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“So do you like her?”

“Huh?” August replied vaguely, checking over the problem again. He had only intended to stop for breakfast and to give his cousin a letter to send to his mother acknowledging summer plans. But then Sonora had had presented him with an Arithmancy challenge puzzle and well, the subject was quickly becoming his favorite after History of Magic. Then halfway through this problem she started dragging him out here and now they were perched on the portico surrounding the Entrance Courtyard.

“Rhea. You thought she might have a crush on you?” Sona replied, glancing at his calculations. Obviously her cousin was much more interested in numbers than feelings. Sona glanced up from corner-of-the-courtyard spot again, watching for Vespera or Lyra. Today they were not slipping by her! “I think she’s cute. And she has a stellar voice and sense of humor.”

“Okay two and three...and that’s a two? So the seven represents the fulfillment of challenge, but not the money.... Excellent,” he murmured, switching between Chinese and English as he thought through numbers.

“August? So? Do you think our little princess is cute?”

“Cute, okay, okay. Whatever you want. Her older brother’s quite handsome. He always watches over her,” he replied absentmindedly, triumphantly writing the first part of this answer down. “Now we calculate these numbers….”

“Which brother? Jonah?” Sona leaned forward, a little too eagerly. Jonah and Vespera and Kam had been on her mind a lot recently. Thank goodness Jonah and Ves and her had finally reconciled and were back to normal...well, mostly normal. Ves was still avoiding them, it seemed. If last year had been terrible because she was always studying, this year was a roller coaster of feelings and frustrations. Their trio had been distant the first few weeks, then even when she thought everyone was reconciled they felt fundamentally changed. Kam was right—it was all crazy, and nothing felt very fine. She didn’t know how to feel “fine” about anything except studying. Well, it had been all year of awkwardly distant conversations and hardly a peep out of class. That that was figured out, she was going to do something about it.

Of course, that all depended on Vespera walking Lyra today. Sona glanced around, keeping a lookout and teasing her cousin as he scrutinized her mostly -complete Arithmancy homework. “Meylian? You said you think Jonah is handsome?”

August made an annoyed sound at Sona interrupting his counting and listened to half the comment he was being distracted with. ”What? No, her eldest brother. I guess him too? Jonah writes well, is decent at Quidditch when he’s not hitting himself. Annoying to death and always making trouble but handsome...Well if you say, handsome is still handsome. Satisfied? Now one, one...and two...so four.” Stability, practicality, efficiency? That didn’t seem right. August dropped his bag on the ground and fished out his textbook to check.

Sona hummed, amused. “Oh? Ves said maybe fighting werewolves makes you handsome.”

“Dogshit.”

Sona shrugged with a smile she didn’t quite understand herself. “Well he’s with Iggy, so there’s nothing to any of this, except that Rhea’s going to be very disappointed. Rion now, and I’m sure you know better than I do, but Ves is great friends with Rion. I’m waiting for her now, so you should stick around and talk to her if you like hi--”

“Solved it.” August jotted another explanation down and set his quill down with a smug grin. He turned his notes around to her and immediately began explaining his process.

With a small sigh, Sonora set aside the light fluttery feelings to focus. She ought to be glad that between Kam and August she didn’t have to find another tutor.

When August was finished explaining, Sona nodded, mostly understanding and following. She glanced up with a small "Thanks."

"Anytime." August replied, collecting his things. "What are we doing here? Are you waiting for Kam?"

"Not today. I was going to track down..... Sona searched the Entrance Courtyard quickly. Hopefully she hadn't missed Ves in the few minutes of looking down! Thankfully, she spotted a familiar forked tail and blonde. ”Vespera!”

Ves didn’t seem to hear and continued to walk away. "VES--"Sona grabbed her wand and muttered a quick ”Sonorus,” before bellowing across the courtyard. ”VESPERA AZALEA SALAZAR!”

Well, there was no hiding from or avoiding that. With a quick ”Quietus”, Sona tugged August's arm and bounded towards Ves and Lyra towards them with an innocent grin, entirely ignoring any startled faces.

