Chapter Text
Days turned into weeks as time at school continued to slip by, until winter arrived without ceremony, making itself known when the air temperature dropped and everyone’s breath became visible outside. Snow piled up on the ground centimeter by centimeter, tempting ammunition that was readily available to pack together into snowballs.
George glanced over at the bed beside his, where Fred was on his knees and looking through the ice-frosted panes impatiently. “I’m telling you, George. We could be down there. This is the kind of weather meant for snowball fights and messing with the Slytherins. At least Flint, for that stunt he pulled last game.”
George carefully shut Imaginative Brewing: The Alchemist’s Guide to New Age Potioneering and tossed it on the bed. Not the kind of reading material that slimy old Snape would ever use as supplemental for his lessons, but helpful all the same. Especially for the kind of creative, outside the box potion brewing he and Fred aspired to.
Sliding his legs over the edge, he stretched out lazily, half on and half off the sheets. “Oh, I’ve been thinking of cooking up something special for Flint, tosser that he is.” Not only a rotten cheat in the first place but a sore loser. In the past year he was an even worse winner. “Let’s see how well he does with furry teeth.” A mild punishment, if anyone asked him.
Then again, when it came to getting even, Fred was the one who really came up with the best ways. And he, he was the planner, always in charge of making sure it all came together. “Anyway Freddie, I’ve been thinking. We’ve already served detention last week for that snowball business with Professor Quirrell. Are you sure we should risk getting on McGonagall’s bad side again so soon? Think about what’ll happen if she decides to write home to Mum.”
Fred stared at him as if he had just professed to fancying helping Charlie scoop up dragon dung at the reserve. “Are you—”
“Only joking,” he reassured with a smirk, his brother’s face slowly easing into his own grin. “We’ll take our time to come up with something that’ll really teach him a lesson, yeah?” It was the least Flint deserved.
“I hope you’re feeling creative,” Fred tilted his head thoughtfully.
“That I am, brother mine,” George sank down to the floor, getting on his knees and reaching under the bed where he kept the plain wooden chest he had designated himself in charge of. The contents clanked as he dragged it out, “but I could use some input.”
“Sure thing,” Fred’s voice, agreeable but tempered by curiosity, hit his ears at the exact moment he popped back up. “What’re you getting those out for? I thought…”
“We did promise.” he reasoned, shaking the box as he stood up. “A deal’s a deal.”
Fred blinked, coming round the side of his bed. “You don’t mean—”
“Think we owe a certain Hufflepuff an adventure,” Though, this was more or less something of a treasure hunt, nothing as exciting as the thrilling time they all had in the greenhouse, what with him and Fred being nearly digested and all that.
“Suppose so…” Fred relented. George hid his inner smirk behind a composed nod. The memory of their last adventure was probably coming back. Not so much the danger, but the aftermath, when the huffy Hufflepuff first-year had laid a jinx on his brother with surprising effectiveness, leaving Fred with an unendingly runny nose that leaked through his fingers for the rest of the night.
After he got tired of hearing the sniffling coming from the bed beside his, George sat up and transfigured a lamp into a bucket, telling Fred to just keep his head in it for the rest of the night if he had to.
Of course, Lucillia had come around guiltily not long after and offered a bashful apology while reversing it. And Fred had to grudgingly admit, randomly the day after, that it was pretty good. For a Hufflepuff. But George knew, because he knew his twin, that if it had happened to almost anyone else he would have been howling with laughter at their expense.
Bested by a firstie? Yeah, that was worth laughing at. But it didn’t happen to anyone else, and while George was amused and impressed, Fred’s prankster pride might have been a little…damaged. He’d get over it—gotten over it—though.
They made their way out of Gryffindor Tower, and George nudged Fred as he spotted Lucillia waiting against a wall, focused on something she was turning around in her hands with quiet intensity. It looked like a box, and as they got closer he could see all the colors on each side as she swiftly twisted it to try and match up the like colors to each other. “Think we should come back later?” Fred whispered without really whispering. “She’s really into it.”
Even as he asked, he walked closer, stopping to pluck it right from her hands before she noticed they were there. Lucillia gasped, reaching out belatedly with a half-glare before noticing it was Fred…and glaring harder. His brother ignored it, lifting it to his ear and shaking it. “Doesn’t sound like it’s got anything inside.”
