𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒫𝓇ℴ𝓂𝒾𝓈ℯ𝒹 𝒪𝓃ℯ | 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 |

#18 The Line of Health

Since the Yule Ball was over and Christmas Eve rolled by, Maribel's tension grew as soon as we entered the Hogwarts Express. Since our Gryffindor friends, including El and Luna, decided to stay in Hogwarts over the Holidays, we had a carriage for ourselves. But that was okay, with the upcoming meet-up with our parents, we both weren't particularly graving for company.

Maribel spent the whole ride home with looking out of the window, while I did little sparkled drawings with my wand in the air or read in a book to kill the time.

Like we expected wasn't the greeting unbelievably happy and loving. Father didn't even bother to come to the platform to pick us up, it was just mother with a sad smile and a comforting look. Maribel could already think about the real reason he wasn't there, while mother told us he simply had to work and would wait at home after returning from the ministry.

When we got to the mansion, father was awaiting Maribel in his study room and she didn't come out until the dinner was ready. Her eyes were puffy and red, her features cold as we sat on the table. Mother tried to make a conversation, asking us about the classes and achievements we made, but Maribel remained silent again. I tried to lose some tension as I told them about Moody and his questionable teaching and punishing methods. But as soon as I mentioned the professor turning the Malfoy boy into a ferret, father diverted the topic on him. He asked Maribel if they came along on the Yule Ball and how someone like Draco is the right person to associate with - this was probably the point were I resigned and accepted the fact that there was nothing to do to make the atmosphere better in the slightest.

Once our parents released us to go in our chambers, it took Maribel ten minutes to sneak out and in mine. As she laid herself in my bed, cuddling in the blanket, she started to cry again and told me about everything father said to her in his study.

He rumbled on about how she, as the first born, had to stick to our family values, how she, as a Fox daughter, should know that Cedric wouldn't be an acceptable choice to get invited into the family. How he, as a Half-Blood, wasn't good enough to continue our line. How disappointed he was for her to kick our name with her heals and how much it took him to correct her mistake.

It sounded like father had convinced everyone who needed to be convinced, that Maribel only comforted a classmate before his first task. That she was just too friendly and warm hearted to decline towards mixture wizards and that Rita Skeeter just drew wrong conclusions. But he also made himself clear that everything other than cutting all ties to the boy was unacceptable.

I stayed up all night until she finally fell asleep and drifted away in a dreamless sleep too.

On the next morning everything seemed to settle down and the tension kinda vanished out of our family bond. By Christmas Eve the atmosphere was as normal as it could be, so was the rest of the holidays.

By the time Maribel and I returned to Hogwarts, my sister loosened up a bit. She only talked about Cedric when we were staying in each other's rooms. She seemed more herself around the family, or probably she just got better in faking. But she couldn't hide her New Year's wish to me. Another twin tradition:

Nobody except our twin will know our New Years wish.

While I was wishing for the next year just be better than this, was Maribel wishing for Cedric to be happy, preferably with her and a solution for them to be together again.

Well, except we both knew that this, after our fathers' speech to her, was probably more impossible than me becoming the best Seeker of the World.

The term started less eventful than it ended. Classes picked up, now with the exams coming around I had more work than ever and studied harder than I probably ever had.