#while i respect professor sharp being the night owl like the most of us

[superconductivebean]

#173: Hogwarts Inquires - Ø

Loosely based on this post.

ABSOLUTELY NOT SPOILER FREE

A really long wall of text under the cut. I'm done for, I'll document the entirety of this game I stg, guess I'll die.

（ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)つ━━✫・*。

Before putting that one up, gotta say: didn't expect so much to happen just within MC's first week of Hogwarts; I say that every time I start anew.

From the player's perspective, running around the castle, solving secrets here and there, navigating the halls doesn't seem like a lot's going on at the very early stages of the game; I mean the pre-Map Chamber stage specifically, as it barely has anything to do both in and outside of the castle. MC doesn't have a broom yet, her -- I will refer to MC as to her in these -- spell set isn't spectacular to battle with and isn't full yet to solve many puzzles throughout the Highlands. Travelling on foot is possible but mundane and downright, increasingly irritating when you have to constantly sell stuff either in the Lower Hogsfield or Hogsmeade. But.

It all makes perfect sense, considering, MC has been in the castle for the less than a week. These quests are her acclimatising to her new life and getting familiar with the surrounding areas; from the player's perspective, it is also rather mundane. In-universe, MC wakes up and after class, has to explore, traverse and venture through many locations barely recognisable to her despite Field Guide Smart GPS -- which can be very much a convenience rather than a lore-accurate thing -- and subsequently learn about the Owlery, all exits of the castle, find a cave in the Forbidden Forest and open a Chamber deep beneath the Lake Merlin knows where in a positively enormous but still an enormous castle. On the very first week of the new life. With a befuddlement or confusion or the eel of getting lost, hinted by her own words -- if quest descriptions are to be believed -- My Field Guide won't guide me through this assignment and The castle is enormous! I may need to use the Charmed Compass in the Field Guide to help me find the way.

It's truly alot to take in during the first week, and MC acknowledges it herself:

Sebastian: Have you had much of a chance to explore the castle? MC: A little. It's positively enormous.

Professor Garlick: I spent a good deal of time alone in either the greenhouse or the library my first days here. MC: [[It takes some getting used to.]] It does take a while to adjust to being here.

Besides that, some areas had to be restricted access only. To add to ever-increasing number of tasks on MC's hands at all times.

Restrictions were implied -- and even used a few times -- but never implemented, likely cut, for some reason or another. While I found it unbelievably sad there isn't a single restriction and penalty for trespassing left almost entirely, for the sake of narrative building let's call it that, this all can be easily build upon what's already given. Along with a morality system, a hero meter, you name it, but what initially needed is awareness from the in-universe perspective.

It is important because it is also implied that MC's activities and Fig's searches are surrounded by rumors where it is easily possible to hide the truth and every intension behind just words, construct a lie or well-adjust an alibi; it is anti-Professor Black repellent, if you will.

The man doesn't believe rumors however grim these might be, he clearly needs evidence. It didn't work with Professor Weasley though when she had enough of the speculation, and Professor Sharp agreed to assist Fig in his goblin inquiries despite Fig's inconceivable statement of them working with Rookwood, of all people.

In other words, I'm interested to see the events unfold as if in the book or just simply going one after another. Hope it does make sense; in some other words more, the idea of looking at the plot or the fabula from different standpoints, of professors for example, is just right up my street. Which means, SPOILER ALERT.

It would be also interesting to see a timeline, somewhat clear. Forever can last popping balloons in Kogawa's assignments but if it all can be pinned to a specific day, I'm chasing after that goal.

It immediately becomes connect-the-dots but it's a fun little game outside the actual game; interpretations can be discarded or seem to lay down perfectly, I am still an unreliable enough and ornery narrator to be fully believed in any of my Inquires.

Can't keep it all for myself though!

（ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)つ━━✫・*。

I am not sure where to start, truly. I'll continue on the supposed restricted areas perhaps?..

First and foremost, MC can access the Restricted Section repeatedly after breaking in with Sebastian because she still has the key:

I'd better not let Madam Scribner see me trying to get in here. I still have the key. The key will help me get back in here.

The game does also hint that MC is either sneaky -- and she admits it herself -- and or if the cause is any way noble…

That's being said, when Professor Weasley is asking to discuss ongoing matters with MC during her assignment quest, she will hint she does know more than she lets on about MC's activities and that some of them she is likely to excuse or ignore entirely.

There are two particularly interesting quests to root for: Professor Weasley's Assignment and Polyjuice Plot. As this is the starter post and it is already taking a long walk, I will not go too deep until it is winter in-game but, I must say: these two quests deserve a post of their own.

For now, what matters is, if MC is as free-to-go as it may seem in the game.

Professor Weasley's Assignment starts right after Fire and Vice, a quest where MC unbeknownst continues to weave the chain of events tied to Rookwood's poaching empire's eventual collapse.

Accepting the quest under dim evening sun at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, MC and Poppy leave the Horntail Hall uninjured at dusk, freed the dragon, and are to return to the castle by the late evening with its egg fortunately saved from poachers -- or not so late, as it is the midst of the winter and nights are starting much earlier than in autumn in the Northern hemisphere. However. By the time MC returned, Hall of the Keepers can be heard in the halls; it is late, nearly nightfall. Important note: I do not use floo powder at all.

Professor Weasley is yet to know about the Horntail Hall or of its destruction's deathly consequences, but what she does know is that MC has been busy this year.

First, caught up with peers! And also, helped Mr Olivander (she mentions The House Quests only this time around)? Captured a unicorn (the other two things: an impressive Edurus Potion and Venomous Tentacula)? Protecting such a rare of beast…

Said beast can only be found on the single patch of land deep in the Forbidden Forest.

It doesn't matter if you didn't, wouldn't or couldn't capture one before Hazel the Unicorn; it is possible to have a unicorn in a vivarium from as early as October, and Professor Weasley will know because Deek tells her what MC does in the Room.

Just the very possibility to know how she'd react is what's needed here.

Professor Weasley knows MC ventured into the Forbidden Forest but notice, she doesn't scold MC nor deduces any house points. I believe, in her book, it is wholly justified by the very fact MC stepped inside it to save a rare creature from the poachers. Thus, MC had the good reason and wasn't goofing around?.. I can only guess Professor Weasley's take on this might be, er, Professor Fig-free motives are at least MC's own and could be excused due to mischief rather than Eleazar's enigmatic schemes.

I don't ask many questions, too. Or I'd stuck asking professor Garlick why wouldn't Leander field test the cabbages, or pester professor Sharp with something like, why is the Stench of the Dead being even available at the store, not to mention lively afterparties nearly everywhere, even Keenbridge's cemetery is infested with inferi, and it's a lovely little hamlet full of locals and travellers alike!

Which is why The House Quest mentioned out of suspicion such an adventure could had possibly been orchestrated by Professor Fig. It's kinda hilarious to think the man was up to things ranging from innocently weird (feed that toast to the Cracken!) to wicked at its purest (visit Azkaban? sure np ready when you are!) for Professor Weasley to immediately assume Eleazar tasked MC with something peculiar while he is away.

He, in fact, didn't, but who knew a quest to find missing pages could align with seemingly ordinary request from an old craftsman. MC, however, elucidates the already present suspicion, nervously rambling, how she is either fascinated by the wandlore or ghosts, or was intrigued by Professor Sharp's auror badge (to ask someone other than him about the very Programme he could had been assigned to help running should he stayed at the Ministry), or found Scrope a perfect guide for the little cave tour.

Nothing else is specified, therefore I assume, MC was either sneaky and hid the trails well or stayed out of trouble when possible; a loose one but, she wouldn't want to visit certain areas without a friend by her side (notably the arena east of Keenbridge or any of the quest-locked dungeons).

However.

MC can move an entire herd of unicorns in the Room of Requirement but what were MC's other reasons to sneak in the Forbidden Forest?

That's what Professor Weasley confronted Professor Black with during the Polyjuice Plot, likely hinting, that Fire an Vice aftermath caught her attention. Moreover, Natty's abduction, too; the whole school knew it was MC who rescued Natty that night, including the faculty, because Professor Onai told everyone. And to count, Sebastian's triptych searches all around Ranrok's Loyalists outposts, and Lodgok's requests. All these quests are tightly placed together, taking a time windows of roughly two weeks, which, again, is a lot to take in and prepare for, and this time, stay out of sight of everybody in the valley wasn't exactly a possibility any longer.

MC wasn't just exploring or innocently wandering around the valley, pulling the wand out when it's truly necessary. MC has gotten herself in a big trouble lately, the trouble she really shouldn't engaged with; fighting such dangerous people back is deeply concerning; and what's worse, it all might be a part of Professor Fig's plan, whatever it could be.

What gives, -- falsely or not, doesn't matter, the miscommunication is on Fig -- are two things:

Professor Fig's research and interest in goblins are tied to Miriam's death and MC is somehow knitted in in the whole story;

MC is a little bit too hesitant when her motives are suggested or implied to be anyhow connected to Professor Fig's interests.

To conclude, the situation also doesn't make much sense for a bystander, as everything about Fig only does when he explains not the dots themselves but why would he connect them exactly like he does.

Polyjuice Plot is still a shitpost though, WHY WOULD YOU KEEP BLACK'S HAIR WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'PREPARED' LIKE FOR WHAT EXACTLY don't @ me im losing it like sharp did but -- that's exactly the thing Fig would consider a viable option. Either because he can, or he thinks, risking it all than to allow any unnecessary number of people see even a tiny bit of what's he is up to this time is totally worth it.

And MC does it as well! Example.

To access the Restricted Section, she could've asked any of the known professors at a time for, perhaps, an advanced read on something? Students are supposed to learn more than what's in their assigned textbooks, especially and presumably, in DADA or in Potions.

She is brewing the Thunderbrew Potion and Professor Sharp encouraged to learn ingredients themselves, and that one specific to Thunderbrew is the Stench of the Dead. A part of a corpse, an inferius. Dark magic stuff. DADA class topic.

The book about inferius must belong to the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. Thus, a good reason to ask for a pass; reaching the Athenaeum then would be incredibly easy, besides, the way back leads in the library! The only suspicious person would be madam Scribner but it'd be easy to pull a stunt like 'sorry i got curios and fought with a book within itself, AN EXPERIENCE DARESAY'.

Even Professor Sharp is concerned, somewhat, although he says that one line when Fig is chosen as a companion, I hope you know better than to let Professor Fig take you on one of his foolhardy adventures.

That's why at least a simple warning on screen, that MC is heading somewhere she shouldn't be, yes that's crude but, would only add to an immserion and dissolve the illusion of the free-to-go and go-where-she-pleases. And it's already there! MC points things out, sometimes; I insisted on something more apparent, however, but.

It's fine as it is now because imagine a sign forbidding to go to somewhere, or a message stuck on the screen, -- and then, no repercussions, nothing, at all, ever happening for trespassing somewhere.

I'm just being grumpy here, pardon me.

TLDR; MC is supposed to explore places and educate through adventuring but visiting restricted areas or trespassing is frowned upon. Another example of this would be Venomous Tentacula Hogsmeade Dude quest, after which Sirona reminds MC of what she's done (regardless of option MC actually chooses; handing the guy a tentacula of your own doesn't help, it still will be assumed MC stole it).

TLDR; When MC disguised as Professor Black says, I've decided to give him a bit more, er, leeway with his time., Professor Weasley is done with Black altogether and decides to take everything under her control. That's why she didn't leave for the Christmas break, perhaps other Professor stayed after her notice, too (I gave my own hcs here a leeway). That's why Fig tells MC, Professor Weasley has been keeping an eye on me. Perhaps we should meet there so she has no reason to raise concerns with Professor Black.

Unbeknownst to both of them, and that of everyone else, MC sort of kept everyone in the castle when it was most needed: Ranrok will attack Hogwarts shortly before the term resumes, in early January.

TLDR; Professor Black is very likely to excuse MC a lot of things as in the books, he admired bravery, and MC put up no cowardly fight -- she was rather noble saving all the people around her, helping them, dealing with the Final Repository, selflessly.

I found documenting the details like this fascinatingly engaging, although, I must warn: 0) I refer to MC as to her; 1) I do let my hcs go-be-free, to indepth? is it even a proper word deepen? things narrative-wise as they go; 2) originally, I planned all of this to address the lack of sense of time in the game; 3) and it all was and is needed for a rather huge fanfic I will eventually write, hopefully; 4) it's about mentor!Sharp, the man is fun and secretly a softie, it is an obsession and I surrender; shout out to all sharpies out here, you all do magnificently. 乁(✿ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)و

To capture this and many more, I started this little series. It promises to be a long one, too, as in my primary language I have 27 of them I believe.

As a bonus, what MC's first week felt like:

September 1, 1890, Monday: dragon attack | Gringotts | NO FEAST AFTER THE SORTING CEREMONY? Professor Black, you're very unpopular for a reason | Sleep!

September 2, Tuesday: Professor Weasley Thinks Somebody's Being Sus (and she is EITHER completely baffled by the ruin exploration part of the story she didn't know about and ready to inquire further OR she suspects MC and Fig rehearsed the supposed talk with her; not to mention the sense of distrust between Weasley and Fig, I'm ansgty about their friendship and might have an idea what led them apart) | some classes | troll attack | Rookwood's hunt for MC began here; thus, MC's reputation for fearlessness | Sleep!

September 3, Wednesday: free space | I mean, it is really just Crossed Wands and Incendio Spell kind of a day | MC breaks in the Restricted Section along with Sebastian in the late evening that day (he doesn't refuse because he is genuinely intrigued by MC)

September 4, Thursday: Professor Sharp is on our investigation carriage, too! (likely, he knows MC was in the Restricted Section last night because MC starts the convo with Fig BEFORE Sharp leaves the office lol; also, if MC stands somewhere in his field of view, THE MAN DOESN'T CARE EITHER HE IS LOOSING IT) | some classes again | Professor Sharp Thinks We're Good But We Need a Safe Space of Our Own to Practise (hinting, he might be aware of the Room's existence) | MC and Natty are chatting in the evening outside the Lower Hogsfield; Mrs Treadmill claims she was never ambushed so close to the castle ever before in her life

September 5, Friday: free space | Garreth's plan to 'acquire' dried billywig stings leads MC to Hogsmead through the secret passageway | Followed Olivander's request to the Owlery, MC searched for the clues to the little jackdaw mystery, to later on met Jackdaw's ghost in the Forbidden Forest | Map Chamber has been opened that night

September 6, Saturday: Flying Class | Sharp's Assignments | Imelda's First Time Trial | Sebastian offers MC Undercroft, MC offers him, 'ohhi seb i wield ancient magic dunno what does it even mean idk ikr', or 'nah some pages were missing sorry'

September 7, Sunday: Professor Weasley would have liked MC to have her own study to get up to speed. Thus, MC joined the Room Club: 1) Fig knows because he comments on the increasing beast population and the only source on this is Professor Weasley because Deek tells her everything MC does in there (unicorn, tentacula); 2) Weasley knows because she herself used to study in the Room; 3) Sharp most likely in the know, too, because -- I'm letting a hc-based theory out! -- what if these two notes in the Room of the Hidden Things were written by his former classmate and himself; the fireplace note, from the classmate T., and it starts with A., wonder who that might be, I found curious and telling: the note is lying near a fireplace with some potion bottles on top of it and cauldrons stacked up on the side; bathtub one is funny because, if you think about disposing a failed batch and ask the Room for a second opinion, what should you really expect from it. Cheeky thing.

Wholeheartedly adore the default Room's design; it is composed of potions, cauldrons and some ingredients. MC remembered Sharp's words! ( ͡° ل͜ ͡°) Moreover, I noticed but still might be wrong, Sharp's other dialogue about on why he came to Hogwarts is available after the Room has been opened, as he is certain now MC does have an empty cauldron waiting for her somewhere | Professor Fig returned in the evening.

The Next Week: free space | remaining side-quests (A Demanding Delivery, Absconder Encounter, The Daedalian Keys, Kogawa&Garlick Assignments, Follow the Butterflies)

13-14 of September, to give MC some breathing room: The First Trial

I'll say, exhilarating, but with sleep schedule possibly ruined by nightly ventures..? homework to be done..? establish a pace between the school and adventuring..? duelling looks stunning and elegant but all these moves require a good physique, which MC has, but still it can leave MC exhausted after a while..?

Now, that's exasperating!

Alrighty. I'm over by now.

Do slam that ask button if you want. I sit screaming since February and while I'm potted, I can at least woe comprehensively about things.

[btsficsforthehumble]

adj.: 1. Modern, unfamiliar, or different

2. Not based on or conforming to what is generally done or believed

pairing: reader x ot7

genre: college au; angst, fluff, smut, poly, ot7

Summary: You begin your first year at a prestigious university, set out on achieving your academic goals when a series of men step into your life that change the way you view the definition of love.

Part Two

Warnings: none in this chapter

Word count: 2.2k

After a moment of gathering your thoughts, you open your eyes to see other students begin to filter into the large auditorium. The little wooden desks that flip out from below the seats force people to squeeze past each other and give awkward sorries. Coming from calc, you thankfully don’t have to do the awkward shuffle as you came straight from a nearby building. While watching the students trickle in, you notice that many hold coffee in their hands and you suddenly are incredibly jealous… that guy from your last class wasn’t wrong in his assumption of your night owl status.

You sigh, and pull out your laptop to pull up the syllabus for the class. You were slightly nervous for this class, as it was completely out of your comfort zone. You hadn’t yet settled on a major, so you were knocking out some general classes while you were a freshman. And now, you were sitting in an Intro to Composition class to fulfill your creative work requirement. You really didn’t have experience with music in any formal sense, but you always loved to listen to music as you did basically anything. You found that music helped make the more unpleasurable bits of life more bearable. And the good bits, well, they always seem to have a good beat behind them too.

While you begin to look at some of the upcoming projects and their due dates, you feel the seat below you shift as someone occupies the seat next to you. When you glance up, you first see that since you pulled your laptop out, the lecture hall had quickly filled up. Your eyes dart over to your new seat buddy, and you can’t help but feel your eyes widen a bit. It was a boy with a slight build, but definitely a powerful aura. From your view, the sharpness of his jawline coupled with his soft looking cheeks was enough to inspire Michelangelo himself, you thought. While he was bent over slightly pulling out his desk, you shifted your eyes to look at his. He had soft eyes, and you could just barely tell he added a bit of a peach shadow and mascara to his look. Framing his face was inky black hair that was gelled to perfectly hang just to the edges of his dark brows.

Not wanting to get caught staring, you drag your eyes away from him and back to your laptop. You felt heat rise to your cheeks and willed it to recede --- you’ve had enough of embarrassing yourself today, you thought. Why oh why God, did you send freaking male models to your university, and not only that, but make them attend the same classes as you!

You quickly snap out of your thoughts as you hear a voice come from close to your right side. Eyes going from your laptop to the speaker, you realize it’s the boy next to you that spoke.

“Hey, just so you know I think your bag is caught on the chair, and looks like it’ll spill…”

His voice is more light and melodic than you anticipated from his angular features, but you don’t really fully process the thought before you realize that yes, your bag is precariously hanging from the edge of the chair between you, and it looks like your notebook and pens are about to end up scattered across the lecture hall. You gasp and grab your bag before it dumps, and lift the strap to untangle it.

“Oh my God, thank you so much, I’m sorry!” Your words rush out of your mouth as you zip the bag to prevent further disaster. How embarrassing, you groan to yourself internally.

He lets out a tinkling giggle, “No worries, happens to the best of us.” Said with a smile, he makes you feel better about the awkward situation almost immediately.

You smile back at him, “I suppose that’s true”. His grin widens a bit at your reply, and you notice his eyes squinch up to the point where they seem to disappear a bit, which you have to admit is incredibly endearing.

“My name’s Jimin!”

“Y/n. Nice to meet you!” Your smile gets larger at his introduction, it’s nice to be making a friend in a class that you already feel out of your depth in, and not to mention one that is as kind and not at all bad to look at.

“You too! So, what year are you? I’m a second year.” His smile never left his face.

“Oh, I’m only a first year actually!” You hated having to tell people you were a new student, honestly, but you kept your smile hoping he wouldn’t tease you too hard for it.

“Aw, you’re just a baby! Don’t worry, sunbae will take care of you!” His smile definitely had a cheshire quality to it now.

“Is that a promise sunbaenim?” You smirked back at him. While your words were formal, you were quick to pick up his flirty nature and turn it around on him. You saw his eyebrow lift in amusement at the subtle double entendre, and just as he was about to respond, a much louder voice cut him off from the front of the hall.

“Good morning everyone. Welcome to Intro to Composition. I am your professor, Doctor Choi. To my side here is this class’s learning assistant, Yoongi.” At this he swings his arm around to gesture to a boy giving a flat smile and nodding his head in greeting, his hands in his front pockets in a kind of forced relaxed stance.

