He was mocking her. She was being mocked. Sera bit on her lower lip, hard, because the alternative was for her to snap at him. I'm smart, she wished to say. She'd taken several N.E.W.T. classes, and they'd been difficult. Before she went under, she had been good at all sorts of practical magic. She read a great deal. She was growing magical plants in her bedroom at home, and not all of them were easy. I'm smart. I like to talk to smart people. But her father had never wanted to know her. He had not wanted to know her siblings, either, but Sera still felt as if much of this was because of her gender, because Algernon Rowle never thought she would be anything more than a wife.

And she had not wanted more than that, when he cursed her! She had only wanted to be loved.

She finished her tea in a sudden, unladylike, gulp. "I think I have to go," she said.