𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐒, oliver wood

eleven.

11

AFTERMATH

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"Did you do it?" Louisa was waiting around the corner. She blocked Juniper's path with her body. Juniper met the prefect's eyes, one pair green and the other pair brown, but each of them both filled with anger.

"Do what?" even her voice wasn't the same as it used to be. She sounded so cold and unremorseful. To Juniper, it sounded familiar. It was the voice that she had cowered away from her entire childhood. The voice that she had began to flinch from. Her mother's.

"Did you set that whole thing up? Manipulate the Weasleys to target Flint? Give the other reserve chaser a sickness potion?"

Juniper pushed past and entered her bedroom, beginning to unbraid her hair as she sat at her vanity. Her room was empty, the other girls must be in the Great Hall for dinner. The thought of food didn't even make her empty stomach growl despite how empty it felt. Did she even eat before the game? What about last night?

"Isn't that what you suggested that I do at the beginning of the year? Stoop to their level?"

Louisa stayed in the entrance to the younger girl's room. "I didn't-"

"Didn't think that I would do it? You didn't mean it?" she brushed through her hair with her fingers to separate the wind-wild curls.

"I didn't think that you would be so ruthless about it. Sure, maybe hide their brooms and cut holes in their uniforms. But to poison a team mate and be the cause of another almost being injured the same way that you were-"

"I was injured because of them! I almost died. You didn't see them coming to apologise or watching out for me, did you? No. Instead they alienated me. They have treated me worse than since I joined the team," her voice was still so empty despite the venom in her words. "Do you know what they did to be after our first ever training session? They spiked my water with Baneberry potion because I didn't drop out. I spent the whole week in St Mungos. I was twelve and all alone in St Mungos because my parents refused to be at my side. Weeks later they locked me in the changing rooms with venomous snakes. I was once dangled over the Black Lake by my ankle and for Christmas last year, they had a Gryffindor uniform sent to my house. Do you want to know what my parents did after that? How I spent Christmas on our dungeon floor?"

Louisa stilled. She had heard rumours of what they had done to her over the years. What she had endured at the hands of Pucey and Flint went beyond bullying. She had heard even more about her parents and her family.

"I went though that alone. So do not stand there and tell me that I went too far."

With that, the door slammed. Juniper hadn't even muttered a spell or reached for her wand, yet the door slammed with such intensity that frames fell from her wall and the wooden frame splintered.

Louisa stared at the crack in the door frame, a million thoughts darting around her mind. 

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She skipped dinner that night and took the perfect opportunity to set up camp in the library. Still wearing her rain-damp quidditch uniform, she found the furthest and darkest alcove between the rows of bookshelves and sprawled her school books across the table. She had even taken a quick trip to the kitchens and begged the house elves to brew her a pot of coffee. Ever since her accident, the bitter taste had grown on her; she now understood why Madam Pomfrey had taken a liking to the muggle drink.