Carina McGonagall is named after the constellation containing the second brightest star in the sky - and it just so happens one Sirius Black is named after the brightest. They've always had an interesting relationship throughout the years - pranks...
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17th June 1976
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
The end of term feast started later than normal, as if the universe was just playing even more awkwardness between the fifth years. It was strange for Carina to avoid eye contact with all of her friends as the barely audible murmuring between all the students became a low hum that was almost worse than silence.
Carina barely looked up from her empty plate as everyone else whispered at the absence of many of the teachers up at the high table. She had been desperate to talk to Remus but since the full moon a few days ago..... He had been absent ever since.
Although she hated to admit it, she missed him. She missed all of them. And she felt awful, like everything was her fault, like she should've been a better friend to everyone even though she had tried her hardest to stand up for what she thought was right in the moment.
She couldn't deny that she felt bitter towards Lily. Carina had stood up to her boyfriend and her best friends for her, but Lily still couldn't see how unfairly she was treating the boys. But then again.... Lily was kind of a princess. Everyone liked her; she was pretty, smart and popular; and her family were so proud that she was a witch; all meaning she probably wasn't told she was wrong often.
It had occurred to Carina that her mother was one of the teachers missing from the High Table, and Carina couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with the extra work her mother was doing for Dumbledore.
As Carina turned back around, she met the eyes of Pandora who had insisted on still sitting next to her, despite how much of hippogriff-shit of person Carina felt like. She knew she had been a bad friend to Pandora, often forsaking her to go and hang out with Lily or the boys, relying on the fact that Pandora was too kind to ever not want to be friends with Carina and she felt awful about it. But now, she was determined to make up for it. The girls talked softly to each other about everything that they were planning for summer and when they were going to hang out, until someone caught Pandora's eye.
"You see that girl there? The little third year?" Pandora began in a low whisper, pointing subtly at a small dark haired Ravenclaw further down the table with tear paths cutting dripping lines down her light brown face. "Isn't that Amy Jenkins? The one whose mum was Minister for Magic?" Carina asked.
Pandora nodded. "Her mum's name was Eugenia Jenkins. Did you hear what happened to her?" "I know she isn't Minister any more because of the riots by.... You Know Who last year." "Yeah, but something else happened. Her mum and her aunt...." Pandora dropped her voice even lower, as if in fear of upsetting the younger girl more. "They were killed. A few days ago. By those followers of You Know Who as well. It was awful, but the news hasn't come out yet. Some people are saying the Ministry's trying to cover it up. My dad was telling me about it, Amy was supposed to be with them but her uncle decided to take her out for ice cream, leaving her mum and aunt at home."
Carina pulled her eyes away from the girl and looked down at the empty golden plate in front of her, swallowing hard.
"That is awful." was all she could manage to say. Carina couldn't help the fear and pity welling up in her chest as she glanced back up at the sobbing younger girl across the table, but the missing teachers were slowly trickling back into the hall and they took their places. Carina breathed in deeply, in and out, trying to focus on that and, slowly opening her eyes again, turned back around to face the high table.
Even as Dumbledore gave a quick speech to the students, Carina avoided looking at the Gryffindor table as her eyes darted around as they did when she was nervous. But there was something bothering her as she watched her mother for the rest of the little speech. Carina was almost sure that Dumbledore was lying about why the teachers were late as she saw her mother avert her eyes from any of the students. Her mother had the same nervous traits as Carina - things like glancing around quickly, biting her lip or her finger nails - and as Carina watched her mother, she looked nervous. Carina was also sure that she was avoiding eye contact with Carina specifically too, or most of the Ravenclaw table in fact, as Minerva knew they could read her, even if they couldn't read Dumbledore directly for signs of lying, they could see it if they had eye contact with Minerva.
The question was: why? Why would Dumbledore lie? What had the teachers been doing?
After a short delay, the announcement came: Ravenclaw had in fact won the house cup! But as she waited for the rush of excitement and adrenaline to soar through her veins as everyone cheered and whooped and celebrated, Carina realised that her victory was empty. She wouldn't feel joyful over things like this until everything was fixed again. But that could take some time.
The one Carina did know as she slowly began to force herself to eat something, anything really, (as being anxious caused her to forget to eat and made her feel even more nauseated) was that she missed her friends and if she was ever going to work out what was going on, she would need them.
She just hoped she, and they, could swallow their pride.
