event: pensieve threads where: Hogwarts when: March 1978 who: @mighty-prongs
Only two days had passed since the day the owl had come and dropped off the letter; only two days in which Emmeline was able to at least pretend that everything was fine. If no one knew then surely the truth could be averted and altered and at the very least pushed back, to the very far corner of her mind. Perhaps if she tried hard enough none of it would have happened. Yet that very morning had marked the day when pretending to be fine would no longer work. The moment she’d stepped in the great hall things had felt different, like there was something brewing under the surface. It was impossible not to notice the occasional glance, the hushed tones but only when she’d sat down at the Slytherin table that it become clear why.
Hands that she couldn’t even remember the owner’s face of had pushed the Daily Prophet her way, unfolded so not a word could slip past her attention. There it was, ink on paper, announcing the truth the witch had so desperately tried to avoid: Her father, the attack and the resulting loss that came with such events. It was oddly bizarre how easy it was to ignore such things when others were hit with such news, how easy it was to ignore the trouble brewing outside when one wasn’t the one whose family and friends had suffered. No, until that very moment the people causing such things, the ones to laugh at the mere notion of yet another half-blood attack or slur towards muggleborns were her very friends and their families. It left a sour taste in her mouth, filled her eyes with confusion that was hard to mask. After all that time, perhaps this would be the day that the mask would fall.
The entire day had been a nightmare, moving from class to the other with the Daily Prophet tucked safely away in her bag as though one hidden copy could change the outcome. She ignored the polite gestures from some, avoided the gaze of the professors around, desperate to make it through the day. It was a time of oncoming war, surely something else would happen within the next day or two to tide over whatever mess this was. Emmeline felt so utterly desperate for a moment to breathe. It was the first time that the Slytherin common room felt small to her, not the home it usually had been. On one hand some of these people were still her friends, some of which she would have trusted with her life to a degree yet also faces that had become so distorted with a need to know what lay hidden behind their very masks that she felt herself ready to run.
It was close to curfew when she stepped outside the common room, wandering aimlessly past students hurrying back to their houses. For a while she allowed her feet to carry her, not caring where she would end up nor worrying about curfew. Her eyes were blindly ignorant to the world around her, ears closed to the echoes of voices around her as she walked. That was until her ears picked up something that made even the one witch adamant to slip by whirl around to face the source. A student Emmeline didn’t recognize, perhaps a year below her. They weren’t a Slytherin and yet their words almost sounded cocky enough to match it. “What did you say?” There wasn’t a lot that could push her as much someone daring to talk about her father in such a way. Normally the Slytherin in her would know to mask it but it was all too fresh, all too soon.
A hail of comments followed, causing the blood to boil to a point where even the calmest people would have seen nothing but a reason to act out. And so she did, pushing the student back at against the wall with her wand at their throat. Not often did one find Emmeline in such a position. In fact, it had never happened before and if there had been any more self-control, surely that would have been the case. “Never speak about my father that way again. Ever. I won’t be as nice the next time.” There was a fire in eyes, anger burning. Her anger was broken by steps, breaking her out of whatever trance of anger she’d been in. The self-control left in her was only enough to let the student go, to push them away before doing something that she’d regret eventually. The steps seemed to stop. If her math was correct, by now it was way past curfew. “Come to give me detention?” Emmeline turned around, wand still in hand as a couple of angry yet defeated sparks left it. What even was the point?