Toujours Pur | Euphemia Black

Chapter 64 | It's Going To Be Okay

It was quite funny how time always went so fast when Mia was having fun. For once in her life, she was able to forget about her family, forget about her arranged marriage to Orion and just let herself go.

Pulling pranks and causing mischief around the castle soon became a rather common pastime for Euphemia and she was starting to enjoy it more and more, though the endless supply of detentions did start to wear her out a little.

The Head Boy, Elphinstone Urquart seemed to find Mia's antics rather amusing, however, and he often looked the other way whenever Minerva and Euphemia were setting up pranks or making trouble in the corridors.

However, if the girls were with Alastor and Charlus, they usually ended up getting punished or at least scolded which, Mia remarked playfully one day, was entirely their fault.

"You're just not as charming as Minnie and I," Euphemia teased Alastor with a laugh as the four of them headed into their fourth detention that week, the reason behind their punishment being that they managed to have an entire corridor closed off due to them filling the entire space with slime.

"I'll have you know that many girls would disagree," Alastor responded with a smirk and Mia pulled a disgusted face, not wanting to know about both Alastor's and Charlus' playboy reputations.

But, time really was going fast because Euphemia was actually enjoying her time at Hogwarts for once (she always had done, her experience had just been marred by the likes of her family more often than not).

It was great that Mia was enjoying the start of her fifth year and that she was finally relaxing more than she had done in her past four years at the school but time really was flying past faster than the speediest snitch and Christmas was soon upon them.

Most students would've been delighted at the prospect of Christmas approaching but Mia's good mood, that had been in large supply since she had started pranking with her friends, was soon dampened.

Christmas last year, in 1950, had been extremely eventful because Euphemia had found herself victim to one of the worst torture sessions that she had ever experienced at the hands of her very own father, Arcturus.

It had simply been because she had cheeked her parents during the Christmas Eve dinner when they had told her something important was going to happen that would affect her deeply (which Mia soon found out was, of course, the attack in Hogsmeade).

Because of that, however, Euphemia wasn't really looking forward to Christmas this year at the Black Manor and she almost wished that she had the nerve to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays for once.

But her parents would never allow it. No matter how much they hated her and how much they didn't care about her, Cassiopeia and Arcturus always made sure that Mia was home for the holidays.

It would just be way too suspicious, you see. If extremely respected members of the Sacred 28, like Euphemia's parents were, didn't have their daughter in attendance to all of the family events and balls then something would be amiss and it would appear suspicious.

'Where's that daughter of yours?' would be asked and 'Where is Euphemia?' would be the questions thrown at Cassiopeia and Arcturus, as they had experienced that previous Christmas when Mia had been holed up in her room, too injured and beaten up to attend the festivities.

Euphemia's parents did not want all of that pestering again (which, Mia thought with a bitter chuckle, wouldn't have occurred in the first place if they hadn't tortured her on Christmas Eve) and so they had written to their daughter and demanded that she return home for Christmas, no matter what.