Even If You Can't See Them [Morgan]

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The train station at Hogsmeade, Maddie decided, probably only existed so that the Hogwarts Express had somewhere to park and the students had someplace to get off of it at. It was rather tiny, especially compared to grand King's Cross station. Also, since all of Hogsmeade was magical, most residents didn't have to ride trains. Then again, a lot of people couldn't apparate. Maddie was somewhat apprehensive about learning as, though important, it also was loud enough to spook most animals, as well as potentially dangerous. So maybe that's what the station was for?

However, that wasn't really what she was concerned about at the moment. She had to find Morgan. On the train, various members of each others houses had kept Maddie from finding her. In addition, the entirety of Hufflepuff felt duty-bound to comfort Susan. The poor girl's aunt had been murdered, perhaps by Voldemort himself. As Susan's parents had died in the First War, she had nothing left, and she was taking it very, very hard.

Now, though, it was important to find Morgan. She pushed her way through the crowd of students heading towards the carriages. Susan's parents hadn't been the only ones who had died. An extremely shaky letter had winged its way to Maddie's house during the summer. Morgan's parents were dead. Morgan had seen it. That would be hard for any girl, but Morgan tended to close herself off from people when she needed help most, and so she would be busy trying to deal with it all on her own. Maddie wanted to find her before Morgan saw the carriages. She couldn't see Thestrals herself, but she wanted to be there when Morgan saw them for the first time, if only to hold the other girl's hand.

There. She was standing further removed from the rest of her house than normal, a natural response for Morgan, considering what had happened over the summer. Without thinking, Maddie walked up and hugged the girl tightly.

"Hey there Morgan. 'm sorry 'bout what happened." The look in her eyes showed that she truly meant it, even if she wouldn't even pretend to understand. She grabbed the other girl's hand. "Let's go get a carriage. We don't have t' sit with anyone else, if y' don't want to."

DANKE ϟ

[MÓRRÍGAN ÁINE CEALLACHÁIN]

The train station was just as crowded as it was every year. To a normal person, it was just an average day. Parents were dropping their children off at the train station so they could catch a train to their boarding school. Morgan was just another one of those children but she was nothing ordinary. Today, it felt as if everyone was after her. No was the firm answer that she told herself. No one was after her. The Death Eaters wouldn't be so careless as to attack in the middle of the train station. Her thoughts were broken by a hand that was placed on her shoulder. Morgan looked up at her older brother. No response came from her but she did take his hand as the crossed the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. She glanced back at her younger brother. He was being lead by her aunt. Her parents' death had truly affected all of them. She let go of her brother's hand almost reluctantly and boarded the train as he went off to guide Lasair. She was a big girl. She could handle this one her own. Someday, she was going to be the Minister for Magic and all of this was going to over. Morgan found herself an empty compartment and sat down with a sigh. At last, she can listen to the voices without fear of being heard. The hit her like the waves on a shore. They were a mix of violence and despair. Each one told her the same thing. Revenge. That was what she was going to get against the Death Eaters. She was going to avenge her parents. Death was only a small matter to her. She would be proud to die for the cause of justice.

Eventually, the voices died down. Morgan began to doze off in her seat, resting her head against the window. Something just hit her. It was like a flashback except it was not. It was more like the future. There was a boy going somewhere. He casted cautious looks behind his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being followed. He walked by the wall several times before a door appeared. There was a large cabinet standing in front of them and just as he was peering in, the scene broke. Morgan gasped for air. "Mum?" The weak voice of hers called out to the empty compartment. No, her parents were dead. She no longer had a mother to come in whenever she had a vision. She pulled up her legs so that she could rest her chin on them. A thought fluttered across her mind. Where was Maddie? Usually, it had been Maddie who found her but it looked like she wasn't going to do so this year. Now, Morgan could always leave her compartment and search for her friend but she didn't feel like going outside. She didn't want anyone to see her in this state. She glanced out the window. They can't be too far from the train station now. Morgan passed the time by looking out of the window before the train pulled up into the station.

