Is Love A Strong Enough Word?

Third Year

When Marinette sees Damian come into their usual bookstore she's surprised to see a cat in his arms.

"Meet Alfred the cat." He starts, "Pennyworth suggested I get a pet I can take with me so I wouldn't miss my others so much."

Marinette instantly falls in love, snatching the cat away from Damian and giving it all the love in the world.

"Hi Alfie, I'm Marinette. I'll be your auntie. You come to me whenever Damian doesn't give you enough pets or treats." Damian rolls his eyes.

"What other pets do you have?"

"A dog and a cow." Marinette stops short.

"What? How'd you get your hands on a cow?"

"We rescued it from a meat processing plant that was closing down." Marinette just shrugs and keeps petting Alfred the cat, not letting Damian have him back as they browse for books on their reading list. Catching up, Damian finds out Marinette cheated and used a physical science for dummies book to help get through the summer's classes. They argue about whether or not it counts as a study aid all the way to the platform. Thankfully none of Damian's siblings could make it.

Damian smirks when he sees defense against the dark arts on his schedule, remembering his conversation with that lady from Ilvermorny.

A few months in, just before the next Hogsmead trip, their defense against the dark arts teacher announces that they'll be covering boggarts soon and that exemption forms need to be brought in the day of if a parent doesn't want their child exposed to a boggart.

"A reminder: no spells may be cast on official forms. No exceptions."

"What's a boggart?" Damian murmurs to Marinette. 

"A monster that takes the shape of your greatest fear." Damian's eyes widened a little at her response.

That night, Marinette passes out in the middle of reading some short story for their English lesson. Damian takes the opportunity to write to Alfred.

Pennyworth,

I hope all is well at home.

Next week my defense against the dark arts class will be covering boggarts. Was that the lesson you suggested I skip?

My teacher has announced that I will need a letter from my father giving me permission to be exempt from the assessment. I agree that it'd be best not to take part.

Best regards,

Damian W.

A response arrived two days later, with it was a letter from his father asking that Damian not take part in the boggart assessment.

When Damian tries to give the letter to his teacher a poorly aimed riddikulus is cast, the spell hits the paper and the words rearrange themselves into the lyrics of Cotton Eyed Joe. Damian saw the apologetic look in his teacher's eyes, there was nothing he could do.

The teacher went over how the class was to line up and handle the boggart.

"If anything happens, I'll be here to take care of it. Don't worry, this is just to prepare you in case you ever run into one in the wild." Students line up in front of a chest.

Marinette was one of the first, she got some brunette girl, she kept throwing insults at Marinette in French while giving Damian suggestive looks. Though, he couldn't hear much from the back of the room.

Marinette was quick to use riddikulus to turn the girl's hair into sausages. That got the rest of the class to laugh. Damian was distracted by the fact that Marinette had a bully she never told him about. Most of it was in french so nobody understood what she said but the Slytherins and Ravenclaws got the gist. No one knew she had a bully back home.