“He is a fourth year student and is here to answer any questions you may have about the class material, as this is a rather large class.” The professor continues on, but you only give it partial attention, half because of already reading the syllabus, and half because you were getting a good look at the LA he introduced.

Yoongi was standing towards the wall of the auditorium, seemingly not wanting to be the center of attention. He wouldn’t have pulled your attention so much if it wasn’t for his gorgeous feline-like features that gave him an elegance, despite his slightly awkward demeanor. The glasses perched on his nose and the dark bangs swooped gently over his forehead gave beautiful contrast to his pale skin and pink lips. The silver hoops in his ears that reflected the overhead fluorescents gave him more of an edgy vibe, and it seemed to suit him well.

As it seems, Jimin thought so too. You turned to glance at your new friend to see him eyeing the LA you yourself was just examining. You watched him pull in one of his plush lips to pull it lightly with his top teeth. The quick action made you lift your brow in amusement. The introverted LA appeared to have a fan club in you and Jimin. After a quick glance around the room, you saw most of everyone beginning to type notes or watch your professor with way more attention than you or Jimin were giving him.

At this, you quickly refocused on the lecturer. Lord knows you need to pay attention to do well in this class with the zero experience you had with the material.

----

75 minutes later, the distinct sound of students shuffling as they put away their things and exit the room rings out. You and Jimin follow suit.

“What do you think of the first project that he introduced today? I’m a little nervous to be honest.” You look up from your bent over position to see Jimin’s eyebrows slightly furrowed as he expresses his concern.

“Yeah, me too. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing with this stuff so it’ll definitely be a learning process.” Slipping into a conversation about the class was completely natural to you two. It seemed you two clicked as friends right off the bat.

“Tell me about it. I’m a freaking dance major, not a music major!” He let out a grown and tipped his head back as you both walked together out of the lecture hall.

“My advisor recommended this course to me because she said that some dance majors find it useful to learn about music construction, because it can help them be better at moving to the music. And because I tend to focus on contemporary, it makes sense. I’m just worried about not doing well in the class itself.” As he spoke, his face slipped into a cute pout.

His pout made you giggle, which you tried holding back behind your hand but he heard you before you were able to.

“What is so funny? Is my life struggle really that comedic to you hoobae?” He couldn’t hide the smile on his face, knowing how dramatic he was being. The slight giggle in his tone gave him away too.

“Of course not, I would never belittle your struggles, sunbae. You must have it so hard. Dancing requires an immense amount of brainpower, I don’t know how you are able to walk around with how big your brain is!” You widen your eyes for dramatic flair as you fight your lips from quirking up.

He stops dead in his tracts, and turns to you with his eyes nearly bulging out of his head at your sarcastic reply.

“Ya! Kids these days show no respect for their elders!” He bumps his hip into yours after catching up to you, “I’ll have you know I was class president for nine years in school! And valedictorian! And this is how I get treated!”

You make a noise of surprise in the back of your throat and turn to him. “Were you really, sunbae? That’s amazing!” His easy-going attitude definitely didn’t leave you with the impression that he was that dedicated to his studies.

Now slightly sheepish, he shrugs. “Yeah, it’s true. I was a model student back then.”

Looking forward, he gives a bit of a bitter smile to himself. “You are wondering why I became a dance major, I imagine.”

Sensing the slight sensitivity to the topic, you shake your head as you answer, “Well, who am I to judge who does what major when I can’t even decide on one for myself?” You give him a shy smile.

By this point, you were both strolling down the brick path connecting the buildings of campus together, the bite of winter still remaining in the wind that blows your hair off your face on the otherwise sunny day.

He turns to look at you, with a slightly more evaluative gaze. You only hold eye contact for a second before moving your eyes forward again, trying to avoid blushing under his attention.

“You have time. Don’t force yourself into a path that others make for you.” His face was contemplative, and it seemed like he might have been speaking from personal experience.

“That’s good advice sunbae. Maybe your brain really is super big.” Your attempt to make him smile again works, and he lightly pushes your shoulder.

“Brat!” You can’t help but to let out a loud giggle, to which he lets out his own.

Seeing the street you needed to turn on for your next task of the day, you go to say goodbye to Jimin. “Well, this brat has to go buy groceries, so she’ll see you later.” You go to turn away, but before you can, he grabs your hand.

“You’re just going to leave your new friend without giving him a way to contact you? What if he has some pressing composition questions, huh? What is he to do then?” The teasing tone makes you smile.

“Well, if I remember correctly the LA you were checking out earlier is at your disposal sunbae.” He sputters for a couple seconds, pink coming to his cheeks making your smile widen, taking pleasure in catching him off guard.

“Okay, but you can’t tell me he isn’t yummy y/n!”

At this, you let out a cackle and bend over from the force of your laugh. You didn’t expect his answer, but you did have to agree with him. That LA, Yoongi his name is you think, definitely is yummy. He is gorgeous in an understated way.

After you finish laughing, you relent. “Okay, I’ll give you that. I’ll spare you the embarrassment of asking the yummy LA your dumb questions. Hand me your phone”.

He pulls his phone out of his canvas tote, holding his laptop and what looks like a textbook. You quickly type in your contact information, and hand it back to him.

“I appreciate your pity on my poor soul, y/n.”

“It’s more pity on Yoongi’s soul, actually.” You have to raise your voice as you are already walking away as you reply, your head turned over your shoulder. Your smile is met with a shake of his head and a tongue sticking out in your direction.

You laugh as you continue on towards the grocery store, happy that you were able to make such a good friend on just the first day of classes. Who knows what the rest of the semester has in store for you, if this is just day one, you think to yourself. Only time will tell.

[sweetheartjeongguk]

tough luck

pairing: jungkook x reader

genre: harry potter au, fluff, crack

rating: pg-13 (cursing)

warning(s): brief mentions of vomiting, jungkook making a fool of himself

word count: 5.1k+

summary: rule number one: always check the expiration date of potions. rule number two: never trust kim seokjin with anything. 

masterlist

Since his arrival at the age of 11 to the illustrious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Jungkook’s made quite the name for himself.

At the tender (and awkward) age of fifteen, he became the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team. He’s excelling in nearly of all of his classes except Potions – in his defense, Slughorn really has it out for him. With bright doe eyes and a cute bunny smile, Jungkook could get out of anything faster than you can say “Dumbledore!”. Thanks to his tightknit group of friends, Hogwarts has really become his second home.

But there are two things that Jungkook could never get right, no matter how hard he tries – passing Potions class and talking to you.

He despises Potions with his entire being. His strengths lie on the more physical classes like Defense Against the Dark Arts or Quidditch. Hell, he even prefers learning about tea leaves in Divination than brewing random concoctions with the one man that can’t stand his presence. His philosophy is that he could always purchase some readymade potions during his visits to Diagon Alley – no need to complicate his life further by forcing his mediocre hand at a skill he’s severely lacking in. Slughorn even said so himself – he and Jungkook, like water and oil, will never mix.

You, on the other hand, are a different story.

Unlike Jungkook, you aren’t known to be in the spotlight. While you have a nice cluster of friends who you could count on for moral support during OWLs and cheap firewhiskey at end-of-the-year parties, you’re usually always alone with your nose in a book and your head in the clouds. Even your parents have had to remind you to get out of bed and be productive instead of staying in bed with a new novel nestled between the pillows. Unlike Jungkook who lives and breathes Quidditch, you prefer activities that require both feet on the ground. While most of it has to do with the fact that you had a near-death experience at a Quidditch match when you were 7 years old, it also stems from your ordinary distaste for physical activity. Why risk your life hundreds of feet up in the air on a flimsy broomstick when you can have just as much as fun at ground level?

Almost all of your friends disagree with you.

You’re also Professor Slughorn’s unofficial protege, his very own teacher’s pet. You suspect that it’s mainly because he found your endless lineage of wealthy and famous pureblooded Slytherins a rather attractive feat, but he also sheds credit on your seemingly effortless potion making. The skill was passed down to you from your mother and her mother before her, and it just made sense that you would be the one to carry the metaphorical torch.  

To him and many other admirers (Jungkook’s definitely not jealous about that), you’re the pride and joy of Slytherin House, and rightfully so. You have the attitude, the drive, and the intelligence, checking all the boxes of not only a model Slytherin but a respectable Hogwarts student. Jungkook should have disliked you – after all, you’re a Slytherin, the infamous rival of Gryffindor House. While the stereotypes and mutual hatred has drastically declined over the years, there’s still residual competitiveness between the two houses.

If only it wasn’t for his massive, not-so subtle crush on you since first year.

“I still don’t understand how she hasn’t noticed your obnoxious staring yet.” Taehyung snorts as he practically inhales the plate of rice and meat. “You’ve got to learn to be subtle. I can only take so much secondhand embarrassment from you before it just turns into pity.”

“What are you talking about?” Jungkook frowns, his lips drooping into a pitiful pout. “I’m just blanking out about something, that’s all.”

“Dude, you’ve been staring at her at the Slytherin table for the past twenty minutes, and I’m 99.9% sure you haven’t even blinked.”

At this, Jungkook forces his eyes to close, not even noticing how dry and sore they feel. Was he really looking at you for that long?

“Whatever.” Jungkook mutters as he turns to his own meal, pushing his vegetables around with his fork. “She probably doesn’t even notice me anyway...”

“It’s not really a question of her noticing you, but more a question of her even liking you.” Jimin laughs, rolling up the sleeves of his emerald green robes as he reaches across the table for two more bread rolls and a hefty serving of mashed potatoes.

Taehyung shoots the blonde Slytherin a sharp glare, but the latter’s too preoccupied with shoveling potatoes into his cheeks that he fails to notice the looming darkness over Jungkook’s face. With a sigh, Taehyung attempts at an encouraging smile.

“Don’t worry kiddo, she’s probably just shy herself.” Taehyung shrugs. “Once you go up and talk to her, I’m sure that—”

“H-Hyung, I can’t just do that!” Jungkook blanches white.

“Why not?” Jimin raises an eyebrow, cheeks still puffy with food. “It’s easy. All you got to do is t—”

“Hyung…” Jungkook whines in a borderline childish tone.  

How pathetic would he sound if he explains to his two best friends, who are both equally outgoing and unafraid to go out of their way to get what they want, that he feels as though his whole world would collapse into a giant abyss at the thought of sharing a conversation with you? That the only words you’ve ever exchanged with him were “Hey, can you pass me that?” and “Y-Yeah, sure”? That since then, he’s been afraid to utter another word to you in fear of looking like a complete fool?

“Kook, you good?” Jimin asks, mild concern in his voice. “You don’t have, I was just s—”

“Nothing!” Jungkook squeaks in panic. “Nothing! I’m fine, I’ll…find a way, I guess.”

Fortunately for Jungkook, Jimin got the hint, and the conversation about you becomes a thing of the past as they all fall into a deep debate about who is going to beat who in the upcoming Quidditch World Cup. Jungkook forces himself to stop glancing at your table, but he still can’t help but catch a glimpse every so often when Jimin and Taehyung weren’t looking. His blood rushes a little faster in his ears when he catches sight of you, face shoved close towards the pages of your textbook and your hand scribbling across a blank piece of parchment. He smiles to himself, you must have been cramming for one of your classes and couldn’t find time outside of lunch to do it.  

Around you, your friends are engaged in an intense gossip and laughing at the top of their lungs, but you barely pay them any attention. You’re completely ignorant to your surroundings as you delve deeper in the chapters and the practically incomprehensive material. There’s a tingle at the back of your neck, as if someone’s watching you closely, but you ignore it.

It’s probably nothing, like always.

“You know, it’s getting kinda sad seeing you mope over a girl like this, especially a Slytherin. What’s holding you back?”

Jungkook ignores the frustrated tone of his older friend Namjoon as he shuffles around the bedroom in search of his Quidditch padding. Namjoon lives in another section of the dormitory where the upperclassmen stay in since he’s a year away from graduating while Jungkook rooms with other underclassmen who still have a couple more years left in their Hogwarts education. He’s laid on his side on top of Jungkook’s bed, smushing his side of his face against the horde of pillows the younger boy keeps stacked against the headboard.

“Time’s ticking, Kookie…” Namjoon says mockingly. “Tick tock, tick tock, tick—”

“Are you done?” Jungkook grumbles in annoyance. He finally finds the missing padding and shoves it deep inside his training bag. “The opportunity just hasn’t…arisen yet. That’s all, no big deal.”

“Oh no, I can keep going with this.” Namjoon smirks, pulling a pillow against his chest. “I’ll keep asking for as long as I’m here if it’ll get you to untangle your asshairs and talk to her, for crying out loud. I can’t keep being seen with you if you keep disappointing me like this.”

Jungkook grimaces at the mental image flashing across his vision. “You and Seokjin hyung are literally one and the same. Also, how is it any of your business who I talk to?”

“First of all, hyung and I practically raised you. Second of all, I have every right to know who you’re potentially going to spend the rest of your life with.” Namjoon pauses to beam up at Jungkook in equal parts sarcasm and genuineness. “If I don’t make it my business, who will?”

“Literally everyone else. You all share one brain cell, remember?” Jungkook sighs exasperatedly. “I’ve finally got Jimin off my back last night, I don’t need him to be reminded again.”

“Be careful with what you say, Kook.” Namjoon points out cockily. “Who knows, maybe one of us will shoot their shot and snatch your witch from you.”

“Do that and I will make sure you never graduate, hyung!”

“Aw, how romantic. I’ll be sure to mention it in my best man speech at your wedding!”

Weeks go by, and still no progress on Jungkook’s part. He still watches you from afar, albeit less often now that he knows his entire friend group has their eye on him, hoping that he’ll finally grow the balls to ask you out. Namjoon even contacted Seokjin and their other friend Yoongi at their jobs in the Ministry about the situation which ended up in the two aurors-in-training sending Jungkook a Howler with the booming message of “Ask her out already, dick head!”

Since then, the Gryffindor has been on edge. He doesn’t want to force himself into speaking to you because for all he knows, he’s just going to choke on his words or worse, vomit all over you just as he did to an entire row of parents at his kindergarten play about planting more trees. The traumatic memory of his classmates’ laughter and the acidic aftertaste lingers in both the back of his mind and the back of his mouth.

Shivering under the frigid draft inside the library, Jungkook forces himself to concentrate as he continues writing down notes on his parchment. His essay on the usefulness of memory potions is due the following class period, and all of the intensive Quidditch practices and constant afterparties inside Gryffindor Tower prevented him from completing it earlier in the month. Slughorn already despises him enough, so adding fuel to the fire isn’t going to help – even if he does share a mutual hatred for the professor and could care less about his opinion towards him at this point.

Who knows, maybe if he whips out an incredible essay that reaches the masses and inspires all of the wizarding community, you’ll be so impressed and agree to go out on a date with him which would eventually lead to getting married and buying a house and—

Jungkook shakes himself loose from his thoughts before he could fall back into an embarrassing daydream about you (again). Flipping through the pages of the Potions textbook, his eyes trace over the chapter titles in the table of contents in search for the Memory section when one header catches his eye.

Luck Potions.

His curiosity is instantly peaked. After making note of the page number, he flips through the middle of the book until he lands on the page he’s looking for. Squinting at the tiny print, Jungkook runs the subsection below the title.

The most common form of luck potion is felix felicis, also known as liquid luck! When brewed correctly, it increases the luck of the drinker. A little help from this potion, and a bad day turns into a great day!

His index finger taps the paper in contemplation as he skims through the rest of the section, making note of the history, ingredients, and wand movements for brewing. The ingredients would definitely be hard to come by, considering that he’s still at school and he doubts that Slughorn would lend him ingredients like Murtlap tentacle and Ashwinder egg so easily.

His heart sinks even lower when he reads the brewing time for the potion.

Brewing time: 6 months.

“I don’t have time for that.” He whispers in anguish. “What to do, what to do…”

The girl across the table from him shoots him a weird look, lifting her textbook closer to her face and shoving two earbuds inside as Jungkook continues muttering inaudible words under his breath.

At this point, Jungkook wouldn’t be surprised if he finds out that life’s rigged itself against him on purpose. He’s ready to give up, turn the page, and get back to work on the assignment he was meant to be writing for the past two hours, but for some reason, he stops himself. The fancy golden script at the top of the page is almost too tempting to shy away from, its ornate glow enticing him to continue reading. He can hear his friends’ voices now, pleading with him to rethink his plan of brewing a high-level potion with his mediocre skills.

But how hard could it be, really? Besides, it’s not like he has to complete the potion by himself.  

In fact, he knows just the person to ask.

After slamming his textbook closed and alarming the same girl at his table into a full-bodied flinch, he dashes out of the library and in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, ignoring the calls of “Hey, Jungkook!” and “Hey Cap, when’s the next practice?”. When he’s finally safe and sound in his bedroom, albeit struggling to catch his breath, Jungkook rips a jagged piece of paper from his notebook with a quill already in hand.

Dear Seokjin hyung, I have a HUGE favor to ask, but don’t tell Namjoon and the others…

“Y/N, how delightful to see you, my dear! Have you met my colleague, Archimedes? He’s one of my old friends from Hogwarts, he works at the Ministry now as their Head Auror.”

Once again, you find yourself plucked from the comfort of your dormitory bed and into the uncomfortable atmosphere of a Slughorn dinner party. He had invited you a few days ago, claiming that you just had to join him and the rest of your classmates for his holiday dinner. This was his slyly obvious way of slipping your accomplishments towards his peers while also capitalizing on your success as if he was the reason for it all.

While you know the man has good intentions, it wouldn’t kill him to back off just a tad – just enough for you to breathe, at least.

“Professor Slughorn, always a pleasure indeed. And no, I have not, but it’s a pleasure to meet you as well.” You twist your lips into what you hope looks like a polite smile. “How can I be of your assistance tonight, sir?”

“Oh, darling, no need to be so formal!” His large pot belly jiggles as he laughs wholeheartedly. “Tonight’s all about celebration! Just relax, enjoy the night! Oh look, there’s a few of my colleagues I wish for you to meet, if you don’t mind.”

“O-Oh, that sounds—”

“Horace!” A voice calls out from the other end of the room, successfully pulling Slughorn’s attention away from you.

This gives you the perfect opportunity to bolt, sneaking behind a gaggle of students in stuffy wizard robes as you make your way towards your friends who have been leaning against the backwall the entire time with looks of intense boredom plastered on their face.

“There you are, I thought Slughorn successfully kidnapped you this time.” Sooyoung smirks jokingly, both hands occupied with a champagne flute filled with cider and a tiny plate of hors d’oeuvres. “It’s nice to see that you’re still in one piece.”

“Barely.” You sigh tiredly as you reach to grab a cool glass of Butterbeer from your friend Sana. “Please hide me for the rest of the night, I’ll pay you five galleons.”

“Lies, you don’t have five galleons.” Sooyoung scoffs. “I should know, I was the one dusting off the cobwebs from your piggy bank the other night.”

You pout in defeat. “I’ll look over your dog for the weekend!”

Sooyoung sends you a strange grimace. “I don’t even have a dog, we’re not even allowed dog—”

“Please?”

“Maybe you should ask Jeon for some assistance. He looks more than willing.” Sana interjects with a giggle.

Your two friends beam in amusement at the redness blossoming across your skin. It’s a known fact in your friend group that you horde a small (ginormous) crush on Jeon Jungkook, the infamous Quidditch captain and golden boy of Gryffindor.

Growing up in a Slytherin household means that your parents hold extremely high expectations of you. Under their eyes, you’re to marry into another Slytherin household, continuing your legacy with your future generations. While they’ve become lax with their views on your non-Slytherin, non-pureblooded friends as well as with your plans of traveling the world after graduation instead of deciding on an arranged marriage like they had hoped, you’re not sure how they would react towards your attraction to a Gryffindor half-blood.  

“You’re not funny, Sana.” You hiss in response, brows furrowed into an embarrassed frown.

“This time, I’m not even joking.” Sana hums knowingly. “If you don’t believe me, look for yourself.”

Eventually, your stubbornness forces you to break from your hesitation and shoot your gaze to where Sana was looking. You first notice Jungkook’s Gryffindor friend Taehyung who’s too preoccupied in making a fool of himself by the punch bowl with his weird dance moves. The other friend and a fellow Slytherin, Jimin, cheers him on, falling back against Jungkook in full-bodied laughter. Shifting your stare to the left of him, your breath hitches in your throat when you meet two wide eyes.

“Told you so.” Sana smirks as she takes a sip of her Butterbeer. “Now, that will be five galleons.”