Morgan left the train but decided to stand aside from her housemates. Surely, all of them were laughing at the fact that she no longer had parents. It served them right to take the side of the Order. That must be what they were all thinking. She caught sight of a familiar white-blond hair leaving the train. Her face hardened. It was Draco Malfoy, the nephew of Bellatrix Lestrange. Her thoughts were once again broken by someone hugging her. She quickly got over her initial surprise and stood there, allowing Maddie to hug her. She looked up at her friend as she spoke and nodded her head. "Thank you but I can't be the only one affected by all this madness. I've heard of what happened to Susan Bone's aunt." Yes, she had heard of Amelia Bones's death. It was a pity. Ms. Bones was a truly talented woman and her death was just another that was going to occur during this time of darkness. "I would like it if we didn't have to sit with anyone else," she answered simply but she knew her friend got the meaning in that short sentence. That's just what she liked about Maddie. She knew how to interpret Morgan's words. In her short sentence, she knew that Maddie knew that she couldn't handle sitting with anyone else. Morgan made her way over to the carriages with her friend. She stopped in her tracks as she stared up at a skeletal horse. Morgan tilted her head to the side as she inspected the horse. Growing up in a Wizarding family, she knew what the creature was. It was a Thestral. "They were always there, weren't they?" she mused aloud. "I just never saw them."

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Maddie might have been a bit worried after catching a better look at Morgan's face. She looked badly shaken. It almost reminded her of the Heir of Slytherin incident, in which Morgan had been more of a wreck than most of the school realized. No, though, this was somehow different. It would have to be, anyhow. The death of anyone's parents, even as a death that had been given a little time to heal, would shake up anyone. Considering Morgan, it would have shaken her up even more, though Maddie did have to wonder if something had happened on the train ride. "I intended t' see you on the train, but for some reason I kept runnin' into people I didn' want to see or people who desperately needed t' see me. Susan's awful broken up..." 

She silently nodded as Morgan confirmed that they were going to grab an empty carriage and prevent others from getting in. Maddie let Morgan get in first before sitting on the side blocking the door, almost completely blocking the entrance. This hadn't been the first time they had done something like this, so she knew what to do. She glanced at the seemingly floating harness, knowing perfectly well that This what what Morgan was talking about when she started talking, though she never said the word herself. "Thestrals, yeah. I knew they 'ere there. I recognized they way they walk." She did not intend to brag. She was simply stating a fact. She probably wouldn't have been able to have done it if they had been any other magical creature; however, Thestrals were a right pain to take care of unless you learned where they were despite their invisibility. "They're tragic things... They really don't mind affection, but no person truly wants to see them... Not even I."

Then, as though some invisible signal had been given, all of the carriages began to move forward. Maddie paused for a moment, realizing that her comments about the Thestrals might not have been the best things to say at the time. She hadn't entirely intended to do something like that. Really, she had been hoping to comfort the girl, not go off on a tangent about Thestrals. Then again, they were fellow horses, so perhaps that' s why she had managed to do that. For a moment, though, she thought. If she, too, gained the power to see Thestrals, she wasn't sure what she would do. There didn't seem to be a reason for Voldemort to attack a magical creature farm full of poor maybe-pure bloods, but if he did, Maddie wouldn't know what to do. She glanced back at Morgan, and briefly saw a picture of winter snow, and a huge black horse wig steam rising from its nose angrily pounding against the ground, Morgan the rider on her back. Something that would never happen, lest the Death Eaters attack her family or Morgan. In a way, they already had, but for now Maddie was just going to keep everyone safe. She did not want to fight.

She was not brave, only loyal.

She turned to Morgan, sighing. Morgan was still looking a little shaken, though Maddie didn't know if Morgan realized it or not. "Somethin' didn' happen on the train, did it?"

]

DANKE ϟ

[MÓRRÍGAN ÁINE CEALLACHÁIN]

Night was beginning to fall around the land. It reminded her of her own name. There were several ways to spell Mórrígan. When the name was spelled like hers, it meant great queen. When it was spelled as Morrígan, it meant phantom queen. Phantoms were basically ghosts but to Morgan, it meant something more. Phantoms were the figures that appeared in nightmares. They were the people whom ghosts were afraid of. They were like the Death Eaters of the spiritual world. It was unfortunate how even after death, one could not even stay behind in peace. She turned back to her friend. "I'll remember to offer my condolences," she answered. Yes, that was the right thing to do. The carriages that had always seemed charmed to her were in reality, pulled by Thestrals. She hadn't taken Care of Magical Creatures as an elective but she remembered being told they were omens of death. She tore her eyes away from the spectacle and climbed into the carriage. "I almost feel bad for them. It's not easy being omens of death, isn't it?" Jumping from subject to subject had always been easy for her. It wasn't because of her schizophrenia. Her type didn't necessarily involve disorganized thoughts. "They remind me of the Dullahan," she commented absently. It was an old Irish legend. Her parents were wizards but that never stopped them from dabbling in old legends. It was honestly a surprise with how her family managed to stay pure of blood. Then again, no family was truly pureblooded. There was some Muggle blood but some just didn't own up to it. In her case, it was too little of an amount. She couldn't just say that she was a pureblood with some Muggle blood. 

