Marlene McKinnon is a mess. She can’t sleep, she’s almost certainly going to fail all her
NEWTs, and she’s 99% sure that if they don’t win the Quidditch Cup this year James
Potter will throw himself headfirst off the Astronomy Tower. On top of all that, there’s awar on, yet their professors seem determined to pretend that the biggest problem any of
them are facing is finding a Ministry internship. Marlene’s final year at Hogwarts has
barely started, and she’s already pretty sure it couldn’t get any worse—that is, until she
shows up for her first Potions class and hears the assignment.
///
Dorcas Meadowes is a stone-cold bitch. At least, that’s what everyone says. She doesn’t
need well-meaning professors or overeager classmates or teammates or boyfriends or
friends. She doesn’t need anything except to be left alone, the way she likes, until the day
she finally leaves school. And she certainly doesn’t need Marlene McKinnon, with her
sharp tongue and her snorting laugh and her stupid shiny hair, who seems intent on ruining
everything that Dorcas has been working towards for the past two years.

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