Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
╔══════════════╗
chapter nine
"TAKE NO PRISONERS"
╚══════════════╝
The courtyard was filled with a handful of students, their houses unknown since it was a Saturday, and they were trusted with making their own outfits that day. Also Sundays.
Carmilla had sat Emilia down on one of the benches lining the courtyard, taking advantage of the decent weather, which was surprising for early October. It was cold and crisp, but both were wearing thick jumpers and only shivered a little. Emilia didn't mind being chilly. Or getting a cold.
As Carmilla put an arm around Emilia, she couldn't help but think how good her best friend was at this. Emilia didn't feel stressed, or panicked, or anything. Because her best friend was, miraculously, keeping her calm, keeping her still. Emilia knew that, if her friends hadn't appeared, Emilia would've freaked out in the hall. She would've started to panic and those girls would've made some sort of remark and Emilia would've snapped and hit them and everything would begin to fall apart and Emilia was getting stressed just thinking about this—
Carmilla put Emilia's head on her shoulder. "Do you want to read the article, Em, or should I read it to you?" she said. Emilia regretted what she said a minute ago. She felt like she was being babied.
"I'll be fine," said Emilia.
She was handed the newspaper. Emilia felt her heartbeat pumping faster than usual. The headline sat on the corner of the front page, guiding readers to turn to page four to read more than the introduction, and the caption of a picture of her grandfather. It had been taken a couple of months ago, apparently, and he looked like he always had — wispy grey hair on his head, and his skin tanned after moving and living back in Colombia for the past twenty years.
Emilia had only met her grandfather a couple of times. The first was when she was five, and during the entirety of the visit, her godfather had been standing somewhat in front of her. The second was her eleventh birthday, when she got her Hogwarts letter. Her grandfather had insisted on staying at their house that time, which had resulted in Capulet taking time off work. She didn't know why.
But, she remembered, the night before her eleventh birthday, when the local muggles were preparing for Halloween the following day, Emilia had been playing with her dolls and Ripper upstairs as her grandfather arrived. And she had moved to go downstairs and say hello, but froze the second she heard her godfather question why he was there.