“Solving it’s supposed to be the prize,” she explained, “Hermione gave it to me. She said it’s a Muggle puzzle called a Rubik’s cube.” Holding out her open hand, she waited for him to deposit it into her open palm. “May I please have it back?”
Fred’s hand hovered over hers, and just when it looked like he would drop it into her grasp, he tugged it away again and tapped it with his wand, turning all the multi-colored sides red. “There, solved,” he grinned, giving it back.
“That wasn’t even clever!” Lucillia said, clearly put out as she brought out her own wand and muttered something, changing all the colors back. Tucking her little Muggle puzzle away into a pocket of her robes, she glanced his way, pointedly ignoring Fred. “You said to meet you here. You said you had something you wanted to show me?”
While he suspected she was going for a moderate tone, the curiosity shining bright in her eyes gave her away. George showed her the plain box, and those intrigued eyes flicked down, then back up again in mild confusion. Cracking the lid open, Lucillia brought her face down closer, blinking as her brow pinched. “…Keys?”
“Yes, but what do you really see?” George urged.
“They look…old?” She picked one up, brass and weighty, to examine.
“The keys to unlocking adventure.” Fred corrected, deciding he was done messing about. Lucillia passed an assessing glance his way, but her eyes were back on the key she held quickly.
“Oh,” There was a minimal shift from bemusement to a lingering wonder, like all the possibilities of what the keys would lead to were playing out in her head.
“So…?” George prompted.
“Yes,” Lucillia squeezed the key, setting it back in the box. “I’m ready.”
Getting under someone’s skin was nothing new for them. It came with the territory of having a wicked sense of humor not everyone could appreciate. So Fred had experienced everything from people being moderately displeased with him to explosively vexed.
Being introduced to the business end of Lucillia’s wand when she laid the jinx on him almost reflexively had, admittedly, been kind of earned. It didn’t mean he couldn’t be a little reluctant about admitting it though. And really, weren’t Hufflepuffs supposed to be the good-natured, forgiving sort? He supposed she had been just as quick about reversing it, finding him with an air of guilt about her, twiddling her wand and mumbling an apology about letting her emotions get the best of her.
An interesting one to keep an eye on…maybe. There were a lot of interesting things and people at Hogwarts, naturally, and for them to keep his attention they had to really be special. Lucillia le Fay possibly could be, but then she might also be just another first-year student he would come to regard as one of Ron’s classmates and nothing more. The good showing she had in the greenhouse notwithstanding (they would have found their way out of that mess eventually!)
For the moment he watched her chatting with George as she tagged along with them, appearing ever more curious when they rounded the bend and came across the telltale tinkling he and his brother had come to know as delicate little wings attached to sneaky little keys.
Lucillia glanced about, opening her mouth to comment on the distinct and peculiar noise. “Where is that—”
George pointed up, and she followed the direction just in time to see one of the elusive keys they had been collecting since last year flitting by. “Another key!” she marveled, tracking its erratic movements. No one else in the corridor seemed to be paying it or them much attention. “But where’s it going?”
Fred nudged her shoulder as he brushed by, and George had never slowed down. So many enchanted objects were lying—or in this case flying—around the castle that plenty of students ignored them. Not them. If it proved interesting then it was at least worth investigating. Had to move quickly and keep the tricksy little buggers in sights though.
“We’ll tell you after it’s caught. They’re spelled to follow a certain path in a limited area, but you have to corner them near their cabinets to catch them.”
Lucillia picked up her pace to match their brisk walking, but her attention stayed divided between tracking the flight path of the key and glancing at them, more questions brimming in her eyes.
“It’s going to feint left now.” George predicted, only seconds before the key flew left and looped around down a narrow passageway to throw them off.
“You’re good,” Lucillia praised between breaths as they ran.
“We’ve just had a year to study their patterns.” George replied. “Someone did quite the clever enchantment but…the keys are definitely meant to be caught, if you have the time for a wild chase.”
Lucillia was the first to all but dive after it, her shoulders drawn in and letting her squeeze through, fully committed to the hunt now.
Fred, having a slightly more difficult time just like he suspected George was, shuffled through after.
The three of them popped out in an annex, the sturdy oak cabinet Fred had come to expect nearby, almost hidden in the shadows of a staircase.
