Chapter 13Chapter Text
Snape descended upon the Gryffindor table in a flutter of dark fabric, his face an inexpressive rictus. He crouched next to Dumbledore, muttered something to him, and together they started working on Potter's fallen form.
I had to climb down the bench at that point. The older men's wide attires blocked everything from sight... but also, seeing a possibly dying Harry Potter was like a physical punch to my chest; I suddenly felt unsteady on my feet.
We waited in a silence that was broken only by McGonagall, who at some point cast a silent spell, waving her wand to encompass the whole of the Great Hall. At her command all the food on the tables disappeared at once; every dish, every piece of half-eaten bread or cup of pumpkin juice simply vanishing into nothing.
It was telling, that nobody protested.
McGonagall then joined the two men, walking up to the Gryffindor table along with Professor Sprout, who had also descended from the raised dais. Together they helped contain a distraught Ron and Hermione, blocking them from interfering with the first aid efforts. Hagrid had also approached them, and now paced a few steps away, looking out of place and as if he couldn't decide whether he should try and lend some help, or simply let the more knowledgeable wizards work in peace. With all the eyes put on the centre of the unfolding drama I almost missed Professor Duskhaven standing up, wand in hand, and simply walking out of the Great Hall through the door closest to the professors' table.
We waited for what seemed like an eternity. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the deafening silence started to break; whispers and rumours making their way across the students as the ones who had seen it happen or were closest to the action informed the others of what was transpiring. 'It's Potter, he was poisoned, I think.' 'He was just talking and started coughing.' 'He was eating some nuts, I saw Dumbledore taking them away.'
The tension in the air was so high it felt like sparks of electricity —or more likely, accidental magic— would soon erupt between us. On the enchanted ceiling above us the sky was dark and gloomy, with the moon barely piercing through the cover of clouds, as if it too was holding its breath.
Eventually, an eternity later, both Snape and Dumbledore stood up again. Harry hovered between them, his body horizontal as if placed on an invisible stretcher. There were gasps when the rest of the students finally laid eyes on him. He didn't look blue anymore, now he just looked colourless, as if all the blood in his veins had vanished somehow.
He looked dead, in fact.
Both wizards walked towards the main doors, taking the boy alongside them; they were followed by a sombre Ron and a tear-streaked Hermione, who the other professors had proved wholly unable to restrain. I tried to examine Dumbledore's expression, try to see if it betrayed any clues as to the situation, but he looked only serious and determined. Snape's own poker face was, as expected, absolutely unreadable. The doors opened on their own to let the little group pass, and closed after them.
It was like someone had pierced the bubble, broken a Silencing Charm; the Great Hall suddenly exploding in noise as everyone in attendance started discussing at once the haunting scene we'd just witnessed, groups gathering to put forth theories and share information that might or might not be true, the other Slytherins around me included: It was belladona; no, it was obviously acromantula venom; no, Lee Jordan is saying he just choked on a nut...
It was McGonagall who put an end to it. She stood at the very same spot where Dumbledore had pronounced his little speech back on our first day, and said in a commanding tone: "Silence! Everyone, be silent, and return to your seats at once."
We all did, reluctantly; me sitting back next to Tracey, who was nervously drumming her fingers on the now empty table. Around us, my housemates wore grave expressions. I half expected Draco to make some disparaging comment, to celebrate Potter's misfortune somehow. But when I turned my head to look at him, the blonde heir just appeared scared. He met my eyes for a beat, then quickly averted his gaze.
This was madness.
But was it caused by me, somehow? I struggled to see how, other than by merely existing here. Not that it wouldn't be reason enough, though.
I suspected this was sort of like the situation with the acromantulas on Hallowe'en. That day the troll attack hadn't happened, but there had been an attack. One that, all things considered, had been worse than the troll had been in the original plot; with more potential to seriously injure any of us.
So was this something like that? The attempt on Harry's life that was supposed to have happened earlier in the day, during the Quidditch match, somehow morphing into this? Into something... worse?
Something more successful, perhaps?
But why? Was it simply Quirrell sticking to the same shape of a plan as in the original story? Was it his thinking in a similar way which led to similar results, even if the details varied? Or was there something more? Fate and destiny, perhaps. Were the very stars and planets guiding his hand? They did have an influence on us magical folk, according to what Professor Sinistra taught us in Astronomy, so I couldn't simply discount it as superstitious thinking.
It was an interesting angle of research, and something that I should definitely look into over the next days and weeks. I knew there were plenty of books in the library talking about prophecies, destiny, seers and fate and what not. I had never paid much attention to them, thinking them to be a bit too academical, and maybe a bit too full of shit —you only had to take a quick look at Professor Trelawney to come out with that impression— and so I always preferred to put my focus on the more... practical kind of stuff.
But perhaps I should branch out.
Or perhaps it didn't matter anymore, right? Because perhaps Harry was dead. And if so, my fore-knowledge would have lost most of its original value anyway.
Could that even happen? Wasn't he protected by his mother's sacrifice? Or did that only apply to certain situations? What about the prophecy? But of course, if this was Voldemort's doing, the prophecy would be satisfied, wouldn't it?
I didn't know, and there wasn't much to go on with that line of thinking; so I tried to analyse the professors instead, who were all gathered in a group of their own and discussing in intense whispers. I tried to learn more information from just observing their postures and gestures, but it was hard to tell anything other than they looked concerned. Which, yeah, you didn't need to be a bloody genius to figure that out.
It took about half an hour before we got an answer. The main doors opened once more, and a lone Dumbledore re-entered the hall under the weight of all our combined gazes. The Headmaster walked up to the High Table, and turned to address us all, his expression grave:
"My dear students, it has no doubt come to your attention that a grievous act was just attempted upon young Harry Potter. He was, I regret to say, been subjected to a poisoning. It is imperative not to downplay the severity of the situation, as it was indeed an attempt... on his very life."
I noticed the looks of alarm, the sudden tense bodies among the rest of the students; but I allowed myself to relax a notch at last. Because of course, Dumbledore wouldn't speak like this if Harry was dead.
And sure enough, he followed it with: "But thanks to the invaluable expertise of our Potions master," he pointed towards a frowning Snape, who was just now joining the room, "we managed to counteract the poison in time, ensuring Mister Potter's survival. He now recovers in the care of our Infirmary Wing, surrounded by the comfort of his friends.