You definitely noticed him staring at you, and now you’re the one doing the staring. Jungkook’s eyes dart back and forth between you and his friends, the panic rising in his chest. The others are too distracted in their dancing to notice his dilemma. While he’s somewhat relieved that he doesn’t have to deal with his friends going into an entire teasing session, a little help would still be nice.

A little help.

As if a lightbulb dings to life above his head, Jungkook instantly reaches into his pocket inside his blue dress robes and tugs out the small vial of a glittery golden liquid. Seokjin had sent him the potion via owl that morning, along with a note with the message “Use wisely”. He sighs in relief when he notices that it was still filled to the brim, no sign of leakage or contamination whatsoever.  

After Jungkook had sent him the letter detailing his you-related anxieties, Seokjin had quickly written Jungkook back with his plan. In exchange for Jungkook’s undying devotion (or his soul, in Jungkook’s opinion), Seokjin would contact one of his friends for a vial, making sure to send it over as soon as possible. Instead of risking expulsion by stealing from Slughorn’s store and potentially creating a faulty and dangerous potion, Seokjin would rely on the help from one of his trusted associates.

“Don’t worry about it! I’ve been buying from him for years, and he hasn’t let me down since!”

There’s no more time left to waste.

With a quick pop of the cap, he discreetly chugs the potion down, its gilded warmth running smoothly down his throat before spreading across his chest and settling inside his stomach. At first, nothing happens. In fact, it’s nearly so anticlimactic that Jungkook feels a frustrated flood of tears in his eyes. What if the potion Seokjin gave him turns out to be a placebo, and his true plan was all a means for Jungkook to learn his lesson about being more confident in himself?

Then, like a brick to the face, it hits him.

“Woah!”

Jimin and Taehyung snap out of their loud laughter at the sudden outburst. Their expressions grow more inquisitive when they notice Jungkook standing motionless and staring at his palms as if they were about to catch on fire at any moment.

“You okay there, Kook?” Taehyung asks warily.  

Their concern grows exponentially when slowly, Jungkook’s mouth twitches into a large grin. A grin too toothy and too stretched out across his face, an image not unlike a clown or a creepy doll. The sight sends uncomfortable shivers up Jimin’s spine.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jungkook sighs airily. “Everything is just so swell!”

“Um…okay?” Taehyung shares a look with Jimin. “Do…you need us to get you anything? Some water?”

“Nope!” Jungkook smiles cheerily, his arms swaying from side to side while lifting up and down on his heels. “Thank you for asking, you two are truly the greatest friends a guy like me could ever ask for.”

“Okay, this is weird.” Jimin whispers into Taehyung’s ear. “He was literally panicking a second ago. Also, he’d never say that about us. He’s too much a little shit.”

“Did you sneak some firewhiskey into his goblet or something?” Taehyung mutters back, receiving a brisk shake of the head. “Someone must have spiked his goblet or something, but it wasn’t me.”

Jungkook’s entire body feels alight with fireworks, the anxiety that once riddles his chest and floods his thoughts dissipating like a thinning fog. He takes a moment to absorb his surroundings, humming at the intricate holiday decorations strung about the room and at every passing person. He’s completely immune to their weird sneers and not-so quiet whispering, his mind traveling back to his only purpose of the night.

There’s nothing much left to lose anyway.

With a quick deep breath in and out, Jungkook strides towards the other side of the room, ignorant towards his older friends’ panicked exclaims as the distance between you and him closes dramatically. His eyes glitter with excitement when you finally notice him approaching, the glass of Butterbeer in your hand slowly dropping from your peach-stained lips. Your friends nearly burst at the seams when Jungkook stops a mere foot away from you, the obnoxiously wide smile tightening his flushed cheeks.

Inside, your heart is beating at a thousand miles per minute. Never in your life did you ever think Jeon Jungkook would ever have the desire to come up to have a conversation. At first, you brushed it off as a trick of the light, but now with him standing in front of you with an expectant glint, it’s almost good to be true.

“Why, hello Jungkook, it’s wonderful to see you here.” You don’t miss the double meaning behind Sooyoung’s words. “I’m surprised you were even invited, considering the fact that Slughorn hates your guts.”

“Oh, that!” Sooyoung flinches at Jungkook’s loud tone. “Yeah, he didn’t invite me. I just tagged along with Taehyung since he got an invitation.”

“Oh, like a date?” You mutter teasingly, instantly flooding with regret when your voice comes off as bland. Also…

What kind of stupid comment is that?!

Thankfully, Jungkook catches onto your joke and gleams back at you. “He wishes, but I just so happen to have my eye on someone else.”

“Is that so?” You nearly choke on your own tongue. A quick gulp of Butterbeer is enough to soothe your dry throat. “They’re a lucky one.”

“If anything, I’m the lucky one.” Jungkook sighs dreamily, crossing his arms behind his back and swaying from side to side. You freeze when you feel his body tilt closer to yours. “They’re one of a kind, and I hope that tonight I can finally—”

Jungkook squawks to a stop. Literally.

You recoil at the unexpected noise, watching warily as Jungkook holds his throat in embarrassment.

What was that?

“Are…you okay?” You ask. Your hand twitches as if it wants to lift up and grasp Jungkook’s shoulder, but your other hand comes around to hold it in place, forcing it by your side.  

“Yes, I’ll be fi—” Another squawk. “What the fu—” Squawk. “Hyung! Help—” The birdlike screech is never-ending, but slowly a feeling of dread washes over Jungkook.

A majority of the party is already watching the mess of a situation from the corner of their eyes, whispering to each other and giggling snootily to themselves. Jungkook barely hears you shouting his name alongside Jimin and Taehyung as he turns to make a run for the exit, his focus only on getting far away from the party and you as possible.

His hands clench into angry fists as he slows down into a tired stroll in the school’s courtyard. It’s completely barren, the grass topped with a thick layer of frost and the hanging torches illuminating each pathway. The snow crunches underneath Jungkook’s boots as he stomps away to a bench, brushing off the frozen excess before sitting down with a thud. He regrets not bringing a warmer robe, but he also didn’t expect to have to run out in the middle of the party after making a total fool of himself in front of not just you but everyone in attendance.

“Why, why, why?” Jungkook shoves his chilly face into his palms. “I’m such an idiot.”

The potion was supposed to be a success! Seokjin said so, even going out by saying that he completely trusted the guy and that Jungkook had nothing to worry about. At least Jungkook knows what’s next on his to-do list tomorrow.

Number one: Kick the shit out of Seokjin hyung for selling me bogus luck potions.

Rubbing at his temples, he lets out another sigh.

“Why is it always me?”

“Why, indeed…”

His head shoots up at the voice beside him, shocking him out of his pitiful mumblings. His throat swells up and his chest seizes in panic at the sight of you in your thin cardigan and strapless dress, seated next to him on the tiny, frost-bitten bench with your arms crossed over your chest.

“O-Oh, h-hi.” Jungkook spits nervously.

Still afraid that the screeching sounds would start again, he keeps his words to a minimum.

“Any reason why you ran out on me back there?” Your voice subtly wavers, but thankfully Jungkook would just think it’s from the cold. “Gave us a little scare, especially your friends. They asked me to go check on you.”

Jungkook slightly crumbles. So, you were forced to talk to him.

“I also kinda feel like it was partially my fault, so if there’s anything that I did…” You trail off awkwardly.

Jungkook shakes his head. “Oh, no, no!” He clears his throat as he feels the familiar build of a squawk in his throat. “It’s not you, it’s—”

“Me?” You scoff jokingly. “I’m not a half-blood or Muggle-born, but I know my fair share of Muggle rejections.”

“U-Uh, I didn’t mean it like that!” Jungkook stammers fretfully. “It’s just that…”

“It’s just…what?” You frown.

How does one explain to the girl that he likes that the only way he could speak to her was through a luck potion that gave him just enough confidence to mutter two coherent words? You’d just look at him like he’s a complete fool – rightfully so. Then, you’d walk right back to the party, cackle about the situation to your friends, and never speak to him again.

Yup, sounds about right to him.

He’s sick of it, sick of having to watch from a distance because he’s too much of a coward to tell you that you’re beautiful to your face. Too much of a coward to reach out to hold your hand, feeling its softness in his own rough, calloused palm. Too much of a coward to tell you how he truly feels.

Suddenly, like a dam bursting under pressure, his rambling thoughts spill out of his mouth.

“I’m so, so, so, so into you and I think that you’re such an amazing person, but I’ve never talked to you before and it’d be weird to just go up to you and ask if you could be my girlfriend because hey, weirdo! So, I thought it would be a good idea to make a luck potion but I’m completely shite at potions, everybody knows this, so I wrote to my friend Seokjin hyung about it and—”

As Jungkook babbles on at lightspeed, he barely registers the growing happiness on your face, the rosy tint in your cheeks not caused by the chilly winter air, and the twitching of your fingers towards his own.

“—But I’m pretty sure that he sold me a wonky potion anyway which means there’s just going to be a huge lawsuit on his hands because what if I died, you know?! Even though I don’t want Seokjin hyung to be responsible for it because hey, I’m still just a kid—”

Jungkook is frozen stiff when he feels supple lips against his, effectively muffling his words and drawing him back into reality. Suddenly, he feels the breeze against his face, the scent of your flowery perfume in his nose, your frigid fingers seeking warmth with his, and more importantly – your lips against his.

Slowly, he melts into your touch, eyelids fluttering closed and mouth moving in tandem with yours. After a couple minutes of soft kisses and gentle hand caresses, you let go, wet lips smacking together as you pull away. You giggle when you see that Jungkook still has his eyes closed, lips puckered, and hand stretched outwards to grab yours.

“You’re cute, but you talk too much.” You land a tiny peck on the tip of his nose. “Also, I’m pretty sure your friend either gave you a badly expired potion or sent you a babbling potion on purpose.”

“Hyung.” Jungkook growls as the possibilities settle in. It’s not unlike Seokjin to do that, especially when it came to someone like Jungkook who he personally enjoyed watching crash and burn. “I’ll be writing him a very detailed letter.”

“Or…” You lean over to intertwine your hands. “We can send him a horde of Howlers, one for each day of the week until he caves.”

Jungkook falls into a mischievous smirk. “You really are a Slytherin, are you?”

“Go on a date with me next weekend, I’ll show you how much of a Slytherin I can be.”

[louthegreatfurrry]

let the light guide your way, Pt.3

Harry stares down at the letter in his hands. The paper – parchment, part of him thinks, that’s surely parchment – is thick and heavy.

“What’s taking so long, boy?” Uncle Vernon calls, and Harry casts a quick glance over his shoulder before refocusing on the letter.

Mr. H. Potter stares up at him in green ink.

Harry has only received letters once or twice before, and they were always from school or the library. The few times it had happened, Uncle Vernon had confiscated it immediately. They had only been handed over to Harry after being thoroughly squinted at.

Something about this letter seems terribly, incredibly important. Maybe it’s the weight of it in his hands. Maybe it’s the seal at the back. Maybe Harry just wants something personal, for once.

“Coming, Uncle Vernon!” he calls, quietly slipping the letter in through the blinds on his cupboard door. He’s going to read that later, when he has time, and when the Dursleys have left the house for the evening.

He suffers through the day, working quicker than usual to finish his assigned tasks. Aunt Petunia squints suspiciously at him, but she shrugs it off and lets him go. Finally, finally Harry’s allowed to retreat to the familiar darkness of his room.

The letter turns out to be way shorter than expected. It’s also a bit underwhelming. Why would they write with green ink anyway? It makes it so much harder to read in the dim darkness…

Harry should probably find a letter telling him he’s a wizard to be a bit more concerning than he does. He should also probably think it’s a joke. Or someone messing with him. Or – well – something, surely!

Instead there’s something that just… clicks. He nods to himself. It feels… right.

We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Now, that doesn’t feel quite as right. An owl? Where do they expect him to find an owl? Is he supposed to go into the wilderness and catch one?

He worries his lip for a bit. Maybe he can mail it back – but no, he got no return address.

Right. Maybe it is a trick, after all. Nothing but a dumb joke played by Dudley and his friends.

Harry stuffs the letter into his pillowcase, knowing Aunt Petunia won’t change his bed anyway. He can’t bring himself to get rid of it completely – and neither can he rid himself of the nagging feeling that the letter is genuine.

But, Harry reminds himself as he desperately tries to extinguish that flare of hope, he can’t contact this Headmaster Dumbledore either way. His heart does sink, a tiny bit, but it’s a lost case. There’s really no way for him to do anything.

He closes the cupboard door behind him and does not look back.

*

Three days later Harry sits on his knees in the backyard, dirt up to his elbows as he works on repotting some of Aunt Petunia’s favorite flowers. The sun’s been beating down on his neck the whole day, and he hasn’t been allowed any sunscreen, so he’s sure to develop a sunburn now.

Grumbling darkly to himself – Harry never liked those flowers anyway – he resigns himself to have a burning neck for a few days.

“B – Harry!” Aunt Petunia calls.

Harry looks up, surprised. She only ever calls him that when they have guests – and if they have guests, she’d want him to be a bit more respectable than he is now…

Grimacing down at his muddy pants, Harry tries his best to brush off the mud before rubbing his hands together to rid them of excess dirt. Then he hurries into the kitchen, careful to leave his shoes by the door so he won’t stomp filth all over the floor.

Aunt Petunia is white as a sheet when she gives him a nervous little smile.

Glancing behind her, Harry can see why.

He blinks at the very, very small man sitting on the couch, then hurries to look at Aunt Petunia again. She doesn’t like it when he stares at strangers.

Aunt Petunia looks even more strained now than before. “This is Mister… Flitwick,” she says, and despite her best efforts her mouth tightens a bit at what she likely finds to be a terribly abnormal surname. “He’s here to talk to you about… school.”

Something tells Harry that the only reason Mister Flitwick was allowed inside was because the neighbours would stare otherwise. “Pleased to meet you, sir,” he says, nodding in Mister Flitwick’s direction. Manners are important, he knows.

“And I you, Mr. Potter!” Mister Flitwick says in a very, very small voice that fits his very, very small body. “I am to be your Charms Professor at Hogwarts – and I must apologize, on behalf of Headmaster Dumbledore, for sending you a letter and not a representative right away.”

Harry perks up, chest expanding to make space for the burst of light within him. “You’re from Hogwarts?” he asks, and his voice trembles. Then he hurries to add a meek, “sir,” upon feeling Aunt Petunias’ burning gaze on his already sore neck.

Apparently, Aunt Petunia’s anger hadn’t been because of Harry’s lack of manners. “But – but – but we never said – ” She cuts herself off, pressing a hand to her throat. When she speaks again, her voice raises into a sharp squeak. “You got a letter?”

Oh, no – he’s going to be punished for that now. Ducking his head to avoid her gaze, he allows himself a small nod. “Yes, Aunt Petunia.”

She mumbles something suspiciously like ‘so glad Vernon is at work’ under her breath. “Mister… Flitwick,” she says, louder now – and again making a face as though she just bit into a lemon. “The – Harry, here, will not be joining your school.”

Harry’s suddenly thrown back to what feels like ages ago, sitting in the cupboard on bruised knees reading green ink and tasting such wonderful, glorious hope on his tongue. Then the bitterness drowns it, the disappointment and anger with himself for believing, and now – now he’s been given that hope back, and Aunt Petunia tries to take it away from him?

Mister Flitwick glances over at him, and perhaps he sees the way Harry’s fingers have tightened on the cloth of his pants, for he dips his head and looks back to Aunt Petunia. “You say that as though you have any choice in the matter,” he says cheerfully. “Lily and James wanted him there, and so do the teachers.” He looks over at Harry and shows him the most genuine smile Harry has ever seen. “All of us.”

Aunt Petunia stares at him with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. When Mister Flitwick pulls out a wooden twig – a wand, Harry’s mind helpfully supplements him – she seems to sink into the chair. “Yes, well, when you put it like that…” she very nearly squeaks.

Chuckling, Mister Flitwick gives his wand a little twirl, after which a scroll of… not paper, but parchment, appears in the air. He plucks it down and unrolls it, quickly skimming through its contents. “I came here with the orders to discuss the plans for young Harry with you, Mrs. Dursley,” Mister Flitwick says, and from his position by the door, Harry can see the way his lips curl in an amused smile. “Though now it appears I’m here to tell you about the plans.”

Aunt Petunia pales a few shades more – and surely, she must be about to reach maximum paleness – but nods, nonetheless. Admittedly, the nod is a bit shaky, but at least it’s a nod.

“Right,” Mister Flitwick says, clearing his throat. “I will return in two days’ time to bring Mr. Potter to Diagon Alley – that is, a Wizarding shopping street where he will be able to purchase everything he’ll need for school. He will be handed a ticket to the Hogwarts Express, which leaves for Hogwarts the 1st of September at 11 o’clock precisely. It leaves from King’s Cross in London, at Platform 9¾.” Mister Flitwick looks up at Aunt Petunia, his eyes sharp. “You will make sure Mr. Potter gets to the platform on time. If he does not arrive to school, one of my colleagues or I will bring him there.” He looks down again, but Harry can still see the smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “Not brining him might have… consequences.”

Aunt Petunia nods hurriedly. “Of course,” she allows shakily. “Two days’ time. London the 1st of September.” She swallows, gaze flickering to the clock on the wall. Her knuckles go white where she tightens her hold on the armrests of her chair. “If – if you’ll excuse me, Mister F… Flitwick – my husband will return home soon, and – he would not like seeing you here.”

“I see I have overstepped my welcome,” Mister Flitwick says, hopping down from the couch. The amused creases around his eyes show that he is likely fully aware that he was never welcome in the first place.

Harry notes that he isn’t as short as he seems when he’s standing. He would probably be about Harry’s height, actually.

Mister Flitwick turns to Harry with a bright smile, bowing at the waist. “I’ll see you in two days, Mr. Potter,” he says, and then he spins on his heel and disappears with a crack.

Harry stares at the spot where he stood for a moment.

And then he turns on Aunt Petunia. “You knew?” he says, hands balling into fists.

“Hush, boy,” Aunt Petunia replies, but it lacks the usual malice. She’s still pale, hands trembling slightly as she stares into absolutely nothing. “I… I have to tell Vernon…”

Recognizing a lost fight when he sees one, Harry walks off, grumbling darkly to himself about aunts who can’t take a bit of a surprise.

His heart is already dreaming of magic, and owls, and spells.

*

Later that day, after he’s finished in the garden and dinner and sweeping the hallway he lies in his cupboard and listens to Uncle Vernon’s bellows of rage, followed by Aunt Petunia raising her voice to screech at him – a seemingly fruitless attempt at explaining, or perhaps placating.

Harry rolls over and closes his eyes. It’s not his problem. He’ll be going to school no matter what the Dursleys settle on.

They yell far into the night, and when Harry is torn out of sleep to make breakfast the next morning, Aunt Petunia is grim and Uncle Vernon isn’t looking at either of them.

Still, Harry supposes, it’s better than being thrown out on the street. He eats his bacon in peace.

*

Harry waits anxiously the next day. It occurs to him, while he’s fixing breakfast, that Mister Flitwick hadn’t mentioned when he was arriving – only that he was.

Aunt Petunia seems just as anxious as him, glancing at the clock every ten minuets or so.

Around noon someone knocks on the door. The whole house holds its breath.

“Boy –” Uncle Vernon says.

“I’ll get it!” Harry runs for the door, nearly tripping in his haste. He rips it open, lowers his gaze, and finds that his predictions had been right. The very, very small man called Mister Flitwick is just a little bit shorter than him. “Hello,” he greets, offering him a smile. “Are we going to that street now?”

Mister Flitwick smiles at him. “Diagon Alley, yes,” he says, nodding once. His gaze shifts to something behind Harry, and some of the warmth in his smile dwindles. “Ah, hello again, Mrs. Dursley! I will be taking Mr. Potter to Diagon Alley, now, as we agreed.”

Harry strains his neck to look at Aunt Petunia, who’s clutching the doorframe as though it’s the only thing holding her upright. She looks incredibly disappointed. “Yes,” she says. “Make sure you do. And that you return him in one piece.” There is an attempt – which Harry has to admit is quite the failure, thanks to how she has once again paled – at looking down her nose on Mister Flitwick. “We know how this – this pesky wand waving business is. Dangerous, that is! So. Make sure he comes back whole. Or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Mister Flitwick chuckles. “Of course, Mrs. Dursley. We’ll return no later than twilight.”

It gives them lots of time, Harry notes. It’s summer – twilight won’t arrive for another seven hours, at least. Aunt Petunia looks like she might complain, but Mister Flitwick grabs Harry by the arm and spins with him, and then there’s a terrible sensation of being flushed down the toilet, and then Harry’s standing in the middle of a busy street.

He lets out a yelp and stumbles a bit, but Mister Flitwick merely chuckles and pats his hand a bit. “Not to worry, Mr. Potter,” he says, “everyone reacts a bit poorly to their first apparition.”

