Lucky

The Way Things Were

The fire crackled in the corner as Emma and Morgana sat, books spread across their laps. Emma was studying intently, busying herself with work. Morgana, however, was busy staring into the flickering orange flames, thinking back over the last few weeks.

Johnny had been discharged from hospital three days after Abraxas had used the counter-curse to save him. The healers were all astounded by the effects of the spell and Emma's parents had practically worshiped the Malfoy boy for the next two weeks. He went to visit Johnny every time the two girls went, and Quentin and Rachel Fortis welcomed him with open arms each and every time. Emma, however, was not so accepting.

Emma felt conflicted and confused. She tended to see people as good or evil. And Abraxas, she was convinced, was evil. Pure evil, with nothing else. He had some ulterior motive for saving her brother, and Morgana. Personally, Emma guessed that he was afraid of being caught and sentenced to Azkaban, and so he had pretended to switch sides. Or maybe he was a spy. Either way, the girl was determined that Malfoy's intentions were not purely helpful and good.

Meanwhile, Morgana was completely fed up with both of them. She wanted to be friends with Abraxas, and she wanted to stay friends with Emma. Perhaps it would have worked, had Abraxas and Emma been able to sit in the same room for ten seconds without accusing each other of every wretched crime under the sun.

"I'm going to visit Johnny," Emma announced suddenly, breaking Morgana's reverie. "You coming?" Morgana shook her head absently, pretending to study her book, "Tips for the Newly Qualified Apparator."

Emma and Morgana had both passed their apparating test, meaning that they were now licensed to apparate on their own, and could go to the Fortis' house to visit Johnny, who was on strict bed rest, any time they liked, as long as they had special permission from McGonagall.

        This evening, though, Morgana really didn't feel like leaving the castle, not even to visit Johnny, though she did feel bad about not going to see him. Emma threw her travelling cloak over her shoulders and hurried down the
many flights of stairs and out the front gates of school before disapparating.

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            It wasn't twenty minutes before Morgana was in the Slytherin Common Room, sitting beside Abraxas on the green velvet sofa. She had her feet drawn up to her chest and was leaning against the arm of the sofa while Abraxas sat in a rigid, uniform position.

         "It's so quiet here," Morgana remarked in a whisper, looking around the empty common room. Two second years had been silently pouring over a Charms textbook, but they had gone now, and only the two sixth-years were left.

         "It's always quiet here," Abraxas told her softly. "Most people tend to stick to their dorms - myself included, usually. In the afternoon, some people work down here, but mainly we go up to the dorms quite early and just read or talk or whatever. I suppose the only reason we even need a common room is for all our Quidditch parties. Slytherins know how to party," he smirked, a smug tone to his voice.

         "Well, we Gryffindors are mostly in the common room, and til about ten or so it's pretty loud in there. If we want to do homework, we go to the library. The common room is where we play exploding snap, and talk, and drink tea. And we have this old muggle style radio that some smart Gryffindor students must have made magical adjustments to one day - it's the common room resident radio. Been there ever since my first year, and every single evening, it's on. The fire's always lit, and it's always really really warm.