"I have taken the liberty to personally inspect the food served to us this evening, and I assure you, every morsel is completely safe to eat. The poison was delivered via a bowl of nuts that most certainly should not have been present, and has been duly removed from the kitchens. So I implore you, please continue with your dinner without any fears or apprehensions."
With that, he clapped his hands causing our food to reappear back on the tables. Although most people eyed their own dishes with distrust at first, tentatively, bite by bite the Great Hall went back to a semblance of normality. But I noticed Dumbledore slipping out of the hall a couple of minutes later, once most people weren't paying attention to him anymore.
I was sure that my own food tasted the exact same —it had even preserved its warmth— but I couldn't help but finding it somehow... hollower. Potter being alive allayed my fears... somewhat; at least this train we were all riding hadn't completely derailed. But if things were... well, worse than they should, I had to wonder about what would happen by the end of year, when Harry was supposed to face Quirrell-slash-Voldemort in person.
And beyond Harry, how many of us were truly safe? Forget about Selwyn for a minute; could I be sure any longer that, as long as the timeline was kept in its proper shape, I would be safe from Voldemort himself until the war actually started? What about the other students? Would Quirrell make another attempt tomorrow, one that actually ended with, say, a dead Ron Weasley? Or worse: a dead Sylvia Sarramond?
I had to shiver at the prospect of what could happen next year if this pattern held, with a basilisk on the loose.
The rest of the Slytherins seemed not to share my worries, because Draco went back to his usual self. He said: "Did you see his face?"
To which a round of laughter followed, with Goyle making spluttering noises and scrunching his face in a mockery of someone suffocating —or maybe that was just how he ate now, I didn't pay much attention to Goyle most of the days, to be completely honest.
But I ignored their by now customary bashing of Potter, their banter unable to push aside the thoughts in my head for the remainder of the dinner. And I guessed that at least some of my housemates had thoughts of their own —judging by the furtive stares of Greengrass towards either the Gryffindor table or the teachers'— even if they were less specific. The question that was asked the most along the table that night was: who did it?
"He probably did it to himself, just to get everyone's attention," was Pansy's answer to that, as she simpered to Draco.
But I knew the truth, and the way Tracey looked at me and fidgeted uncomfortably told me that she probably suspected that I did. Or maybe she also knew the answer herself, if she still remembered our visit to the kitchens.
It was Snape who brought me out of my funk, of all people. We were finished with dinner and on our way to leave the Great Hall —slowly, almost with resignation, just in case something else happened or some other juicy piece of information was revealed— when he suddenly stepped in front of me.
"Sarramond," he spoke in a funerary tone, "the Headmaster wishes to speak with you."
Shit.
Snape escorted me in silence towards the most dangerous place in the entire castle. A place I considered more threatening than the Slytherin common room and its prejudiced teenagers, more deadly than even the Chamber of Secrets with its hungry basilisk: Dumbledore's office.
I walked with a mix of fear and resignation taking root in my bones, like a convict sent to the guillotine. This was a nightmare come true, a situation I had played in my imagination time and time again: the day Dumbledore would figure me out. The day I would get exposed, and control over my life would finally be wrenched out of my hands, never to return to me again.
So I walked in silence because I was too afraid to ask my Head of House what this all was about, why Dumbledore would call for me right after Potter was poisoned. Too afraid he would confirm my fears. And as long as I didn't know, didn't have that confirmation, I could pretend that I was still safe and everything would be okay in the end. So I walked in silence to keep that flickering flame of hope alive, if only for a few more minutes.
Snape walked in silence because he was Snape.
Too soon, way too fucking soon we were in front of the stone gargoyle guarding the door to the Headmaster's Office. While Snape spoke "Peppermint Toad" —in a tone of voice I believed those two words had never been spoken aloud before— and the statue moved to the side, I used the opportunity to produce my sunglasses out of the inner pocket of my robes and put them on.
Snape noticed, though. He grasped my shoulder hard with his hand like he had done back at his office, and hissed at me: "I'm warning you, girl, tonight is not the time for your irreverences."
I tried to shrug his hand away, but his grasp tightened further. So instead I clenched my jaw and looked at him in the eyes —something I would've never done if not for my sunglasses, of course— and I hissed back: "I will look my best in front of the Headmaster. I'm a girl, you know. We are shallow like that."
He didn't miss the irony and venom in my voice, and I could almost hear his teeth grinding against each other. But the door was open and waiting, so in the end he simply pushed me forward, the moving staircase taking me up and towards the office above, like an oddly-shaped escalator.
The circular room was empty of wizened wizards when I arrived, but full of gizmos and interesting sights. An entire wall was covered in dozens of portraits of the previous headmasters and headmistresses, some of which I recognised from seeing in other pictures around the castle. Most paid me no attention at all as I looked around: here was Fawkes, the colourful bird resting asleep atop his perch; there was the Sorting Hat, raising an eyebrow at my narrow look. Here was Gryffindor's sword on a shelf, there was the famous pensieve, now empty of water... and memories. I approached the vacant yet massive desk that presided the room with trepidation.
I paused for a moment, turning to look behind me to check if Snape had followed me here. But no, I was alone. What was this, then? Some sort of test? Knowing Dumbledore, I couldn't discard that. I eyed the portraits again with distrust. Well, if this was a little trap, if the Headmaster was trying to see if I'd be as brazen as to try and steal something, he was going to be sorely disappointed. I might be a thief, yes, but I was no fool.
So with nothing else to do, I simply approached one of the seats in front of the desk meant for the students. It seemed I was doing a lot of that today. But before I could sit down, one of the little instruments on top of the desk started spinning and emitting a soft puffing noise, its gears and little metal rings turning around. I observed it for a moment, getting closer to see if there was some sort of label or indication as of its nature.
I didn't get much time to examine it before the fireplace to the side erupted in green flames, Dumbledore stepping decisively out of it, wrapped in a thick scarlet robe. His sudden appearance caused me to jerk and take a step away from the little thing, as if scared he would think I was going to steal it or something. Immediately, I became angry at that thought, at the betraying nature of my instinctive reaction; I forced myself to move forward again, to turn my gaze back towards the spinning gizmo as I relaxed my stance, my hands inside my robe's pockets.
"Ah, I see you found my curiousometer," said Dumbledore, as if he hadn't planted it right there to begin with. He walked slowly around the desk and sat on the chair behind it with a tired huff. "A rather fascinating device, isn't it? It reacts to things or individuals it deems... intriguing, curious."
I followed his example and sat on one of the chairs, but kept my eyes on the contraption. "That it finds curious, or that you find curious?"
