Reaching for the Stars

Blue Monday

Morgana stared at the hangings on her bed and listened to Rose snoring in the bed next to her. She did not need a clock to tell her what time it was; it was four in the morning, she could sleep no later than that. She supposed it had something to do with living with the Aunts. They were both up at four everyday and it was impossible to sleep with Celeste singing along loudly to songs on the radio and Cecilia's cleaning which involved the moving around of furniture. Morgana had resented these facts when she was younger but she eventually found it useful when it came to doing homework, which was best left until the last possible moment to complete. It also gave her a time to think and make sense of things that had happened the day before as the castle was quiet at this time, the kind of quiet that not even exams could cause and today she had many things to think about.

The Aunts' fight was the first thing that came to her mind. She knew that they had probably gone back to the flat, had a loud argument that involved Aunt Cecilia swearing, as prim and proper as she pretended to be, she had the vocabulary of a sailor but Morgana had no idea where she had learnt it. Aunt Celeste would probably start breaking any plates she could find and threatening to move out and find her own flat. Both the Aunts had firery tempers. Morgana was not worried though, they would reconcile in their own sisterly fashion by morning. She herself would never understand the bond between these two sisters; partly because the Aunts were not average people to begin with and were not the average sisters, partly because being an only child she did not even understand even the average sibilings.

Her mind wandered back to the dementors on the train and even the memory caused her to feel sick. She knew that her friends were worried about her and who could blame them? She was worried about herself. Brave Gryffindors did not vomit with fear after seeing a dementor; she prided herself on being brave and fearless yet she felt as if she was three years old after the dementor left the compartment. She did not even want to think about the chanting she had heard, as a student of N.E.W.T. level Defence against the Dark Arts she knew what dementors did, she knew they made you relive your worse memories. She knew what the chanting had been, a memory she had tried her best to surpress. Somehow she had been able make it through the feast without acting on her urge to run into a corner and cry. She smiled slightly at the thought of her crying in a corner, of course her grandmother would have a fit. Morgana's thoughts ran to the prim and proper Catherine Green, the mother of Morgana's father and the Aunts. Morgana had not seen her grandmother in close to eight years due to the fact she lived in almost total seclusion in Barbados. Morgana had never been close to her because Catherine hated children, she had found it hard to even like her own brood. To Morgana, this fact explained why the Aunts felt the need to live like Muggles. It also explained why Charles had moved to France and left behind his only child. Morgana had long ago come to the conclusion that her own somewhat unhappy childhood was ninety percent Catherine's fault. Maybe if Catherine had any maternal instincts things might have been different but that was not the case and there was nothing Morgana could do about that.

She had begun writing Morgana every month when she turned sixteen, dispensing advice on proper etiquette, how to get ahead in the world and how to manage one's finances, the only things in the world that interested her in Morgana's opinion. Not that any of these things interested Morgana and she had tried to relate these things to her grandmother when she replied to one of the letters but she could have not written the letter for all the good it did because she still recieved these long, boring letters that all sounded like the person wrtting them was somewhat detached from what they were doing. Morgana had no idea why her grandmother had begun to show some semblence of interest in her and she had no idea why she went along with it at first but their correspondence continued nonetheless. Occassionally Catherine would send something for Morgana that would keep her writting back to her grandmother. These things were usually pictures, old ones of Catherine, the Aunts, Charles and Morgana's late grandfather and recent ones of Catherine lounging on the beach. At first it shocked her how much she looked like her grandmother; they had the same blonde hair and blue eyes, the same features and were around the same height and built. She then realise how much they all looked alike; Cecilia and Celeste could pass for identical twins and they were both younger versions of their mother. Morgana had not seen her father since she was a young child but these pictures clearly told her that Charles was a male version of his sisters and Morgana could not be mistaken for anyone but her father's daughter. She sometimes wondered how a family could look that alike yet all be such different people.

***

"Anything interesting happened to you today Annie?" asked Shannon as they sat in the common room with Oliver trying to do their homework.

"Nothing of which to speak," Morgana shrugged. For the first day of school, it had been rather uneventful.

"Where's Rose?" asked Oliver as he poked his wand at a board that contained lines and arrows in different colours.