Harry isn’t quite sure what to say in response to that, for he’s a bit busy staring at the street unfolding before him. There are people everywhere, wearing tall pointy hats and long robes and chattering on about a dozen different topics. There is a shop for owls, and there one for cauldrons, and there one with books –

“Let’s see, then,” says Mister Flitwick, pulling a piece of parchment out of his robes. “I think we’ll go through this list in order, and then you can go shopping for whatever you like afterwards – how’s that, hm?” He hands Harry the list as he speaks, and Harry takes it with eager hands.

Robes, gloves, cauldrons, books –

a wand.

And he’s allowed to shop freely afterwards? Wherever he wants? Harry takes in the street with something akin to hunger in his stomach. “I would like that very much,” he manages to say. “But – Mister Flitwick, sir, I don’t have any money…”

Mister Flitwick nods, as though he had expected this. “That there,” he says, pointing down to a large marble building further down the street, “is Gringotts, the Wizarding bank. Your parents left you a vault.” He begins to walk down the street, and Harry, not wanting to be left alone in the hustle and bustle of this new and exciting world, hurries to keep up. Not that he needs to hurry a lot – Mister Flitwick has shorter legs than him, after all. “Oh, and Mr. Potter? That’s Professor Flitwick, to you.”

Harry would be ashamed, if it weren’t for the good natured way Mister – Professor Flitwick had said it. As it is, he only nods, mumbles some form of apology, and keeps up.

At the entrance to Gringotts stands two even shorter creatures. “Goblins,” Professor Flitwick explains, exchanging a bow with the goblin to the right. Harry, not wanting to accidentally offend them, bows as well. Professor Flitwick gives him one of his amused looks, but doesn’t comment, so he must’ve done something right.

The trip inside of the bank is, to be quite honest, a bit boring. There’s some to-the-point talk between Professor Flitwick and a goblin, and then they’re walking a bit. The most exciting part has to be the ride down to the Potter vault (Harry doesn’t bother keeping in his whoop of excitement) and the absolute mountains of coins Harry is met with when the vault door opens for him.

He turns to Professor Flitwick with wide eyes. “How – how much can I take?” he asks meekly.

“Wise question!” Professor Flitwick says, his voice rising in pitch with his eagerness. “You should take enough to last the schoolyear, as well as this shopping trip – here, let’s look at it together, shall we?” He walks over to Harry and picks up some of the coins, pointing out a Knut and a Sickle and a Galleon and explaining their worth. Harry nods along, though he doesn’t think he’ll remember how much a Knut is to a Sickle and a Sickle to a Galleon – as long as he remembers which is which, it should be easy enough.

When they leave, Professor Flitwick assures him he has enough for the schoolyear – and probably a little bit extra, he says with a wink.

Harry can almost swear that the goblin escorting them rolls his eyes.

*

Harry squints at the bright light outside of Gringotts. He hadn’t realized it was that dim in there. “What now?” he asks Professor Flitwick, his pouch of newly acquired money jingling by his thigh.

Professor Flitwick hums, pulling out that list again. “Ah, that would be robes,” he says. “Madam Malkin’s would be best for that. Follow me.”

Not long after they’ve found their way into a small shop full of racks and mannequins with all different sorts of robes. Some are long, some short, some simple and some terribly flamboyant. Harry, busy staring around the room, barely hears Professor Flitwick telling the lady at the counter that he’s a “Hogwarts student, the full set.”

They’re both taken to the back room, where Harry is put on a stool. The lady – Madam Malkin – slips a black robe over his head and begins to pin it to the right length. “Which House, dearie?” she asks, not looking up at Harry as she works.

Harry throws Professor Flitwick a flabbergasted look.

Professor Flitwick chuckles. “A first year, ma’am,” he says, and Madam Malkin nods, as though that explains everything. Professor Flitwick then patiently explains the four Houses of Hogwarts, into which all the first years are sorted on their first day. “What house do you think you’ll be in, Mr. Potter?” he asks, something like curiosity to his voice.

Before Harry can open his mouth to answer (“I don’t know”) Madam Malkin stiffens. “Mister – Mister Potter?” she repeats, looking up at Harry as if he just saved her dog from drowning. “Harry Potter?”

“Uh,” says Harry. “Hi?”

“Madam,” Professor Flitwick says courtly, “The robes, please.”

Madam Malkin blinks, then hurries to continue with the robes.

Harry frowns at Professor Flitwick.

“Ah,” he says, and the usual humor in his eyes flickers and dies. He sits down on the stool standing beside Harry’s. “Twenty years ago, there was a terrible war. Your parents fought in it, along with many, many others.”

Harry stares at Professor Flitwick with wide eyes. This is more information that he’d ever dreamed of learning of his parents.

“Our side fought against a terrible foe,” Professor Flitwick continues. “A Dark Lord, who we today know as You-Know-Who, or He Who Must Not Be Named.”

“What’s his actual name?” Harry asks curiously.

Professor Flitwick visibly grimaces. Then he glances around before leaning forward. “Lord… Voldemort,” he whispers. He shudders after saying the name. “He was a terribly evil man. Hundreds of lives were lost. Nothing seemed to be able to stop him.” There’s a heavy pause. Professor Flitwick levels him with a solemn gaze. “Until you.”

“M – me?” Harry squeaks.

“You-Know-Who came to your parents house late at night during Halloween, 1981,” Professor Flitwick continues. His voice trembles, just slightly, with some withheld emotion. “Lily and James did not survive. But when he leveled his wand on you…” Professor Flitwick pauses again. “The Killing Curse is supposed to kill instantly.”

Numbness creeps up Harry’s arms. The hairs on his back stand up, and he flexes his fingers against a sudden uneasiness. “Why didn’t it?” he whispers.

“No one knows,” Professor Flitwick says quietly. “But when we came to the house… all that was left was you and a dusty robe with You-Know-Who’s magical imprint on it.” He shakes his head. “You’re known as The-Boy-Who-Lived, Mr. Potter. Everyone in this world knows about you.”

Harry stares at him with wide eyes. “O – oh,” he says. Then he quiets, not sure how to react to all of this. Professor Flitwick looks so terribly sad, so old and worn – Harry would like to say sorry, but it would probably be taken the wrong way, so he says nothing.

“There,” Madam Malkin says, her voice thick with emotion. When she straightens beside Harry, her eyes are wet with tears. “Free. Savior of the wizarding world discount.”

“What – no! I can’t do that,” Harry exclaims, pushing aside the robe to tug open his pouch filled with money. “That’s – here,” he says, shoving a handful of Galleons at her. “Is that enough? Do you need more?” He gives Professor Flitwick a look which hopefully isn’t as desperate as he thinks. “What’s the price?”

Madam Malkin makes a keening sound at the back of her throat, and then she swallows, a few tears trickling down her cheeks. She looks down at the golden coins in her hands, then carefully counts out three Galleons and five Sickles. “There,” she says, voice wobbling slightly. She hands back easily ten Galleons. “I don’t need more.” She holds out her free hand after Harry puts the rest of the coins into his pouch.

Harry blinks at it for a moment, then, realizing what she wants, he rushes forward to shake it.

“You are a kind boy, Harry Potter,” Malkin says. “Thank you.”

Once outside, after Professor Flitwick has shrunk Harry’s bags and put them in a larger bag and handed it off to him, Harry sighs. “She shouldn’t have treated me like that,” he mutters. “I haven’t… done anything yet.”

“While that might be true,” Professor Flitwick says patiently, “there are many people who will react in similar ways. You are loved here, Mr. Potter. I would advice you to get used to the thought.” He gives Harry a small beam. “And I’m saying this only because I think you ought to know, but the Hogwarts student pack costs 15 Galleons, usually.”

Harry freezes. “What?” he exclaims. “She took – she took two!”

Professor Flitwick nods. “And she was very much aware of what she was doing,” he says. “Don’t hold it against her. She’s grateful.” His eyes cloud as he stares at something far, far away. “We all are.”

Clearing his throat, Harry shifts from one foot to the other. “Well, er… what’s – what’s next on the list?”

“Ah – er,” says Professor Flitwick, fumbling for the list. “Books! Course books, that is. Flourish and Blotts is where most students go – this way!”

Harry follows, relieved to see the Professor smiling in that quickly-becoming-familiar way of his. Books aren’t his greatest pleasure, as he never quite got the hang of reading, but if it’s required, it’s required.

When they enter the shop – a store filled with shelves stacked to the ceiling with books upon books upon books – Professor Flitwick puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry almost manages to keep from twitching at the sudden move. “Take a look around, Mr. Potter,” Professor Flitwick says with a smile, “and I’ll talk to the clerk regarding your schoolbooks.”

Harry nods absently, wandering off towards the back of the store. He reads the backs of some of the books as he goes, and a few of them piques his fancy. Pulling one of them out of the shelf – Curses and Countercurses – he begins to flip through it, humming in interest at some of the odd things the book promises to teach him.

A curse that twists a person’s tongue? Harry thinks wistfully of the way he’s sometimes wanted Uncle Vernon to just shut up about his dad.

“Hello,” a voice says, and Harry spins around, nearly dropping his book in surprise. A pretty boy with silver-white hair and pointed features stands by the other shelf, holding a leather satchel in his other hand. “First year, you too?”

Flushing slightly at the state of his own clothes – Dudley’s hand-me-downs aren’t exactly the prettiest dress clothes out there – Harry nods.

The boy’s gaze lands on the book in Harry’s hands, and he wrinkles his nose. “You don’t want to buy that,” he says. “It’s a terrible boor, my father says. And most the curses are practically useless, too.”

Harry looks down at the book again, frowning slightly. The Jelly-Legs curse doesn’t seem useless, to him. “Why?” he asks. If the book is bad, he’d like to know the specifics, so he knows what to avoid in others.

That seems to throw the boy for a loop. “Er, well – because it is, of course,” he says, raising his chin dauntingly.

“Right,” says Harry, feeling very much not impressed.

“Anyway,” the boy says, “my parents are just up the street looking at trunks for my year. I hope they find one with a few extra compartments – and it better have the Slytherin crest on it, too – I mean, it’s obvious I’m going there, we don’t need to wait for the Sorting to know that.”

Harry nods warily, glancing to the right to see if it’s a suitable exit route.

The boy gives him another daunting look. “Not the talkative sort, are you?” He then gets an utterly horrified look over him. “You are the right sort, aren’t you?”

Not quite sure what the ‘right’ sort is, Harry nods eagerly. “Oh, yes, of course,” he says, eyeing the gap between the two bookshelves. Maybe he’d fit there, if he sucked in his stomach…

“Oh. Well, then.” The boy looks about. “Who are you with, by the way?”

“You know,” Harry says cheerily, “I think he just called for me! I have to go. See you at Hogwarts!” And with that he bolts for the gap between the shelves, sucking in his stomach just to be sure. The boy doesn’t even have time to react.

Harry browses for books a bit more, picking out a few more as he walks. Powers You Never Knew You Had and What To Do With Them Now You've Wised Up looks interesting, so he tucks it under his arm. Runic Dictionary has a rich red color to its cover, and Harry ooh’s and aah’s a bit over it before he brings that, too. Curses and Countercurses remains in the bunch, purely out of spite.

By the time Professor Flitwick calls Harry back to the counter, he hasn’t picked out any more books. He offers Professor Flitwick a bashful smile, but he only chuckles a bit, looking almost pleased with him.

“Come on, then,” Professor Flitwick says good-naturedly, “next on the list is your wand.”

“Is there a trunk on the list, sir?” Harry asks.

Professor Flitwick squints down at the paper. “…no,” he says, sounding genuinely surprised. “We’ll have to get you that, as well.”

Harry nods absently. “Wand first, though, right?” he asks eagerly.

“Indeed,” Professor Flitwick says with a smile.

Ollivander’s has a narrow outside and a tiny, dim and dusty inside. It reminds Harry somewhat of his cupboard.

A tiny bell rings somewhere in the shop as Harry and Professor Flitwick enter. There are small, rectangular boxes stacked atop each other along the walls and on the shelves. Harry stares at them, wondering which might hold the wand he will end up with.

“Good afternoon,” a soft voice interrupts.

Harry jumps, turning to face the owner of the voice. He comes face to face with an old man whose hair looks like cobwebs and eyes like moons. “Hello,” he greets cautiously.

The man – Ollivander? – smiles. Harry isn’t sure if he likes that smile or not. “Ah, yes. Yes. I’ve been waiting for you. Harry Potter.” Harry nods slowly. “You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow.”

Nodding in understanding, Harry adds, “Nice for charm work, right?”

Ollivander beams. “Oh, yes, absolutely,” he agrees.

Harry blinks. He hadn’t even guessed on that. He’d just blurted it out. A quick glance at Professor Flitwick shows him to be just as confused as him.

“Your father, however,” says Ollivander conspiringly, walking closer to Harry, “favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power – ”

“And excellent for Transfiguration,” Harry buts in.

What on Earth is transfiguration?

“Oh yes, quite so!” Ollivander says. “Ah, well, I say your father favored the wand – but it really is the other way. The wand chooses the wizard, after all.”

Harry nods.

Ollivander’s eyes drift, settling on Professor Flitwick, who’s still standing by the door with a small smile. “Ah!” Ollivander exclaims. “Filius, what a joy, it’s almost as though it was yesterday… aspen, dragon heartstring, nine inches?”

“Oh, yes, right as always!” Professor Flitwick says. “Works as a charm.” He adds a wink to the end, which Ollivander chuckles at.

Charms, Harry’s mind supplements, aspen is good for charms.

“Now, yes, young Mr. Potter – wand arm?”

And so passes almost twenty minutes of Harry being handed wand after wand, all of them rejecting him the moment they touch his fingers. His heart sinks a little with each discarded wooden stick, but Ollivander only seems to grow more and more excited.

“Tricky customer, hm?” he says, eventually, giving the tall pile of wands an amused look. “No matter, no matter – every wizard has his wand. Let’s see, now…” He goes fluttering over by the shelves, muttering to himself.

As Harry has already seen this happen seven times, now, he turns to Professor Flitwick with an expression he knows is hopeless.

Professor Flitwick offers him a reassuring smile. “I took almost an hour,” he whispers. “I thought there might’ve been a mistake. Not to worry, Mr. Potter. You’ll find your wand.”

Ollivander returns shortly after, shoving a new wand into Harry’s hands. “Holly, phoenix, eleven inches, nice and supple,” he says.

Harry sighs, taking the wand in hand and expecting it to be snatched right out again.

He blinks, however, at the sudden and immediate surge of power that rushes through him – from his very toes to the roots of his hair.

“Hm,” says Ollivander, “no, I don’t think – ”

Harry snarls, taking a step back and clutching the wand to his chest. Ollivander blinks, taken aback. “No,” says Harry hotly, “I want this one.”

“But – ”

“This one,” Harry repeats, and his scar tingles. “Or nothing.”

There’s a moment where bone-deep terror flickers in Ollivander’s eyes. A brief second it doesn’t seem like he’s in the tiny shop anymore, but rather somewhere very far away. Then Ollivander blinks and the look is gone. “Ah, Mr. Potter, are you certain?”

Harry straightens, wand still in hand. His scar stops tingling. “Yes. It chose me.”

Ollivander seems resigned. “Very well,” he mutters. “Seven Galleons.”

Nodding, Harry hands over the seven golden coins. He bids Ollivander farewell – which he responds to, admittedly somewhat shakily. Back out on the street, Professor Flitwick gives Harry a strange look. “What was that, Mr. Potter?”

“The wand felt… right,” Harry tries to explain. “I’m not sure, sir. I just… I just knew that I couldn’t leave the store without it.” He ducks his head bashfully. “I… I’m sorry, if I embarrassed you, sir – I don’t know what came over me…”

And true, he doesn’t know what that was. There was just this… this intense, feral anger at the thought of losing the wand that so obviously had chosen him.

“Apology accepted, Mr. Potter,” Professor Flitwick says easily. “Well, let’s go, then. We still need to finish the rest of your shopping.”

The Apothecary is a fascinating, curious place, and Harry spends most of the time peeking into barrels and boxes and drawers full of strange, slimy stuff. Jars of herbs and roots line the walls while feathers, claws, and fangs hang from the ceiling. Harry ooh’s and aah’s for a bit and almost manages to keep in his disappointment when the basic potion ingredients he needs for school don’t include neither unicorn hair nor vampire fangs.

After they finish in the Apothecary, they stop by the last obligated shop to get Harry a cauldron, glass phials, a telescope (which Harry almost manages to break), and a set of scales. “What now, sir?” Harry asks, shifting to get a better grip on the bags he carries. “A trunk?”

Chuckling good naturedly, Professor Flitwick steers him towards the trunk shop. “First year,” he tells the clerk, as Harry once again drifts through the shop. They have trunks in all the colors he can think of, and then a few more – large trunks, small trunks, trunks that look like books, trunks that are made of books.

Harry leaves the shop with one of the better trunks designed for First Year students. It has three compartments (all of which have their own passwords) and a Hogwarts crest at the top lid. “The House-Elves have seen this model before,” the clerk assures him, “and will Charm your House crest onto it once you’ve been sorted.”

Harry nods, making a mental note to look up House Elves later.

“Now, Harry,” Professor Flitwick says, after they’ve put all his bags into the trunk and Professor Flitwick cast something he called a featherlight Charm on it. “Where to?”

With a start, Harry realizes they must have finished the list. His stomach swoops. He’s never been able to shop like this before. “Uhm – the list said – we can bring a pet?” he asks, crossing his fingers eagerly. It’s almost too good to be true.

Professor Flitwick nods. “A toad, a cat, or an owl are the most common,” he says. “I know of a pet store right around the corner. Come on.”

*

Harry watches the toads through the glass, but shakes his head and moves on quickly. Toads aren’t really… his thing. He’s surprised toads are anyone’s thing, to be honest. The cats aren’t really interesting either – he’s fine with cats and most cats are fine with him, but they watch him with creepily intelligent eyes as he passes them. Besides, he’ll be reminded of Mrs. Figg every time he looks at it if he gets one. He has to restrain a shudder.

A low hoot gets his attention. There are a few owls gathered at the back of the room. Most of them have dusty coats, but there are a few peculiars in there – a jet-black one, and one looking as though it’s trying to impersonate an eagle –

and… a snow-white little angel.

Harry feels as though all the air has been punched out of his lungs. “Hey, there,” he whispers, walking over to the owl’s perch. “Aren’t you a beauty?” The tag beneath the perch reads Snow Owl – loyal, protective, and headstrong. Carries your mail like no other. Harry looks up at the owl with a wide smile. “Think we’ll work together?”

The owl hoots, fluttering its wings a little before taking flight. A moment later it settles on Harry’s shoulder.

Professor Flitwick looks terribly amused when Harry makes his way over to the counter. Harry doesn’t ask why.

*

They return to the Dursleys somewhere around dinner time, and Harry has stuffed his trunk full of all kinds of interesting things. There’s wizarding candy, the books he’d bought, some small knick-knacks that look strange or make odd sounds, a proper box for his wand along with an instruction pamphlet and a set of polish, a wand harness Professor Flitwick said was smart to get, a Bottomless Bag, quills and parchment, owl food and so on and so on.

Upon arriving back at the Dursleys, Harry realizes that he might have a bit of a problem.

There’s nowhere to put his things.

This problem, however, is not a long-lived one. Not long after Harry comes in – wizarding trunk and owl and all – Uncle Vernon clears his throat briskly. “We’ve talked about it,” he says, and Harry gets the vague impression that Uncle Vernon would rather be anywhere else than here, “and you might be getting a bit too, er, big, for the cupboard. Which is why you’ll be getting Dudley’s second room.”

A pause, and then Harry nods. “Thank you, Uncle Vernon.”

That sure solves the problem of space. Well, almost. The room is full of Dudley’s broken toys, but that’s alright. Harry will look through it to find what he’d like to keep in the room and what he should throw out.

Later, when Harry’s gone to bed and Dudley has not gotten his room back, he lies and stares at his trunk and owl into the late hours of night.

*

A month later Harry stands by Platform Nine, King’s Cross, holding the ticket he got from Professor Flitwick tightly. The Dursleys left a few minutes ago, looking terribly amused but apparently not daring to laugh at him.

Harry looks up at the brick wall in front of him. “You just walk straight through,” Professor Flitwick had said, when Harry asked. “Just walk. It’s as easy as that.”

Watching the wall now, Harry isn’t quite so sure. Nevertheless, he takes a step forward and reaches out, pressing his fingers to the bricks.

Except his fingers go straight through.

Hiding a small smile Harry looks about, making sure no one who shouldn’t see this is watching him. Then he steps fully forward, pulling his trunk after him. Darkness engulfs him for a few long moments, but it ends as quickly as it came, as he suddenly stands on a completely new place.