That seemed to take him by surprise, but he granted me a soft smile. "That is an excellent question, Miss Sarramond. What would you think is the case?"
I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember what I'd read on enchantments, all the while Dumbledore observed me in silence —he'd made no comment about my sunglasses, and I had to wonder if he'd even noticed them... probably yes. Anthony Goldstein had mentioned something before, about the book he was reading on enchantments. Magic worked on intention, and most enchantments took the intention of the wizard or witch doing the enchanting. But you could also enchant something so that it would take other people's intentions into account instead. That's pretty much how Tracey's Sneakoscope worked, after all. And speaking of...
"I think it reacts to what you find curious," I decided at last, waving my hand to encompass the whole room. "Otherwise it would be spinning all day, with everything else you have in here."
"One point to Slytherin! A very astute deduction, yes," he said genially. Then, he waited for a beat, his gaze straight on me as if piercing me to the core. "Now, tell me, Sylvia, do you perhaps have any inkling as to what I might find so curious about you?"
I shrugged, trying to look calm as I avoided his gaze. This was like the traffic police asking you the reason of why they'd just given you the stop. It could be any number of things, and I wasn't about to incriminate myself, so I went with the obvious with a hint of sarcasm added in for good measure: "Well, I am a Muggle-raised orphan, and sorted into Slytherin. That is rare, I've been told."
He nodded slowly, his elbows on the table, his hands grasped together as if in deep concentration as he observed me in silence.
"Indeed," he said at last. "It is uncommon, but not without precedent. In my earlier years, before I assumed the title of Headmaster, when I served as Hogwarts' Professor of Transfiguration, there was a young orphan boy. Much like yourself, he too was sorted into Slytherin, where he faced his share of tribulations at first..."
Oh no.
"... and similarly to you, he too was regarded as... unusually precocious by his minders..."
Oh God.
"... and he possessed a certain proclivity for bending rules on passion, to... misbehave, let's say..."
Oh fuck.
"Needless to say, these parallels do arouse a certain curiosity in me," he concluded.
"Oh," I said, pretending ignorance. "And... I guess things didn't go all that well for this fella, no?"
His face went sombre and his eyes seemed focused on me, but also eerily distant; almost as if he was watching something that wasn't there.
"No, they did not," he admitted. "However, and I find this crucially important, Sylvia: there are also differences between you two. You are an individual in your own right, and it is the choices you make during these formative years that will shape the person you will grow into. Always remember that."
He paused, waiting for an answer. I gulped and nodded.
He nodded back, but remained still and with his gaze lost into the depths of my soul, apparently. I wondered for a moment if eye contact was actually necessary for legilimency at all, or if Dumbledore had perfected it to such a degree that he was capable of extracting my every thought despite my sunglasses and evasive gaze, merely by looking in my general direction.
The moment seemed to stretch, until I finally couldn't take it any longer. I let out a soft cough and said: "Uhm... so, why did you call for me here... sir?"
That seemed to break the sudden tension, his intense mood suddenly lightening as if he had just returned to the present from wherever his mind had taken an excursion to.
"Ah, yes, indeed. Please do excuse an old man's diatribes, Miss Sarramond." He produced a bowl out of one of the drawers in his desk. "Ah... a sherbet lemon, if you'd like?"
"Sure, thanks," I said, grabbing one and popping it into my mouth. I didn't really want a sweet, I wanted to leave. But sweets were always a good consolation prize, I'd found out over my foster years.
"The reason I felt necessary to call for you," said Dumbledore, "is related to the grave incident that occurred at dinner, when Mister Potter was poisoned. Professor Duskhaven and I conducted a visit to the Hogwarts' house-elves to try and unravel the sequence of events leading to such an unfortunate event, and during our inquiries your name emerged. It appears you also paid a visit of your own to the house-elves quite recently, and... unless I'm mistaken, persuaded one of them that the dietary preferences of one of your housemates were... rather peculiar."
I went very rigid at that. "But that was a prank!" I protested, my hands clenched into fists at the injustice. "Are you seriously implying I poisoned Harry? You can't believe that!"
"Oh, no, no," he placated me. "Rest assured, we do not believe you were responsible for this deed, Miss Sarramond. Professor Snape analysed the remaining traces and ascertained it was a poison that only assumed its lethal form upon contact with a person's mouth, appearing completely inert otherwise. This is the reason why it eluded Hogwarts' protective enchantments. To be quite frank, concocting and handling such a substance is well beyond the capabilities of any first year student, yourself included.
"No, the actual reason for your presence here is tied to a different matter. During our inquiries, one of the house-elves mentioned that you had asked them about another elf, one that you had ran across within Hogwarts, but who is not a part of our regular staff."
I nodded at that, relaxing at last. So, this wasn't really about me at all.
"You mean Squeeble, Professor Quirrell's elf."
"Indeed. This is a matter of great importance, Sylvia: can you recall the specific time and place where you saw him? And what he was engaged in at the time?"
"Sure. I don't recall the exact date, but it was the day of our first Flying lesson," I explained. Now that I didn't feel like a suspect myself, didn't need to be so guarded, I found my words coming much easier. I even leant back on the chair a bit. "I saw him at night, by that gallery with the stained glass windows on the third floor. He was crying and looked hurt, but he disapparated before I could help him. He did mention his master had instructed him not to be seen, though."
The Headmaster nodded, then asked: "And what brought you to the third floor, at such late hour?"
I shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."
"Ah," he said, narrowing his eyes at me in an inquisitive fashion, but with a soft smile. "Now that you mention it, am I mistaken in recalling that this was the very same night that someone paid a most suspicious visit to the office of our caretaker, Mr. Filch?"
"Uhm... was it? Curious, that."
He raised his eyebrows. "Indeed. How curious."
Surprisingly, I was okay with him knowing it was me, or suspecting it at least. Because as far as these things went, it was a minor transgression at best. According to my fore-memories, it was the kind of thing that he'd always allowed Harry and the Golden Trio to get away with in the regular; probably the Weasley twins too. So I hoped his tolerance to mischief would at least extend somewhat past the house of the lions.
But if it didn't, it was also fine. One of the first criminal lessons the older kids at the Residence had taught me was that allowing the adults to find out a less important transgression was a good way to stop them from figuring out a bigger one. Most guardians just stopped digging after they found you guilty of something, whatever it was, assuming they'd already won and going straight for the punishing.
So yeah, I'd rather Dumbledore punish me for stealing from Filch and let me go in peace, rather than he keep digging into my secrets.
