CHAPTER EIGHT

UTTER PERFECTION

✧

          MORGAN HATED POTIONS. It was a horrible class with a horrid professor who expected perfection on the first attempt and only gave light to those who were excelling exponentially in class while ignoring those who weren't doing as well. She wasn't bad at Potions, no she was damn good at it, but it took her a second – she wasn't quick to it like Severus Snape or Lily Evans – and because of that Slughorn treated her like nothing.

She got no help in class, she got no praise for brewing up the potion he wanted, and she got no remark on how much she was excelling on all the papers she had to write for him. It was disheartening, and it made her hate Potions, and that was what she wanted to dedicate her life to.

Even though Morgan wouldn't admit a lot of things she wasn't good at, she would admit that she wasn't perfect. She couldn't go as quickly as Snape and Evans during Potions, she couldn't master every spell on her first try, and she couldn't do everything on her own. She made mistakes and she hated it, because she should be perfect. She was expected to be perfect.

Not by her Aunt Helen, bless the woman's heart. Helen Lee, with her dopey smile, expected for her to try where she failed so that one day she could succeed. She believed in try again, fail again, but fail better so that one day you wouldn't fail. And it was when she remembered that, she often wondered if her parents believed the same thing, or if this was just a little Helen Lee quirk.

But failure was not allowed in the likes of her house. There was the aura of perfection around them. With their unwrinkled robes, perfectly placed hair, flawlessly done makeup. A mistake equaled death, equaled a break in the façade they portrayed. Little Morgan Lee entering Hogwarts did not understand this. She had wrinkled robes and didn't wear makeup and her hair was never done perfectly because she didn't want to wake up early enough for that, and as a result she was shunned for a while. It was obvious that she was an outlier, that this strive her no hair out of place did not run in her family.

It was obvious that she wasn't a pureblood. And that was something worse than making a mistake to some of them. Morgan Lee became the outlier, but she still clung onto the ideal that she would not let any of those who sneered at her because of her blood status sneer at her because she was a hair out of line. So she wore her makeup, she used a spell to unwrinkled her clothes, and she made sure that her hair was done so flawlessly.

Even if they would not accept her, she would become them. She would integrate and be better than them, strive for perfection and strive for her own good interest, no matter what happened to anyone else.

Which was why she worked so hard, why she made sure there was no mistake in her essays, and why she would become a great potions master in the future. So what if she spent way too long writing her essay and correcting it before returning to the Slytherin chambers? It was all in the name of utter perfection, so sleep could wait.

Like the other nights when she spent too long out, she expected that the common room would be empty. It always was, this late at night, unless there was a party being thrown. Though, not usually, because the Ravenclaws were much bigger partiers and no good Slytherin wanted to see such a mess in the place they stayed. That was not perfection, but messiness, and that was simply not allowed.

But the common room wasn't empty, because Greer Ainsley had to stand there, obviously waiting for her, with a displeased look on her face. Morgan wanted to get out her wand and spell it off of her. Like she had any right to have an opinion on how she lived her life.

"I saw you with that Lupin boy earlier today," Greer told her, the reason for her displeasure. Morgan rolled her eyes, "Hanging out with a Gryffindor is bad enough, but hanging out with a half-blood...? That's almost unforgivable, Morgan."

"Oh, fuck off, Greer," she sneered at her step-cousin (was that even the correct term for whatever Greer was supposed to be to her?), "In case you've forgotten, my blood's not all that pure either. Got a muggle mother, remember?'

Greer huffed. "Of course I haven't forgotten – no one in Slytherin has forgotten that – but don't you see that you've been made pure now?"

"My blood hasn't changed," Morgan stated quite obviously. She hadn't had any blood transfusions as of late, so hers remained untouched and still the same as it had been the day before.

"Not literally, but figuratively. When my dad married your aunt, he cleared the bloodline. He's made you pure again," Greer said that as if it was a good thing, as if purity above all was what mattered before anything else.