Harry blinks. Powerful magic, he thinks, to transport someone this far…

The platform is packed with people, cats running about and owls soaring above them. Children and teenagers flutter from group to group, loud chattering and laughing filling the air. Adults stand scattered on the platform as well, talking together in tones that aren’t quite as loud as the children.

Harry rushes for the train, ducking his head in an attempt to not meet anyone’s eyes. He hoists his trunk into the train – with some difficulties, since Professor Flitwick’s Charm had worn off after some time – and climbs in after it. After a brief search he finds an empty compartment, where he sits down with a heavy sigh.

He leans his head back against the headrest behind him and closes his eyes. Peace. His stomach clenches painfully against a wave of nervousness, and he opens his eyes again. What if he won’t be sorted? What if it really is a mistake?

A boy pokes his head into the compartment before Harry can follow that train of thought any further. “Hi,” he says cheerily, “can I sit here? Everywhere else is full…”

Harry gestures for the seat opposite of him. The boy – a head full of ginger hair and the whole night sky scattered across his face, along with kind dark eyes – nods gratefully and sinks into the seat, pushing his worn trunk beneath it.

A tense pause. “First year?” the boy asks. Harry nods. “Me too. I’m Ron Weasley, by the way.” He doesn’t hold out his hand to shake, and Harry likes him a little bit more for it.

“Nice to meet you,” Harry says. “I’m Harry Potter.”

Ron instantly looks as though the sun just exploded. “You – I mean – are you? Really?” Harry nods. Who else would he be? “And you – do you have the… the scar?”

Harry smiles, in spite of himself. Poor Ron, too flustered to string together words properly. “Yeah,” he says, pushing his curls away from his forehead.

“Wow,” says Ron.

“Not really,” says Harry, letting go of his bangs again.

Ron blinks, then bursts into surprised laughter. “Suppose not.” Then he sobers again. “Do you… I mean, do you remember any of it?” Harry shakes his head, which seems to disappoint Ron, for he slumps a bit over in his chair. “Oh,” he says. Harry shifts, uncomfortable with Ron’s small sigh. He almost considers making something up, just to cheer him up again. Then Ron perks up. “Want to play Exploding Snap?”

The next hour or so is spent in cheery company, Ron gleefully explaining the rules of the card game to Harry, who listens with rapt interest. When Harry learns the rules and the game begins to go smoothly, they talk about themselves – Harry manages to get Ron on a roll, talking about his brothers and parents and his little sister Ginny. Ron asks a question here and there himself, but Harry answers as vaguely as he can. He’s not sure if Ron really would appreciate all the stories of his childhood.

At one point a girl with dark skin and wild, bushy hair bursts into the compartment, blabbering about a lost toad. When she sees Harry and Ron playing, however, she quiets down and enters the compartment. The quiet doesn’t last long, though, as she hurries to bombard them both with questions about the game. Harry, still not fully certain about the rules, is happy to let Ron explain.

The girl introduces herself as Hermione Granger, after which Harry and Ron introduce themselves as well. Hermione gapes at him for a moment, before leaving Ron and bombarding Harry with questions instead. He can’t answer even half of them (“Is it true that your favorite candy is ice mice?” – Harry doesn’t even know what that is), which he tells her, and she pouts but accepts that.

By the time the sun tips towards the horizon and the skies turn dark, Harry has made relatively good friends with the both of them. Hermione is a bit over the top enthusiastic about her hobbies, and Ron is a bit over the top enthusiastic about Harry, but he can live with that. They’re both kind, and nice, and seem like good people.

“I’d love to be a Gryffindor,” Ron tells them, proudly puffing out his chest as Harry hands him another Chocolate Frog. “My whole family has been Gryffindors.”

Hermione bites her lip. “I’ve heard so much good about Gryffindors.” Then she seems to pale. “As long as I don’t end up in Slytherin…”

Ron nods vehemently.

Harry frowns. Professor Flitwick had said every House was just as good as the others… “I don’t know where I’ll go,” he says, fiddling a bit with his sleeve. “I think all of the Houses sound just fine.”

Hermione and Ron stare at him for a bit. Then Ron ducks his head, muttering something vaguely agreeing, and Hermione nods thoughtfully.

“Well,” she says, biting her lip, “I guess we’ll just have to see.”

*

The boy from the book store in Diagon Alley corners Harry later, when they’re standing and waiting for the Sorting to begin. “You didn’t tell me you were Harry Potter!” he exclaims.

Harry blinks. “You – you didn’t ask,” he says, taking a step back from the eager expression on the boy’s face. “And you didn’t tell me your name!”

The boy straightens up as though this feat requires his full attention. “My name is Malfoy,” he says. “Draco Malfoy.”

Harry nods to this. “Hi, Draco. Nice to meet you.”

Before they can say anything else to each other, Hermione appears through the crowd and pulls Harry away, chattering eagerly about the ghosts that just floated in through the wall. Harry throws Draco a quick wave.

Ron greets Hermione and Harry both beneath one of the lanterns. His face is pale, making his freckles stand out, and it looks like his hands might be shaking just a little bit. “What’d you reckon the Sorting will be?” he asks. “Fred and George – my brothers – said we’d be wrestling a troll…”

But before either Harry or Hermione can answer that, the doors to the Great Hall swings open.

Harry stares in awe. The ceiling is scattered full of stars and a cloud here and there – rows upon rows of floating candles clutter the air above the four long tables positioned in the room. Hermione leans forward and whispers, to them both, “The ceiling is enchanted to look like the outside sky – no matter the weather!”

“Wow,” Harry breathes.

A fifth table stands upon a little podium at the end of the room. A very important looking man sits at its centre, along with several other, slightly less important looking people flanking him on each side. When Harry finds Professor Flitwick among them he realizes it must be the teachers’ table.

Professor Flitwick meets Harry’s gaze and offers a reassuring smile, to which Harry nods his thanks.

There’s an old, rugged hat standing on a stool beside the Professor who’d introduced herself as McGonagall. Once all the children are positioned inside the room, its brim rips open – and it begins to sing.

Harry is too fascinated and intrigued to truly listen to the words the hat sings, but at least the melody is catchy.

There’s no speech or anything when the hat finishes – just a cleared throat from Professor McGonagall and some rustling of paper –

“Abbot, Hanna!”

A girl with pigtails breaks free from the crowd, stumbling up towards Professor McGonagall. Once there, she sits down on the stool and pulls the hat onto her head.

A pause, and then – “HUFFLEPUFF!”

Harry holds his breath as they move down the list, students being sent off to –

“RAVENCLAW!” – a boy with jet-black hair and rectangular glasses, Professor McGonagall had said his name was Terry Boot –

“GRYFFINDOR!” – Hermione sags over in relief and scurries over to the table clad in red –

“SLYTHERIN!” – that’s Draco, looking utterly pleased with himself –

They’re closer, so much closer than just five students ago, and Harry feels far more nervous than he has any right to be.

Then, finally – “Potter, Harry!”

Ignoring the many whispers spreading through the hall, Harry takes a deep breath and marches towards the Sorting Hat.

[sirius-archive]

Chaos Theory Pt. 4

Warnings: Swearing, Underaged drinking. 

Word Count: 6064 (holy Heck)

A/N: omg this is sooooo late I’m sorry guys. Like, really, I am. It’s been freaking insane and I’ve been literally going out of my god damn mind. Anyway, I finally got this finished so yay. Also, I could not find a translator that could properly communicate what I was trying to say so I’m sorry for people who actually speak Latin and read this and are like ....wtf??? 

Summary: While staying at the Burrow, Reader has an awkward interaction with Harry, and the Trio get into an argument of sorts. She thinks that things can’t get any worse until her father makes a surprise visit. 

Chapter Four:

On a good day, Adrien Arden is an award-winning journalist.

The charismatic and charming editor-and-chief of the largest source of wizarding news in the world. A clever leader adored by his colleagues and friends. A winner of several accolades for his service to the wizarding community and a personal friend of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. He’s the handsome, brooding widower with eyes that have the ability to draw you in and a smile worth more than all the gold in Gringotts. During his years at Hogwarts, he had been destined for success; a Slytherin Prefect and Head Boy and was regarded fondly by peers and professors alike.

On a bad day, Adrien Arden is a father.

A perfectionist with standards higher than a crowd of rowdy teenagers at a Weird Sisters concert. A workaholic and a ghost who drifts in and out of your life like the tide; pulling you in when he thinks it’s necessary and pushing you away when he realizes it isn’t.

Sometimes, you pity Adrien Arden.

It must be such a lonely existence; to work and work without receiving a reward. To have such ravenous ambition that has consumed every aspect of your being, pushing you further and further until you reach the edge. To realize that he’s repelled all the people who matter away, to not realize that all those galleons that sparkle and glitter in the family vault are worthless compared to the love and respect of his two children.

And it’s this pity that motivates you to keep a calm and level-head. It’s this pity that compels you to be the good little daughter for the sake of relative peace. And it’s this pity that helps you realize that family is the only way to keep your mother’s wishes alive, even though she isn’t.

Luke, however, is not so forgiving.

You don’t think there was ever a time where Luke got along with your father. Perhaps they are too similar, and for this reason, they clash. Whatever the reason is, though, it’s clear that Luke hates Adrien with every cell in his being, and if anyone ever doubts that, then all they had to do is step into the Weasley’s kitchen and glimpse at the razor-sharp glare Luke is giving your father right now.  

A heavy tension blankets the room in uncomfortable warmth, grating against your skin like sandpaper, and you fiddle with your bracelet to expel the nervous energy tickling your fingertips. You can almost feel the anger igniting the air around Luke, stiffening his spine, sharpening the edges of his jaw, curling his hands into fists.

Mrs Weasley must sense it, too, because she rolls her sleeves up and flashes a dimpled smile, “I’ll let you three spend some quality time together.”

Luke scoffs but doesn’t say anything more, most likely out of respect for Mrs Weasley. Mrs Weasley hurries off as your father draws a carefully guarded smile across his lips. It’s polished and professional, much like he is.

“I’m so relieved that you’re all okay,” Adrien says, and for a moment you actually believe him.

“Took you a while to remember we exist,” Luke spits, indignantly. The insult bounces off Adrien’s layers like a Protego spell.

“I’ve been...busy at work,” he says, calmly, “I’m sure you can understand.”

A derisive scoff issues from the back of Luke’s throat.

“It’s okay, father,” you say, trying to keep your tone reassuring, “We know that you’re busy.”

“Too busy to be a father,” Luke mutters, darkly, not meeting his eye.

Adrien ignores the comment, “I don’t have a lot of time but I just wanted to check in and see how you’re both going. Did you have fun at the World Cup anyway?”

“Yeah,” you shrug, “it was nice. I mean, before all of the chaos it was actually a really lovely night.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Adrien smiles fondly.

“Oh, Mr Arden,” says a familiar voice from behind you, and a shy, blushing Hermione steps forward. Ron and Harry follow behind her.

“Hello Hermione,” Adrien flashes her a smile and nods at Ron and Harry, “Hullo boys. Good to see you three again. How are you all?”

Harry shrugs, “We’re good, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Well, considering the night we just had we’re not exactly going to be prancing around picking flowers and shooting rainbows out of our asses,” Luke snaps, coldly, and Adrien narrows his eyes on him, working his jaw, grinding back whatever he wants to say. 

A loud, obnoxious beeping startles you, and Adrien glances down at his screeching watch.

“That’s all I have time for, for now. I have to head back to the office and submit some papers.”

“Glad you could fit us into your tight schedule,” Luke scowls, “Just leave. No one wants you here anyway.”

Your father clears his throat and bends down to embrace you awkwardly. You wrap your arms lightly around his neck, wondering whether its normal for a fatherly embrace to feel like you’re hugging a pole. He pulls away quickly and straightens, moving toward Luke. Luke folds his arms across his chest and steps away, refusing to look at his father. Adrien heaves a heavy sigh.

“I’ll see you...later,” he says and he gives your friends a weary smile, “I’ll send you an owl.”

Adrien walks into the kitchen, thanks a blushing Mrs Weasley for her hospitality, and leaves. You turn to Luke.

“Well that was...” you trail off, silenced by the expression on Luke’s face. His mouth is screwed shut and his eyes are glaring daggers in the direction where your father left, “Luke?”

Luke isn’t listening, though. Instead, he charges forward, nearly knocking you aside, and strides toward the door.

“Luke!” You call out, but Luke reaches for the door knob, yanks it open and slams it shut in your face. You push it open and peek through the crack.

“Why did you really come?” Luke demands, storming up to his father, “You don’t just decide to pop in after weeks of not seeing us!”

Adrien sighs, exasperated, “It’s as I said; I really was concerned for your wellbeing. Both you and your sister.”

Luke lurches forward and for a moment, you think that he’s going to tackle Adrien to the ground in a fit of fury. Instead, he rises up to his father, spine straightened in deadly determination. “Keep my sister out of your rotten mouth.”

Adrien narrows his eyes coldly on your brother, like a sniper taking aim, “Is that a threat, boy? Because if it is, you’d better follow through with it. I did not raise a coward.”

Luke bristles, “You have no right to think of her as your daughter when I was the one who raised her. I looked after her and protected her and held her as she mourned. I was the one who took her to Diagon Alley, bought her her first wand and school robes. I did the job you were supposed to do while you wallowed in self-pity and abandoned us as though your own children were a burden, stopping you from your precious work.”

Adrien steels, a dark expression falling over his sharp features, “Lukas Adrien Arden, if you ever doubt my responsibilities as a father again, I will personally ensure that it is the last thing you do.”

Luke steps back from the looming figure of his father, “You’re up to something, I know it. And I’ll find out, I always do.”

Adrien’s entire demeanour shifts and an amused ghost of a smile teases the corners of his lips, “I don’t doubt that. You are my son after all.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Luke spits, venomously.

“Oh but you are,” Adrien clamps a hand on Luke’s shoulder. Luke struggles under Adrien’s grip, but his grasp is like a vice, locking Luke into submission, “And when the day comes that you realise you are, you’ll regret every bad word you’ve ever said to me.”

You stare as Luke jerks away from Adrien’s grip and staggers backwards. The tension is stifling, like an ominous cloud of thick fog creeping over you, and you have to physically step back from the door to remember how to breathe again.

It’s sort of distressing, seeing Luke so riled up when he’s usually so smooth and refined. He looks and acts like a completely different person like someone has hijacked Luke’s body and is puppeteering his words and actions. It’s a persona that emerges whenever your father is around, a defence mechanism Luke has carefully honed after years of loathing and disgust.

It’s...unhealthy. Unnatural. Worrying.

Stepping away from the door, you turn and start toward Luke’s room, hoping you’ll be able to chat with him later. You doubt you’ll have any luck but he needs to know that you’ll be there for him in all the ways he was for you. Before you can make it up the stairs, though, you walk into a nervous-looking Harry.

“Hey,” he says, tearing a hand through his hair.

“Hey,” you echo, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

“I...wanted to apologise-” Harry starts, but you cut him off with a raised hand.

“-You seem to be apologising a lot, lately,” You say, and Harry’s lips quirk into a sheepish smile. You mimic it as you continue, “I don’t know what’s going on, and if you don’t want to tell me then I respect that. I just...I want you to know that you can talk to me. I’m here for you, I always have and I always will be.”

Harry hesitates for a moment, his mouth moving around silent words, as though he’s carefully stringing them together. Laughter echoes from the backyard, ringing through the silence. You’re just about to say something when Harry beats you to it, his voice low, “Follow me.”

Intrigued and a little surprised, you watch as Harry scales the winding stairs, the sound of the floorboards groaning in protest filling the growing distance between the two of you. You start to follow him until you reach his and Rons shared room and he pushes the door open, inviting you in. You climb onto his bed and Harry closes the door behind you, fidgeting nervously with his glasses. Something in his expression seems hesitant, as though he’s debating on what to say. You wait patiently.

“It’s my scar,” he finally murmurs, “It’s been hurting lately and– I think it may be connected to the attack at the World Cup.”

“Oh,” you say, trying to swallow back the distant ache throbbing in your throat, “Oh, Harry. This is...this is serious. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I was going to tell you,” Harry says, quickly, the words flying from his lips like a practised excuse, “In the Forrest when we were looking for the Portkey. But then...then Cedric came and I didn’t get a chance to talk to you alone.”

You study Harry for a long moment, eyes sweeping over his fidgeting form. He seems unsettled, a little nervous, perhaps hesitant, like he’s trying to tackle something on his tongue back into his throat. You figure it could just be his nerves, but you can’t help but wonder if he wants to say more.

“Is that what you guys were arguing about this afternoon?” You ask and Harry nods, “Why was Luke there?”

Harry blinks at you, “What?”

“Why was Luke there?” You reiterate, calmly, “I heard him arguing with you.”

Before he can answer, there is a tentative knock at the door and a moment later, Ginny’s head pokes out from behind it. A small blush blossoms beneath her freckled cheeks when she notices Harry but then her eyes drift toward you and she raises a sharp brow.

“Mum says dinner is ready,” she says, her voice soft.

“Okay,” you and Harry blurt at the same time and Ginny nods as she closes the door.

You slide off Harry’s bed and straighten, “I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

Harry chortles, his smile loose, relieved  “Yeah, I could really go for some roast chicken right about now.”

You smile at Harry, “Thanks for telling me.”

Harry nods and gives a half-hearted smile, “Thanks for listening.”

As you descend the staircase, chatting lightly and smiling easily, a sense of nostalgia overcomes you like a wave of warm sepia and it almost feels like old times without all the secrecy and nervous energy. It almost feels like, for a fleeting moment, it is just you and Harry and nothing between the two of you. 

Almost.

***

After a delicious dinner and a scrumptious dessert, you and Hermione sit in front of the fireplace, Hermione in the armchair and you sitting crossed-leg on the floor. Your Quidditch World Cup article sits in your lap as your eyes scan the parchment, reading and re-reading. 

“Is Luke okay?” Hermione suddenly asks, not even trying to clip the worry from her voice, “He wasn’t himself at dinner.”

You look up from your work, pushing your hair off your face, “He always gets like that around my dad,” you admit with a small shrug, pretending that it doesn’t bother you, “He just needs his space.”

Hermione nods, though there is an expression of worry creeping over her face and you study her, noting her features carefully. Before you can question her, Fred sidles up to the two of you, eyes glinting mischievously.

“Hey you two,” he greets, smirking wolfishly, “We’ve got a couple bottles of booze and absolutely no regrets. Wanna join us?”

“Please tell me this isn’t a giant orgy or something,” you retort and Hermione blushes furiously.

“Nah,” Fred shakes his head with a grin, “Though I’m open for persuasion.”

You snort and shake your head, smiling, “Only in my nightmares.”

Fred clutches his chest in mock hurt, “Aw, we could have been something special.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“And what exactly are we going to do?” Hermione asks, her brows raised expectantly. Fred straightens importantly.

“Get pissed.”

“She was only asking,” you quip and Fred rolls his eyes.

“Get sloshed. Buzzed. Wasted. Inebriated. Intoxicated,” he narrows his eyes pointedly at you, “Drunk. What else are you supposed to do with fire whiskey? Bathe in it? Because we’ve tried and it’s not…good.”

“But we’re underage?” Hermione says, eying Fred suspiciously.

“So?” Fred shrugs, “You’ve already broken the law by helping a wanted fugitive escape, not to mention several hundred school rules. What’s another stupid law?”

A pale pink blush tickles the apples of her cheeks and Hermione averts her gaze, “Right.”

“Come on guys,” Fred whines, imploring you with large, pleading eyes, “You’re always putting yourselves in constant danger. Why not relax for the night?”

“He’s got a point,” you shrug, turning to Hermione. She chews her bottom lip thoughtfully, giving Fred an appraising look. Finally, she glances at you and gives a small nod.  

“Alright,” she says, lifting her chin slightly, more confidently, “but I’m filling my own glass. I don’t want you pouring me a drink.”

“Why? Don’t you trust us?” Fred asks, grinning wickedly.

“You don’t want me to answer that question.”

Fred shakes his head, forlornly, “All you young whipper-snappers going around and breaking an old man’s heart.”

“As (Y/N) said, ‘You’ll get over it.’”

You bark a laugh and high-five Hermione. Fred wipes an imaginary tear away and pouts exaggeratedly.

“We’re meeting at 11pm,” Fred leans in and lowers his voice to a not-so-quiet whisper, “That way, mum and dad will be asleep, and they won’t get suspicious.”

With a smirk and a wink, Fred whirls off and saunters out of the room. You watch him leave, nibbling your bottom lip, twirling and twisting your bracelet between your nimble fingers. Somehow, for some reason, you have a feeling that the night isn’t going to go as smoothly as Fred thinks.