The Headmaster, however, wasn't so easily satisfied:
"Is there anything else you can tell me about the elf?" he asked. "Anything at all that stood out to you? Perhaps something else he said, or any other detail that caught your attention?"
My mind went immediately to the white key I'd found.
I shrugged. "No, just that it didn't look like his master, this Quirrell was treating him too well, if he was so scared about failing him."
I didn't even think about the misdirection, didn't consider its long-term benefits and consequences. It simply came to me as the most natural response, because... the key was mine now. And I just didn't want to give it away.
Call me selfish if you want, but I knew I wouldn't have an invisibility cloak waiting for me come Christmas. Neither McGonagall nor Snape were going to surprise me with a racing broom. The Marauder's Map was simply out of my reach. I would have no cool uncle like Sirius to talk to. And there were no moving pictures of my lost family in store for me.
So yeah, I decided to keep the bloody key. It's not like Squeeble was going to be using it anymore, in any case. There was no way it could have played a part on the attempt on Potter's life.
I didn't know if Dumbledore suspected anything, because he gave a soft, tired nod, commented something about treating house-elves with respect, then stood up. I imitated him and he escorted me towards the office's door. Fawkes gazed at me with bored eyes.
"Thank you for your assistance, Miss Sarramond. I must advise you, particularly in light of tonight's events, to remain in your dormitory during the night. And should you recall any further details, please don't hesitate to come and see me at once."
"Of course, sir. Good night."
I was allowed to finally, finally descend the stairs out of the office after that. I let out a deep sigh once in the corridor outside, resting my back against the cold stone wall for a minute, my eyes closed as I reviewed the interaction. I tried to see it from Dumbledore's eyes, tried to see if there was something I'd given away. Something other than the obvious, of course.
But no, I couldn't see anything that would seriously impact me. No reason for him to suspect I was an adult reincarnated into a newborn girl, with knowledge of the future.
No, he only thought I was the second coming of Tom Riddle.
I hit my head softly against the wall.
Which meant he would keep an eye on me, which yeah, bollocks to that. But it was certainly better than the alternative, at least in my books.
In any case, the close encounter —and what had happened to Harry— left me in a shaken mood over the next few days. It didn't help that I also lost my Plixiette privileges due to whatever new and stricter rules were given to the kitchen house-elves, and had to revert back to the same old boring British food that everyone else ate.
At least Harry Potter seemed to be doing well. He spent a couple of days stuck to the Infirmary, apparently, before reappearing on the Great Hall for breakfast amidst the applauses and cheering of his housemates. He looked a bit shakier but otherwise not worse for wear. I guessed my own looks were probably worse these days, in fact.
Because winter had finally arrived. Undeniably, with snow falling from the sky and covering the grounds in a white carpet, the bloody cold permeating every single corridor, hall and classroom in the castle. Why couldn't the founders use a different construction material other than... blocks of stone? Hadn't they heard of timber?
I was sensitive to cold in the best of times, and I found myself spending entire days wrapped in my winter cloak and Tracey's Quidditch scarf —she wasn't using it now that the match was over, and I wasn't above begging for it— and just feeling more and more fatalistic with every passing day. The initial frenzy and drive to find a way to get out of the Selwyn situation before winter break came was long gone by now, surrendering to the stubbornness of reality. It wasn't that simple, proving I wasn't a Muggleborn. The only promising avenue was Nott's ritual, and I simply had no way to acquire the cursed ingredient in time.
Which left me dead in the water, I guessed.
There was the option of trying to fake it, but I'd need to explain the ritual to Selwyn and he'd know I wasn't using unicorn blood, so yeah, not ideal. Coming up with a bullshit alternative ritual would risk Nott spilling the beans, and I didn't know how I could forge a Ministry letter certifying my origins either.
So I took refuge in the routine, then: the classes and the homework, the trading of barbs with Pansy and Bulstrode and the practising of spells with Tracey, and tried my best to ignore the precarious nature of my situation; as if by not thinking too much about it myself, perhaps Selwyn would simply forget about it.
And of course, should that happen, Parkinson would no doubt remind him.
It was only the arrival of Snape one morning to the Great Hall that pierced my bubble, because he carried a list with him and told us he'd be placing it in the common room, and to write our names if we were planning to spend our winter break at Hogwarts.
You know, winter break, which was just one week away.
So yeah, it was time to face reality.
That night the common room was buzzing in the nervous anticipation that teenagers and children universally have for any upcoming vacations, only coloured by the Slytherin filter: older students boasting about their impossibly expensive vacations to the Caribbean, that one dragon reserve in Sweden, or in the case of Lucian Bole, the ruins of Atlantis.
I ignored all of that in favour of focusing on my target, gathering my courage and all the determination I could find lying around. I was carrying my wand in one pocket, Nott's parchment in another, and little more; because there were no clever tricks to get around this, no Weasley joke product I could use here.
Still, I'd made sure to wait until Prefect Farley was also in the room, sitting relaxedly with her own friends around a tea table and sharing gossip. She didn't look at me even once, but I was pretty certain my odd presence in the common room didn't escape her notice.
That was my only shield, really, my only protection against Selwyn doing something... well, terminal.
So with that happy thought in mind I approached the young Death Eater. He sat in what I could only imagine as his throne: a large wing-back chair with elegant reddish leather upholstery, his court of prejudiced pure-bloods taking the less excessive seats by both his sides.
And as I closed the distance, one by one their eyes went to me. It was like a gazelle being surrounded by a pack of hyenas: their gazes were teasing and hungry for violence, their smiles sporting too many teeth.
Selwyn said: "Speak."
Like he was a king in the Middle Ages or something, the absolute arsehole. That, surprisingly, strengthened my resolve; because just who the fuck did this thug think he was, to lord over us like this?
So I clenched my fists, and started speaking: "I... I have been searching for my birth family, and what I've learnt all points to magic being involved. The Muggle police report of my being found is missing obvious information, which I believe could be caused by them having been obliviated..."
I summed up my theory: that of my father —or someone who knew him— being somehow... unwell of the head, should we say, and leaving me with the police before disapparating in front of them, which prompted the Ministry to intervene. And because it was during the war, they did just the bare-bones: obliviate the police and then head off to a pub or something, leaving me within the Muggle foster system.
"I know it isn't much," I concluded, "but I'll need time to go through the Ministry's bureaucracy and learn more."
There was a moment of silence after I stopped talking, and I noticed the hush that had fallen across the common room. A quick look over my shoulder told me that this little drama of Selwyn and me had just become the focal point of the night.