Lucillia froze with her feet spread apart and her arms out to her sides, looking braced for anything, even a charging troll. “What should we do now?” She asked urgently. The key flitted rapidly around the cabinet, and George calmly walked up to it with a look of pure concentration and a raised palm. One precise, violent smack and the key flew into the cabinet’s keyhole, its wings dissolving before they finished fluttering to the ground.
“I guess that’s one way to catch a key…” Lucillia shook her head like she was coming out of her state of disbelief.
“Congratulations on catching your first Daedalian key.” George was already twisting the key, prying the cabinet open to reveal the solitary heavy decorative token inside.
“Daedalian?” Lucillia repeated, “And that token…why’s it got Hufflepuff’s crest?”
“No, no, that’s a token for Gryff…” Fred moved between them, hefting the token with both hands and studying what was indeed Hufflepuff’s badger. He turned to George, who gave him an unhelpful shrug. “Huh. All the other tokens we’ve found have had Gryffindor’s crest on them,” he explained, handing it to Lucillia.
“How many have you found?” She distractedly turned the token over and over in her hands, flipping it to study the other side.
“Eight in total.” Fred said proudly. Once they discovered there was some mystery, and possibly some reward, attached to the Daedalian keys, they set to work on puzzling out the rest. “We figure that’s about half.”
“So there are sixteen of these in total around the school?” Lucillia held up the token, roughly the size of a dessert plate. “A token’s only good if it belongs somewhere. Finding the Daedalian keys, did you say they were called, unlocks the cabinets the tokens are placed in, but from there…then what?”
“Well, it took some looking, but we eventually found an old chest in Gryffindor Tower we believe is tied to these tokens. They’ve got slots for each one to sit in.” George said.
“It might be worth checking your common room to see if there’s anything similar around.” Fred mused.
“Alright, then I will,” Fred watched her deftly whip out her wand. “Reducio.” The token was suddenly sitting in the center of her palm, no bigger than a knut. “There.” Satisfied, she dropped it into a pocket of her robes. “Oh,” she paused, eyes wide and bright with their usual curiosity. “What exactly is a Dadedalian key?”
“Our brother Bill told us about them,” George motioned to the now empty cabinet. “They’ve been a story passed down through Gryffindor for the last century, as far as anyone can tell. A student named Nellie Oggspire was looking into them while she was here back in 1890 or so…proper daredevil, that one.” he grinned. “She liked to climb up high, and I guess that’s what made her notice the keys flying about. But she never managed to get past the first few cabinet locations.”
“But we, which now includes you, will.” Fred had to say, he liked their odds. He and George always believed two heads were better than one, but Lucillia was full of surprises so far. Plus, being that a Hufflepuff token had appeared, it felt best to have her hang onto it. Easier than finding a way to sneak into the Hufflepuff common room and check it out. Not that he didn’t welcome the challenge.
“Yes, we will.” She agreed readily. “I’ll take the token back to the common room and have a look.”
“Tell us what you find,” George called, Lucillia’s robes fanning out behind her as she hurried off with a wave.
Since she had both the time and motivation, Lucillia had every intention of following through on what she told the twins and having a good look around the common room, even if she had to comb it from top to bottom. She started in the most obvious places, near the mantel, around the many species of fauna sitting in the sunny spots. And then she moved onto the less obvious places, like behind armchairs and underneath fruit bowls.
A few of her housemates had been kind enough to ask if she needed any help locating something, assuming she had lost a valuable item. But Lucillia tried to explain about the house chest she was hoping to search out, and they backed off with confused smiles or after showing her the lost and found chests placed around.
At best they thought of her as a little forgetful, someone who had trouble keeping track of her things. At worst they decided she was completely bonkers. Either way, the searching continued. At some point she had started to imagine the chest wouldn’t be in plain sight. To add a bit of challenge to locating it, it could be transfigured to look like just about anything. A true treasure hunt.
Lucillia had just gone and poked her head through one side of a cat tower someone had placed out for the feline companions that belonged to Hufflepuff students—eyeing the terrarium visible on the other side—when she startled over a persistent tap to the shoulder.
Whirling, she relaxed instantly when she was met with Sabrina’s arched brow. “That’s a good way to get scratched, you know. What are you doing? You don’t even have a cat.”
It hadn’t even occurred to her that she might have further tipped the scales toward ‘that girl is bonkers’ for her housemates, and she trusted Sabrina to be honest. Still, she couldn’t help launching into the story about her search with the twins for the Daedalian keys, which her friend at least seemed to understand. “Another adventure. You really are obsessed.”
