Matchmaking and Rule Breaking

"How will I get out of this hellhole of confusion?"

Vici:
God, I'm ready to scream at Black! Sirius, not Regulus, though I'm not looking at him ever again after I wake up. If I remember too. 

See that's the thing. I don't know how much of this I'll remember, so I've been leaving little hints and tips all over the place. Little anonymous notes, symbols, messages. I painted a moon on the inside of the left wrist on my actual, physical body, in the hopes that if I forget what I've learned about Remus, I'll be able to remember it again. I'm not being very specific, which would be far more effective (I think we can all agree writing "REMUS LUPIN IS A WEREWOLF" in huge letters somewhere obvious), but let's face it, how many times in your life do you get to screw with yourself? (I mean this seriously.) How many chances do you get to set up a scavenger hunt for yourself, and later have no idea where anything is, or even that it's there? I'm planning on leaving one huge, standout, launching clue to kickstart it all, but the question(/challenge) is where to put it?

I saw Sirius walk in and start being an arse to Natalie, I saw Remus's conflicted face, then I saw Natalie's bricked features as she walks coolly out of the room.
God I'm gonna slap all of them.

At dinner tonight, I saw Natalie pointedly take a seat facing the wall, and not the rest of the Great Hall, presumably so that she won't have any chance of making eye contact with Remus during the meal. I saw Remus come in minutes later, sitting with his back to the wall, in hopes of just that. It's excruciating to see this happen to them, especially Remus. As much as I know Natalie would hate me admitting it, the Marauders, on the whole, aren't really that bad. Sure, they all have their (admittedly rather stupid) reputations to uphold, but individually, they're all rather pleasant, overall.

Lupin tutors me in Transfiguration (a subject both Nat and I struggle through), and in turn, I tutor him in charms. Potter is forever failing astonishingly in Potions, which I tutor him in, in return for Quidditch lessons. To be honest, I think he just does this to get Lily's attention, and me being one of Lily's friends, I'm the next-best thing. I don't mind, though, and James is a top-notch Quidditch player. I tutored Black in DADA a while ago, but now we co-conspire pranks for Regulus, which he is more than happy to do. Pettigrew, I just take pity on, and tutor him in pretty much anything I can.

I don't know how much of this Natalie know, some is quite obvious in my opinion, like my tutoring of Pettigrew. Other aspects, like the pranking and the Quidditch lessons, she probably doesn't know about yet. Not that I'm hiding it, but the Marauders aren't exactly a good conversation-starter with her. In the same (and rather more hilarious) vein, I don't know how much the four Marauders disclose to each other how much interaction they have with their "Public Enemy No. 2" or whatever (Natalie, obviously, being No. 1). If she asked, I wouldn't lie, but I'm not exactly going to say "Hi, can't prank this afternoon, I have Quidditch lessons from Potter. You know, that hot-headed, Gryffindor idiot, who's not really that much of a hot-headed, Gryffindor, idiot?" Yeah, you can see my dilema.

I walk over to her, a bunch of ghosts saying "Hi" to me along the way, and students looking at the ghosts like they were crazy, greeting thin air.

I get out a slip of parchment and a quill, given to me by Sir Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, and write down Forgive him. He was only trying to be nice. The Marauders aren't as bad as they seem, you just have to find a middle ground. Talk to him, and I'll make sure the rest of them are out of the way. ~B I'm about to give it to her, but then I think other wise. No, it can't just appear, that'll be too suspicious, a note just appearing next to her. I'll send it through the owl post tomorrow at breakfast. Still weird, but I think less so.

I attach the note to one of the school owls and send it on its way, somehow. I don't remember anyone ever being able to interact with anything in these types of stories, but I guess it's weird cos it's magical or something. Anyway, I race down to the Great Hall to see her reaction, because no matter how magical all this is, I still haven't figured out how to teleport or walk through walls, unfortunately. 

I come in right on time, just before the first owl arrives. I look for Natalie, and find her at the Slytherin table, with, predictably, an empty plate. The owl I sent is around the fifth one to come in, and I'm glad it came in such a hurry. I really want Nat and Remus to make up. 

The owl lands at her place and sticks out its leg. Undoubtably, she's surprised, but she untied it nevertheless. She reads it once and glances at Remus, then reads it again. I see her focus on the signature, which I made purposely vague. B, as in Bonafante, but most people would sign it with their first initial. Still, if you opened up the search, there would be tons of people with last names starting with "B", five in my family alone. 

But then Natalie does something I completely do not expect: she shoots up, out of her seat, and sprints out of the hall. 

I follow her, obviously, all the way down to the Hospital Wing. She races up to my unresponsive body, but is stopped by Madam Pomfrey. 

"What is the meaning of this, Miss Roberts?" the slightly scary nurse demanded. "You should be on your way to class! No but's, no excuses. Go to-"

"Madam Pomfrey!" Natalie yells, surprising all three of us. "Look at this. It's a note. In Vici's handwriting." She stops, panting, and holds the piece of parchment out for the startled nurse to take. She does so, saying "That hardly seems possible," in a cynical tone, because what else does one say when one is presented with a situation that hardly seems possible? Nevertheless, she takes the note from Natalie's trembling hand and looks at it over her abnormally petite nose. She reads it once, then glances up at my best friend before reading it again. She looks at her suspiciously, probably concerned, at the moment, for the young witch's mental health (her best friend is in a coma, after all). 

