The first letter from Sirius was the hardest to deal with.

Let's just say that there were teardrops on the parchment after I was done reading about how happy he currently was.

While I was really happy that he was having such a great time (he deserved it!), I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself everytime Marlene was mentioned in the letter.

Four times on one small roll of parchment.

Replying was even harder, since I was trying to sound cheerful and not let my tears blurr the ink.

Since my day had gone down the drain with that, I decided that it couldn't get worse, so I did my Arithmancy and Astronomy homework, too.

But without Sirius' help, I must say that I was really struggling with Arithmancy.

The next letters that came hurt just as much, but... Well, one could say I was getting used to it

One morning, I was woken up by Francisca knocking on my door.

I hoped that my eyes weren't too swollen after the embarrassing crying fit I'd had yesterday evening. "Hmm?"

Francisca closed the door behind her and slowly approached me. "I've got a shift this afternoon, but I thought that we could go to Diagon Alley before that. What do you say?"

I took a second to think about it. How likely was it that I'd meet people I knew so early into the holidays? Not much, right?

So I could risk it.

"Okay," I smiled at her. Like always, it didn't reach my eyes.

Francisca's smile was sincere, though. "Great! I'll see you downstairs in half an hour, alright?"

I nodded and slowly got out of my bed after Francisca left.

My eyes fell on the pile of books I'd read in the past few weeks.

That was definitely something I needed to buy, or I'd bore and cry myself through the summer break.

So I sighed and got started with getting ready, before side-by-side apparating with Francisca.

I didn't even bother grabbing a bite. Breakfast was my least favourite meal of the day as it was, but I had difficulties with getting food down in general. I had no appetite, and had a lot of difficulties with getting the food past the big and always-present lump in my throat.

Something that did work, however, was ice cream.

"My treat," Francisca said, and we went in line to order ice cream to go.

"What do you want to buy today?" Francisca asked me to kill some time. "Need new Quidditch gear?"

I shook my head. "No. Actually, I only need a few more books."

"Aah, I see," Francisca grinned. "You've been reading a lot these past few weeks."

I shrugged, not wanting to deepen the topic.

Just after we'd both gotten our ice cream and continued walking down the alley, I spinned around when I heard a familiar voice call out my name.

"Freya, oi!" Crap. If Peter Pettigrew was here, the other marauders were very likely to be with him.

Oh no.

I forced a smile on my face, discreetly looking behind him. To my relief, I didn't see Remus, James or Sirius. "Peter, hi. I didn't expect to see you here."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I'm just here to help my mum with some errands, but she allowed me to grab some ice cream."

"Oh, I see." I suppressed a relieved sigh.

"So, what have you been up to these past weeks?"

"Not much," I shrugged. "The usual; I did some reading. You?"

"I met up with Remus yesterday. Originally, I wanted to stay over a couple of days, but since Remus-" He stopped himself. "Erm, since he didn't feel good, his parents told me to go home, so here I am."

My eyes widened in shock. I couldn't believe that I'd been so busy feeling sorry for myself that I completely forgot about the mystery of the full moons at Hogwarts!! How and why would Peter want to stay over at such a time, and how did the marauders manage to join Remus each full moon, wherever it was that Remus went!?

I tried to not show the emotions on my face. Since I'd spent several weeks doing that already, it was easier than it should've been.

I nodded and looked at Francisca next to me, who'd silently watched us with a small smile on her face.

"Anyway, I think we should probably get going now, we haven't got much time, but still a lot to do, you know?"

Peter nodded understandingly. "It's nice to have seen you." His face was flushed as he grinned at me. "Have a nice rest of the holidays, in case we don't see each other again."

I nodded and smiled politely. "You too, Peter. Bye!"

With that, I took Francisca's sleeve and pulled her with me in the direction of Flourish and Blotts.

"Hold your Hippogriffs, Freya," she frowned, trying not to drop her ice cream. "Why the rush?"

"No reason," I replied, slowing down again. I quickly finished my ice cream and went seperate ways with Francisca. While she wanted to grab some ingredients for a potion, I entered the book shop.

With new determination, I went to the section of dark creatures. More specifically, the werewolf section.

It was a tough decision, but after several minutes I finally decided to buy two promising books about the transformation and the dangers of werewolves. I wanted to know exactly what Remus had to go through each month.

I decided that the money I had with me was enough to buy another nice book, so I went away, trying to find a nice fictional book.

But the fictional books of the Wizarding world were by far not as good as the ones written by muggles, so I decided against it.

Instead, a relatively thin book with many animals on the cover caught my eye.

All about Animagi, it read.

I immediately remembered how Professor McGonagall was able to transform herself into a cat, and how fascinated I'd been when we had briefly talked about Animagi back in my third year.

It was something I was really interested in, so I decided to buy that book as well. Just to have some nice books for the rest of my holidays. I'd have to keep myself busy, didn't I?

After my purse was considerably lighter, Francisca and I left Diagon Alley.

She dropped me off in front of our house's door, then immediately apparated to St. Mungo's while I went in alone.

I was greeted by shouting. Great.

"These children do nothing for the household, they just leave their rubbish everywhere, and I have to tidy it up!"

A wave of anger washed over me at my father's words. Yeah, sure. You do so much for all of us. It's not like we're your slaves at all!

I closed my eyes in frustration, breathing in heavily.

"Do you even hear yourself?" My mother said rather calmly. "Freya cleaned the whole house just a few weeks ago, and she always cooks dinner when I'm not here! Francisca takes care of lunch whenever she's not working. The majority of the stuff lying around is yours."

"It's not!" The man screamed back. "It's not my shoes that you keep finding lying around! I only have three pairs, just like I always tell you lot to have! But noone ever listens to me in this household. I'm the idiot, I know."

I grinded my teeth and went upstairs. How I hated him. He was blind whenever it came to his flaws and kept blaming us.

Yes, there were shoes in the hallway. Most of which were ours, but that was because his 'three pairs' were occupying three cupboards. No space left for our stuff.

Arse. But of course, he was unrightfully declared the idiot in this household. Practically our house elve, the poor man.

He could tell that to the television that was on 24/7 whenever he wasn't at work.

I slammed the door to my bedroom shut behind me and turned my music up to drown out the voices downstairs.

These had to be the worst holidays of my life.