The rest of the school year seemed to fly by largely uneventfully other than Professor Lupin's sudden departure and Snape's replacement of him. There also was rumors of some wanted criminal being on the school grounds at some point, but Briar had never seen anyone, and so she tried not to worry about it too much.

That summer, Briar just hid inside her room and avoided her father. He didn't talk to her much. He was working late shifts at the Ministry the whole summer, so she just would go to bed early to avoid talking to him when he got home. It worked quite well, and most of their conversations were brief.

Briar spent her summer making drawings and paintings, doodling here and there. She also got a head start on some readings for next year's potions classes, enjoying her readings for the course. One day, she had been absentmindedly sketching a face while laying in bed until her dad left for work. She hadn't been paying much attention to what she was doing until the face was almost a complete sketch of that shy Gryffindor boy. She recognized him from her drawing, and she had absolutely no idea why she had drawn him in her half-asleep state. She had torn the page from her sketchpad and shoved the drawing to the bottom of her trunk that she stored under her bed.

She hoped her father would never find it because she wouldn't have been able to explain why she had randomly drawn that quiet, shy boy from her class.

The summer ended without incident. Before Briar knew it, she was back at Hogwarts for yet another year.

Briar ended up asking all of her roommates about their summers, and each of the girls excitedly told her about how much fun they had had in their time away. None of them asked her how her summer went, and she was glad. They would have pitied her if she told them she just doodled and laid in bed all summer when they were out traveling around Europe, swimming in newly created pools, or enjoying time spent with family.

That night, Briar fell asleep easily. She had completely forgotten about the soulmate letters going out the next day, but when she was woken up a second year in a row by the hushed giggling of her roommates, she remembered all too well what this day would bring. This time, no one tried to ask her if she was excited though, and she figured it probably had to do with her comments about her mother's death and her boggart.

Despite her roommates not knowing that her mother was dead before her comments, they seemed to give her the space she wanted, and for that, she was grateful. Even if they all got on each other's nerves at times, they all understood when the other just wanted to be left alone about something.

At breakfast that morning, Dumbledore explained to the third years about how they would get their first hint about their soulmate that day. Then, the letters came. One by one, letters plopped onto empty plates.

Excited chatter erupted around the room as the students tore into their letters. Briar just stared at the letter for a moment. She knew that it would tell her of her soulmate's blood status, but her fingers just shook slightly at the thought of how the Ministry was pushing this onto her. She wished she didn't have to do this, but after she steadied her hands against her legs, she picked up the letter and tore open the side of it.

She fished out the letter and stared down at the word printed neatly in the middle.

.

Briar let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. At least her father wouldn't instantly despise this boy because of his blood status. The boy the Ministry picked out for her was a pureblood, just like her and her father.

She carefully folded the letter and stuck it back into its envelope. She shoved it into her bag and looked up to find Pansy looking at her with a curious expression across the table. Pansy looked down to her lap after Briar caught her looking. Briar just sighed, "Pansy, it's ok..."

Pansy looked up at her with a small smile and asked, "So? What did you get?"

"Pureblood," Briar murmured as she began to load her plate with food.

Pansy nodded and cheered, "Well, that's good, at least, right?"

Briar just shrugged and began shoveling food into her mouth, ending the conversation just as quickly as it started. Malfoy watched Briar with suspicious eyes before he asked Pansy, "Wait, what did you get?"

Her face lit up with his question. She beamed and proudly told him, "Pureblood."

Malfoy nodded coolly and repeated, "Pureblood for me too." Pansy and Draco exchanged glances as the two of them began eating.

Briar knew that the two of them had already exchanged letters from last year, and it was a match there too. Pansy had received an A while Malfoy received an N, which was in Parkinson. Briar wondered if Malfoy was hoping she was his soulmate as well. At least his parents would be pleased that she's another pureblood Slytherin like himself.

Briar tried to move through the rest of her day without thinking much about her hint about her soulmate because she knew that she wouldn't pursue anything with this person anyway. Her boggart had unfortunately made this very obvious, but she hoped it made her stance clear to her "soulmate".

———