She let out a belly laugh. “Honey, just be glad they haven’t put holes in the walls yet. Because when shifters need to blow off steam, there’s always a fight. And with a bunch of alpha males, you’re just adding fuel to the fire.”
Melody hung her head. It was all just an explosion waiting to happen. The tension was eating her alive, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, other than work at being the most attractive option at the academy for other covens.
“There is one other thing, and I feel stupid, it’s for the best, but it’s killing me …” Melody halted.
The scene she’d inadvertently witnessed played in her mind on a continuous loop.
“Justin and Jaynie,” said Mrs Hardinger, surprising her.
Seeing the look on Melody’s face, the counsellor wagged a finger at her. “Honey, I may be as old as the hills, but I have eyes, and I certainly have ears. The rumour mill has been running wild, and Jaynie has certainly said a fair bit about it. That little glitch is setting many hearts fluttering. All these witches are coming to me for advice on how to snag your other unbonded shifters.”
Melody wrung her hands together. “It’s for the best. I mean, he’s not safe around me, he has a chance at a normal life with her. It’s not fair for me to have so many.” She cut herself off before she could get any closer to betraying her coven.
“Now Melody, you listen to me. I know Justin, he was here when I first arrived, and already a legend even then. I’ve never seen these boys in such a flap about anyone or anything as they are about you. When you were sick this last time … Honey, I had to start bringing food to them and forcing them to eat, because none of them were even trying. Toby said he could hear their beasts howling. Even the dragons were putting up such a yammering, that we had to ward your cottage so everyone else would be spared the noise.”
She smiled at Melody and took her hands. “If that’s not enough to convince you, then know this. He came to me for advice about it. Whatever you think you saw in those woods, it’s not what happened. I won’t say any more on it, the two of you are adults, well able to sort this out between you, if only you would communicate.”
Melody looked down at their joined hands. Part of her wanted to believe it was innocent. But she’d seen it first hand. She wasn’t so sure if she would believe him, even if he did tell her what was going on. He might not have made out with her, but he also wasn’t sitting with them any more. She already had enough on her plate to deal with.
Mrs Hardinger frowned as if Melody had spoken aloud. "Has all that pranking nonsense stopped?”
Melody thought about it for a moment, but shook her head. “No, if anything, it’s even worse. With only Nick to help me deflect the attacks, more of them are getting through to us. They’re not even hiding what they’re doing now, most of the teachers just ignore it. They only say something when it disrupts the whole class.”
Melody sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. “Like, the other day, in herbology, someone slipped something into my cauldron that made it boil over and spew out purple smoke. We had to evacuate the greenhouse. Mrs Jenson was really annoyed about it. She chewed me out, and then when I said I hadn’t been near the wolfsbane, which was apparently the thing that did it, she chewed the whole class out and put us all on clean up duty during our lunch break.”
That had been a truly shitty day. Nobody would talk to her for the final class of the day, and somehow, all the notes she had taken in the class had gone missing in the drama. Nobody would lend her theirs either, so she had to rewrite as much as she could from memory during her dinner and then the men helped her fill in the gaps after. It was a waste of a couple of hours trying to cover everything that had been missed.
“I hadn’t realised that the staff weren’t actively policing it, I’ll have a word to Augusta. We can’t be seen to be favouring you, but at the same time, bullying will not be tolerated.”
“It’s just so petty. If it were major things, well I’d be justified in telling you, but they aren’t. They’re all stupid little pranks, well, except for the memory charm, that was a bit darker, but the rest of it is nothing. If I complain about it, well, it just makes me look stupid and weak. But I’m so sick of walking around on high alert.”
“Sounds like you need to blow off some steam, I’ll get to that in a minute, but tell me more about the memory charm.”
“Well, you know I’m aiming to graduate early, right?” asked Melody, and Mrs Hardinger nodded.
“I’ve already finished first-year history and I’m now taking the second-year class. So we’re working towards doing the same for herbology, and hopefully one more subject this term. Earlier this week I borrowed several texts that the guys said I would need to read, and Ryan and I settled in to start cramming. Only nothing was sticking. I couldn’t remember the difference between a petal and a pistil. I was going insane and poor Ryan was frustrated because he wasn’t getting through to me.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, I lost my temper, my magic surged and everything blew across the room, and it was just the final straw. I stormed out for a walk to try and cool off. And the whole time I’m stomping around, I’m thinking about it, getting angrier and angrier. My thoughts were twisting around and around until I made the comparison to being blocked. It