***

At ten to eleven, you, Hermione and Ginny tip-toe out of her bedroom and make a slow start to the stairs.

The corridor looks odd like this; cloaked in darkness and completely void of sound or movement. The Burrow has always felt alive, pulsing with life as though it were a heart pumping blood through the veins of the house. Come night time, that heart seems to falter to a stop, leaving the house eerily quiet. You shiver.

“This is weird,” you whisper, “It’s so quiet. I feel like I’m walking through a graveyard.”

Ginny shudders, and in the pale light of your wand, you see her face contort into a scowl, “Thanks for the commentary. Now I feel paranoid in my own house.”

“It’s okay,” Hermione murmurs, softly, “Mrs Weasley and Mr Weasley are here, too, don’t forget.”

“That makes me feel even better,” Ginny drawls, sardonically, “If a murderer doesn’t leap out and slaughter me where I stand, my mum will.”

“No one is going to kill anyone–” 

A loud groan interrupts Hermione mid-speech and you all jump, spinning around to face the source of the noise. Clamping a hand over your mouth, you muffle your shriek as Hermione gasps and staggers backwards toward the railing and Ginny fumbles with her wand. It slips from between her fingers like a stick of butter and clatters on the ground. Heart racing, you raise your wand and heave a sigh of relief.  

Harry and Ron both stare at the three of you, eyes wide, faces flushed and chests heaving. Harry bends down and grabs Ginny’s wand, handing it to her with a gentle smile. Ginny squeaks a breathless ‘Thank you,’ and darts back to your side. Ron gawks at you, his expression somewhere between bemusement and frustration.

“Bloody hell,” Ron curses under his breath, “It’s just us.”

“Well don’t sneak up on us!” you hiss, “You nearly scared us to death!”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbles, sheepishly, “Let’s just go before we get caught.”

You start toward the stairs and begin descending the creaking staircase. 

Somehow, every step you make seems to amplify, ringing through the house like a blaring siren, as though the house is designed to alert Mr and Mrs Weasley that their children are sneaking out after curfew. Trying to balance on the tips of your toes, you slowly descend the never-ending staircase, contemplating whether it was such a good idea to leave the comfort of your bed in the first place.

“Luke seemed kind of off at dinner tonight,” Harry mutters leaning forward, “Is he…y’know?”

“He just hates my dad,” You whisper back, surprised that Harry noticed. You’re about to make a joke out of it but Hermione shushes you into silence from over her shoulder. As she turns back, though, she misses a step and stumbles forward.

“Hermione–!” Ron gasps from behind you and you listen for a loud thump, but it never comes. You direct your wand to the end of the staircase and find Hermione lying in someone’s arms.

“Oh, Luke,” Hermione murmurs, flustered, several shades of red rippling across her face, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he smiles softly at her and she straightens, brushing down her clothes and combing a finger through her hair.

You all reach the bottom of the staircase and playfully punch Luke in the shoulder, “Looks like she fell for you.”

To your surprise, Luke doesn’t respond to your terrible joke. He just scowls and shakes his head, moving toward the back door. You blink at him and follow.

“C’mon, really? Nothing?” you ask as he pushes the door open, “No ‘I thought you were better than corny puns?’”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Luke murmurs, stalking through the backyard and toward the tree house. 

“Is he going to be okay?” Hermione asks beside you, watching him with concern in her eyes.

You chew your bottom lip nervously, “I–I don’t know…”

The tree house is actually a lot safer than it looks, which is oddly ironic since Fred and George give no consideration to safety whatsoever.

Thick planks of wood are nailed to a gap in the large tree as though they are sitting in its palm, branches stretching like fingers around it. There is a wooden railing that surrounds the platform, fairy lights intertwined around it. Alternative pop music plays on low, the sound prevented from leaving the treehouse by the silencing charm Fred had cast, containing it in a bubble of sorts. There are light bulbs, all different shapes and sizes, strung together and hanging from the branches overhead that act as a roof. Right in the centre of the ‘roof’ is a large hole that brags a beautiful view of the midnight sky, freckled with stars.

It’s actually kind of beautiful. Serene, almost.

You down the rest of the drink and raise your chin to the stars, lost in their beauty. You can almost feel the stardust raining down on you, sinking into your skin, filling you up with a beautiful, ethereal light, like there is an entire galaxy bursting to life inside of you. You’re not sure if it’s the fire whiskey humming in your veins or not but you feel like you could just step off the balcony of the treehouse and float away.  

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” a familiar voice says from beside you, and you turn to find George Weasley gazing up at the stars with you, an expression of awe painted across his face, “Do you know who else is beautiful?”

“Please, don’t finish that sentence and ruin this beautiful moment,” you murmur and George snorts.

“You don’t like hearing compliments about yourself?”

“I don’t like cheesy pickup lines.”

George shrugs, “That’s fair. Though I was going to say that I was beautiful but never mind.”

You chortle, shaking your head and grinning broadly at him. He echoes it, lips curving into a grin you may never get tired of seeing, “You really know how to cheer a girl up, don’t you?”  

“Only the ones I like,” George smiles softly, softer than anything you’ve ever seen him wear.

“Well, I’m grateful anyhow.”

George drapes an arm over your shoulders and pulls you to his side protectively, provoking a laugh to burst boisterously from your lips.

“So, are you and Cedric…?”

You flush, cheeks burning, “I–I don’t really know…”

“Well, just so you know, he talks about you a lot,” George says, “Our friend, Juniper Cross. You know Juniper?” You nod, recalling the beautiful Hufflepuff in George’s year, “Anyway, she says he talks about you like you ‘put the stars in the sky.’ His words, not mine.”

An odd, sort of airy feeling circles around you and floods you like helium, lighter than air, ascending the five layers of the atmospheres and disappearing into the universe.

The moment is broken by Fred, who yanks another bottle of fire whiskey from a crate and holds it over his head.

“Who’s up for a game of ‘Never have I Ever?”

“What’s that?” Hermione asks and Fred blinks at her.

“You’ve never played ‘Never Have I Ever?’” George asks, bewildered, “Hermione, what have you been doing with your life?”

“Never Have I Ever is a classic drinking game,” Luke says, sitting beside Hermione, “Basically, you have to say something that you’ve never done and everyone who has done said thing has to drink. For instance, if I say ‘Never have I ever… snogged a girl from France’–”

“–We would call you a liar,” Fred interjects, and Luke rolls his eyes.

“–Everyone who has snogged a girl from France would have to take a drink.”

“And we would call them liars,” George sniggers and you snort, bumping his fist with your own.

“The person with the most alcohol left in their glass wins,” Luke continues, ignoring the snickering Weasley twins.  

“And if you say a ‘Never have I ever’ and no one else has done it either, you have to drink from everyone’s glass,” Fred smirks deviously, and Hermione raises her brows, her fingers finding the hem of her sleeves.

Luke studies her with benevolent eyes, his past frustration melting off his shoulders like ice in the early spring, “If you’re not comfortable, you don’t have to play.”

A gentle shade of soft pink flourishes on the apples of Hermione’s cheeks and her lips quirk into an awkward smile, “No, it’s okay. I’ll play.”

“Are you sure? We’re all friends here, and we want you to be comfortable,” Luke smiles, reassuringly.

Hermione nods, and George claps a brotherly hand on Luke’s shoulder, “Ever the gentleman. If I wasn’t in an exclusive relationship with myself, I would totally date you, man. Like, put out and everything.”

Luke just gives a half-hearted smile and a modest shrug. He looks like such a different person to the Luke you saw earlier that day, seething threats at his own father and brewing in a venomous mood. Even when you met him in the kitchen earlier that night, Luke had seemed guarded and brooding and nothing like the sweet, considerate and boyishly charming man he is with Hermione.

You all sit crossed-leg on the ground in a circle and, with a looming sense of doom, you find yourself sitting between Fred and George, an unsavoury position for anyone to be in. Before you can escape to the other side of the circle, Fred and George begin filling up several glasses and hand them around the group. Fred pauses in front of Ginny, sculling her fire whiskey with a wince and filling her glass with chocolate milk. Ginny folds her arms across her chest, glaring dangerously at her brother.  

“No alcohol for anyone under 14,” Fred says, wagging a finger at Ginny, “It rots your brain.”

“Good thing you don’t have one, then,” Ginny grumbles, rolling her eyes and snatching the glass of milk out of her brothers’ hand. Once everyone has their glass, the game begins. Unsurprisingly, George volunteers to go first.

“Never have I ever…met a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon called ‘Norbert’, tried to smuggle Norbert out of Hogwarts but got caught in the process and consequently lost Gryffindor one hundred points,” he says before adding, “Oh, and got sent to detention, too.”

You, Hermione, and Harry exchange guilty glances and take a swig of your drinks. The fiery liquid surges down your throat like molten lava and pools delightfully in your lower belly, the alcohol crackling in your veins.

“Technically, I wasn’t there when they tried to smuggle Norbert out,” Ron argues, raising his arm to reveal the thin scar knitted into his skin, “Norbert bit me, so I was in the Hospital wing.”

“You still met him,” George points out and Ron’s confident expression falls, grumbling as he takes a sip from his cup.  

“Alright, Harry, you’re up next,” Fred grins, pointing at Harry with his glass.

Harry’s brows furrow as he thinks, the tip of his tongue poking out between the soft cushions of his lips. Once again, Harry seems so…relaxed. Perhaps it’s the alcohol, or the company, or both, but it’s a relief to see him so unguarded and it shows in how easily he’s smiling, how warm and inviting his gaze is. And when he catches your eye, his lips quirk up into a small smile and it feels…nostalgic.

It feels like it used to.

“Never have I ever…been kicked out of a bar?”

Fred and George groan in unison and take a swig of their drinks. To everyone’s surprise, Ginny does, too. While the rest of the group gapes at Ginny, their jaws slack and eyes wide in disbelief, Ginny gives a nonchalant shrug, her eyes glistening in the low light as she recalls the moment.

“I may or may not have hexed a certain, misogynistic Ravenclaw who was getting on my nerves,” she gives a sharp, cat-like smirk, resembling her rebellious, older brothers “I don’t regret anything.”

Fred and George pretend to sob tears of pride as they slap Ginny on the back, “Look at how far our precious, little sister has come. We taught you well.”

The game moves around the circle, jokes and laughter thick in the summer air as your drinks slowly begin to dwindle.

When it finally reaches Fred, he flashes a scheming grin, and he raises a confident brow, “Never have I ever…had a crush on Cedric Diggory…”

Everyone narrows their eyes on you expectantly. You sigh, rolling your eyes as Fred sniggers devilishly.

“Fuck you, Fred!” you snip, throwing the rest of your drink back. Your head spins in languid circles as try not to splutter, and in the warm ambience of the room, your eyes find Harry’s; gazes colliding for a long, lingering moment. Harry doesn’t shy away, in fact, he’s the boldest you’ve seen him since the World Cup, and something hooks around your lower belly, yanking it up into your throat.

“Okay, (Y/N), your turn,” Fred juts his chin at your glass and eyes you hopefully. You heave a sigh.

“Alright. Um…” you pause thoughtfully, and then your lips pull into a grin when you catch Ginny’s eyes, “Never have I ever…had a crush on someone in this room.”

Fred and George stare at Ginny and she sighs, taking a swig of her chocolate milk. She pokes her tongue out at you playfully and you give her an apologetic look. She shrugs nonchalantly, though she doesn’t seem entirely bothered. Strange, you think, she must be getting over Harry. You never really anticipated that.

You never anticipated Hermione and Harry taking a nervous sip from their drinks, either.

“Woah,” George says, eyes flitting between the two of them, “What’s going on here?”

They seem hesitant in their answer, weighing their options, gauging each other for a response like they’re dancing tentatively around the subject. You and Ron exchange a surprised look, the tips of Ron’s ears an odd shade of red. Something tight and nasty coils inside of you like a sleeping snake.

Hermione and Harry exchange a look, and Harry shrugs “Nothing. We’re just answering the question.”

You blink at Harry, then at Hermione. They seem to be avoiding your gaze, eyes darting around the room like they’re trying to pull excuses from the air around them. Is that what all the secrecy is about? Are they…?

“So you both have had a crush on someone in this room?”

“Er…” Harry flicks a glance at Hermione and then sweeps his gaze to you before hastily averting your gawking stare, “…yes? Why?”

“Huh,” Fred shrugs, “No reason.”

Hermione frowns, “What? It’s not like we like each other.”

“Whatever you say, Hermione.”

Hermione’s mouth twists into a thin frown and Harry furrows his brows at Fred’s blatant, off-handed remark. Tension has steeled his spine like an iron rod and he fidgets uncomfortably, his nervous mannerisms unspooling as time seems to drag by. The sepia-stained nostalgia that you had so willingly embraced begins to crumble the more he glances between Hermione and Ron, and the needlepoint sting of hurt pricks the inside of your wrist.

“Um, I think it’s your turn, George,” Ron says, quickly, nervously glancing at Harry. Does Ron know something–?

George nods importantly and continues the game, but you’re still rooted in time. As everyone else takes their turn, your eyes continue to stray to Harry, studying, observing, realising, that this is so much more than his scar. His cheeks are rosy, flushed pink from the alcohol and embarrassment, his eyes a startling shade of green against the sun-kissed skin of his face and the electric shock of dishevelled, black hair and as you study him, your head begins to spin.

You take a long swig of your drink, gulping back your anxiety, wishing that you had trusted your gut in the first place. 

***

Somehow, you make it back to your room without making a complete fool of yourself.

Hermione’s avoided you for most of the night, though you can tell that she’s nervous by the way she chews her bottom lip; it’s red and raw, the moon-crescent bite marks curved into the delicate skin of her lower lip. You want to talk to her, to ask about the secrecy, but your head feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton and your eyes are like heavy golf balls stuck into your skull and you really just want to sleep–

You pull your camisole over the top of your head and rip your bra off, an envelope falling out from its grasp.

“Oh,” you say, to no one in particular, “My letter.”

Between the visit from your dad and the Weasley’s drinking game, you had completely forgotten about it. Bending down, you scoop it off the ground and study the envelope. Your name and address are writing in elegant curlicue cursive to the point where it’s nearly unreadable. You squint, following the loops and curls, and turn the envelope over. No return address. Odd. You open it anyway, unfold the letter…

And gasp.  

It doesn’t make sense.

Your stomach is twisted into a tight, thick knot, heavy in your abdomen, weighing like an anchor plummeting to the ocean floor. Ice gushes through the deltas of your veins as though it were blood pulsing through the arteries of a cold-blooded monster, freezing your spine, paralysing you.

You can’t tear your eyes away. 

You stare down at a photo of you and Cedric at the World Cup, stained in shades of black and grey, frozen in time, smiles fixed onto your faces. And it would have been a beautiful photo, it really had, if it weren’t for the blood-red insignia scarring the back of the photo; a snake eating itself, circling around what looks like a cross between a Scarab and a skull moth.

And, beneath it, eight words strung together, bleeding into the paper like a wound.

Mus uni non habeat fiduciam autem serpens esuriit

A mouse does not trust a hungry snake

Suddenly, you wish you were drunk again.

@marauderskeeper @weaselby418 @acciorinn @hervench @harrvjpotter @depressed-octopods-art (i’m sorry i didn’t tage you before!! i just realised you replied to one of the posts!) @romanofftasha @moonpeachs

[athyrabunlord]

LLSHP(P) Prelude - Wish

Main Story: [LLSHP AU - Yoshiko Tsushima and the Fallen Angel]

[Brief note about School Term] [other LLSHP AU stuff] [YohaMaRuby concept arts] [ChikaYouRiko concept arts] [KanaDiaMari concept arts] [Hogwarts Staff]

[FFN link] [Pixiv Link] [Translated to Chinese by plin2290]

Sequel blips: TriWizard Tournament series

A/N: Here’s the prequel story Delphinus, about Mari, Kanan and Dia’s early years at Hogwarts. Just a short prelude here to start things off, to show the kind of tone in this prequel. As stated before, this will mostly be in Mari’s POV, a lighter tale in comparison to the Main Story.

Reminder Mari, Dia and Kanan are 15yo, 14yo, 14 yo respectively here, and they have a bit different characterizations than in the main story since, well, they’re just starting their first year. They have not grown to be the senpais that Yoshiko knows them as in the Main Story, so stay tuned to see their growth and how they become close~ Without further ramblings  ado, here’s the prelude!

Words: 4,121

The door creaks loudly as it is pulled to a close.

She smiles nostalgically at the noise, wondering when the next time it would be for her to open this equipment shed, if ever again. Her heart thuds mournfully at the sight of this old building basked under the setting sun, like it has already blended into the scenery as a forgotten relic of the past. Shaking her head, she turns away resolutely and walks towards the plank that serves as the bridge between the port and the small boat.

Briskly, she hops onto the rickety boat, not all all deterred by the way it bobbed up and down along the waves. Her hand fondly brushes against the rusty walls as she enters the steering room, her steps gradually slowing to a stop. She bows respectfully before reaching for the small photo frame that hung from above the helm.

“I’d love to take you with me, Jii-chan, but you’d probably prefer to stay here by the sea, wouldn’t you?”

The elderly man is grinning back at her, his lively spirit nicely captured within the picture. Very carefully, she placed the photo frame onto the table she had set right beside the helm.

“I’ll be back in a few months, don’t worry. Maybe I’ll have some neat tricks to show you, maybe I can even reel in a big bluefin tuna! But, you’d prefer that I catch one with my own power, ne?”

The quiet echo of her own voice saddens her but she reigns in her emotions and manages to exit the boat with a placid expression. To her surprise, there are people waiting for her by the equipment shed.

“Kanan-chan!” “Kanan-chan!”

Kanan Matsuura steadies herself in time to catch an orange and silver shape. The two 12-year-olds sure have grown so much! It only seems like yesterday when she first played dodgeball and bug-catching with her childhood friends in the nearby park, all carefree and happy.

“I’ll be back after the first term, I promise, Chika, You.”

Chika’s characteristic ahoge is droopy as she woefully peers up at Kanan, while You has burrowed herself against Kanan’s side.

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Kanan musters up her most easy-going smile and playfully wraps each arm around the girls’ shoulders. “When have I ever broken a promise to you two?”

“True…but! This ‘private’ school, why is it so secretive?” “Yeah, why can’t we go with you? Or I can ask Shima-nee or even Mito-nee to go with you?”

“It’s okay. A Professor is coming to escort me there. Don’t worry, she’s been very nice and helpful.” Honestly, the young girls’ worried faces are enough to make her heart melt. It’s staggering to know that there are still people in the world who cares this much about her, that she isn’t alone.

And that’s enough for her.

“Come on, it’s already getting dark. Your families will be worried if you don’t get home soon,” Kanan ignores the stifling feeling inside her chest at uttering these words, and gently nudges Chika and You away from the port. “I’ll be fine.”

The two girls only manage to walk a few paces away before turning back to give her one last tackling hug. Kanan almost stumbles from the force but she embraces them just as tightly.

“Write to us as soon as you get there!” “Remember to tell us all about the school!”

Kanan waves at them, calling and exchanging words with Chika and You even as the duo walks away. It is only until the two girls are out of sight that she allows her forcefully cheerful demeanor to drop.

Her expression probably looks awful right now but at least there is only one witness.

“They truly are worried about you. They are good girls.”

“They’re like little sisters to me,” Kanan says proudly, not too startled when a woman materializes out of thin air near her, as if she’s been concealed behind a veil of invisibility all this time. “I try to be someone they can look up to but it’s been hard.”

“I understand. Have you packed up everything?”

“...yeah. I guess I have. I’ve already cleaned up everything back at the house and here too,” she glances at the boat and the equipment shed one more time before turning to face the new arrival. The beautiful woman has cascading hair as blue as the sea itself, which is also her namesake. Her kind amber eyes and her deep, sonorous voice have a calming effect on Kanan, the same feeling she has whenever she is out by the sea.

Indeed, in spite of the unknown future, Kanan feels relaxed around the witch named Umi Sonoda.

“As we had discussed before, you may return here during the Christmas break, and you can always Owl them letters.”

“Right. Owling letters. That’ll be interesting,” Kanan allows a small smile to appear. “Birds always seem to like You. I’m sure Owls would too.” A thought then occurs to her, that both of her childhood friends have experienced odd events as well, ones that could count as displays of accidental magic. Perhaps, in a few years or so, they would also get that special acceptance letter?

And they could all study together in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

As if reading her thoughts, the woman speaks softly. “That is indeed possible. I have sensed something special in those two girls.”

“Of course. They are very special, especially to me.”

“You are special too, Kanan.”

“... I don’t know about that. What I do know is, I’m ready to leave this place behind,” Kanan chuckles wryly and picks up her small backpack.

