chapter thirty-two

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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Hogwarts castle was just as Varya Petrov remembered it, elegant architecture standing amongst rocky edges and guarding a massive body of water. The sense of home, of belonging, enveloped the girl as she walked over the bridge that led to the Middle Courtyard, eager to head back to the Dungeons and throw herself in her bed.

She had taken the Floo Network directly to London, avoiding the Knights as she left the Rosier Manor. After the incident in the forest, she did not think that she could face Tom again, too ashamed to admit how much it had affected her. He had stood over her, so close that she had to stop herself from reaching out to him, and her skin had whirred with his proximity. Although nothing had happened, she knew that it had taken her a fair amount of self-control.

Varya knew that she should have talked to Icarus as well, but it was a conversation that she did not want to have on a night train. Therefore, she left as soon as the sun rose, and while everyone was still fighting their hungover from New Year's Eve, Varya went back to the train station and went straight to the Hogwarts Express.

To make sure that none of her friends or the Knights would come and talk to her, she had sat in a Gryffindor compartment, ignoring the odd looks that the lion-like students sent her way. Was she being a coward? Definitely. Nevertheless, she needed time to herself, something that she had not had in a long time.

So she spent the ride back to the school of witchcraft reading the literature book that Annie Beauchamp had given her as a present— Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. It was a pleasant read, and it made Varya think of the life she could have had if her parents were still alive, which was a thought she liked suppressing.

Now, she was back in the Scottish fields, where the snow had melted, leaving behind a cemetery of nature. The trees had shed their last leaves, and beside the evergreen ones, they resembled sticks of charcoal that had been stuck in dirty mud by whatever deity ruled winter. It was a dry season for Scotland, the kind that even those born in the month of January loathed, where there was more rain than snow, and the violent wind made it almost impossible to promenade the castle's surroundings.

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