minister can’t even sort out the miners. How’s he supposed to run a country? Give me the job, I’d at least fix the heating."
Susan doubled over laughing. "My dad said the exact same thing! He said if Heath keeps this up, he’s voting Labour."
Lily shot her a look. "Doesn’t your dad always vote Labour?"
Susan didn’t miss a beat. "That’s why this time he’s voting even harder."
The two of them dissolved into laughter.
"The worst part is Petunia," Lily said, the laughter fading into another sigh. "With the power out she can’t use her hair dryer. Her hair’s been a disaster all holiday. And worse than that, she’s been in a mood the whole time."
Susan winced. "Still like that?"
Lily shrugged, her palm stroking lightly along Knox’s spine, a flicker crossing her eyes. "Better than it used to be."
"My house was alright, I suppose," Susan said, thinking. "Except my mum hoarded three cases of tinned food and stuffed them all in the kitchen cabinet. My little brother opened the door looking for biscuits, and two tins of tomato soup fell on his head. Made him cry."
Lily pressed a hand over her mouth, eyes curving into crescent moons.
Marcia listened to the two of them talk about the Muggle world. She had nothing to contribute, but she wasn’t bored. She lay there on her side, a smile at the corner of her mouth.
Power cuts, candles, tinned soup, a sister with wrecked hair. All of it was a world away from her. The Fawley estate never lost power. The fireplaces ran on magic. The food was made by House-elves.
But she liked hearing Lily tell these stories. The frown, the eye-roll, the impression of her father, the sigh on her sister’s behalf. Every bit of it charmed her.
When they’d wound down, Marcia leaned in, her voice dropping to something conspiratorial. "This Christmas was eventful, actually. Did either of you hear anything over the break?"
Lily and Susan turned to her at the same time.
"Hear what?" Lily tilted her head.
"Wizarding world stuff," Marcia said. "Things happening in the Pure-blood circles."
Lily and Susan exchanged a glance and shook their heads.
Both their families were Muggle. No Daily Prophet subscription over the holidays. Wizarding news didn’t reach Cokeworth or Wakefield.
Marcia looked at them, bit her lip. Some things, she felt, Lily needed to know.
She understood the boundaries of friendship. Don’t say what shouldn’t be said. But say what should.
"Something happened at the Christmas banquet," she said, voice low. "The Blacks. The one in Slytherin, Black. He apparently got into some kind of conflict with Bellatrix Lestrange."
Lily’s hand lifted off Knox’s back. Her smile vanished, brow creasing. "Conflict? What kind of conflict?"
"I don’t know the details exactly," Marcia said. "It sounds like it turned into a fight."
Worry flashed through Lily’s eyes. "And then?"
Marcia blinked. "Apparently he burned down her house."
Susan sucked in a breath beside them.
Lily went still for a beat, then the crease between her brows deepened. "Is he alright? Was he hurt?"
Marcia looked at her, sighed, and reached over to ruffle her hair.
Lily ducked, but not fast enough. A palm landed squarely on top of her head, mussing the red hair into a mess.
"He should be fine," Marcia said, patting twice, the way you’d comfort a small child. "He’s back for term, isn’t he?"
She added, "My father says he wasn’t injured."
Lily pressed for more. What kind of conflict, why did they fight, who was Bellatrix.
Marcia could only offer so much. She’d heard a rough outline from her family; the finer details were beyond her.
Susan listened quietly, eyes moving from Lily’s face to Knox curled in the crook of her legs and back again, something turning behind them.
Lily sat frowning, lips pushed slightly forward, head tilted in thought.
So Regulus hadn’t written over the holiday because he’d been dealing with this?
A conflict with Bellatrix Lestrange. Burning down someone’s house. None of it sounded small.
She didn’t know what had happened exactly, or why, but instinct told her Regulus had his reasons for whatever he’d done.
He always had his reasons.
The worry was real, though. Marcia’s father said he wasn’t hurt, but that wasn’t the same as seeing it with her own eyes.
She’d find him tomorrow and ask.
She lowered her head again, fingers scratching gently under Knox’s chin.
Knox tilted its head back, baring a small patch of paler fur beneath the throat, eyes narrowing to slits.
"Well, at least this time he’s got a decent excuse for not writing," she muttered. "Fine. I’ll accept a new reason for once."
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