The teenager tusked, self-satisfied, as he rested a hand on top of his wand —that was placed on the chair's armrest and aiming in my general direction. "Pity. That doesn't seem like... quite enough, now does it?"
I nodded quickly. "I agree," I rushed out, "which is why I searched for another alternative."
With that I produced the ritual instructions and handed them to him. This was pretty much part of my play: start with the weakest evidence before moving to the more promising ritual; I hoped that the contrast would help him see this new option in a more positive light.
"Nott, uh?" he said, then looked across the room searching for the quiet boy. "Do you confirm the validity of this?" he asked him, holding the piece of parchment in his hand and waving it at him.
Theodore gave a curt nod.
"Well, this is better," said Selwyn, turning back to me. "When will you perform it? You don't have much time left."
"Uhm. Yes, that's the issue. If you look at the list of ingredients... I'm sure you'll see the problem."
"Ah..." he said, reading. Then he shrugged, a cruel sneer in his lips. "Too bad, then."
"No, hold on! I mean... I know of a way of acquiring the... that ingredient. I just need some more extra time. But!... but if I'm allowed this opportunity, I would of course return your... uhm... generosity. I can give you one entire vial of it, for you to keep as a... a tribute, a payment for my delay."
His eyes went back to the parchment, and I could make a guess as to what line he was reading again. He tried to feign disinterest, but I could see the greed glinting in his eyes. Because a vial full of unicorn blood... well, you didn't find that every day just lying around, did you?
He seemed to be aware of that, because he asked: "And do you have access to... this ingredient? Hard to believe."
I gave him a convinced nod. "Not yet," I said, "but I will. I can promise you that."
He tilted his head and asked the question I was dreading: "Well... how much time will that take?"
I took a deep breath. At least we'd gotten here, to the point where he was obviously interested in the deal. Now for the hardest pill to swallow.
"I'm not... sure, exactly," I replied, tilting a hand back and forth. "Possibly until spring, uhm... after the Easter Holidays, that is. Might be a bit longer, but still... well enough time before the end of the school year, in any case."
There was a beat of silence as a sardonic grin slowly bloomed across his face.
"After the Easter break. So by Beltane, then?" he repeated.
I wasn't sure when Beltane was, exactly, but I simply nodded. "More or less, yes."
"Ah, well," he said, shrugging as he leant back on his seat. "In that case, if it's only that long... Crucio!"
Chapter 14Chapter Text
There was a beat of stunned silence, in which I tried to reach for my wand —in my pocket, so impossibly far away, it seemed now— at the same time my body cringed on its own, anticipating the pain, maybe even trying to step away from Selwyn's line of sight.
But there was no time. It was like a slap to the face; just as shocking, just as unexpected. Except that rather than to my face, it was to my whole body. And rather than a slap, it was a spell that hit me like a freight train. I felt my legs go out from under me, at the same time an invisible force pushed me backwards. There was a moment of weightlessness, and then I hit the marble floor, unyielding and cold; the impact so strong that all the air left my lungs at once.
"SELWYN!"
That had been Farley's voice, a vague memory told me. But I was too busy to pay attention, too busy flailing on the floor as I tried my best to get my lungs back into working order, my whole back in pain.
"Oh, relax, Farley. She's fine. It was just a knock-back jinx."
The Prefect replied with something that I missed, because I finally managed to get my chest muscles to obey my orders again, inhaling a deep breath of precious air. Funny, how you never pay much attention to just how valuable air is until you find it outside your reach for whatever reason; and at that moment it becomes the top priority: the only one thing that matters in the entire universe. I heard myself groan.
"You didn't see any red flashes, did you?" Selwyn was saying. "But really, would it have been so bad, if I'd used the Cruciatus? It doesn't leave any lingering injuries if it's just for a handful of seconds."
I opened my eyes to discover I was laying flat on my back, staring at the arched ceiling. Slowly, I climbed to my knees, my head hurting —it must have hit the floor too when I went down.
"Do you want to get expelled? Or sent to Azkaban?!"
He chuckled. "As if you and your girlfriends don't try it on each other when you are behind closed doors. You know, I can hear the moa–"
"Not everyone here is a bloody maniac, Selwyn!"
Had he been fucking with my head? He'd said 'Crucio', yes, but the spell had taken long enough to hit me that it probably hadn't been the Unforgivable at all; just a separate spell he'd cast silently right after speaking.
A knock-back jinx? Yeah, possibly. It fit, except that I'd never experienced one quite this violent, quite this powerful. There had to have been a lot of magic pushed into the casting... and a lot of intention, too. Which said a lot about him, given our respective ages.
Odd, that I almost wished it had been the Cruciatus Curse, after all. A few moments of unbearable pain, yes, but after that all my problems would've been solved; or at least a single, big monster of a problem. With an Unforgivable thrown in the middle of the common room, I would've been able to go to Snape and have Selwyn removed at last. A knock-back jinx, if that's what it had been at all —because I had my doubts— wouldn't be quite enough.
I sat up, realising Selwyn wasn't looking at me anymore —his attention on the Prefect— and my hand went to the pocket with my wand in it almost as if it had a brain of its own. I had to focus and restrain the movement before I did something very, very stupid.
But the older girl came to my rescue, unwittingly, because she interrupted that particular train of thought by asking me: "Are you all right?"
I nodded, not feeling confident in my voice to speak aloud; wouldn't want to betray just how much it'd hurt, not in front of our entire house. But I didn't grab my wand. Instead I stood up on two wobbly legs, facing Selwyn by Farley's side —who still had her own wand out and aimed at the psychopath.
If he thought that I was going to cry or something... well, I wouldn't. I simply stood there, trying to appear relaxed; thinking of that statue, impervious to all he could do to me. But my clenched fists and gritted teeth betrayed the truth.
Selwyn's attention returned to me then, his head tilted to the side as if awaiting a reaction. I simply stood my ground, didn't say a word.
"We will wait until Beltane, then," he said to me eventually, ignoring a frustrated Prefect Farley. I could even notice how the boredom was returning to him, now that the confrontation was over, his interest on me diminishing by the second. He floated the ritual's parchment back to me and added in a lower voice: "But let's make it two vials, shall we?"
I snatched the paper from the air, gave him a stiff nod, and turned to leave; but he said: "Hold on... what was your name again?"
It took me a titanic effort to unstick my jaw enough to answer with a growling: "Sarramond."
