Toujours Pur | Euphemia Black

Chapter 19 | Protego

A week had passed since the Hogsmeade visit that had ended in disaster for Mia, her date had failed miserably and she had fallen out with the only person in the Slytherin house that she could call her friend.

Eileen was resolutely not speaking to her now, she refused to even acknowledge Euphemia and stormed out of the dormitory early every morning to avoid walking up to breakfast with Mia.

Obviously, it meant that Euphemia was more free to hang out with her actual friends now but she had to be more careful, she was realising just how much Eileen had done for her and how she had never appreciated her efforts.

Now she didn't have Eileen to watch her back and cover for her, it was left to Mia to make up stories to her fellow housemates about where she was when she was hanging out with the others.

She wasn't going to lie to herself, she now had a little more freedom because Eileen wasn't tagging around after her like an annoying shadow but she did miss the small girl's company a little bit.

She felt bad for how she had treated her and was slowly realising how much of a good friend Eileen had tried to be, she had just been too blind to see it.

Euphemia tried talking to her old friend in the days after the incident, thinking that if they talked then they might be able to reach a compromise.

However, Eileen skirted around corners whenever Euphemia approached; hid behind bookshelves and trees to avoid Mia seeing her; struck up random conversations with random people to ignore Euphemia loudly and sat in the furthest seat away from her in lessons, even if it meant that she was sat by herself.

Eileen had even asked to be moved in Potions and she swapped with Mary Crawley, which meant that Mia was stuck with one of Walburga's cronies, which also meant that her desk had to be next to Heather's and Walburga's because they wanted to talk to Mary when it suited them.

Mia had to endure double Potions on a Friday and, as if that wasn't bad enough with Professor Slughorn wittering on about all the famous people he knew or the fact that she was completely clueless when it came to Potions, it had just been made 100% worse.

Because now she had to listen to Walburga, Heather and Mary say horrible things about muggles and half bloods, making her ears burn and her face go bright red with fury.

It didn't help that her Gryffindor friends were actually in the same class as the Slytherins and Mia couldn't go and sit with them because she knew her cousin would slaughter her for it without a second thought if she even smiled in their direction.

It was especially hard because she could see how much fun they were having, Charlus and Alastor were usually mucking about but still managed to get the top grades for their potion (mostly down to Charlus though) and Minerva and Eugenia laughing wildly at the things they were saying.

She would've done anything to be there with them and often caught Minnie giving her sympathetic looks that only made her feel worse.

One of these such Potions lessons was taking place and Mia was sat with her faced cupped in her hands out of boredom as her eyes started to slowly close and open again, drifting in and out of sleepiness.

It was the first lesson of the day and she hadn't slept much the night before due to her tossing and turning and worrying about whether Eileen would expose her or not.

Mary's incessant talking in her ear was also irritating Euphemia as she nattered away to Heather and Walburga, who were seated behind the two, the three of them making dark comments about the half bloods, blood traitors and the Gryffindors that they had to share the lesson with.