Orli rubbed her eyes, but it was no use. The darkness seemed to have draped a gossamer veil across her vision, blurring everything into shadow.
"Miss!"
Dobby materialized beside her, his tennis ball-sized eyes wide with alarm. The house-elf's pointed ears twitched as he sensed the wrongness that had settled over the night like a suffocating blanket.
"Shh!"
Orli pressed her finger to her lips, the gesture sharp and urgent. She pointed toward the cupboard, her movements precise despite the tremor in her hands. Dobby's small form vanished instantly, understanding the gravity without question.
Standing motionless in the kitchen, Orli strained her eyes toward the window, though her vision remained frustratingly obscured. The cold was brutal—not the crisp chill of winter, but something deeper, more insidious. It seeped through her bones, raising goosebumps along her arms and setting her teeth chattering despite herself.
Then she heard it.
A sound that didn't belong to the old manor or its grounds—a long, rasping, rattling breath that seemed to draw the very warmth from the air. Something was moving through the garden, something that breathed like death itself.
Orli's fingers tightened around her wand as she pressed her face against the cold glass. Through the supernatural gloom, she could finally make out two towering, hooded figures gliding toward the Waters estate. They moved without touching the ground, their tattered robes billowing in a wind that touched nothing else. No faces were visible beneath their hoods, no feet beneath their hems—only an endless, hungry void that seemed to devour hope itself.
The protective wards meant to keep wizards and Muggles at bay were useless against these creatures. They weren't human. They were something far worse.
Dementors.
Orli took an involuntary step backward, her heart hammering against her ribs. She'd never faced them before—not truly—but she knew what to do. The spell rose to her lips like a prayer.
"Expecto Patronum!"
A wisp of silver mist emerged from her wand tip, causing the dementors to slow their approach. But the spell wasn't strong enough. One of the creatures extended a gray, scabbed hand from beneath its robes—skin that looked like it had been rotting underwater for decades. It reached toward the window with deliberate hunger while its companion drifted toward the front door.
The stench hit her then—decay and despair, the smell of graves left too long unopened. Orli forced herself to focus, to find something truly happy in the chaos of her mind. Snape's face appeared, but uncertainty clouded the memory—was he even alive? Then Christmas materialized before her eyes, crystalline and perfect: their single dance, his rare smile, the way he'd held her as if she were something precious—
"Expecto Patronum!"
A magnificent silver cheetah burst from her wand, its form so solid it seemed carved from moonlight. The patronus leaped through the kitchen window as if the glass were mere air, slamming into the nearest dementor with feline grace. The creature recoiled as if burned, dissolving into the darkness like smoke. The second dementor fled just as quickly, both monsters melting into the night wind as if they'd never existed at all.
The silver cheetah padded back to Orli, nuzzling her arm with ethereal affection before dissolving into sparkles of light. Instantly, the world snapped back into focus. The moon emerged from behind clouds that hadn't been there moments before, stars twinkled with renewed brilliance, and the street lamps cast their warm, golden glow across the garden. A gentle breeze caressed Orli's face, carrying the rustle of leaves and the return of night sounds—crickets chirping, an owl calling somewhere in the distance.
Orli walked to the front door and pulled it open, peering out into the restored night. That's when she saw him—a figure standing just beyond the garden gate, someone she'd dreamed of every night for a month.
"Waters."
Snape stood there watching her, his wand still drawn but pointing harmlessly at the ground. A month of separation had carved new hollows in his already sharp features. He looked thinner, paler, as if something vital had been slowly draining away.
"Your Patronus Charm was... adequate."
His voice carried undercurrents she couldn't quite decipher—relief, perhaps, or something deeper.
Every instinct screamed at Orli to run to him, to close the distance between them and prove he was real. But her feet remained rooted to the threshold. She raised her wand instead, her voice trembling with more than cold.
"What was the reason for the third failure of the improved Wolfsbane Potion? Answer me."
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