"Ah yes... just remember this, Sarramond: If you fail again, it won't be a knock-back jinx next time. Do you understand me?"
I nodded once more, before being allowed to retreat.
But once the anger at being flung through the air like a rag-doll subsisted at last, and I felt like thinking rationally once more, I realised this had been a victory, all things considered. Because jinx or not, payment or not, I'd gotten exactly what I wanted: more time, a chance at doing the ritual later in the year. Time enough to work out how to cheat at it, if I eventually needed to.
Promising him some valuable payment had proved a useful way to redirect his... not anger, not exactly... more like his spite. And doing it in public had seen me lightly humiliated in front of everyone, yes, but not really that much; and I was sure it had protected me from something far worse, should I have approached him in private.
One point to me, I guessed.
I was happily relaxed the day after that, the sudden relief making it the most comfortable day at Hogwarts that I'd had in... weeks, possibly; beaming at everyone —even at McGonagall in Transfiguration, who seemed to suspect some kind of mischief on my part and didn't take her eyes off me during the entire lesson; something which only made my grin ampler.
Yeah, I'd won. My cunning had managed to outwit Selwyn... for the most part.
In retrospect, that very thought should have served me as a warning call; because Selwyn wasn't an idiot, and he probably was aware of how I had manipulated the situation in the first place by making sure Farley was there as my bodyguard of sorts. But the respite I felt —and the fact that we were just days away from winter break, and that I figured he would be away from Hogwarts before too long, with more than time enough to distract himself with something else over the vacations— meant I wasn't really expecting for the other shoe to drop just quite this soon.
I was returning from the Library after the last Read-Ahead club meeting of the year, which meant I was on my own as I descended the spiral staircase that lead to the dungeons corridors —I was carrying a couple of books on enchantments recommended by Hermione, and my plan was to leave them in my trunk and then meet up with Tracey to spend the hour before dinnertime doing... I didn't know what, doing something fun, I guessed. Something better than school work, at any rate. Some Professors —cough, Snape— had felt necessary to overload us with homework to keep us busy over winter break, but I wasn't feeling the urge to start working on it quite yet. There would be time for that, soon enough.
At any rate, I was distracted and foolishly confident I had dodged Selwyn's first deadline and its consequences, so I was utterly unprepared when a full body-bind curse hit my back as I traversed one of the narrow corridors in the dungeons, my muscles seizing as if on their own and my whole body becoming suddenly petrified. The books escaped my hands to hit the flagstone floor, loud as shots. I found myself leaning to the side like a plank, the wall itself preventing me from crashing all the way down to the floor.
I heard two sets of footsteps approaching from behind, but my eyes —the only part of my body I still had control over— fixated on the lone figure that had entered the corridor ahead of me, advancing with a wand in his hand.
I had a moment of hope, in which I thought it could be... I don't know, another Prefect, maybe; someone else who would rescue me. But then he passed in front of a lit scone and I recognised him as Burke. Burke, who had been sitting by Selwyn's right, the day before.
Yeah, I doubted he was here to help me.
I tried to fight the paralysis, tried to inch my fingers towards the pocket with my wand in it. I wasn't sure if my arm was moving at all, but it didn't matter in the end. Because soon enough another spell hit me, and my whole body began floating in mid-air, upside down. My own robes hung down to cover my face, and I felt and hear the contents of my pockets falling to the floor; including my wand.
"Oh... what's this here?" said a voice I didn't recognise; but it sounded older. Not Burke or Selwyn, but another of the teenage Slytherins, was my guess.
I didn't see it, but somehow I had the absolute certainty that one of them was holding my wand. I tried to protest, but no sound left me; tried to move, but to no avail. I tried to cast the counter-curse silently and wandlessly —it was possible, I knew that, you just had to focus your magic, to twist and manipulate the shape of it just so. But if one of those things alone was already beyond my skills as a first year —even one who practised ahead— the two combined proved impossible.
I noticed my body being moved, sort of like a hovering balloon. It wasn't far enough, but I guessed we weren't any longer in the middle of the corridor leading to the Slytherin common room. Possibly they'd taken me to just around the corner, or into an unused room or something; the dungeons of Hogwarts felt like a maze at times.
But we would be out of sight, in any case; which made the prospects of a daring rescuer finding me all the less likely.
"I was hoping this would be a little harder," said a second voice. "It feels underwhelming."
"She's just a stupid firstie," said the first voice. "She thinks she's better than she really is because bloody Parkinson was scared to duel her that one time."
"We'll have to show everyone the truth, then," remarked Burke, in a tone that sent shivers down my spine. "That she's nothing but an insect..."
"Are you thinking...?"
"Exactly. Entomorphis!"
I felt the spell, whatever it was, hit me; but I wasn't sure of its effects. Except that there was a strange pressure on the top of my head, growing stronger by the moment before stabilizing in a sensation of annoying contact.
With that, however, they seemed satisfied; and so they left. With my wand.
Shit! Shit!
I tried to scream, to move, but nothing... I couldn't even sigh in resignation.
The spell holding me upside down lasted for what I guessed were twenty minutes, give or take, because out of a sudden I crashed into the floor. It hurt like crazy, landing head-first into it, my whole body weight resting for a terrifying moment in my neck; but it had the welcome effect of uncovering my face again.
I saw the corridor's wall in front of me; except that my vision felt... segmented, split into a myriad of little hexagons, each somehow showing a slightly different mirrored view of the same wall. Like... like a bug's eyes.
Like an insect.
I started to panic, then; tried to move again, fought with all my might... all to get a single index finger to wiggle. I wondered if this was just the lingering effect of the bind, or if maybe I had received some sort of spinal damage when crashing into the floor. Was I paralysed for real? And if so: did Wizarding medicine have a remedy for that?
It probably took near a full hour before I got my answer, time in which I could hear people walk past in the distance, none seeing or noticing me at all. But eventually the binding spell lifted enough that I finally could push through it, breaking the curse at last. I looked down at my own body, the strange perspective filling me with dizzying vertigo at the sudden movement of my head; but other than that, my body looked intact.
Well, that... and the feelers that had grown out of my forehead, like two oversized antennas.
What the fuck.
That wasn't... that worrying, though. Well, it was worrying; but I was more worried at the absence of my wand. That, that was terrifying. That left me feeling utterly defenceless, powerless like I'd never felt in years.
Odd, that I hadn't had any magic wand until relatively recently, and yet I already felt like a part of my very body was missing the moment it was taken away from me.
