Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

23 June, 1978 - Advice

Lavinia did her best to forget the kiss, but her best, frankly, wasn't very good. It kept creeping up on her at unexpected moments when she accidentally let her mind wander. It happened when she was studying and she found herself rereading the same sentence over and over again with her head stuck on the memory. It happened as she was laying down to sleep. It happened when she was eating or walking down the halls or otherwise mentally unoccupied.

It wasn't that she hadn't liked it. She had for all that it had caught her utterly by surprise. And that was exactly the problem. Some part of her had wanted it. Had wanted more. But it felt wrong to want anything like that so soon after she had lost Regulus. Of course, if she decided that she and Regulus had just been very close friends, then there was no problem, or less of a problem, anyway. But she truly didn't know and deciding such a thing after the fact felt like she was forcing that truth, rather than accepting it for what it was. The end result was such muddled confusion of feelings that Lavinia didn't even know where to begin processing them.

So she tried not to think about it and tried not to make things weird. She didn't know how much she succeeded, but since it was exam season, she did at least have a good excuse for zoning out. Thankfully, no one openly questioned it and if they noticed that she always seemed to end up staring at Sirius, they didn't say anything. And neither did he, though she suspected that was because she had laughed about it. Pretended it was joke. Because that had been the easiest way out she had seen. And like the coward she was, she had taken it without second thought. She could only hope she hadn't hurt him too badly. That was the last thing she wanted to do, after all.

In the midst of her anxiety over Sirius, exams came in their own whirlwind of stress, panic and near total sleep deprivation. Lavinia, whose exam schedule was more than slightly hectic, fell asleep in the library more than once. Madam Pince, who seemed to have taken pity on the 7th years, gave up enforcing a closing time for the library, for which Lavinia was exceedingly grateful.

She knew she'd become snappish and unpleasant to be around and at any other time, she would have been rather upset with herself over it, but she couldn't bring herself to care too much at the moment because her studying had become all consuming. She did follow Sirius's advice, at least in some form and when she became so stressed that she wanted to do something exceedingly stupid, she would instead seek out one of her friends and study with them. She knew that wasn't exactly what Sirius had had in mind when he'd advised her to find other things to do to alleviate the stress, but she also couldn't bring herself to take a break.

More than once, she and Evans ended up in a spare classroom, studying together for their practicals and once, Evans even dragged Marlene McKinnon in. McKinnon didn't seem at all pleased to be there, but, when Lily gave her a pointed look and reminded her that she'd been complaining about not having anyone to study Runes with, the girl had shut up and, very begrudgingly, spent a few hours on blind translations with Lavinia.

It was quite possibly the most awkward study session of Lavinia's life and though she appreciated what Evans had been trying to do, she also rather hoped that the other girl didn't attempt it again. Judging by the exaggerated wince Evans had thrown over her shoulder at Lavinia as she'd left with McKinnon, Lavinia was reasonably sure the redhead had learned her lesson.

Eventually, the end of exam week arrived and Lavinia exited her Arithmancy practical with the distinct feeling that she should have studied more. At least she didn't need that grade, she reasoned. She still wanted it, mind, if only for her own pride, but at least her future didn't hinge on it.

Lavinia came into the Great Hall fully intending to head to her room and take a nap even though she suspected that was where Alexandra would be as well. At least in the safety of their room, Alexandra and Eloise both were cordial if still far from friendly and though she missed what they'd had terribly, she also knew it could have been much worse. A lot of things could have been worse, actually. It seemed that with exam week, the 7th years' stress had finally reached a point where no one had time to remember to not like Lavinia. Some even seemed to forget she was blacklisted and asked to borrow books she'd picked out from the library to study. This had rather annoyed her. She'd been the subject of their ridicule and insults for weeks, but now that she was useful to them, they suddenly pretended none of it had ever happened.