“Are you certain? We are ahead of schedule so there is no need to rush. It is your home after all.”

“It’s okay. I’ve… said my goodbyes. Besides, it’s not my home, not anymore.”

“Kanan…”

“It’s not a home if no one is there.” She thoroughly believes this thought, even when Grandpa was still alive. It doesn’t matter what city or what sort of house she lives in. As long as the people she cherishes is there to welcome her home, then she will call it just that.

“I see.” The witch sounds a bit sad but respectful. “I hope you will like Hogwarts then.”

“Me too. I mean it when I told you that I’m looking forward to it.” At this, Kanan shuffles awkwardly and tries to meet the woman’s gaze. “While I really appreciate you coming here to pick me up, but I could’ve gone to King’s Cross myself, uh, Umi.”

It still feels slightly odd to be calling her so familiarly, but after spending the last few weeks in her company, especially after everything she’s done for her, ‘Sonoda-san’ seems too distant. When she first called Umi directly, the witch had been very happy, and that was enough of a reason for Kanan to continue calling her that. Moreover, this sense of closeness makes her feel connected to this new path in life.

“I am certain that you could. I am accompanying you because I want to. Humor me?” Umi smiles kindly as she holds out her hand.

The image is superimposed with the one from the night Kanan first met her. The witch had come to her home, requesting to speak to her guardian. After Umi was told that there weren’t any, not anymore, and learned about the teenager’s predicament, she had held out her hand and offered to take her away.

It was like being given a lifeline.  

It’s been surreal to learn about the world of magic, that the nifty little tricks she’s done throughout her childhood are actually due to magic. As fascinated as she is though, she remains skeptical of how she would fit in this new world. She prefers things to be simple and she thought that she would stay in this seaside town even after she grows up, watching over her little world because she is familiar with everything here.

But her grandfather isn’t here anymore, and she is given a chance to escape this shattered dream. Everything’s changed and it’s too painful to call this town her home nowadays.

With a deep breath, Kanan takes Umi’s hand and allows the latter to Apparate them away. She doesn’t want anything and doesn’t dare to wish for more. She’ll do whatever she could, to find a place she could call home again, a new world to watch over.

Perhaps, Hogwarts has the answer she seeks.

====================

Within the massive extravagant painting, the Black Jaguar swishes its tail languidly with its head rested on its crossed paws. In spite of its relaxed demeanor, its sharp eyes remain predatory as it stares at her from its perch high in the tree. The progenitor of the Kurosawa family rarely deems to speak and usually remains in his Animagus form to impose an intimidating presence on whoever is summoned to the main manor’s grand office. Likewise, all the portraits of past Heads of this prestigious Pureblood family are silent as they cast their judgemental gazes upon her.

Dia Kurosawa remains unmoved in her seiza position, her back straight and her expression serene. Her legs are numb and her heart is beating fast from all the pressure, yet she does not allow any hint of discomfort to slip through her rigid demeanor. She needs to be every bit as indomitable as her name.

The Patriarch calmly sips his tea and does not offer an explanation as to why he has summoned her to his office. The silence, however, is merely a test and an inaudible conversation has already begun between the heiress and her grandfather.

Despite years of cultivating her patience and the austere image of a Pureblood heiress, she is quite relieved when the Patriarch finally speaks.

“Time passes by within a blink of an eye, does it not?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“I still remember when you first bonded with your wand. Your parents, many of your relatives, and even myself, have wands of dragon heartstring core. But a wand of phoenix feather core has chosen you, just as it had chosen our great Founder in the past. It pleases me, Dia, that you have shown such potential already. I believe you have been taking well care of your gift?”

“I have been keeping it safe and polished, just as it is meant to be.” At this, Dia allows a hint of a smile to grace her features. The carbonado necklace is a possession she prizes above all else, a symbol of recognition from her family. While it is traditional for a Kurosawa to receive a jewel in association with his or her name after bonding with a wand, hers is more special than anyone else’s. The priceless black diamond can store magic, a powerful accessory that can eventually act as a shield against even the worst of Dark Magic.

Certainly, the item is meant to be given to the significant other, like how her father had given his carnelian brooch to her mother, but Dia does not foresee herself ever finding such a person in her life. Therefore, the carbonado necklace is hers to keep and it will protect her.

The Kurosawa doctrine is to ‘strike before stricken’, which Dia believes in as well, but it does not hurt to have that extra defense should all else fail. Because, really, she would rather avoid any confrontations even though she is confident in her own ability to take on anything.

“Very good. Once you have proven yourself worthy, you will receive the heirloom that our great Founder and I have chosen for you.”

The Kurosawa sabre.   

Her heart sinks even though she has expected it already. She is the heiress after all, and nothing is more symbolic and prestigious than the sabre which is said to rival the famous Godric Gryffindor’s sword.

The Patriarch speaks further of her responsibilities and expectations now that she is going to Hogwarts, and only dismisses her once he finds her responses satisfactory. After giving him and the Black Jaguar portrait a respectful bow, Dia exits the office in a graceful manner. It is only after she is well out of the main manor that she picks up her pace, relieved to be out of that stifling place.

Her gaze sweeps over the extensive Kurosawa estate, both enjoying the beautiful scenery but also conflicted over her desire to leave her home. She has seen the world beyond, from the galas that her family has hosted to the other formal events the Patriarch took her along with as a guest. While the prospect of fully presenting herself as the heiress is daunting, she also cannot wait to explore the endless possibilities that the society offers.

Perhaps, in time, she will finally be able to hold her head up proudly of who she is, instead of forcing herself to maintain this facade.

She exhales tiredly once she arrives at her home, a moderate-sized building in comparison to the main manor. Only her immediate family lives here, though her relatives visit often due to the various meetings that her father holds or the apprentices who bring items from the family apothecary to her mother. One day, she would like to have her own private housing, one that can be granted to her if she shows the Patriarch how much she accomplishes.

She must do well in Hogwarts if it meant earning her miniscule freedom.

After briefly greeting an uncle by the engawa, she enters the living room to find her parents enjoying the afternoon tea together. It is really only under the comforts of their own home that her parents appear this relaxed. Unlike the many arranged marriages that her relatives had, her parents are fortunate to actually be in love with each other and therefore the atmosphere at home is more pleasant than some of her cousins’. At least, that’s what she had heard, since there is no cousin near her age, the closest one being a decade older.

She urges her parents to enjoy this rare downtime together instead of sending her off, assuring them that she can get to Hogwarts by herself. After a few more exchanges, both her parents solemnly wish her the best of luck, her father giving her an encouraging nod while her mother sends her a small smile.

Dia pushes aside the persistent yearning for a pat on the head, or even a hug, and politely excuses herself to get ready for her trip. As soon as she enters her own room, she notices something out of place. Warily but calmly, she casts a spell to reveal the hidden presence.

“Pigi!”

Her 10-year-old little sister, shivering, slowly steps forward with her head lowered, most likely expecting a reprimand. Sighing, Dia puts away her wand and speaks quietly so that she doesn’t startle her easily-frightened sister.

“You are too young to be able to master the Disillusionment Charm, Ruby. However, you have improved a lot.”

“R-Really-? Thanks, Onee-chan!” A bright smile morphs on the little girl’s face, a cute expression that matches the bunny plushie that Dia had given her years ago. She then notices the traveler’s cloak that Dia is already wearing, and quickly runs forward to cling to her.

“Y-You’re l-leaving already?”

Dia so badly wants to return the hug but she could sense house-elves close by. Open display of emotion is considered a sign of weakness and Ruby’s standing within their family already isn’t very good. Not wanting to be reported to him through the house-elves as they are ordered to do, Dia simply pulls away and speaks firmly.

“You should get back to your lesson. I believe your Transfiguration tutor is already outside at the engawa.”

Ruby flinches, her doe-like eyes welling up with tears at the rejection. Dia grits her teeth and desperately hopes for her sister to understand her intention.

“I will return for the Christmas break. I expect you to show even more improvements by then.”

“O-Okay…” Ruby tucks the plushie under her chin and, as if in a burst of defiance, hugs Dia one more time. “I’ll miss you, Onee-chan.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Dia merely nods and stands as still as a pillar even long after Ruby leaves her room. She glances at the big modified broom collecting dust at the corner, recalling the innocent days when she took her little sister for flights around the Estate, when they had more freedom.

Just a few more years. Once she’s a legal adult, surely, she can do something. But what? All the other Kurosawas followed the Patriarch’s wish and became Aurors, Curse-breakers and so on. Those few who rebelled or were considered blemishes in the family name were cast out. She does not want that to happen to her and most of all, not her precious little sister.

Indeed, what lies in her future? Their future? Frankly, she is very afraid.

Smiling humorlessly, she begins to pack her luggage for school. Hogwarts will be a temporary refuge for her. She has five years to become used to the fact that her life is already planned out for her. There is no point in struggling against it.

She will take what Hogwarts has to offer, and return the favor by being an exceptional student that both her family and herself will be proud of.

She shall invest just the right amount of her heart, no more and no less.

==============================

“Thank you very much for coming! Take care!”

She plasters the shiniest smile she could summon onto her face and bids her guests farewell with just right balance between exuberance and poise.

As soon the last of the guests disappears from the fireplace via Floo Powder, she flops onto the carpet like a cat that just lost all its bones.

“Aaaah, I’m so tired! My face hurts from smiling too much!”

Mari Ohara proceeds to close her eyes and begins to nap there and then. Combined with the fragrance of coffee, the lulling quiet cackles from the fireplace and the melodious violin in the background, she’s truly immersed in this heaven of her home. While her family owns many properties around the world, this mansion on the private island is her personal favorite!

When something prods at her arm persistently, she whines and peeks open one eye. “Daaaaad!”

“Now now, those guests are esteemed members of Ilvermorny Scholars. It’s always vital to have connections! You never know when you need favors.”

The Head of the Ohara household strokes his beard with theatrical flair, his crooked grin belying his serious words. If it weren’t for his friendly demeanor, the way he dresses would have a commoner mistaken him for an important governor or even royalty!

The influential businessman chuckles as he continues to nudge at his daughter’s arm with his toe, and laughs harder when she playfully punches his shin. “But dad, they’re all so boring!”

“That they are, that they are. But honey, it’s through such connections I was able to get the best of the best Hippogriffs for you years ago, hmm?”

Mari pouts, unable to refute. Her Starbright is her darling and indeed the most amazing pet ever. The magical creature always seems to know where she wants to go and has always been watchful of her. Between even the world-class broom and her beloved Starbright, of course she prefers flying on her Hippogriff!

“But you’re right, I’m worn out too! Or, what is it that you youngsters say nowadays? I’m pooped?” Her dad also slumps onto the carpet beside her. The two share a cat-like grin before synchronizing in lying spread-eagle. Before they could close their eyes though, a loud cough makes them wince. They warily look up to see Mrs. Ohara looking down at them, her arms folded.

“If only all those guests could see you two right now. Whatever would they think?”

“That we’re super awesome?” Her dad offers.

The stern expression on her mom doesn’t last long as she crouches beside him and flicks his beard. The corner of her lips twitches a bit as if she’s trying hard not to muffle laughter. “Yes, yes, you’re the best.”

“Did you hear that, Mari-chan? Your mom approves!” Laughing, he struggles to sit up and cheerfully kisses his wife, who returns the gesture just as passionately.

“Eeww, no public display of affection please,” Mari covers her eyes but giggles when her parents lean in to peck her cheeks as well.

Her mom even ruffles her hair fondly. “I think you should go get ready, Mari-chan. You’ll be late for the train if you don’t hurry.”

At this, her dad groans loudly. “Oh that’s right, my baby girl’s going to Hogwarts! I can’t believe it’s already time!”

“Dad, I’m fifteen already.”

“Yes, and ready to date, you’re at that age, you can’t deceive me!” He lets out a scandalous scoff. “I can see it already, the moment my beautiful daughter steps foot into that castle, all those stupid, hormonal boys-”

“Dad, I like girls.”

“- girls are going to be all over you so I’m gonna Jinx them before they even-”

Mari rolls her eyes and zones him out, though her smile remains on her face and unlike the case with the guests, this one comes from the bottom of her heart. She came out to her parents not too long ago, but it seems like her dad’s already gotten used to it as if it’s old news. Sure, there may be slip-ups here and there about the gender stereotype, like now, but she could truly feel her dad’s effort in trying to make her like it’s the norm. Her mom is only too happy at the prospect of possibly having two daughters in the future.

Geez! She hasn’t even gone on a date with anyone and her parents are already planning way ahead!

Still, she loves them and she knows that she’ll always be her dad’s perfect little princess. Giggling, she gives her parents a loving hug before skipping towards her room to pack up. She isn’t wholly surprised that her house-elves have already prepared all the necessities while leaving room for her to place extra items.

Grinning mischievously, she stuffs a few more dresses and bags of her favorite coffee beans into her luggage. And, just because she could, she hops from the balcony of her room and is safely caught by her clever Hippogriff.

“That’s really dangerous, dear.” Her dad knows she would pull this stunt and thus is already waiting for her by the foyer. Mrs. Ohara also comes out of the house a moment later to stand beside her husband. Starbright approaches them without needing Mari to give instructions.

“I only do that because I trust Starbright will be there for me. You too, dad~”

He shakes his head as her overly sweet tone. “Gosh, I’m so going to miss you around here, princess. Well then, as promised, we’ll let you get to the station by yourself, on this ol’rascal here. Make sure nothing happens to her, capsice?”

The Hippogriff paws at the ground once, with its neck ramrod straight, to show that it will do its utmost best in escorting its mistress.

“What was the other thing you promised, dad?”

“... no mushy farewells, I know.” After taking a deep breath, Mr. Ohara gazes affectionately at her and smiles. “Enjoy yourself at Hogwarts, stellina, and definitely tell us if anything happens! In bocca al lupo!”

“Crepi! I’ll miss you both.” Mari winks back and, with a nudge to Starbright, the young witch-Hippogriff pair then takes to the sky.

She hums to herself, thinking for the umpteenth time that she’s probably the most fortunate person in the whole world. She has parents who love her, accepting her unconditionally and always providing anything she requests within reason. They spoil her really, and she knows that, and so she always tries to be the daughter they can be proud of. In spite of her complaints, she really does enjoy helping her father increase his influence and obtain more connections with important figures around the world.

Naturally, she’s excited about Hogwarts, but she’s also been to Beaubaxton, Durmstrang and even Ilvermorny a few times while accompanying her parents and they are all amazing schools! Therefore, going to Hogwarts only feels like being on an extended trip, rather than ‘her home for the next five years of her life’.

Indeed, she has everything she’s ever wanted. She’s happy, so what else could she possibly need at Hogwarts?

Mari grins as she urges Starbright to fly faster.

Well, she can always wish for more, can’t she?

stellina - my little star

In bocca al lupo - Italian slang equivalent to english slang of ‘breaking a leg’

Crepi - Italian slang equivalent of ‘gotcha’ responding to the above

[jilyyall]

How Would You Feel if I Told You I Loved You?

Lily Evans is many things to many people: daughter, sister, freak, Head Girl, muggleborn, mudblood, student, friend. To James Potter, she is just Lily. When Petunia’s reluctance to include her sister in her wedding begins to unexpectedly wear on Lily and make her feel unwanted and unappreciated, James is there to remind her just how wanted and appreciated she really is. Rating: very soft M Read it on AO3 or fanfiction.net

“Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you.” - Walter Winchell

Lily Evans came from an ordinary family, with a mother, father, and sister who lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood. There had been nothing strange or unusual in her upbringing and still, she was a most unordinary girl as her sister never tired of reminding her. Freak, Petunia liked to call her, pointed nose upturned, beady blue eyes narrowed in disgust and what Lily liked to think was envy rather than hatred.

See, Lily was a witch and her family were what was known as Muggles, non-magic folk. Five years her senior, Petunia seemed determined to be as ordinary as possible to make up for her sister’s freakish uniqueness. Their parents were far less judgmental about it all, but they still didn’t really understand exactly why Lily was so enthusiastic about school, and her friends, and her magic.

They didn’t see the point of the cauldron she set up in her bedroom whenever she was home, or the unusual ingredients that were often delivered to their window via delivery owl and then sliced, chopped, and brewed into a potion the purpose of which they never understood even when she explained it again and again. They had met a few of her friends on trips to Diagon Alley - the magical shopping alley in London which they were always eager to visit and gawk about - and on Platform 9 ¾, but they were always a bit too shocked at their attire and cultural differences and the conversations too short for them to have any chance to actually get to know and like any of her magical friends.

However, for the first time ever today, they would hopefully be spending an extended amount of time with someone who had grown up in the magical world, someone who knew as little about the Muggle world as her parents did about the magical world. Of course, this would be taking place at Petunia’s very traditional, very Muggle, distinctly un-freaky wedding, so Lily wasn’t sure exactly how much free time her parents were going to have.

Up until a couple of months ago, Lily hadn’t been planning on bringing anyone to the wedding, not because she didn’t have any options, but because she had assumed that she was going to be in the wedding as opposed to at the wedding. As the sister of the bride, Lily had thought she would be too busy with her bridesmaid duties to spend any time with a date who wouldn’t know anyone or have anything ordinary to share with a bunch of Muggles. When she had been home for Christmas break, however, she had quickly realized that wasn’t going to be the case.

Petunia had no interest in including her sister in her wedding. In fact, if Petunia had gotten her way, Lily wouldn’t even have been able to attend the wedding. It was, after all, scheduled not during break, but in the middle of her final term of school and Petunia knew that Lily had never been able to leave school for a weekend before. But Lily was Head Girl now, and that meant that, while she had more responsibilities at school, she also had more pull with her teachers and the headmaster, and had been able to convince Professor Dumbledore to allow her to come home for the weekend.

Her date, on the other hand, had no such permission. He likely could have gotten permission had he asked - he was well-liked by Professor Dumbledore and most of their professors, after all - but he was a trouble-maker through and through and he knew how to get out of the school without the headmaster’s express permission. He could have gotten Lily out as well, had she not been granted permission to leave, but it would have been tricky, coming up with a believable story as to why no one had seen the Head Girl in days.

Petunia’s face when Lily had arrived at the rehearsal dinner with their parents the previous night had stung, but she was mostly used to it, that sneering, disapproving, glaring down the bridge of the nose, unadulterated disappointment. She had sat quietly, which was something Lily was unaccustomed to doing, while speeches were made and food was consumed and champagne was sipped. When Petunia had been forced to hug her at the end of the evening, her fingernails had been sharp and almost pierced Lily’s arm with the force with which she had gripped her. Her voice had been low and harsh in Lily’s ear.

“Don’t embarrass me tomorrow.”

Lily frowned and dug her feet into the grass in her parent’s front garden. She was sick of it all; sick of being Petunia’s freak sister, sick of being the mudblood Head Girl, sick of not fitting in wherever she went. Usually, it didn’t bother her. She had friends, really good friends who didn’t care about her blood status. She had a boy who had proclaimed his preference for her over the cultural preoccupation with blood purity, who had knowingly and willingly subjected himself to torment and judgment and danger just to be with her. She had parents who loved her despite their differences, even if they didn’t really understand her. She had the respect of all of her teachers, who saw her as a bright girl, a clever girl, a talented girl. She had the respect of herself, for not bowing under the pressure to disappear, to push away those who wanted to stand by her, to run from the words and the accusations and the hate and even the love.

Sometimes, though, it really got to her that no matter how hard she tried to mend bridges, there would always be people on the other side just waiting to tear those bridges right back down. Her sister, her best-friend-turned-traitor, the single most powerful dark wizard to ever exist and his ever-growing mass of followers. It was just too much, at times.

“You haven’t been Petrified, have you, Evans?” The voice - and the completely unordinary wording of the question - mere inches from her ear had Lily breaking into a bright, relieved smile. “Only, I’ve been sitting here with you for a couple minutes and you haven’t reacted or moved at all.”

“Hello, James.” Lily turned her head so he could see her smile and feel how glad she was to have him there.

“Oh, good, you’re all right. Had me concerned for a moment there.” James cocked his head curiously, his eyebrows all but knitting together even as he smiled while studying her. “What’s got your attention?”

“Nothing important. I was just brooding a bit.” She slid her hand into his, resting their hands on her thigh and wishing that they didn’t have to leave for her sister’s wedding in a moment.

“Yeah, I could tell. You had the Sirius look about you.”

“No matter. Now all my attention is on you.” She winked, then frowned when she finally took in his appearance. “Oh, no, this won’t do at all.”

“What?” He looked down, patted his neat tie, smoothed non-existent wrinkles from his pressed shirt. “Isn’t this appropriate Muggle attire? I went to a Muggle shop. Brought Mary along and everything. I thought it looked ridiculous, but she assured me that this was what I should wear.”

