Circi | 2

TWENTY THREE

"Well Overdue"

July 1996, 1 month later

The newspapers on Circi's bed were piling up as the days passed by. Each morning in the remaining month of the school year greeted her with yet another image of Cornelius Fudge admitting that Voldemort had returned. She often slept on top of the papers, lulled by the flashes of white from the cameras of other reporters.

Her doom mates were concerned, mostly, and every attempt to help her tidy up was met with hopeless protests. Since the events at the ministry succumbed to rumours, and Circi's evident shift in attitude began to affect her work, Leslie discovered he had been lied to. It wasn't as though he was completely in the dark and had made moves to move on from his 'friends'. He sat away from Circi, returned to the common room minutes before curfew and avoided seeing either girls.

Overall, he felt betrayed. Betrayed that they considered him gullible enough to think they were in a relationship. Betrayed that he had believed them.

The loss of his friendship pained her and she grieved heavily.

Some evenings, or even at the weekend, when Circi couldn't bring herself to get out of bed at the thought of seeing the news again, Rhiannon sat with her and ran her fingers through her hair. Niamh sat on her other side, humming gently. On one particular saturday afternoon, two weeks before they were due to go home, the three of them were sprawled across the newspapers in silence and sharing a box of Bertie Bott's every flavour beans. Circi could not bring herself to care about the disgusting flavours and simply smiled faintly when the other two gagged.

Fern and Myrna were due to join them when lunch finished. The two of them had been studying in the library all morning and had agreed to smuggle some sandwiches from the Great Hall for them.

While they waited, Rhiannon joined in on Niamh's song. It was the same old muggle song she had been singing for the last few weeks so the two purebloods, uncultured was how Niamh had called them before, were now familiar with lyrics and the melody. Rhiannon's singing was not spectacular, nor was it kind on the ears, but she spoke her words to Niamh's melody this time and in a different language.

Niamh stopped singing in time to hear Rhiannon speak the next few words in Spanish, her favourite language she had learned from her mother, before rejoining.

They didn't stop when Fern and Myrna rejoined and emptied their bags to reveal entire plates full of food. The sight made the other three giggle and the singing continued as they ate.

A knock on the door interrupted them and they scattered, scrambling to stand in the middle of the room after drawing the drapes around the bed to hide the food. Fern opened the door, spoke a few words to whoever it was, and closed it again. She held the newspaper someone had delivered in her hands and read over it, and then she read it over again.

"What? Is it?" Circi stepped forward and held out her hand. Fern pulled the paper away and shook her head.

"It's nothing."

Rolling her eyes, Circi snatched at the paper, fighting it out of Fern's grip and reading over the article. This was a new article and it was front page news. At first, the headshot of Serenity didn't phase her and she focussed more on the article but then she came across the subheading 'Lucius Malfoy's confession' and paused. She looked back at the photograph, watched her mother cry at the camera and then saw it flash white and fade into a newer headshot of her father.

Lucius Malfoy had the calmest headshot she had ever seen. He simply stared stoically into the camera, gripping his number plaque tightly and swaying ever so slightly. The rest of the article read: