#I wanted to sort of talk a bit about Merula and Dahlia's early relationship and how it develops ^-^

[a-bear-at-hogwarts]

Loathing

Complicated didn’t quite cover Merula’s relationship with one Dahlia Goldman. The first word that jumped to mind was loathing it had been for some time. After all, loathing wasn’t something that sprung up out of nowhere, no... loathing grew from slight into hatred, and then festered into scraped-raw nerves and antagonism and bared-teeth lashing out. She was pretty sure she could pinpoint which slight had planted the seed, though she wasn’t fond of doing so - after all, Goldman had been showing her up for years. Why else would she have grown to loath her?

As she remembered it, they’d been eleven at the time, which would make sense considering it’d been the wait in the hall before getting sent up to put the dumb hat on where they’d first met. Much as she’d have liked to forget the particular detail, she recalled she’d been right scared, her hands shaking under her robe as she glanced about the room full of students - nobody’d known who she was yet, but they would. Soon as that old witch with the list started calling out names, someone would recognise hers.  Snyde. Death eaters’ daughter.  Merula’d known she needed to emphasise right off the bat she wasn’t to be screwed with, and at the time she’d thought she knew the perfect way to do it; the one kid there she knew enough about to make a jab at, and the one kid who wouldn’t know her to jab back either. The so-called cursed student, little sister to the famous Jacob Goldman. Famous for supposedly going mad, for searching for the vaults and getting expelled and vanishing without a trace… the sheer amount of material she could pick from only grew as she got closer to her target, padding through the huddled masses of dark-cloaked kids. From the article she remembered reading on the whole debacle, the missing Goldman had been described as noticeably tall, and it seemed to be a family trait since she stood at least a head above everyone else - tall, and muscular and scarred, two noticeable marks marring her face. Making fun of how she looked would have been the easiest thing in the world with all that to work with, names like Gangly, Chub and Scarface popping to mind immediately, but it’d have been simple and way too forgettable. She’d wanted to make a proper first impression to scare off anyone who’d have tried the same with her.

So she’d gone for the thing that was bound to hurt the most. Her Brother.

What exact words she’d used she couldn’t remember, not really - she’d gone up close to her, having to crane her neck to jeer in her face, and she’d told her… well, she’d told her a lot of things. But she’d finished it up with the cruel declaration that more likely than not, her brother's corpse was lying in a vault somewhere, rotting. Or something to that effect anyways, like she’d said the exact words were foggy. But Goldman’s reaction was crystal clear, sharp in contrast with the fog surrounding it - hell she could even remember her gaze flicking from her eyes, dark brown and long lashes with one of those scars splitting her eyebrow, to her lips painted pitch-black with some sort of matte lipstick or something, point was they’d twisted into, into….

A bored sigh. She didn’t even look at her for more than a few moments as she drawled her response, voice low and rough-

 “Yeah, no shit. He’s been missing for two years. What, are you going to tell me the sky’s blue next? Try something original at least.” 

Years later the memory of those words still burned her, ears and chest and lungs. Especially when she remembered how she’d just bloody stood there afterwards, like some kinda idiot. Just because - because she’d never been thrown quite like that before, off balance, confused and vaguely hurt and outraged because no, no that wasn’t supposed to happen, you were supposed to get upset or angry or, or-

Anything but that. I’m not irrelevant damn it!

Yet as time had gone on and she’d tried again, to find something that stung, to drag her down to earth from that lofty air of boredom she seemed to just love so much, it seemed like to Goldman at least she was. Nothing phased her, nothing got under her skin past a passive sort of annoyance, and the only thing that was more annoying was how…. how perfect she seemed, all the time. Calm, composed, in control and making progress someway, somehow. She constantly outpaced her in terms of house points, despite the fact she fell asleep in class basically every day, despite the fact she seemingly knew nothing and was starting from scratch, despite the fact she faded into the background for seemingly anyone but her. Even when Merula’d lost her temper completely, when she’d made the dumbest decisions of her life and locked her in a cupboard with a Devil's Snare...