But I had an inkling about where it could be, what they could've done with it, because I'd heard a very particular noise a couple of minutes after they'd left. One that had left me with a panicked heart beating like crazy when I heard it, and that now had me scared of what I would find. But I needed to know; so I went to climb to my feet–
—and I promptly collapsed down, back to the floor.
What the hell?
I tried it once more, with little to show for it. I was able to move my legs and arms just fine, but there was something that limited their range of movement; and it seemed like standing up somehow eluded me, like keeping my balance —something that I'd been doing for years— out of a sudden was beyond my reach.
A couple more frustrated tries afterwards, and I had the sinking realisation that if I wanted to walk at all, it would have to be on all fours.
I silently cursed my older housemates again, and started advancing forward: hand, leg, hand... it was slow —human bodies weren't made for this— and a tiring work, combined with the disorienting perspective of my segmented vision and the odd, confusing tactile sense coming from my feelers. But eventually I crept back to the main corridor, and advanced to the nearest intersection, where I turned right and approached a closed door. I opened it with some difficulty and found myself in an empty bathroom.
I was glad that my crawling form was too low to see myself reflected in the mirrors above the sinks; I didn't really want to see what I currently looked like. Instead I moved straight to the stalls, the apprehension in my chest growing with every step I took, the tiled floor cold to my hands' touch. I pushed open the first door and advanced up to the toilet's rim, edging to look above its lip: nothing.
I backed off, and moved to the next stall: again, nothing. I was starting to panic when the third one finally yielded results:
My wand was inside the toilet's bowl, stuck in its drain. Apparently they'd tried and failed to flush it down the pipe, then abandoned it there.
I closed my eyes in disgust, reached with my left hand into the toilet and extracted my wand, which was dripping in smelly waste water. I aimed it at myself and tried to cast the general counter-spell, but when I attempted to speak the invocation —'Finite'— I only managed to make a buzzing noise, in the rough approximation of the word.
I closed my eyes again, counted to ten, then tried once more with a silent casting; but I wasn't experienced enough with that either. And whatever this insect thing was, the magic was solid enough that it wouldn't budge at my half-focused attempts at dispelling it.
Fine. Just... fine. I'd need to go search for help, then. Wonderful.
I would have tried to clean my wand in the sink, but that required standing up, which was also outside the range of my current capabilities; so instead I simply placed it into my pocket, dirty and all.
I considered my options, but in the end I headed towards the Slytherin common room. Mostly because it was the closest and I didn't think I could make it to the Infirmary Wing like this without falling to exhaustion somewhere along the way. Besides, Tracey would be there, at least.
Of course, the other Slytherins would be there too. But if someone had to see me like this... well, I'd rather it be them than the students from the other houses. At least that way the rumour mill would be self-contained to the snakes, rather than spreading the tale of my humiliation across the entire school.
It was a hard process, getting to our common room —crawling down the remaining stairs was particularly intimidating: afraid I'd lose my footing with every tentative step, with my head lower than the rest of my body— and when I reached the camouflaged entry, I realised the folly in my plan: because there was just no way I could speak aloud the password.
I tried anyway, only managing to make some buzzing noises that the wall ignored. I paced —well, crawled— around it, looking for some other way to invoke the door that maybe I'd missed before, a switch or something. But after a few fruitless minutes I surrendered and decided to simply sit down and wait for one of my housemates to appear. The hope was that by staying quiet and out of the way, they wouldn't look at me too closely to realise just how fucked up I was.
My wish, though, wasn't granted:
"What in Morgana's name...?"
Because I guessed it was too much to ask for, the feelers and whatever my eyes currently looked like working together to betray me. I didn't even need to turn my head to see Terence Higgs looking down at me from my side, with curious surprise —even a hint of a smile— written in his face; benefits of my brand new bug senses, I guessed.
It was bloody humiliating, sure; but I also let a relieved breath out, because I knew Higgs was not in the hate-all-the-mudbloods camp. So I buzzed annoyed and gestured in the general direction of the wall.
"Do you want to...? Oh, I see! Legacy!"
The door opened, and I crawled into the common room right after the older boy. My aim was to try and be stealthy about it, somehow get Tracey's attention from the distance or something, try not to be noticed otherwise and using Higg's own arrival as cover. But of course it failed spectacularly, because the moment I set foot —well, hand— in the large lobby, Prefect Farley was quick to call everyone's attention to me:
"What in all the hells happened to you this time?!"
And sure enough, everyone in the room turned to look at me... and exploded into laughter.
Even the Prefect herself seemed to find my predicament funny, judging by her poorly disguised amusement as she approached me wand in hand to cast a 'Finite' on me. I felt the vice grip constraining my muscles relax at last, and was finally able to stand on my own two feet. But my vision still seemed fragmented.
"Uhm... stronger than it looked..." she muttered. "Care to explain what–"
"Shut the fuck up!" I buzzed at her, my distorted voice loud enough to be heard across the room, causing more chuckles to emerge.
I regretted my outburst immediately, realising it was just my anger, my frayed nerves speaking out; that she wasn't responsible, that she was the very one person helping me. But still, I couldn't take the words back now that I'd spoken them, and they'd been clear enough for her to understand them, buzz or not. I saw Farley's expression harden.
"Well," she said in a cold tone. "I don't know the specific counter-spell to... this, but it might wear down on its own over the night. Or you could go to the Infirmary; your choice."
She turned away to go back to her group, and I was left there... exposed, my feelers shuddering in anger on their own.
I eyed Selwyn's satisfied stance, the way he whispered something to Burke by his side while the two of them looked at me, and the suicidal thought from the day before re-emerged.
It would've been so lovely. I knew the incantation, of course —who didn't?— and I'd seen the wand movement inscribed in Potter's forehead. And as for intention... well, let's just say intention wouldn't have been a problem. Not after this. Not after Selwyn's patronising smile to me when he saw me staring at them; not after seeing the looks some of my other housemates were giving me. I didn't know which were worse: those who looked at me scornful —like the second year Carrow twins, or Parkinson and her punchable face, who looked like all her dreams had come true— seeing only a mudblood, an insect put in her place... or those who looked at me with something resembling pity.
No, scratch that. Pity. Pity was worse.
So I retreated fast, taking hold of whatever tatters of dignity I could find and walking towards the girls' bathroom. I very intentionally didn't look towards Tracey, didn't want to know what her own expression would be. I couldn't afford to break down here, in the middle of the common room.
Not that I had any reputation left to salvage, at any rate.