"I haven't seen her since lunch but I think she is out plotting revenge,"

"Revenge?" Shannon sounded puzzled, "On whom? It's only the first day of school,"

"Snape," said Morgana.

"What about Snape?" came a voice from behind her.

Morgana looked up at Ben Patrick, a fellow seventh year, "Didn't your mother tell you that eaasdropping is impolite?"

"I never listen to my mother," he laughed and pulled up a chair, "So what did Snape do now?"

"He took ten points off Rose this morning because she spilled some armadillo bile on the floor. Rose is out plotting revenge because she is so upset that he broke their truce," Morgana rolled her eyes, "You know she is convinced that there is a feud going on between them. Oh hello Carol," she resisted the urge to roll her eyes again as Ben's girlfriend took a seat at their table.

"A feud? Really? Goodness that's fantastic...uhh...I mean that's horrible," said Carol excitedly.

Carol was Gryffindor's resident gossip queen, nothing happened in the school and she did not know about it. She also could not hear anything and not repeat it to everyone she knew. Morgana was always wary to say anything to Carol, somehow she felt that it would get repeated, distorted and her name would end up scrawled on the walls of the schools' toilets.

"No there isn't any feud, Carol," said Shannon trying to squash any ideas that may have formed in Carol's head, "So...how's the sixth year treating you?"

"No different than the fifth," said Carol, "But I heard today at dinner that Hagrid's first class was a disaster! Apparently he took them to see these animals who went out of control and attacked one of the third years,"

"Where did you hear that?" asked Morgana.

"I have sources,"

"Who are these sources?" asked Morgana, she was always suspicious when people said they had 'sources'.

'I can't reveal that,"

"Who is the third year?" asked Shannon.

"A Slytherin. Malfoy, the same one who bought the Quidditch team those Nimbus 2001's. I heard that he was unconsious for hours and is still in the hospital wing. It was horrific with all that blood everywhere. Well you know his father will have poor Hagrid sacked for this,"

"You can bet he will," said Morgana darkly, "Injury to the heir to the throne? Oh my goodness," she said in mock outrage, "What will happen next?"

"The heir to what throne?" Rose placed her rather large pile of books on top the table and pulled up a chair. She had just arrived in the Gryffindor coomon room from, Morgana strongly suspected, the library, "I think I'm missing something,"

Carol then proceded to repeat the story she had just told the others. Morgana found that it somehow sounded a little different to the account she had heard less than ten minutes before.

"Well I for one think it serves him right," said Oliver, "Did you see him at breakfast this morning? Him and half the Slytherin house making fun of Potter. It's not his fault he fainted," Oliver sounded offended which Morgana could understand. She knew he took any attack on any member of his team to be a personal attack on him.

"It's what Sarita calls 'karma'" said Rose in reference to another seventh year Gryffindor, "'Whatever you do comes back to you' or something to that effect,"

"Well let's hope that all the good things Hagrid has done comes back to him," said Morgana, "It was Malfoy's father that made Dumbledore leave the school last year,"

"How do you know that for sure?" asked Rose.

"Lucius Malfoy was a governor on the board for Hogwarts and he was on the Daily Prophet gloating that that was the best descision for the school,"

"Why would he do that?" asked Rose suddenly sounding like a naive, young child.

"Because he comes from a very old, very, very rich pureblood family," said Oliver as if that explained everything.

"What?"

"He means Rosie," Shannon explained, "Dumbledore doesn't discriminate against Muggle-borns. Many people from old pureblood families-"

"Especially if they were in Slytherin," cut in Carol.

"Think that magical education should be kept in the old families," Shannon continued.

"You should know this after seven years," said Morgana.

"But everybody loves Dumbledore,"

"Rose, there is no such thing as universal popularity," Morgana shook her head, "But let's hope for the best for Hagrid's sake, I mean Lucius is no longer on the board maybe Hagrid won't be sacked,"

"I highly doubt it," said Ben, "Money can buy lots of things, some of which are not sold in stores,"

Everyone was quiet for a minute but then Carol broke the silence that had settled on their table, "You know what I heard about William Silver?"