“Would you like to join me?” Although Lucillia recognized that it was unfair, she seized her friend by the shoulders, smiling hopefully. “It’ll be much more fun with you joining in!”
Sabrina’s skepticism softened into something else, acceptance, like she knew she was resisting uselessly.
“If you’re going to lay it on like that, what choice do I really have?” She rolled her eyes.
“That’s the spirit!” Lucillia cheered, tugging her around the common room to continue the search. Ignoring the occasional odd glance, they continued scouring the length of it, even heading upstairs towards the dormitories. Lucillia was just about to suggest they ask the portraits when the portly, translucent form of the Fat Friar came floating through the door of a boy’s dormitory room.
Curious, Lucillia watched him hovering there, appearing a bit out of sorts. Since being Sorted into Hufflepuff, she didn’t think she could ever recall seeing the cheerful ghost wearing anything less than a smile, always happy to chat up just about anyone, even students outside Hufflepuff.
He was a much less intimidating ghost than Slytherin’s Bloody Baron, and more approachable than the ever silent and sullen Grey Lady too. Sir Nicholas was a friendly enough ghost, though at times he came across a little bit…haughty. Lucillia would never come out and say so, but she suspected that was why he seemed particularly fond of Percy Weasley, who she had often seeing him carrying on spirited conversations with.
‘He’s a ghost, Lucillia,’ she reminded herself. ‘All his conversations are spirited. They can’t be lively now can they?’
“What’s the matter, Friar?” Lucillia asked politely. Calling him by his full nickname that referenced his weight would have been rude, although she was sure he would have responded to that too. “You look upset?”
“Oh, do I, child?” He sighed, forlornly. “I suppose I can’t help but be. I so hate to see any of my Hufflepuffs down, and I’m not quite sure what to do for the poor thing crying his eyes out in there. I tried to cheer him up,” The Fat Friar wrung his hands, head shaking, “but, there’s only so much comfort I can offer.”
“Someone’s crying?” Sabrina muttered. Lucillia’s eyes drifted back to the round wooden door, and if she listened closely enough, she thought she might hear muffled sobbing on the other side too.
‘Isn’t that…’ Mind made up, Lucillia headed straight for the door and knocked clearly. “Hello? It’s Lucillia and Sabrina. Are you…” She paused, feeling like an insensitive little twit for nearly asking the room’s occupant if he was alright. Of course not, or why else would he be crying? “Do you need some company? If you’d like to come out, we can talk it out over a pot of tea!”
She hoped some fresh tea happened to be steeping downstairs. It almost always was. And this time of day, Lucillia was willing to bet they could also rustle up some fresh scones or those delicious little cakes.
Ear pressed firmly to the door, she waited to hear the answer, but only caught a few sniffles. “Okay,” she sighed. “We may not be able to get him to come out…”
“You tried.” Sabrina said earnestly, but it just didn’t feel like enough.
Lucillia shifted from one idea to the next, each seeming just as unlikely to get her crying housemate to come out. “What if we just brought the tea and treats up to you? We can leave them out here in the hall if you’d prefer that.”
Again, she waited and listened closely for a single word, even a yes or no would do.
The Fat Friar dabbed at his own eyes, and Lucillia wondered if ghosts could truly cry or if he simply felt deep sympathy over hearing the distress. “Poor thing.” he said again.
Lucillia was ready to go full out on further bribery when the door cracked, causing her to quickly back away. A red-rimmed, tired eye appeared, and she caught a flash of short blond hair. “Ya’ll don’t have to go through all that for me…” Reese croaked, “It’s fine.”
“No,” Lucillia insisted, “If something’s the matter then it’s not.” She resisted the urge to stamp her foot, already having a guess at what could be wrong now that she knew it was Reese.
“I have to agree with Lucillia on this.” Sabrina added, coming to stand just behind her shoulder. “If you were alright it wouldn’t be bothering you so much.”
Reese’s eyes found the ground, his cheeks blotchy, either from crying or embarrassment. “We can’t come into the boys’ dorms so…would you mind coming out? We’ll talk someplace quiet.” she tried gently, in the coaxing tone her mother would use.
Reese’s eyes trailed up, above their heads, and she realized when she heard the ghost speak he had been looking at the friar. “Go on,” he urged. “They only want to help.”