The bathroom's mirror showed me an aberration: a monster with two enormous, black segmented eyes like those of a mantis dominating its face; two arching feelers emerging out of the top of its forehead. I pretended to ignore it all while I washed and rinsed my wand in water, time and time again, then washing my hands two, three times. When that was done, I didn't give any time to my thoughts to catch up with me, instead rushing to our dorm and all but falling onto my bed. I was coherent enough to take a moment to close the four-poster's curtains; then I finally... finally allowed myself to fall apart.
Odd, that I... didn't. I was half expecting a breakdown, but there was nothing, not even a sob or a tear... or a buzz. It was like... it was all stuck inside me and it just wouldn't come out. So I simply stood there, hugging my pillow and still dressed in my now dirty robes, not making a noise. Pretending that I didn't exist, maybe, that I was merely another ghost.
At some point —maybe one, two hours later, because I'd missed dinner entirely— I heard noise outside, some of the other girls entering the room, opening their trunks. I heard whispered conversations I couldn't parse. In response I simply grabbed my wand, holding to it with the absolute resolve that, should any of them try to open my curtains, try to drag me out of my refuge, I would cast the nastiest curse I could remember straight to their faces. If they wanted my wand, this time they'd need to kill me first to get it.
But none of them tried to bother me, and eventually their noises ceased, and the dorm's lights went off as they all went to bed.
The worst of it was that I knew I was overreacting. Despite this, despite everything, I had still succeeded with my plan yesterday. It had worked out just as expected. And this... well, this was just...
It wasn't that bad, all things considered, now that Farley had cleared the worst of it. Not nearly as bad as a Cruciatus would have been, right? This was nothing, nothing at all like that. Like what I knew Hermione would suffer at Bellatrix's hands.
What I would allow her to suffer.
Hell, wasn't Malfoy of all people turned into a ferret or something at some point in the story? And this was the Wizarding World, after all... transfiguring people into weird things against their will was par for the course, it seemed like. Not that big a deal.
So why all this? Why couldn't I just... relax?
It was that sense of... vulnerability, I guessed. The humiliation of everyone seeing me like this. My wand, stolen from me. It had filled me with a sort of anger I'd never experienced before, not flashy and hot like with Mrs. Coverdale; but cold and deep, taking root somewhere under my skin and wrapping itself around my heart like a thorny vine.
Even though I was on my bed, I never went to bed, not really. The idea of changing into my pyjamas seemed as unsurmountable as that of climbing the Mount Everest. Instead I simply... waited there, my strange eyes open wide —because my eyelids seemed to have vanished— and my mind a whirlwind of unconnected thoughts, all of them flying loops around a single image: that of my wand inside the toilet bowl.
In the end I slept, if in fits and starts; a restless night punctuated by feverish dreams of buzzing noises, fragmented hexagonal images of wizards standing in a circle and chanting some mantra, talking snakes and clouds in the shape of skulls. And me in the middle of it all, trying to weave the wisps of half-remembered dreams all together under the strange impression that they were meaningful, somehow; that they held the secret to the future, some key that I was missing.
But in the end I was unsuccessful, and morning found me feeling only exhausted and frustrated.
I waited for all the girls to leave before I finally emerged from my four-poster hideout to go back to the bathroom to re-examine the damage. And I did let out a relieved breath when I was greeted with my normal looks, the last vestiges of insect-me having indeed finally dissipated over the night.
Not that I didn't look like shit warmed over, though. A half-arsed attempt to salvage somewhat the situation left me as decent as I could probably expect to: my robes were all wrinkled, my hair even more dishevelled than usual, my eyes sporting dark circles underneath from the lack of rest. But it was good enough to brave Hogwarts one more day, I guessed.
Except that when I found myself face to face with the Great Hall's doors I considered skipping breakfast altogether, or at least eating it at the kitchen with the house-elves. I was about to turn tail and run when I thought of the image that doing so would send to my housemates: that of the broken girl, someone weak and crumbling under a gush of wind.
So I put on a mask instead, like Daphne did. I didn't even try to be my usual self: I couldn't find an iota of snark that morning, my reserves utterly drained; but at least I could pretend to be someone who was... whole, someone who was strong enough to simply take things in stride, whatever they were. Yes, I imagined that other version of myself would say, hit me with your spells, with your humiliating curses; ambush me, laugh at me. Throw my body like a rag-doll or twist it into a parody of itself. And I will still be here tomorrow, and the day after.
Because you can't defeat me.
So with that mantra in my head, and my features schooled I entered the Great Hall and walked up to my usual seat next to Tracey. I ignored the looks, the muttered words, the malicious grins.
I'm the statue. They can't defeat me.
I ignored Burke too, the way his eyes flickered towards me for a moment, then returned to Selwyn who was talking to him.
Nobody. Not even them.
And I knew it, that ignoring bullies was useless. That just resisting was not enough, in the long run. But that was all I had energy for, that morning. It would need to do.
The first years were discussing something when I sat down, but they all hushed down at my arrival.
Me, I realised. They were discussing me. My absence, probably.
I didn't say anything, though, didn't acknowledge Parkinson's pleased expression, her mentions of there being flies in the Great Hall this morning, nor Tracey's concerned one. Instead I simply grabbed a pitcher of apple juice and a dish of toast, and went through the motions of breakfast. The taste of it felt... duller than usual, maybe; even accounting for how Plixiette's culinary prowess had pretty much ruined normal Hogwarts' breakfasts for me forevermore.
But I could do this, I could bite, swallow, drink. I could still function. My mask held fast to my face; and pretty soon my other housemates grew bored of staring at me expecting who knew what —a fit of hysterics or something, was my guess— and they returned to the normal morning conversations: homework, vacations, stupid shit the Gryffindors did... the works.
My success at breakfast carried me for the rest of the day, even if I defaulted to monosyllables when replying to Tracey. It was a day packed full with long and meditative silences —which replaced my usual banter— and an almost obsessive deliberateness to every motion, every step I took, every word I uttered. All in the hopes of looking... not normal... only strong.
And the next two, three days it became easier, somehow. My sleep was still brittle, with entire hours where I simply laid awake on my bed; but at least the mask was settling down, as it were, adjusting as if on its own to iron out the kinks —the biting of my lip when in the presence of our older housemates, the subtle jerk whenever someone cast a spell in my general direction that I wasn't expecting. I was handling it well, I thought, and by the start of winter break maybe the mask would have fused entirely...
Maybe... I wouldn't have had to pretend anymore; and I could instead simply be that unbreakable Sylvia.