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[Freya Song]

Freya had a problem. She had been at Hogwarts for six entire years and still hadn't broken the news about being a witch to her brother. It was getting harder to keep it a secret now that he had his own place and let her stay for the holidays. He expected letters, updates, news about what she was doing, and Freya web of benign lies was beginning to unspool in the most uncomfortable way. She was certain she didn't used to care what Soren thought of her. It had been so much easier when they had separate lives in the foster system and she could play her absence off as inevitability of being a problem child.

Freya didn't want to bother her housemates with asking for advice. She'd already done the emotional breakdown thing once and wasn't looking for another impromptu haircut. That left her with exactly one other person she could think of who might potentially understand muggle issues, and Freya was already beginning to regret her decision once she had made it. It didn't take too much effort for Freya to figure out where Poppy was most likely to be at this hour, and she leaned against a wall in an attempt to look nonchalant while she wracked her brain for some idea on how to have an actual conversation with Poppy that didn't end in disaster. Her time for thinking came to an abrupt end as her target came into view. "Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about the plight of the Eastern Spotted Snarblegarber?" Freya swooped in to corner Poppy, which was really not the approach she had intended, but Freya had blanked and her patented line of nonsense had taken the reins.

@Poppy Perkins

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy had been caught up in a whirlwind of last minute newspaper tasks and she was slowly starting to lose track of what day it was. She was had just wrapped up for the day and was about to head to the great hall for something to eat when she suddenly wasn't alone anymore. She blinked rabidly trying to make sense of Freya's question. "Spotted Snarblegarber?" she repeated and tried to place the name. She had never heard of that creature before. It wasn't like she had perfect grades when it came to Care of Magical Creatures but she surely would have at least some idea.

She spent longer than she should have lost in thought, with eyebrows knitted together before realizing it was all probably some kind of joke considering who she was talking to. Poppy frowned. "Oh very funny." she said sarcastically and tried to walk past the other girl but was blocked as some younger students passed by. She sighed and crossed her arms in front of her. "What do you want?" she asked defensively. The two of them had never gotten along and usually they were both smart enough to realize it was best if they kept their distance. But it seemed today Freya wasn't keeping up her end of the deal.

 

[Freya Song]

This was a lot harder than Freya had expected it to be and she was halfway sure she should just play the whole thing off as a joke to annoy Poppy and go back to ignoring her problems. Maybe if Freya hadn't convinced herself that other students were to be kept at arm's length, she wouldn't be in this position. She hadn't given the Ravenclaw girl any reason to like her during their years together, let alone want to help, and now she was just making it worse. "Sorry, Poppy," she said, cringing internally at how weird it felt to use the other girl's actual name for once.

"I uh..." Freya frowned. "I might some theoretical problems involving muggles, and thought you might have some insight over that whole, well, non-magical world deal?" Freya shifted uncomfortably as the words tumbled out of her mouth. Although Freya did like to share wildly incorrect facts about muggle life to other students to see who fell for it, she didn't exactly advertise the fact that she was muggleborn herself. It wasn't as though she was ashamed of her blood status, but revealing any personal information to people made Freya's skin crawl and even just vaguely alluding to her background made her want to disappear on the spot.

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy waited expectantly for some kind of joke or a pun about her name and crossed her arms in front of her. The last think Poppy expected Freya to say was sorry and the shock of it made her drop her arms to her sides and blink several times before she could respond. "Oh." she said dumbly as she tried to think of something more to say. Poppy obviously had never been good a picking up on when people were messing with her and she was hesitant now to let her guard down completely. But Freya looked deeply uncomfortable which she decided to take as a sign that she was being genuine. Or at least as genuine as she was capable of being. Poppy considered her question more seriously now. "Problems? What kind of problems?" she asked warily. Her mind was suddenly racing with possibilities but none of them made sense. "I don't know if I have insight exactly but I can try and help." she said quickly without a second thought.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya was becoming more aware of what a monumentally stupid idea asking Poppy for help was. They were in no way friends - not that Freya had any friends - and she had no way of knowing that Poppy wasn't going to run off and tell the entire school about Freya's dumb problems. At least she was listening, and a small part of Freya whispered that it was more than she deserved. "The problematic kind, obviously." Freya shrugged, as though she didn't have any stake in the outcome of this conversation.

She realised, with a great deal of embarrassment, that she actually might care what Poppy thought of her. Just a little. Not enough to matter, obviously, but it was still more than she was comfortable with. And now there was a non-zero chance that Poppy might think she was some kind of pureblood supremacist if Freya didn't explain herself. "So, hypothetically speaking, if someone had a muggle brother and had been hiding the fact that they were a witch for... The majority of an illustrious Hogwarts career? What do you think would be the best way to break the revelation of magic existing to him?" There was absolutely no way that Poppy would ever believe that Freya was talking about an abstract concept here, but she still hoped she could maintain some distance from her own head.

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy sighed when Freya avoided her question again. "Very specific." she said dryly and waited for the other girl to elaborate. She was half expecting her to run away or change the subject to something completely different, but instead she started to explain. Freya kept acting like it a hypothetical situation and Poppy sighed but played along. "Well, hypothetically-" she began but paused to really consider how answer. The only muggles she had told about her magic were her parents, since it wasn't like she could have kept that a secret from them when she was eleven. She also didn't have any siblings to help her relate to the situation either. But she tried to think if she were Freya's brother how would she want to find out? "I think honesty is the best way. We're graduating soon, just sit him down and try to tell him about the school and how it's not exactly a...normal one." she suggested with a shrug. It felt like the obvious answer but sometimes the best way to do things was to just be straightforward about them.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya knew that Poppy was objectively right, but she didn't like it. Honesty was difficult for her, especially when it was so much easier to make up something completely stupid on the spot and evade the consequences entirely. And, there would be consequences. Freya could picture it now, how upset Soren would be with her if she just came out and said that she'd been hiding away at wizard school for years, and she chewed on her lip as she considered it. "While I love that idea, it might be more fun to tell him I'm in jail," She pasted on a fake grin and wished she could be brave enough to just follow Poppy's advice like a rational person. "Thanks, Popcorn! And, uh, sorry." Freya snapped her fingers, internally kicking herself for feeling like she had to apologise and the tangled web of emotions that she now had to go unravel.