Carewyn saving Merula — again. Because even if she would never call Merula a friend considering her tendency toward bullying and bad attitude, Carewyn is too paragon of a person to let Merula get herself killed if she could stop it. Merula may not be Carewyn’s friend at all, but she’s got some good in her deep down, and in Carewyn’s mind that bit of good deserves to be protected.

Nope — just a INFJ Slytherin whose ambition and passion is to help as many people as she can and in doing so be the best witch she can possibly be. 💚

Doing the Thestral side-quest! I knew as soon as it popped up, I just had to do it, as winged horses in general are my favorite magical creature, and thestrals in particular I just adore in the HP universe.

Kind of weird to see a thestral in daylight -- it’s so silvery! Seriously, that kind of light gray is one of my absolute favorite colors.

Carewyn picked the name because it means “night” in both Arabic and Hebrew, but...yeah, the choice has a meta rationale for it too. It’s also the name of my stepmother, who died very suddenly a few years ago.

*snorts* Sorry, Merula. Carewyn may not actively hate you anymore, but there are few situations where she’d side with you over Hagrid, and it would definitely not be in a situation where you’re trying to assert that a creature should be shunned and mistrusted because of their bad reputation. Are you sure you want to make that argument to the girl who you regularly tried to bully for her bad reputation when she first came to school?

All right, with that, I guess it’s good to bring up this topic -- Merula can see thestrals. Given that Merula’s parents were Death Eaters and that she’s reacting like this, I imagine that Merula’s experience seeing death was something traumatic and she’s projected that trauma onto all thestrals simply because they’re associated with death. But what about MC?

I don’t know how the event is going to play this, but I personally had not envisioned a scenario where Carewyn could see thestrals -- she wouldn’t even have the excuse of seeing one of her grandparents die or anything, as her Muggle father abandoned his wife and kids when Carewyn was still a toddler and her witch mother was cast out from her family after she ran off and married a Muggle. I hope this storyline doesn’t contradict my headcanon, and I’m sort of guessing it might not, given how much it tries to leave any details about MC and Jacob’s family lives out of the game’s plot...but either way, I think Merula and Carewyn’s respective reactions could beautifully showcase the contradiction of Slytherin house. Although yes, it’s associated with prejudice, it’s also a house that is drawn to the dark and mysterious. Merula has an irrational fear of thestrals due to common superstition and her own emotional baggage, while Carewyn -- who doesn’t like ambiguity, but has a great empathy for the ostracized and outcasted -- will defend a creature she can’t even see because of its gentle nature, no matter how negatively others view it.