Rumors swirled around the Wizarding world. They claimed that the Black family line held some potential for insanity due to marrying within the family. Some people were just ridiculous. How long is this obsession going to go on until they realized it wasn't worth all the deaths? A short silence fell in the carriage. She glanced back at her friend who had a particularly concerned look on her face. Morgan turned away. She honestly didn't know how to react to having someone care for her. Sure, she had parents who loved her and everything but she always felt like she never had the right response like Lasair and her older brother did. "I wonder how Lasair will cope this year. He's too young to deal with this...all of us are," she remarked. It was true. They were still in school. The only things that they were supposed to worry about was exams and which career to pick. They weren't supposed to think about Dark Lords and their insane followers. She wondered how returning to her housemates would be. Many of them had parents who aligned themselves with Voldemort. Surely, they would have heard of her parents' passing. She could brush of their remarks easily but it was the amount of them that overwhelmed her. How long was it going to take before she lashed out at someone? It was probably soon.

Maddie's question broke through her thoughts. Morgan considered her words carefully. "I saw something that I believe I shouldn't have." She shook her head before her friend could give a response. "It wasn't in present time. It was in the future," she added to avoid confusion. She placed her hands in her lap and clasped them.  "I...saw a boy. He was walking to the Room of Requirement," she told her friend.  "He was walking to a big cabinet for some reason." She shook her head again, trying to clear some thoughts from her mind. "I don't like the feeling of this vision. I believe that evil is coming to the castle again but this time, it'll affect all of us."

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Maddie fought the urge to explain that Thestrals weren't evil, but often quite gentle, and that Thestrals could not cause death and could not foretell it, only see if it had happened in the past. She knew that those things would most likely be the wrong things to say at the moment. As for the Dullahan, well, Maddie knew not of what they were. Magical creatures were her expertise, not mythical creatures and goes such as they. She vaguely remembered them being similar to reapers, and decided to keep that in mind. She wondered why Morgan would mention them. Had Morgan been researching death? Probably. She'd probably also been doing it for fun, not out of an attempt to cheat death. That sort of thing ended badly.

However, as Morgan attempted to turn away and deflect Maddie's attention to her brother, Maddie, who was all too used to Morgan doing things like that, knew what was happening. Morgan was nervous about the affection. Did she think that Maddie would care for her less after her parents' deaths? She scooted closer to Morgan, wrapping an arm back around her. "If you or y'r brother ever need a shoulder t' cry on, I'm here for y'both, but especially you. I'm your friend." She said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world. To Maddie, it was, because years of familial loyalty and caring for horses combined with years in the house of the loyal had only increased her sense that friends were always there when needed. That was simply what friends did. They sat there in silence a little.

To Maddie's credit, she didn't freak out when Morgan told her about a vision from the future. Something slightly similar had happened before, and Maddie knew that Divination was one of Morgan's best OWL scores. Still, Morgan wasn't a very open person, so while it may have been implied before, Morgan had never outright told Maddie that she was a Seer. That simply wasn't the sort of person she was. Maddie, however, was glad to listen and help that Morgan was being so open. She frowned accordingly. The Room of Requirement, huh. Maddie had a general idea of what it was, but not much of one. She' donkey heard of it in passing from DA members. Her frown deepened at the rest of the vision. A cabinet? And then the evil Morgan felt... Hearing about it second hand was confusing, but instead of being in the normal confusing state, it was a sinister "hiding in the dark" sort of way. She was quiet, considering it.

"Well, Morgan, I've never been too good at symbolism and am-ambigu- unclear stuff and things like that, it doesn't take much of'a expert to realize that isn' good. I don't know if your visions are symbolic or not, but if' they are, y'think you know the meaning?" She paused. Evil... Well, Morgan was upset. There was only one response. "I might not know much'a anything but animals, but I know that I can be scary if mad! and I will stand by you against whatever evil tries'n hurts you, yeah?"

DANKE ϟ