Anne ground her teeth, expecting but not welcoming her father's lecture. He'd skipped out on too much of the 'father' part of fatherhood for him to be questioning her actions. And in this mood, Anne wouldn't mind a cutpurse trying their luck. "I'm not dense. And I dare anyone to try their luck with me." Anne raised her chin, rolling her shoulders back and standing as tall as she could. She didn't scare easily and she wasn't having her dad thinking her a coward. He was the sort that ran away, not her.

"I don't know what you know, so fine: a girl in my dorm asked me to visit her in France this summer, and mum said no. That was a stupid decision, but it doesn't matter anymore because Mum was right. She's supposed to be my friend, but she's a richy, French, pureblood and she gets given things that aren't bloody hers to have." Anne's tirad briefly halted, her chest heaving both in need of air and the existential terror that this squeezing in her chest wouldn't stop until it killed her.

She swallowed, her seizing heart caught in the back of her throat now. Choking around the bile and her own tongue's reluctance, Anne said the wounded part aloud. "They made that...princess into a prefect. She doesn't even know if she gets to stay at school, and she's already engaged to someone as ridiculous as her, and that's all she's ever wanted to be. Her goal is to be like every other empty-headed dress form, and that's what a Slytherin girl is meant to be? It's not right." And it wasn't a system designed for Anne to succeed.

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