Morgan couldn't disagree more. "Alistair hasn't done anything with me. He's got no hold over me and isn't doing shit. I'm still a Lee, a I still have a muggle mum, and you know what? That's fine. I like it. I'm glad I'm not a bigot like you. I don't wanna be anything like you and your good-for-nothing father."

"Don't talk about my father that way!" Greer raised her voice, she began to shake for a moment until she controlled her, and there was a beat of silence until she gritted out, "If you think he doesn't have control over you, you're wrong."

"No, I'm not," Morgan shook her head, unwilling to truly listen to what Greer had told her, "So what he's married my aunt? He didn't marry him and even if he did, I'm not a piece of property. I'm my own human being and only I control myself. Who cares if I was talking to Lupin today? I can do whatever the hell I want!"

"Then you're stupid," her step-cousin declared (really, is that the right term? She doesn't care enough to look it up anywhere), "Because, in case you've forgotten, my father holds a lot of power over a lot of things. And now, he holds that power over you. Defying him will be your end."

"Big words, but they mean nothing," Morgan disagreed. She would not allow herself to be controlled by a man who she wanted to get rid of. He wasn't trustworthy and she wasn't his property. She was her own person. "You're not listening to me: I won't let myself be controlled by him. I control myself. If you want him to control you, that's on you, but don't apply it to me."

"Then don't come crawling to me when you find out the truth," Greer said in a fit of rage, obviously not liking the dig she made. But after she said that, there was a little bit of shock in her eyes, like she wasn't supposed to say that, and Morgan clung onto it.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, but before she could even fully finish the question, Greer began up the stairs to her room with Morgan going after her, "Greer, wait!"

She reached out to try and grab her but missed, and continued to follow until Greer slammed the door of her room and locked it, leaving Morgan out alone in the dark hallway. She huffed to her, discontent that she was given this little clue of the truth but no way to follow up on it since the only person she could ask was locked in her room.

There was no use fighting it, so Morgan went into her own room, seeing that two of her roommates was asleep, and that the only one awake was Adeline. "What happened?" her friend asked when she saw her face.

Morgan huffed, collapsing on her bed before turning to look at Adeline. "Greer said something to me. We were arguing about whether or not Alistair can control me – he can't, obviously, but that's beside the point – but then she said something about me finding out the truth. What the fuck could that mean?"

Adeline seemed to think it over for a moment before shrugging. "Maybe she didn't mean anything by it. You know, people can just make up things," she suggested, but Morgan shook her head.

"No. It definitely meant something. I mean, she ran upstairs to her room after saying it, like I wasn't supposed to know about that."

"And now you're interested," Adeline concluded.

"Of course I'm interested, how could I not be? Alistair is already shady enough, and now with this the truth thing...I think there's going to be a lot more to unravel than just a simple marital sabotage."

Adeline sighed, shaking her head slightly. "That's what I was afraid of, when you started talking about this over summer."

Morgan frowned, sitting up on her elbows to look at Adeline with confused eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Well," she looked like she didn't want to say anything, but was now cornered, "I mean, Alistair Ainsley's a powerful man. He's advisor to the Minister of Magic. There's got to be a lot more there than just a man marrying your aunt. And I know you know that, but have you really thought out all the possibilities of what that could mean?"

No, she hadn't. She was just focused on ending the marriage to think about the power of the man, or anything about why. She hadn't wanted to know why, all she wanted was him out of her life and back in his cold manor while they returned to their cozy suburban home. She knew there had to be a reason, probably not a good one, but she hadn't thought through what it could be. It wasn't what she focused on.

But now that she thought about, thought about what the truth could be, and what Adeline asked her, she felt something dark pool inside her. This was worse than the original feeling Alistair gave her, because that was from a shallow glance, this was deeper because a man of that power had to have enemies, a man of that power couldn't be all that good – not that that part was particularly surprising – but she didn't like what it could mean.

She laid back down and stared at the ceiling, not saying another word to Adeline. This just got a whole lot more complicated, and she didn't like it.

authors note
bit shorter of a chapter but still vv important. also i just wanna say how much i love this book and exploring more of morgan's character so please appreciate her!