The door opened farther, and Reese shuffled out, looking vulnerable and out of uniform. “Um…hi,”
“Hi,” Lucillia smiled. “Do you fancy scones or cake with your tea?”
In the end, the three of them found an empty corner of the common room that had a few overstuffed armchairs, and Sabrina motioned for one of the enchanted tea sets.
Reese stared at his scone curiously, clotted cream and jam spread over it at Lucillia’s insistence that it always made her feel better. He turned it from side to side, taking a careful bite as they got comfortable and waited to hear him explain, in his own words, what had happened.
She watched him chew, his turquoise eyes lighting up as he took another bite. “You were right, this is good stuff!” He said, eating with more enthusiasm. Lucillia was glad it did the trick and he seemed to be feeling a touch better. Reese always seemed to be putting his all into learning about the wizarding world, never discouraged by setbacks. Hearing him cry so hard got her down too.
“Isn’t it?” The only thing missing was a sunny day outside in the le Fay manor gardens. Her mother would paint the landscape or the bunnies and birds that passed through while Bimby made scones and served everyone tea.
“Now that we’ve all settled down…what was all that about before?” Sabrina asked, eating her scone at a more measured pace. Though to be fair she was likely just trying to savor it. She was still on her first while Lucillia and Reese were each on their second.
Reese stopped mid bite, staring at what Lucillia hoped was her most encouraging expression, and setting his remaining bite of scone down with a sigh. “You were serious? You really wanna hear about that?”
“Of course!” Lucillia answered for them both. “Maybe we could help?”
He rubbed his palms up and down his thighs nervously, his shrug sheepish and hesitant. “I dunno, kinda makes me sound like a crybaby, now that I stop and think about it. But…alright. Since you asked…I…just realized maybe I’m not fittin’ in here as much as I thought. You know, at school.”
“Why would you say that?” Sabrina asked carefully, and Lucillia ran through some of Reese’s interactions with the other students. There was of course that group from the library, and some others that made a point to snicker under their breath when he spoke in class, too. She had never seen anyone from their own House being outwardly unpleasant, but she wasn’t with him every moment of his day.
“‘Cause I…well I overheard some of the other students, talkin’ about how I stick out like a sore thumb. The way I talk, the way I act, how I ask so many questions…”
“We’re at school,” Lucillia rushed to say. “Asking questions is a good thing!”
“Yeah,” he smiled, and his eyes looked a little wet again. “But maybe not so much.” Blowing out a long breath, he touched his buzzed hair. “I can admit I kinda miss home sometimes, and I’ve had trouble adjusting, but I’m trying, ya know? I thought some of the kids who said they wanted to help me learn cause I’m Muggleborn really meant it. But I’m…so dumb.”
He sniffled, scrubbing at his eyes determinedly before they got any wetter. “That’s what they said. And it’s true.”
“No,” Sabrina said, her voice firm as steel. “It’s not. You’re not anymore behind than any of the other Muggleborns. I grew up in a magical household and there’s still a lot I don’t know. You ran into some bullies that took advantage of you.”
“Thanks,” Reese said, “But it’s not just what I don’t know…it’s…it’s everythin’. I thought I had friends. That I…” His bottom lip wobbled, and before he could actually cry, Lucillia whipped out a napkin sitting on the table near the jam jar. Reese accepted it and wiped his face down, composing himself. “It’s hard, being away from home…and I wanted to fit in.”
“You do,” Lucillia told him, “Here with us, in Hufflepuff.”
“Well maybe,” Reese muttered, “But you know today in class? When Professor Snape was lookin’ over essays. Don’t you remember what he said about mine?” Ah, Lucillia winced. Suddenly she did. He had been particularly harsh, in her opinion, and berated Reese in front of the entire class over the writing in his essays. Not even the content, but the spelling. He spelled words the way he had grown up spelling them in America, and their professor took great offense that he hadn’t adapted since coming to the UK to attend a British wizarding school.
“I don’t have the time to stop teaching class and lead you by the hand back through grammar school.” Snape sneered. “I could get one of the monkeys from the Transfiguration classroom, hand it a quill, and get a less poorly constructed essay in half the time! Five points from Hufflepuff for your cheek in attempting to pass off such subpar work. It’s frankly disrespectful to both myself and this classroom, an utter waste of time to think such an ill-prepared student could adapt, let alone excel.”
