Carina McGonagall is named after the constellation containing the second brightest star in the sky - and it just so happens one Sirius Black is named after the brightest. They've always had an interesting relationship throughout the years - pranks...
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✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
It was impossible to decide exactly what to do in that moment. Should she turn and run? Should she ignore Nola? Address her politely? Confront her? Yell?
Nola's eyes felt as though they were piercing through Carina's very being. With the heat of embarrassment creeping up the back of her neck, Carina was about to open her mouth to speak, when Nola seemed to decide otherwise.
"Hello, McGonagall." It was a voice Carina had heard so many times, but now her tone lacked all warmth, a hollow shell of the sweetness Nola's words had once held. Her words were not the icicles they had been in Diagon Alley, not sharp, harsh, and attacking - they were instead infected by a slow, consuming, aching coldness. Like frostbite. Hearing her last name in that voice seemed less like a greeting, than a threat. An invitation for injury, for cruelty, for pain. Almost like an insult, simply waiting to happen.
"Hello, Nola." No matter how Carina felt, how much pain she endured from a person, how much discomfort she felt standing there in that moment, she knew one thing: she was not going to play that same game as Nola. She threw as much positivity and happiness into her words as she could, twisting them to be as bright and cheerful as possible. Pushing her fearful body into motion, Carina forced herself to move from the spot she had almost become attached to in those few agonising minutes she had spent standing, frozen in uncertainty.
She went to her bed, several over from the edge of the room where Nola's lay. All of her focus was put into keeping her breathing steady and staying calm, collected. Unbothered.
As she carefully scanned up and down her small set of shelves where she kept her books, Carina realised something. Her copy of A Guide To Advanced Transfiguration was missing.
She spun around to seek for it under her bed or in her school bag and stopped still.
"Looking for this?" Nola held up the textbook Carina had been looking for. The way it was positioned in Nola's hand meant that the spine was bent in a way Carina had been purposeful to avoid and the corners of the pages looked so much rougher and more dog-eared than Carina would have ever allowed it to become. Just looking at her book, being so carelessly handled by the other girl, made her blood boil in a way Carina did not normally feel. She wasn't an inherently angry person - but there was a building temptation in Carina's gut to dive over to the other girl, punch her in the face, and yank her book back.
Carina resisted the urge.
Shifting from foot to foot, she swallowed. "I may have been. If you wouldn't mind returning that to me, that'd be lovely." There were cracks in the composure of her voice, but Carina managed to not sound too angry or upset. She focused on her breathing again. In and out. Everything was going to be fine.
"Of course." Nola threw the book at Carina - a move she wasn't expecting, and as Carina fumbled to catch it, Nola shifted her stance. As Carina looked up, clutching the textbook to her chest, she noticed any facade of warmth was gone from the other girl.
