𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨-𝙧.𝙖.𝙗

𝟬𝟰-𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹𝘀

THE NEWS OF THE WAR LEAKS INTO THE CASTLE AND DIMS IT. An attack in Holyhead, a young muggle-born wizard had his home burned to the ground. And though he lived, the weight of the news slows everything down. His name is whispered and passed through classrooms, common rooms and courtyards. People are getting scared. People are getting angry. Jo feels like she's walking through mud.

And though most take the tragedy with slews of rough curses or visceral horror, it's impossible to notice the way a certain few are invigorated by it. Jo saw Evan Rosier whooping by the Great Lake, tossing rocks with a jovial pep and a careless laugh with the muggle-born's name laced in it that made Jo sick. Amycus Carrow, cruelty perfected in only his third year, hit a second year Hufflepuff girl, muggle-born of course, with a particularly nasty combination of curses, causing the hair to fall off her head and large, painful looking boils to grow in its place. Carrow got two months of detention. The Hufflepuff girl hasn't left the Hospital Wing.

And now, Jo has groupies.

It's primarily Gryffindors, though there's a stray flash of yellow or blue every now and then. All first years, all girls, who crowd around her, keeping their heads down and pressing their books to their chest and whispering and taking quick, small steps in unison.

Jo was packing up her books in the library, stomach loud and aching, when the first two approached her. Jo didn't know their names, and still doesn't. But they both had braided pigtails, one set blonde and the other brunette. As they walked towards her, swiftly and with their foreheads towards each other frantically whispering, Jo slowed her movements, watching them with apprehension.

They froze before they reached her when they realized that she noticed them. For a moment, they said nothing, just gave Jo blank, wide expressions. And then the blonde was nudging the other forward. "Erm, Josephine?" the brunette asked, like she was afraid of saying her name. "Are you on your way to the Great Hall?" she questioned, voice squeaky, shoulders shoved all the way up to her chin like she was trying to hide in them.

"I am," Jo answered them easily, suspicious and stern.

The brunette was looking back and forth between Jo and her friend like she was trying to remember a script and if Jo wasn't feeling so impatient, it would've been amusing. "We were wondering if, well, we could come with you, because, well, I don't know if you know but-"

"We don't want to walk alone!" the blonde burst from behind her friend, and then she covered her mouth like the words came out against her will, while her friend glared at her, horrified.

Jo stared at the two of them for a long time, wondering what they might have experienced in the first month of school already to make them want an older student to supervise their walks through the castle. So, Jo just gave them a simple, "Alright then," and they were on her heels out of the library, all the way to the Great Hall, and then have not left her alone since.

She didn't really notice it, at first. It was just the same two girls who would catch Jo in the corridors between classes, in the library, after meals. They would, huddled together, look for her head in the crowds and then rush her, coming up from behind and walking so close to her they might as well have been hanging onto the back of her robes. Until their friends joined in.

It was gradual. It was just the two of them, then it was three, then five, then eight. Now, Jo has an entire class worth of first year girls following her everywhere she goes. They trail behind her to the Great Hall, the library, studying and eating when she does. They wait for her outside her classes to follow her to her next one, peeling off when they reach their own rooms. The whole time they stare up at her, stumbling over questions for her, questions that she never really answers: "Do you have a boyfriend?" "How many spells do you know?" "Can you apparate?" "Are you friends with Sirius Black?" It's enough to drive anyone mad.