The whole afternoon she’d been panicking, terror rasping in her ear that she might as well have just killed her outright, whatever her intent had been she’d just signed Goldman’s death certificate. It’d been the first time she’d actually been happy to see her dumb squishy face when she’d been herded into the common room by the groundskeeper guy, Hagrid or something- yet that happiness had been shortlived. Because even after all of that, even after mortal peril and betrayal she just looked…

Flat. Shut off and out of reach and calm as anything as she padded past the chattering crowds of Slytherin students and headed to her dorm. Merula’d had to pinch herself to make sure she hadn’t dreamt the whole thing, it was over that fast. There was no doubting that the girl had just had a brush with death, everything from the red marks around her arms and neck where the plant must have grabbed her to the tears in her jumper pointing to a struggle having taken place. Yet… nothing. Her face had been locked into the exact same expression it had borne every day that had passed, the tiniest of cracks marring the mask as some sort of vague annoyance lined her brow. Nothing more. Nothing….

And it ignited an anger she’d never felt before, wrathful and bitter in a way only fury kindled by redirected guilt could be. Hadn’t she spent the whole damn day worrying over what might have happened as a result of her reckless actions? Fretting over how a single act of lashing out might have cemented her in the shoes of her parents? All that time, all that fear and she came back like nothing had fucking happened-

It was only a matter of time before that seething rage bubbled over. And if she remembered right, it had done only a few days later.

It’d been late. Like, really late - she’d only stayed up in hopes of catching her alone, sneaking back into the dorms like a lost midday shadow; had it even been night or next morning? The fire had long since burnt itself out to crackling embers, its warmth leached out of the air and into the cold stone walls, encouraging her to burrow into her cloak as she waited, waited for… there. The grinding of stone, muted but audible, clued her in to the arrival of her quarry -  and as Goldman padded through the entryway with gentle, quiet steps she rose.

“You’ve been gone a long time. Is that even allowed?” The flinch of her shoulder silhouetted in the dark had given her a flicker of momentary satisfaction, before the figure turned to face her. Eyes flashed in the dark, the torchlight glancing off them as her fellow snake regarded her. “What?”

 “You waited up for me?” More than anything the amusement in her tone set her teeth on edge, anger and frustration and something, something melting together into a sensation that was very nearly painful. A feeling that, looking back on the moment from the present day, felt all too familiar. But in that moment it had been new and uncomfortable and she’d wanted more than anything for it to stop. 

“You’re awfully cocky for someone alone with someone who nearly killed you.” … oh yeah, that was why she usually avoided thinking back on this. God she’d been a dumbass eleven year old, angry and just enough of a jerk to do stupid shit like that. And it’d only riled her up more when instead of getting pissed in response, Goldman had smiled.

“You didn’t mean to.”

“You can’t know that-”

“Please,” She’d started padding towards the dorms again, brushing past her like it was the easiest thing in the world. “You’re not an idiot. That plant is far from a sure kill, nine times out of ten a teacher would hear the struggle. It’s ineffective.”

Somehow the backhanded compliment only infuriated her more, enough she’d missed the chill that traced her spine. She remembered jumping to her feet, getting in her way, in her face as blood thumped in her ears; how dare she, how dare she!

“You don’t know everything, you-! What if I did want you dead, huh?! What then?” The  underlying threat in her words was empty, but rang in the air as though it might be true…  but still. Nothing.

Or at least very nearly so.

Because while no fear or fury lit in the figures eyes, she remembered clear as day that something undeniable had changed. Something about her stance, the way she looked at her maybe. More than a year later she still couldn’t figure  out what it was, what had shifted and bloomed in the low, flickering light of candle and torch… but as it had, she’d frozen. Because Goldman was still smiling, but now… now it was something else. A challenge. A dare.

“Then you should try harder.”

Frozen to place like frost had claimed her bones and all, Merula hadn’t said a word as the tall figure had brushed past her. 

Not then at least. As it always did, always did, confusion and fear and guilt had all given way to a flood of rage. And after the day that followed, she’d returned to her furious attempts to break that mask the tall girl wore - however she bloody well could. Sure they had their moments, brief snippets of time where she was… decent. But it never lasted. Her very existence seemed to get under her skin, how she’d look at her as though her efforts to lash out were mere amusement, how she’d confront her on purpose - and how she couldn’t resist rising to her confrontation with bared teeth and sharp words. She hated the fact that loathing couldn’t quite seem to cover what she felt while sparring with Goldman. 

She hated that she couldn’t quite want it to.