“Hello, Ves! Hello, Lyra!” Sonora greeted, looping her arm through Vespera’s so that Ves couldn’t make a run for it. ”Sorry, that might have been a little excessive,” she agreed, but regretted nothing. She had yelled normally first.

August grumbled a few chastising remarks about screaming across the courtyard, but clearly now was not the time for an upset lecture, and he wasn’t sure if there were rules against screaming outside--aside from it being a disruption. Clearly, his cousin needed a lecture in yelling people’s full names. ”Vespera.” He gave Lyra a firm nod in greeting.

”No, no plans and we just finished Arithmancy,” Sonora replied, brushing off Vespera’s excuse and blocking off a quick exit. She stuffed her notebook back into her bag and handed August’s book back to him in demonstration. “If you’re walking Lyra, could we come with you? Or if you just want to study, I could use some help in Healing or be of help in Transfiguration?”

Sona didn’t have a convenient bet to lure Vespera away, but she was hoping a walk down to the lake and a few hours of properly hanging out would alleviate the rest of whatever was causing a rift between them. This was the hard part, but her plan was to grab Vespera’s attention, bait her into a light-hearted conversation, and then figure out what was bothering Ves so much that she hadn’t brought it up all year.

August sighed at the little crup and knelt to offer Lyra a few pets. ”Well, I’m going to--”

”And August had a question about Rion for you.”

His surprise and irritation invisible behind the glance, August settled for a neutral ”Excuse you.” He tucked his book away, stalling for a moment to think. ”Right. As I was saying, I’m going to write a letter to Eld--Orion. Yes. And wanted to confirm with you he was graduating this year? Do you know what his plans after graduation are?”

Anyone else he would have more stern words for. But evidently Sonora was looking for a way to keep Vespera from running away. If it helped Sonora’s ridiculous mood swings or Vespera’s lonely moping, then he could make an effort. His recommending extra homework and extra reading obviously hadn’t worked. August rolled his eyes internally. Hormones. I’m not going to be like this next year.

Sonora was initially happy that Vespera still regarded them as friends, and giggled a little as Lyra bounded away. But Ves didn’t sound particularly lively, and she sat straight down to study. Sona followed suit, a little nervously. She did actually need help with Healing, but it wasn’t so urgent that she wasn’t concerned first.

And then there was her ambivalent attitude in response to August’s made up request:

”Haven’t written?”
”Since last summer?”

They said at the same time. August narrowed his eyes at the brief glance between them. He nodded. ”I understand. Apologies for bringing it up,”. That seemed odd. He’d noticed fewer letters, but he’d figured that Vespera was simply keeping their correspondence more private given the delicate nature of what had befallen that summer. But no correspondence? In any case, Vespera seemed quite finished with the conversation and turned to studying. He kept his concerns off his face as he listened in, nodding approval at her methods. He was particularly interested in how she had pulled muggle medical texts to cross-reference information in the wizarding texts. Fascinating! He would have to employ this technique in his own studies.

August nodded approvingly, quite impressed with Vespera’s diligence, and very content that his encouraging studying had gotten through to someone. When the subject got a little too involved for him, he excused himself again. ”Excellent scholarship, Vespera. I’ll leave Sona in your capable hands then. Good luck studying.” If Vespera didn’t stop him, he was going to ask Princess Rhea if she knew why--no, the little mermaid should not be distracted. He’d write to Orion Lane directly.

Sonora, meanwhile, couldn’t keep her surprise and worry off her face. She hadn’t felt it was her place to say anything, but apparently this was not one of the things she should have clammed up about. Why weren’t Ves and Rion talking though? Was it Ves? Was it Rion? Her head spun, but Vespera was moving on to studying with clinical precision before she could quite organize her thoughts enough to ask.

Light conversation, then figure out what’s wrong, Sona reminded herself. She did her best to focus on the material. ”Stunning--uhm. Right. I think I can do that. Infection...do we just use a diagnostic spell to figure out which one? Uhm. Diagnosus Exposum? Would that work?” She shook her head. ”Sorry, of course the spell won’t just tell you which bacterium or virus is there. What were the differences and distinguishing points again?”