All this because Reese wrote his words with a few less vowels than was conventional here. It had her completely reevaluating Snape, yet again, and deciding he was the unfair and vindictive person she first thought he was. Helping her was one thing, and since she was passed out at the time perhaps he did it because he was made to. Clearly when it came to him supporting students in his class, he couldn’t be bothered.
Some of their fellow students had looked sympathetic, but a few Ravenclaws did laugh. And none of the Hufflepuffs, including her, had really come to his defense, poor Reese. She wondered if everyone was just attempting to keep their head down so they didn’t bring about Snape’s wrath next.
He was in an awful mood for some reason. Lucillia couldn’t care less about the loss of points. It could be expected that losing House points to Snape’s petty moods would happen at least once per week, whether it was in class or the corridors.
But that might have put a target on Reese or made it seem like the students who regarded him as an outsider were right to do so, if even a teacher did.
“I shouldn’t say it about a professor, but Professor Snape is just nasty to almost everyone. I’m not sure why he has this job when he hates it.” Sabrina scoffed, sipping at her tea. “That doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong, though.” She reassured Reese. “And…if you need me to, I’ll check your homework from now on, catch and redo all the spelling so he can’t single you out anymore.”
“That’s a brilliant idea!” Lucillia perked up, almost spilling some of her tea in the process. “Count me in too!”
Reese’s jaw dropped, a wordless sputter coming out. “You…you really mean it?” he said at last.
“I personally wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t.” Sabrina dabbed at her mouth and reached for another scone.
“I mean it,” Lucillia said, “it isn’t fair of him in the first place.”
“That’s about the nicest thing anybody’s offered to do for me since I got to school.” Reese smiled, wide and crooked, his cheeks adorably pink. “And I’m sorry about the trouble, you know, helpin’ me and all.”
“Stop that,” Sabrina gave him a stern stare that would have looked right at home on Professor McGonagall. “It’s no trouble.”
“Sorry, sorry…I just wish I’d seen it sooner…” The air felt full in the silence that followed, Lucillia letting Reese work through whatever was on his mind, trying to be supportive without interrupting. “Everybody, really everything around here is just so amazin’. Felt like I had a chance to be part of that. Woulda been nice to be part of something…again.”
“Right, you must have been terribly homesick, experiencing all this and so far away from your family.”
Reese’s eyes dimmed instantly, his lips pulling into a strained barely there smile, like he was going to try and pull off a real one but couldn’t remember the movements, so he stopped himself. “Um, yeah…I’ve still got my auntie. Wish I heard from my folks more though…or at all…” his voice dropped to a whisper.
Lucillia wasn’t sure what she’d do if she didn’t have her parents and Atticus to write to. Probably something she took for granted, if she was being honest.
“Is there anything we can do?” Sabrina offered. “My uncle lives next door to a Muggle postal worker. I could see if he’d be able to…”
Reese was already shaking his head. “That’s…really nice of you to offer…” his voice cracked, and Lucillia almost reached for his arm to steady him across the table. “But ya see, I’m starting to think…maybe they just don’t want to hear from me.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Lucillia gasped. “They’re your parents!”
“It’s not always so easy for Muggles to understand our world.” Sabrina explained. “Much less accept it. My mum said sometimes magic scares them. We come from families that already use magic, but when you don’t…”
Sharp understanding pierced her heart and splintered it unevenly down the center.
“It was their idea for me to stay with my aunt for the summer…” Reese revealed. “We were all three of us supposed to, but my dad said they couldn’t come at the last minute. Mom said they’d visit later in the summer, but they never did.” Sniffling, Reese rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “And then the letter showed up and…ah, I’m gonna look pretty stupid. Already told my aunt I’d made friends, guess I’m gonna have to take it back next time I write her.”
“No, you don’t!” Lucillia protested. “Because you did make friends. You’ll be friends with us.” The bold declaration earned her an awed look from Reese and a thoughtful head tilt from Sabrina.
“Sure, why not?” Sabrina munched on her scone and washed it down with a sip of tea. A fluffy cat that looked vaguely familiar joined them from out of the blue, having been lurking under the table and trying to reach its paw for the plate of scones. Sabrina dragged it away.
“During winter holidays, let’s all write to each other.” Lucillia suggested. “Promise?”
“I do!” Reese said readily.
They both stared at Sabrina.
“As usual, I’m not really getting much choice…” she complained. But if Lucillia had to place her expression, she would say her friend looked quite pleased.