Quiet Little Mice

[Penelope Humphrey-Mavis]

Penelope sighed elegantly to herself as she entered the library, a display of fatigue that was entirely for her own benefit, and pondered briefly whether she would see any of her siblings for anything other than meals today. During these long, tedious summer months she had found herself developing habits – things that Penelope loathed, hating predictability as she did – she breakfasted with Betsy, usually saw John by lunch and never saw Freddie when there was still natural light in the sky. She spent the majority of her time either in the library or writing letters and there wasn’t a day she didn’t wonder how much more she had gotten done in an average day at Hogwarts as compared to these dreary days.

At least she could breathe clean air during her morning constitutional, she consoled herself, whilst the poor souls still trapped within the boundaries of Hogsmeade were probably still inhaling naught but smog and giggles. This was decidedly better – or at least it had been until they’d been invaded and forced to acknowledge that their family were not immune from such terrors. She swept into her usual window seat and had just pulled Mr Pater’s essays from where she had left them the night before when the door opened again and she rolled her eyes as she glanced up.

“Oh,” she narrowed her eyes curiously, not overly used to their new house guests just yet. Being polite was such a struggle sometimes. “It’s you.”