lightning_war [eastofthesun]

Warded as well as a first-year knows how, written in Hindi, in reply to her owl:

Dear cousin Surya,

Thank you for writing to my family in India. Have you heard back from them yet? I miss them awfully. Terrible things are happening here. Several older girls have died, and they say that it will not happen again, and Mercuria (one of my roommates) says that we were never in danger, because we are too young, but there was a demon here and it killed them. I don't understand how it could have been here without the professors knowing about it, but since our Defence master also died, perhaps he was under its influence also. Mercuria says it was a demon of improper thoughts. Mercuria knows a lot about demons, which is frightening just by itself, although she is a very nice and polite girl and she is not prejudiced against us because we are Indian. (She is interested in all the wrong things, though, and her brother is always saying improper things about me, like that I'm pretty and I shouldn't hide the way I look from people! Of course even Rajinder steals my veils, so what can I do?)

Won't they close the school if things are so bad? Rajinder says that even if they do, we won't be allowed to go home, because we are hostages. Is that really true? I suppose I always knew that. But I am so frightened. Rajinder thinks he knows everything and that there is nothing at all to be scared of. But I can tell he is lying. He just wants to stay and play cricket with Messrs Gresham and Diggory, and flirt with the white girls, even though most of them won't even look at him. But really, he knows this is bad, very bad, for there to be demons here.

Respectfully yours,
Anjali.

lightning_war [rajinder]

Carefully warded and sealed:

( To his cousin, Surya Patil: )