He had asked about Hogwarts and hurried on, but this Professor Skeeter had been perfectly honest about his life so she felt bad just ignoring it, as much as she was chagrined by the answer she had to give. “Well, no,” Viola confessed, “I didn’t - but my sisters did, though they’ve mostly left by now, the Corner girls - but, anyway, I’m Viola Corner,” she introduced, still a touch sheepish. None of her sisters had done seven years, so she didn’t expect they were terribly memorable as pupils, but Daisy was still there. Nor could Viola explain - nor did she want to - that the reason she hadn’t gone was that they were poor, and had been especially poor in what should have been her September. Perhaps he would just imagine that she was of a delicate constitution and had been ill all her life, because at least that was an interesting reason compared to being penniless orphans.

“I suppose I should let you get on, then,” Viola said, smiling a little bit at her own thought that he almost sounded like more of a recluse, shut up in a castle most of the year, than she had been, shut up at home all her life. “But I hope they at least give you some time off in summer,” she added, with a brighter, more teasing smile. If he was the Herbology professor and studied plants, he was probably fonder of summer, anyway.

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