Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

21 April, 1974 - A Good Day

Lavinia trudged into the Entrance Hall late on the Sunday night before term resumed. The Easter Holidays had been her personal hell. While she would normally have stayed at Hogwarts - the week long break was hardly long enough to justify traveling all the way home - her extended family had been visiting. Which meant two very important things for Lavinia. One, she was expected to be home and the perfect daughter. And two, she'd had to endure endless lectures about how she was too everything. Too fat, to stupid, too outspoken. Her clothing was too revealing and her posture deplorable. And Merlin help her if she complained.

In all fairness, this had always been her grandmother's way with her. To say she didn't sugarcoat things was an exaggeration. Theia Selwyn suffered no one to contradict her. For all that she thought Lavinia was too outspoken and too stubborn, the younger girl was of the opinion that no one in the world was more stubborn than her grandmother. At some point, even Lavinia's mother had started taking pity on her, and Rhea Selwyn didn't do pity. Then again, she also didn't get on overly well with her mother in law.

The result had been a strange kind of bond between mother and daughter that felt almost like what Lavinia imagined normal girls had. Rhea would find excuses for Lavinia to be elsewhere if they didn't have a family function, saving her from the criticisms of her grandmother. She'd spent much of one day with the Blacks, who had Regulus home for reasons Lavinia didn't know and didn't bother asking. She knew she wouldn't get an answer and she wasn't about to risk Walburga's already limited hospitality.

She'd also spent an evening with another branch of the Black family. Narcissa had always been good to her and was a favorite of Rhea's. It had been interesting, and enlightening, to talk to someone who had already graduated Hogwarts. Though she'd been an adept student - particularly in Charms - she had moved in with Lucius shortly after graduation and had never taken a job. Now engaged, the couple had taken up that family tradition of essentially being ministry influencers.

Though it had been nice to see the woman who had always treated Lavinia like a little sister, it had also been a tad depressing. Lavinia had been left wondering if that was to be her fate after she graduated too. All her hard work, all her perfect grades, gone towards making her family proud and finding an appropriate husband for whom she would play hostess while he pulled the strings of the magical world. She knew the answer, of course. And she wasn't particularly fond of it. Lavinia's personal ambitions didn't start or end with a rich husband.

Now, back at the castle, Lavinia breathed a deep sigh of relief, glad to be away from the machinations of her family. And glad she wouldn't have to deal with her grandmother for the next year or so at least. Theia, though functionally the matriarch of the Selwyn family, had retired to a small magical village in the German countryside and wasn't particularly inclined to leave it more often than she deemed necessary.

The halls were lit only sparsely by torches as Lavinia made her way down to the Slytherin dormitories, and though she didn't know the exact time, she was certain it was past curfew. The common room was almost empty, and about as dark and cold as it ever got. The fire had burned down the coals and the moon was a mere sliver in the sky, leaving no light to filter through the dark waters of the lake.

"I almost thought you wouldn't come back," joked a voice from one of the couches. Lavinia squinted, trying to make the person out. "What, don't recognize me just by my voice?" he teased.

She rolled her eyes - a gesture lost on her companion in the dark. It was Severus, of course, but in her tired state she hadn't paid any attention to his voice when he greeted her.

"I know it's you, Sev," she said, trying to mask the exhaustion she was certain would show in her voice, even if he couldn't see her face.

"Tired?" he asked. Evidently, she had failed in that particular endeavor.