From Eden - Regulus Black (Complete)

Chapter Eighty-Two

A bit shorter than the last one, but today is my last test, so I might be back a lot sooner than you all imagine.

TW: CHILD ABUSE AND DOMESTIC ABUSE, MOSTLY IMPLIED

PANDORA'S PARTY FOR MARY

Mary MacDonald had few hopes about her birthday. Maybe she would slip into the kitchen, drink some butterbeer her friends would sneak into the castle and go to sleep an hour or two after the usual time she went to bed, but she did not expect a full-blown party happening in the Ravenclaw Tower's Common Room with Pandora smiling bigly at her, muttering the words 'surprise' as if it was nothing big.

It was a Friday night and there was nothing that could end up going wrong. Professor Flitwick knew about the party and was pretending not to and Pandora invited only a few of her friends besides Mary's friends.

Still, there was a part of Mary that didn't believe her eyes as she saw Regulus Black, Severus Black and Barty Crouch Junior standing in the corner of the room, talking to each other in low voices in the very same room as James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew were on, especially with Lily Evans and Marlene McKinnon. In the middle of them, however, it was not surprising to see Anne Sage.

Mary was sure that if she liked women, she would've liked Anne somewhat. Sure, she was pretty and all, but there was little one could do to not like Anne. Mary liked to believe that she was a great observer, but Anne didn't allow much to leave her mind – she knew that Anne loved James very much, that her bond with Lily was growing rapidly, Anne hated black licorice and still ate it every now and again, Anne didn't care for school; that last one was odd, she had nice grades and Mary actually found herself liking having her in class with her so she had an actual competition outside of Ravenclaw, but there was very little attention coming from her in classes. Another thing that Mary had observed was that Anne was always walking in the thin line between fraternization between houses and clearly being in the wrong house, especially when talking to Slytherin and Gryffindor.

So, to be a good host and not show any preference, Mary made her way to Anne first.

"Anne! Oh, you came, too!" Mary said. "Pandora said you weren't sure if you'd make it or not."

"Yeah, I was feeling under the weather this morning, but I got better and I couldn't miss it!" said Anne. "Happy birthday! Happy eighteenth!"

"Thanks! I don't feel any different," she admitted.

Anne laughed.

"Nobody does," she dismissed. "Pandora seemed very excited about this party, rambled about it to Regulus for almost thirty minutes. She was so excited that even managed to get Severus to come."

Mary hesitated.

"Yes," was all she managed to say.

Mary was a muggleborn and she had every reason to fear Severus Snape after his confrontation that everybody saw with Lily Evans, but especially after rumours of his loyalty of the coming war got out. She had every reason to be terrified and even more reasons to not want him there. But Mary was raised by a teacher; she was polite and educated, she would never, ever tell someone to leave her party, even if she wanted and even more, she would never forgive herself for being rude to someone, even if that person was a horrible one.

"I hope you don't blame Pandora, Severus did say he wanted to meet you," Anne added after seeing Mary's hesitance. "He was quite taken aback by the length of your last Spell's essay. He barely managed enough for the parchment and there you were with three."