"And you believe this to be written by Miss Bonafante?"

"It's her handwriting."

Madam Pomfrey purses her lips, not needing to say what she was asking for Natalie to know. She digs through her bag and pulls out a page of notes I lent her for a test we last week that she had to study for. Lo-and-behold, the handwriting is an exact match. 

I curse myself silently for not asking another ghost to write it for me, or something! I'm so stupid!

Madame Pomfrey is talking again. Crap! What was she saying?

She purses her lips, and when she spoke again it was with great care of her words. "I don't mean to be...well...persistent, on the -em- improbability, of Vici -erm- writing this letter in her...current -um- state, and, -um- well, it's-" Natalie gave her a hard glare, effectively cutting off the nurse's stammering reply with a threat, hidden in her gaze, saying something along the lines of "I swear to Merlin do not give me another reason on how it's not from her or I will hex you to oblivion." 

Nice, but I need her to talk. I need her to convince Natalie to stop investigating and frigging ask Remus out already!!!

I slam my fist down on the table next to my bed in anger, and to my astoundment, all the bottles on the table rattle, and all the papers flutter. Madame Pomfrey stares at the table in shock, while Natalie whips around at the noise. Unintentional, but effective. A distraction I needed, so a distraction I got. I whip out the parchment and the quill from Nick, and scribbled down another note using my right hand this time. I suck at writing with my right hand (I'm a lefty) and I know she won't recognize it. It comes out looking big and scratchy, kind of like Sirius's.

Forget about me, and go make up with Lupin, goddammit!
~B

I tear off the piece I've written on and throw it in the air, right above her head. It floats, now visible, right in front of her face, fluttering down, and down, and down. It's almost at the ground before Natalie's dumbfounded expression clears from her head and she reaches out and snatches the paper from the air. She reads it once, confused, then twice, even more, and a third time, now sad, and beaten. 

Madame Pomfrey looks at her. "What does it say, dear?" she asks, gently. 

"It doesn't matter," by best friend snaps, crumpling the parchment in her fist. "It doesn't-"
"It matters to me," the stolid nurse says, her voice still gentle, but now forceful as well. Natalie shoves the note into Madame Pomfrey's outstretched palm, and darts out of the hospital wing, wiping her eyes fiercely. 

Madame Pomfrey is left alone with my unresponsive body as she reads the note. Her face falls, slightly, in sadness for Nat. Then it grows curious. She sits down at my bedside table, summons over my first message and my carefully written, detailed notes. She stares at them, doing something with her wand, then, after about ten minutes or so, she gives a small gasp, and then looks from one, to the next, to the last. She looks up, and scans her eyes around the hospital wing. She opens her mouth, and says, "B. Bonafante. Very clever. Miss Bonafante, I don't know if you're still here, but I'd like you to know I won't tell anyone of this strange occurrence. I'd like to know more about it, to test some of the information, but I will not speak a word of this to anyone, or anything. I swear."

Thank you.
~B

* * * * *"Watch it!"

"Bug off!

"Ickle Firstie!"

"Move over!"

"Outta the way!"

"Oof!"
"Oof!"

"Sorry!" I look up at who I bumped into. Crowded hallways are always the loneliest of places, especially when one is on one's way to Potions, when one gets lost in the Slytherin hallways. And one happens to be a Ravenclaw. 

And one proceeds to crash into a Slytherin, and knock said Slytherin's books to the ground, while also falling on one's butt, and dropping one's books everywhere as well. 

One is not having a very good first day, at a new school, where you're already an outcast, when that happens. 

So obviously, one would be pleasantly surprised to find out said knocked-down Slytherin is also a first year, lost, on her way to Potions. 

One's day is further improved when one and the Slytherin help each other find their first class together, making awkward first impressions, as a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin do, and the Slytherin then proceeds to sit next to one at one's table when they get to class.

One has also just tumbled into an unsuspecting, and stronger-than-magic best friendship.
* * * * *
I followed Natalie around the entire day. And for the entire day, she focused on none of her lessons. 

She would doodle in the corner of her parchment, pretend to be taking detailed notes when in reality she was writing my name, over and over again. By the third class, I knew she was missing some pretty important stuff, so I began taking notes for her. Just the important stuff, and always with a different handwriting. I tried never to repeat the same handwriting twice, especially my own, a feat which will probably become particularly hard after several days of several classes like this. Still, I knew Natalie wasn't paying attention, and someone had to do the work around here.  Anyway, that night, I followed Natalie as she skipped dinner, and heads to the empty Slytherin dorms. She sat down at her desk (yes, her acclaimed desk) and stared at the table, only now seeming to realize that she had no notes, no homework written down, and she had no idea what happened at all that day, past walking out of the hospital wing that morning. It's her lucky day, then, and I watched as she leapt back in surprise when a thick stack of parchment appeared seemingly spontaneously on the desk in front of her. She started to rifle through it, and her face changed from shock, to confusion, to surprise, to pleasure, to immense, flooding relief, as she realized the mysterious, invisible note-sender, has become a mysterious, invisible note-taker as well.

And I watched her surprised face as another note floated on top of the large stack of parchment.

This one was free. Talk to Lupin tomorrow at breakfast and lunch to get the full days worth of notes and homework. I know, I'm cruel, but it's either study up or talk to the boy already. Deal?

~B