"So you heard?" She wasn't surprised - Kryspin was an idiot. Ciara would never understand why he chose the girls he did - and she would never in a million year have condoned a relationship with this one. The girl who had faked a pregnancy... probably for money - though she claimed that it was for love for Kryspin... "It wasn't true, you know." A lot of people still thought it was... "He... attracts trouble... I don't know what to do with the boy." Yes, boy. Despite his age he was definitely too immature to be known as a man. "But yes, he is very protective of Aurora." Fiercely so. Maybe the red hair that they had inherited from their father gave them some sort of link or something... Ciara didn't know. But it seemed strange quite how much Kryspin stood from his little sister when one word from anyone else could send him crazy. Ciara's youngest definitely had the knack of winding people around her little finger... Ciara thought of this with pride - that, at least, was a wholly Stewart trait. Not something she had inherited from her father. Charisma? Yes, that was a Quinn thing. But Manipulation was definitely all Stewart.

"Something tells me Aurora is nothing like I was." she mused. No, Aurora wasn't the sort of person you would expect to settle down young. Not at all... "And if Kennedy is anything like you - by the way, you've sorted his posture out very well - then I'm sure he wont allow any overly sentimental things to happen." She smiled, a hint of humour shining in her eyes. When they were at school, Ciara had been madly in love with Phabian for approximately a week. Then she had figured out that he wasn't the man for her - far too clever, she would never be able to manipulate him properly - and decided she needed him more as a friend.

"Of course I must, Phabian," she replied. "It is my job, after all. Though I didn't expect anything different from you." Oh yes, their working relationship was more efficient than any muggle machine...

"Good." No point not feeling like yourself if you didn't like it... even if it did make you look rather mysteriously alluring...

Aurora nodded, "With her potions, I mean... sometimes she doesn't trust anyone else to deliver them." Aurora explained. "I don't know what's in those ones though - she doesn't let me in the potions room when she makes them." Which was odd really - because she usually had free reign of it, no matter what other people were brewing. There was an unspoken rule though; Never disturb Mother when the door is closed.

And then he kissed her, and life was good. She'd missed it... what with her music exam and Kennedy's OWLs and prefect duties, they'd hardly seen each other except at meal times and briefly in the common room before they'd both gone off to their dorms, yawning and complaining about how tired they were.

"He doesn't seem that strange... in fact, I've met a lot of people like him..." At her mother's parties, and then there were her father's work friends and her mother's customers and some of her old friend's parents... "That wouldn't surprise me... I told you how close knit the pureblood community is... and how protective w-they all are..." She nearly said 'we'... but she didn't actually consider herself part of that community - not really...