Serenity | 1

TWELVE

"We have cookies?"

Serenity sat at the end of the Hufflepuff table with Lakita at lunch. She picked at the pile of grapes in front of her and gazed over at the Slytherin table. The benches beamed with laughter and students teasing each other, in the centre of it all, Bellatrix Black was fussing over Juliet Law.

The elder Slytherin was piecing through the brunette's hair. Juliet rolled her eyes at Bellatrix's fussing yet allowed herself to be checked over. Serenity met Juliet's eyes and they shared a small smile, the two conflicted in their short friendship by their hatred for their other friends.

"She's insufferable," Lakita mutters, biting her sandwich roughly and turning back around to face the table. Serenity sighs and shakes her head,

"You're the one that attacked her."

"Because she's insufferable." The pointed look on the blonde's face forced a giggle from Serenity. With a sigh, she focuses back onto her bowl of grapes slightly disbelieving of the ignorance of the blonde. Pulling a quill and some parchment from her pile of books, Serenity steadies a pot of ink on the bench. "What are you doing?" Leaning over the table, Lakita strains to see the name her friend was writing in scraggly cursive. "Who are you writing to?" Serenity smiles small.

"My family." Lakita grins and points at the parchment enthusiastically.

"See if he remembers my mum! Julia Penniman, remember." With a slow nod, Serenity scrawls out her first letter to her family since she arrived at Hogwarts.

▪︎~○••○~▪︎

Rier Estate, 2 days later

"It's here! It's here!" Merritt ran into the study, closely followed by Dexter and the twins. Erin looked up from the desk where she sat with her mother and drew her eyebrows together. Irene looks between the four breathless children and to the letter clutched in the girl's hand. "Ren, she finally writed to us."

"Wrote," Erin says, hopping off of the desk. "You mean 'wrote', Merritt."

"Who cares? This letter is from Hogwarts!" Squealing, Merritt brings the letter close and inhales sharply. With a wide smile, she looks around at the small portion of her family. "It even smells like Hogwarts."

"You've never been to Hogwarts. How can you know how it smells?" Chuckling, Irene approaches her niece and takes the letter, giving it a once over as the brunette's smile never falters.

"I just do."

Looking up at the small girl, Irene waves the paper ever-so-slightly.

"Have you read this?" Merritt purses her lips and shakes her head. As she rocks on the balls of her feet, she looks around at her cousins, her giddy grin never fades. Irene huffs, looking distracted as she navigates around the five children. "All of you, stay here." There was an urgency in her tone that piqued Erin's attention and the blonde disregarded her mother's instructions.

"Mum!" She called as she jogged down the dimly lit hallway. "What's wrong, where are you going?" Erin followed her until her sock caught in a piece of broken wood protruding from the old floorboards of one of the few studies on the estate. Marjorie and Reglin looked up from where they were situated on a small sofa.

"What's going on?" As Irene busied herself with the pot of floo powder, Marjorie placed down her half-knitted scarf and motioned for her husband to do the same. "Irene, honey?" Marjorie looks to Erin for some answers, trusting her granddaughter to give more answers than her daughter.

"Serenity wrote, but mum won't let anyone read it." Erin sighs exasperatedly and slumps down in a rusty old armchair in the corner of the room. The ten-year-old was blind to the silent altercation between her mother and her grandparents, yet she heard the final four words of her mother.

"Penniman," Irene stated loudly, directed to her parents with so much meaning and urgency that all of Marjorie's protests were hushed. Reglin stood, the ball of yarn in his lap tumbling to the floor and unravelling. Stepping in the fireplace, Irene clearly yells "Ministry of Magic!" Before dropping the powder and disappearing in a flurry of green flames.

Within seconds, Irene was calmly walking out of a black stone fireplace and through a set of gates that lifted for her. As they shut behind her, she joined the crowd in the large black stone atrium and approached the main gates of the Ministry of Magic.

A large stone fountain stood in the centre of the room, the base lined with a sculpted image of muggles supporting the top of the fountain. The sight reminded her of the courtyard at home where she'd dropped knuts every day as a child in hopes that her wishes came true. Fishing a knut from her pocket, she turned the bronze coin over once in her palm and accidentally dropped it into the water as an ignorant wizard jostled her as they hurried by. Stumbling away from the rippling water, she clutched the letter tighter and turned away from the fountain.

Approaching the golden gates, she joined the queue to the security desk and couldn't help but fiddle with the letter in her hand. Within minutes she was coming face to face with the current watch wizard. Smiling nervously, she offered him his wand and shuffled restlessly on her toes.

Thanking the watch wizard, she hurries through the gates and hops into a lift along with a few messages just before it shuts. Requesting level two, her fingers itch under her tight grip on the letter and only just catches the elevator announcing "Department of Magical Law Enforcement". Shuffling out, she follows the long winding corridor, ignoring the first few doors on either side of her before reaching one that read 'Department of International Magical Cooperation' and, underneath, 'C. Rier Head of Department'.

Knocking rapidly on the door, Irene doesn't stop even when wizards and witches from the surrounding offices poked their heads out to see what the commotion was. The door swung open, causing Irene's fist to fall onto Christian's shoulder.

"Irene?" He stumbles as she presses the letter into his chest and barges into the room.

"Serenity wrote," she announces, fingers twitching restlessly as she motions to the letter Christian was beginning to read, "she's asking about Julia."

A/N

:o

Omg, who's Julia?
Just joking, I already know that answer