𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒛𝒆 - pjo x hp [₂]

vi. blood of the quill

"𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔-𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖-𝐖𝐇𝐎'𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊?"

Raya tilted her head at Meredith, a little unsure as to why she was bringing this up now. "Uh, what?"

The two girls were sitting alone in their dorm — Meredith working on her Transfiguration assignment, and Raya watching the Toronto Blue Jays baseball game while writing some letters. Cierra and Cho were in their own classes, leaving the other two girls together.

"I mean, you kinda mentioned it in Defense," Meredith shrugged lightly. "I was just wondering if you meant it or not. It was more of a 'in the heat of the moment' kind of thing, wasn't it?"

Raya thought about agreeing. It would make everything easier, but it would also be discrediting Cedric's bravery. He was ready to take on the Dark Lord, but Pettigrew blasted the Killing Curse his way. She couldn't dishonor Cedric like that.

"No, I believe it," Raya told her. "I truly believe You-Know-Who is back."

"You believe Harry and Dumbledore?" Meredith made a face. "I heard Dumbledore's lost it, and Harry's been falling into fits all over the place. How can you believe them?"

"Cedric's not in the hospital because of some terrible consequence," Raya tried not to get mad at her friend. "He was hurt, and it's because of You-Know-Who. Also, I hope you realize that the Daily Prophet is the only news company talking shit about Harry. It's corrupted. Maybe you should change your sources, Meredith."

"Jeez, I'm sorry," Meredith raised her hands. "I didn't realize this was a sensitive topic."

"It's got to do with Cedric," Raya said a little coldly.

"I'm sorry," she repeated in an exasperated tone. "I just don't agree with you. I don't think he's back. Maybe Harry had a hallucination or something, but I don't know... it doesn't fit quite right to me."

Raya took a deep breath, merely nodding, "Well, it's nice to know where you stand, Meredith. I'm not going to force this on you or anything, but considering it's got to do with Cedric, I tend to get a little upset. I'm sorry too."

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about this with each other," she suggested.

Raya nodded, turning back to her letters. 

She didn't want to fight with Meredith — the girl was one of her best friends. Raya knew many people didn't believe Dumbledore and Harry, she was just surprised that her friend was one of them.

The two of them lapsed into a silence, surrounded by Meredith's music and the commentary from Raya's baseball game. Raya tried to ignore how awkward it was.

She finished her letter to Percy, placing it to the side. It was quite simple, merely asking about how he was doing in school, and informing him about her own school. She wrote a similar one to Will, in hopes that the two of them could practice reading. Percy was alright with reading English, but he could definitely improve. The two of them would write back to her in Ancient Greek. It was a small thing, but it helped her stay in contact with her other world.

Raya put both those letters to the side, flipping her notebook to write another one. 

Dear

She hesitated.

She almost wrote Sirius, which wasn't very surprising, considering how often she'd written to him last year. But ever since the potion turned gold, confirming Raya's heritage, the two had grown distant. At first, Raya expected Sirius just needed some time to digest the fact, and honestly, so did she. But no matter how much time he had, he seemed to want to ignore that fact as often as he could. He seemed to ignore Raya quite often as well.