If the strangely studious behavior wasn’t odd already, Vespera’s turn-face the moment August left was definitely upsetting. But having just decided that Sonora sighed and closed her notes as well. Vespera would not so easily let her guard down and...she could have thought of a better question probably. She prepared to lay out her thoughts, and then was completely thrown off when Vespera continued.

"Are you depressed because you can't date Jonah, since you know, he's gay? If you're that lonely I'm sure Kam would gladly date you, or even I would for that matter. Don't let Jonah being gay get you down."

”What?!” Jonah and Iggy were together-- Vespera knew that. Sona and Jonah were best friends--and she wanted to keep that special relationship forever, but that didn’t mean she was anything less than thrilled for him and Iggy. As his best friend, Sona just wanted Jonah to be happy with his partner and he was-- so whyever would she be depressed?

Then there was this thing about her dating Kam or Ves herself. Sona was worried Ves was pulling away from them because no one had properly explained what happened with Mr. Lock to her for nearly half a year. That and maybe something she didn’t know about yet. Maybe it was her and Rion not talking. Was this what had been what kept them from hanging out? What in the world was Vespera thinking?

Sona shook her head and blinked away the confusion. This wasn’t about her. This was about Ves. So she put Vespera’s words together and set the other stuff aside to mull on later. ”First of all, if you’ve considered dating me, you’d at least tell me what’s going on. So what’s this thing with you and Rion not writing?”

She said it without accusation, genuinely just trying to figure out why Ves hadn’t been around. She softened her tone and scooted a little closer. ”It just feels like we’ve been distant all year. Sometimes things are almost normal, but we don’t hang out anymore. I just want to figure out what’s still causing this awkwardness. Has this relationship stuff been bothering you all year? Because if so then we've missed out on either a lot of dates or a lot of gossip.”

Sonora blushed when she realized Vespera hadn’t just been saying things about crushes to distract her. She tucked a strand of hair behind red-tipped ears and looked briefly away. Talking about other people’s crushes made a lot more sense than talking about people having crushes on her! What was she even supposed to say? ”T-thank you?” she said quietly.

Thankfully, Vespera answered the actual question at hand. She revealed she’d said some not-very-nice things to Rion after the incident. Vespera had clearly thought through what she’d written and was feeling regretful now. Sona listened quietly, but took Vespera’s arm like they used to walk to class, and tugged her into a walk. Walking helped thinking and feeling and that’s where they were headed.

Then there was the boggart. I hate boggarts. Sona thought again. She hadn’t seen Vespera’s boggart last year, and now she wished someone had told her--this kind of thing was something she might have been able to help reassure, but it had haunted Vespera all year.

”So two things then. It’s okay to make mistakes. And it’s okay to feel terrible about them afterwards,” she said gently, validating her friend’s feelings before she went forward. It was terrible what she’d said, but people needed room to make mistakes and grow from them. ”The important thing is to understand why they were mistakes and do better next time. And you understand now that it wasn’t funny to Rion because he probably really cared about what you thought. So now you can go back and apologize and tell him how you feel.

“And...the boggart. Boggarts of liars,” she said, her voice tinged with a rare malice. ”You say things without thinking sometimes, Ves. But you’re straightforward, fun and you care deeper than you let on. You’re not dreadful, and Jonah and I would never push you away like that.” She stopped, wrapping Vespera in a hug, pulling away only when Vespera made what sounded like an attempt at a joke to pull up the mood. She smiled. ”Well, that’s always good. But Ves? You’re our friend. And you’re not getting away that easily.”

She paused. Sonora knew boggarts better than to think that a simple reassurance would untangle the underlying anxiety that must have caused the boggart to take that shape. And...well, if she was being objective, Ves’s plan to pull away before they could push her away had almost worked. With everything that had happened that summer, it was easy to believe that Vespera was feeling lonely. Sona took a steadying breath. ”Ves, I’m sorry you’re feeling insecure. I’m sad, but I’m not going to tell you you can’t feel that way. You feel what you do. But please, please, if you ever feel that way again, tell me? Tell us? We can fix it together. And you’ll see, it’ll be okay. Together, we’re strong enough to fight these thoughts."

She paused again. ”Rion’s your friend too, Ves. He’ll understand. We...we all need to trust each other more.”