Mary looked at her painstakingly manicured nails. She had repainted them for the third time already today, and it wasn’t even a girls’ pajamas day. They were dark, deep red, edging on black. On the right edge of each of her thumbs she had stenciled her initials — M.E.M. — in traditional script in a slicing iron metallic. They looked off-balance, even with the small stars she had added to each nail in left corner. She would probably find herself cleaning them off and repainting them within a few more hours.

Nothing seemed of much interested to Mary anymore. She didn’t flinch she was called a tart, even though she was with James — or was she really? They hadn’t spent time together in weeks. She wouldn’t really call that much of a relationship. (The ironic part being their momentous start was in the loss of his mother.) She hadn’t bothered to ask. They still sat near each other in classes, and Lily wasn’t at his head with an ax, so she supposed that was how things were. If she saw him snogging someone within the next couple of days she would know. But that wasn’t his manner.

There had been a tumultuous start to the holiday, and things had never improved since. The thing with the potion, and then finding out that if it weren’t for the fact she was still married to her father, her mother would have eloped to him, and not even invited her to the commitment knowing her luck. The Lupins’ was sort of cheery. Things were sort of foggy for her as of recent. But that might of had to do with her increase in fags lately. And some spliff sometimes. She was just so out of it and over her head.

Where was she? She certainly didn’t know. She felt sort of dirty, sort of beaten, sort of played.