Muggleborn Mary MacDonald, Peter Pettigrew’s new girlfriend and a longtime friend of Lily’s, had not steered him wrong. Her choice of a pair of plaid, wide-legged trousers and a green suit jacket over a fitted off-white button-up was entirely fitting attire for a Muggle wedding guest. Still, Lily had never been more disappointed than when she stared at him. Down to the brand new brown dress shoes, he was completely ordinary.

“What have you done?” She stared, aghast, at the flat mass of black on top of his head. “You’ve even tamed your hair! You look completely normal.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me. Are you upset because I look too Muggle?” He laughed when she nodded, sad eyes and bottom lip sticking out and all. “I thought you wanted your family to like me.”

“I do, but this isn’t you. This is… this is… Steve McQueen!”

“I’m not…” James stopped in the middle of his indignant protest to cock his head. “Who is Steve McQueen?”

“He’s a very fit, well-dressed, tame-haired, ordinary, rich Muggle celebrity! Well, he’s a bit old now, but he’s still pretty fit!”

“Well, we have two things in common on a regular basis. I am, after all, very fit and very rich.”

“I don’t want Steve McQueen! I want messy hair, rumpled clothes, ink-stained fingers, crooked half-done ties, wand-twirling, Snitch-obsessed, nervous energy…”

James cut her off, rather abruptly covering her mouth with his. When he pulled away just a few seconds later, he didn’t seem to notice the hunger he had awakened in her. He smiled and cupped the back of her neck in his free hand as he rested his forehead against hers.

“Hey, just because I properly tied my tie for once and got Sirius to charm my hair to lie flat for a couple hours, doesn’t change the fact that I’m still that idiot prat who doesn’t know how to tuck in his shirt all the way around or sit still for longer than five minutes on a good day.”

“All the same.” Lily laughed and slid her hand into his hair, thoroughly mussing it and undoing all of Sirius Black’s undoubtedly hard work. “I’d like for you to at least resemble yourself when you meet my parents.”

“Oh, shall I go slip into something more comfortable, eh?” James joked as she slipped her hand from his to fidget with his tie, loosening it a bit and undoing the first button on his shirt. “Perhaps a lovely pair of dress robes? Or maybe nothing at all?”

Lily’s heart started hammering at the mere suggestion. He was clearly joking, but she had no doubt that if she told him that yes, she would like for him to follow her into the house and shuck every last stitch of clothing on his body and have his way with her, he would not hesitate to comply. They hadn’t yet reached that stage in their relationship, but he had made enough offhand jokes for Lily to catch on that they weren’t really all that offhand at all.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested, it was that they never seemed to have the time or opportunity to explore that side of their relationship. The furthest they had managed to get before one of them had to run off to some prior engagement or one of his roommates had come traipsing back into their dormitory was ripping the shirts off each other. And here they were sitting in front of her conveniently empty childhood home with somewhere they had to be in less than ten minutes.

“There,” she said brusquely and stood to admire her handiwork. “Much more like yourself, but still thoroughly Muggle.”

“Will your family approve, then?” He stood there on the stoop, did a little twirl for her, and then leapt the short distance down to her level.

“Petunia won’t, but she wouldn’t like the prince of England if he was dating me.” Lily smiled when James looked momentarily affronted, and slipped her hands into his. “My mum will be mad for you, and I think my dad will like you.”

“You think?”

“You’re my first boyfriend I’ve ever brought home. I don’t know how he’ll act.” Lily shrugged. “If you were shorter and uglier, but with the same personality, I would think he’d love you.”

“So the only reason your dad might not be warm and welcoming to me is that I’m too attractive?” James frowned, then grinned and nodded. “I can deal with that.”

“Hey, Evans.” James’s breath was warm on the side of her neck, his chest flush against the sliver of skin that her dress left exposed on her back. She shuddered at the sensation, and scowled at one of her sister’s new in-laws when he shot them a disapproving glare.

“Yes, Potter?” Lily said, turning around to put them chest-to-chest because, honestly, fuck the Dursleys and anyone else who wanted to judge them.

They were standing just off to the side of the dance floor where people were doing more awkward swaying than dancing. She was waiting for her parents to extricate themselves from Vernon’s intoxicated, loud, self-absorbed sister so that she could steal them away to get to know James. She had hurriedly introduced them before the ceremony, but thanks to Vernon Dursley’s overbearing family, this was the first time since the ceremony had ended that she had even seen them and she wasn’t planning on letting them out of her sight.

“You do know that there will be many opportunities for me to properly meet your parents, right? It doesn’t have to be tonight.”

“You’re right.” Lily frowned and pressed her face into his chest. “I guess my sister’s wedding isn’t exactly the best time for them to get to know you. Tonight is about her, after all.”

“So you’re going to stop trying to wandlessly Stun anyone who approaches your parents, then?” he asked, laughter evident in his tone as he wrapped his arms around her back in a warm, fond embrace.

“I am not doing that!” Lily protested.

“Lily, your cousin all but wet himself and ran from your parents when he saw your face,” James said.

“You’re completely exaggerating,” Lily lied.

“Sure I am.” He let his arms drop to his side, but Lily stayed huddled against him all the same. “Come on, let’s dance.”

“I’d rather not,” she mumbled into his chest.

He sighed and patted the top of her head. “Just as well. I know you have less rhythm than a centaur with four left hooves.”

She drew back on a falsely scandalized gasp and batted at his chest. “You are such an ass!” she exclaimed, forgetting to keep her voice down.

James laughed, the splitting grin on his face piercing straight through her heart. He kissed her, then turned and slipped away, moving quickly across the sparsely-populated dance floor. Lily followed after him, cursing a bit too loudly when she tripped over the heels she had worn partially to appease her sister and partially to minimize the extreme height difference between her abnormally tall boyfriend and herself. James laughed loudly, the prat, clearly hearing her struggle, and refused to turn around to offer her a hand. What he could do, she hadn’t a clue but laughing at her without even turning to check on her while a crowd of people watched certainly wasn’t helping.

“You’re such a prat,” she said when she caught up to him at the cake table. “I have half a mind to ditch you for that.”

“What an obvious lie.” James lifted a plate with a generous slice of cake on it, and winked conspiratorially at the bored young man serving from the other side of the table. “She’s irrevocably besotted by me.”

“You’re an idiot with a high IQ,” Lily said fondly.

“I’ve no idea what that means. Cake?” James offered her the slice he was holding.

Lily took the plate from him, smiled and slipped the shoes off her feet when he turned around for a second slice. He turned back to her, smiling widely, just in time for her to smash the contents of her plate into his face. Never one to be taken by surprise, he didn’t even hesitate; his hand was moving almost before her cake had even come into contact with his face, and he smashed his own slice (a bit more gently than she had) into her face before she could flee like she’d planned.

Neither of them noticed the gasps of the people nearest them or the sudden wide berth they were given as they both dissolved into hysterics. Lily wiped frosting and mascara from her eyes with her fingertips, shaking the odd combination off her hands and onto the floor as James unashamedly smeared the sugar over his face with his jacket sleeve. Where most Muggle men would be cautious of ruining an expensive piece of clothing, Lily knew the thought didn’t even occur to James, who could easily charm the mess right off of his clothing later.

She only realized what a scene they were causing when her father appeared at James’s shoulder and her mother pulled her away from James. Lily turned to face her mother, and tried to shrink into herself when she caught a glimpse of her sister’s livid expression from the other side of the room.

“What are you doing?” her mother, usually so calm and understanding, demanded. Lily realized quite suddenly how harried her parents looked and wondered if Lily wasn’t the only one struggling to act a certain way to appease Petunia and her new family.

“Nothing?” Lily offered, and frowned when her mother scowled at her.

“Are you actually trying to ruin this night for your sister?” The harsh accusation had the hot sting of imminent tears burning Lily’s eyes.

“No, of course not. I didn’t mean… I didn’t think… Mum, I forgot where we were, that’s all.” She gripped her mother’s hands, her voice becoming very small. “I’m so sorry.”

Her mother sighed and her shoulders hunched over very slightly. “I know, darling. I know you’re not… like your sister.”

Lily frowned, trying to discern whether or not that was a good thing.

“And you know we love that about you,” her mother continued before she could reach a conclusion. “But perhaps now isn’t the time for you to be having fun.”

Her mother patted Lily on the back in a gesture that was probably meant to be bolstering but only served to make Lily feel about two feet tall, and turned her around to steer her back over to James and her father.

“I understand completely, sir, and I’m very sorry. It’s all my fault, really. I forget, sometimes, that I’m not five years old and can no longer get away with behaving like a cave person in public,” James was telling her father, his voice entirely sincere, when Lily and her mother reached them.

“It’s all right, James,” her mother said, announcing their return.

James immediately turned and locked gazes with Lily. She knew the instant their eyes met that he saw exactly how awful she felt. He closed the short distance between them and hugged her. It was all Lily could do not to cry when he pulled away, but kept his arm around her.

“Why don’t you two go get cleaned up?” Lily’s father suggested, his gaze intent on them and the comforting grip James had on her. “There’s a room down that corridor there that’s ordinarily meant for brides to get ready in, but Petunia didn’t use it because she and Vernon just had to have two separate venues for the wedding and the reception, didn’t they?”

“Dear.” That one word from his wife was a gentle reprimand that hinted at harsher consequences if he didn’t fall in line and Lily knew from his sudden silence that her father knew it well. Her mother turned to them and smiled a tight, worried smile, pointing out the corridor that led away from the reception. “Yes, why don’t you go wash off that cake?”

Lily nodded, bending down to gather her discarded shoes and taking James’s proffered hand when she stood up straight and turned away from her parents without a word. She led him down the corridor, finding the room her parents had pointed out easily. There was a table, a couch, a couple of plush armchairs, a private restroom, and a sink. She walked inside, threw her shoes halfway across the room, dropped down into one of the plush armchairs, and started to cry into her hands.

She heard the soft click of the door shutting behind James, then his quiet footsteps crossing the room. He knelt in front of her, drew her hands away from her face and rested their joined hands in her lap. She closed her eyes, resigned to the fact that he was going to sit there and watch her cry, and tried to pretend that he wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, love,” he whispered once she had started to calm down. “I really was trying to not cause any trouble, but I seem to have ruined your sister’s wedding after all.”

Lily laughed and pulled one hand free to wipe her face. She groaned when she remembered that they were both still covered in cake. “What are you talking about? I threw the cake first.”

She stood up, and James got up to let her pass him, then walked to the sink to turn the faucet on and rinse her face.

“Is she really that upset that we were only having a bit of a laugh?” James asked.

“It’s not the laughter that she minds.” Lily straightened and turned around, not caring about the water dripping down her dress and onto the carpet, to find him perched on the arm of the chair she had vacated. “It’s me. I’m unordinary and I don’t fit in and I attract attention because I do strange things sometimes and she hates everything about me.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing about you that anyone could possibly hate,” James insisted.

“Tell that to my sister,” Lily scoffed. And Voldemort and his followers, she didn’t add.

“It’s just so unfair,” James said, running a hand through his hair and frowning at the floor. “I mean, if I had to deal with someone like her, someone who’s head is stuck so far up their own ass that they can’t imagine any possible world in which different wasn’t the opposite of good, I would probably be frustrated to tears as well.”

Lily stared at him, suddenly overwhelmed with desire.

“And your parents! I mean, I know that you get along with your parents, and they’re good people and everything, but they didn’t have to act like it was the end of the world. It was a bit of cake. It didn’t hurt anyone!”

“Take off your shirt.”

“Nah, I can get it clean,” he said, waving a dismissive hand and pulling out his wand.

“James.” He looked up and his eyes went wide and his jaw slack to find her in nothing but a lacy white bra and matching knickers, her wand still strapped to her bare thigh. “Take off your clothes.”

“I… yeah… okay.” He stumbled to his feet and his wand fell from slack fingers to hit the ground with a flash of harmless green sparks as he shucked his jacket and started to fumble with the buttons on his shirt. Growing impatient, Lily crossed the room swiftly, aware of the fact that James’s eyes didn’t leave her chest, and began to work on his belt and slacks, her lips finding his throat and latching on.

“Ah, shit. Okay.” He finally got his shirt unbuttoned and flung to the side just as his slacks fell to the floor. He stepped out of his slacks and, when he would have gathered her into his arms, Lily danced back, gave him a gentle shove that sent him sprawling into the armchair, and then climbed onto his lap, her knees on either side of his thighs.

She kissed him on the mouth, all tongue and teeth, and began to grind her hips against his. His hands gripped her hips, not to halt her movements, but to help guide her. It wasn’t long before he was moving his hips as best he could given their current position. Each time she rubbed against him, a little shock of pleasure shot through her core and she could feel him growing harder and thicker beneath her. She let out a little whine and tore her mouth from his when his hands slipped from her hips to grip her ass.

She dropped her forehead against his shoulder when he groaned, their hips still rocking together.

When his hips started to move more insistently, and his grip on her tightened, and his breathing began to quicken, Lily climbed off of him. She could have laughed at the look on his face - an absurd mix of disappointment, frustration, bewilderment, and arousal - but she dropped to her knees in front of him, her fingers trembling as she started to pull down his briefs. His hands covered hers, and she looked up at him in disbelief.

“Wait. Wait. I. Just wait.” He stood up, moved past her, and Lily watched from her spot on the floor as he fought an internalized battle. “Are you sure about this?”

Lily frowned up at him. “Yes?”

“I just mean… you’ve just been crying and we’re in a room off the reception hall at you sister’s wedding and we’re covered in cake and… is this really how you want it to happen?” He watched warily, and eagerly, as Lily stood up and crossed the room towards him.

“Yes, I really want it to happen now, when I am alone with you in a room -” she drew her wand from its holster on her thigh and pointed it at the door, wordlessly locking it, and tossed it down on the floor near his - “that is locked to any Muggle who attempts to open it, and I am wanting you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in the world.”

James smiled when she wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his chest. He bent down to catch her lips in a long, heated kiss before he tore his mouth away to study her. “But why now?”

“Because you know the difference between frustrated tears and defeated tears.” She smiled when he looked more bewildered than before, and started leading him towards the couch. “Because you’re the only person in any world who doesn’t expect me to be anyone other than who I am.”

“I am rather fond of who you are, you know,” James said, and Lily knew she would meet no other objections from him.

He turned their bodies at the last minute so that instead of finding himself flat on his back on the couch, he was able to push Lily down and fall on top of her. It wasn’t long before Lily’s hands returned to the task of ridding him of his last vestige of clothing, and then some.

“You know,” Lily rested her chin on James’s chest and smiled as he twirled her hair around his fingers, “after some Muggle weddings, the bride and groom smash cake into each other’s faces before they serve it to their guests.”

“How rude. They serve their guests cake off of their faces?” He laughed when she rolled her eyes at him.

“You really are the stupidest genius I’ve ever met.” She pressed a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw.

“I don’t know what a genius is,” he lied.

“They cut the cake and then smash one slice into each other’s faces. It’s playful and cute and sometimes annoying and always wasteful,” she explained as if he really had misunderstood the concept. “Of course, my sister is too refined  and ordinary and boring to allow such lighthearted fun at her wedding.”

He kissed her, and she knew he did it to distract her just as much as because she was lying naked on top of him.

“Well, we just did all that, smashing cake in each other’s faces, and then we lost our virginities.” When she would have smacked his chest, he wrapped her in a great bear hug, effectively trapping her hands at her sides. “Did I miss something? Are we the ones who got married?”

Lily laughed, but flushed at the thought that crossed her mind that one day, maybe soon, they would be the ones who got married. She allowed him to kiss her again, slow and long and deep, the warmth of it reaching all the way down to her toes. As much as she wanted to let him get carried away, she knew that they were playing on borrowed time. How long had it been since her parents had sent them to clean up? Nearly an hour, at least, what with her breakdown, and his interruption, and their nerves slowing them down at times.

When she broke the kiss, he sighed and released her from his confining embrace.

“Time to head back to the party?” he surmised, nodding when she frowned sadly. “I was wondering how long we had.”

“I wish we could just stay here in this room forever, don’t you?” she said.

“With all the Dursleys and your parents just on the other side of the door? Nah, that’s okay,” he answered.

“It’s locked with magic; they can’t get in here,” Lily said as she rolled off him and then bent down to gather her undergarments from the ground. When she straightened and looked back at him, he was staring unabashedly at her bare ass.

“I am kicking the boys out of the room on penalty of death the second you get back to school tomorrow,” he vowed.

She laughed, but couldn’t deny the thrill that rushed through her as she tossed his briefs at him. “If you don’t, I will.”

Before they finished getting dressed, a process that took some time since they kept stopping to kiss and grope each other playfully, they finally did what they were sent there to do and charmed the cake off of their clothes. James also bent his head under the faucet to rinse off any of the lingering sugar before charming his hair dry. It ended up even messier than before he had wet his hair, probably because Lily hadn’t properly mussed it after Sirius charmed it to behave.

When they finally made it out of the room that had become their little sanctuary, it was as if nothing had changed. There were still only a few couples swaying awkwardly on the dance floor, and her parents were still entrapped in conversation with Petunia’s new in-laws, not even seeming to have noticed that Lily and James had been absent all this time. Petunia was still sitting next to her husband at the high table on the far end of the room, overlooking her reception. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that Vernon’s sister was slightly more intoxicated given the fact that she now seemed incapable of communicating in anything softer than a shout.

“Do you want more food? They’re still serving,” Lily said, pointing out the dozen or so servers who were rushing from kitchen to table.

“I could go for some cake,” James said in a far-too-innocent tone. He laughed and took her hand, pulling her out onto the dance floor when she sent him a warning glare. “Fine, then, if you won’t let me have my cake, you at least owe me a dance.”

“If you insist.” Even though she didn’t want to dance around these people, was afraid that she and James would stand out for simply not being incredibly awkward and rhythmless, she was smiling when he turned to her.

“So,” James said as he placed his hands on either side of her waist and began to sway, “do you think your parents can forgive me for being a cake-throwing, attention-grabbing, completely unordinary delinquent who may have ruined their eldest daughter’s wedding?”

“I threw the first slice,” Lily reminded him again and shook her head on an aggravated huff. “Besides, if she’s going to allow something as small as two frosting-faced teenagers to ruin her wedding, then she’s even more ridiculous and uptight than I already knew her to be.”

Lily clutched at his waist and leaned into him when he pulled her closer by the hips, and was thankful that he at least tried to match the simple swaying of the few couples around them even if he didn’t observe the substantial distance between partners. “Anyway, it’s like you said earlier: there will be plenty of opportunities for my parents to meet you, get to know you, and learn to love you, cake fiasco and all.”

“Even though I’m not Steve McQueen?” James questioned, making Lily laugh against his jacket.

“I don’t even know why I said Steve McQueen.” She played absently with the hair at the base of his neck. “I could have gone with Keith Richards or Paul McCartney or George Harrison! I’m sure you’ve at least heard of them.”

“I haven’t heard the names, but I’m assuming they’re from one of Sirius’s Muggle records. The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, if you think I should know them?” he guessed, and she nodded.

“You’re the best kind of unordinary,” she whispered into his shoulder a moment later as they swayed together on their spot near the edge of the dance floor. “That’s all I wanted them to see.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, and Lily drew her face back from his shoulder to crane her neck up to stare at him. He was smiling down at her, the crooked grin she loved so much crinkling at the corners of his bespectacled eyes. “You’re the best kind of unordinary. No matter where we are, you stand out as uncommonly kind, intelligent, fierce, strong-willed, incredibly beautiful…”

Freaky, she heard her sister’s voice hissing in the back of her mind. Shut up, she imagined finally telling Petunia, and pushed her sister’s judgment from her mind to focus instead on the earnest acceptance in James’s soft, brown eyes.

“I’m in love with you,” she said, cutting him off.

James froze, stopped swaying for a long moment, and stared down at her. She was amazed that she wasn’t nervous or frightened that he would reject her, for although they had never said such a thing to one another, they had been together for six months already and she knew, she knew, that James loved her. It wasn’t because they had just had sex and she had deluded herself into thinking that he must love her. It was the fact that even when he had been an immature prat not two years ago, he had never once expected or wanted her to change anything about herself. He had always accepted her for who she was. Even tonight, when he hadn’t really understood why she had needed him so desperately, just that she had indeed needed him, even if the timing had been less than ideal.

He was clearly taken-aback by the abrupt, matter-of-fact way in which she had just proclaimed her devotion to him, and was having trouble stringing together enough words to reply - something which didn’t happen to him often - so Lily smiled up at him, snaked her arms around the back of his neck, and launched herself up onto the tips of her toes to kiss him, judgmental sisters and Dursleys be damned. His arms wrapped around her waist and his mouth responded immediately, his body hunching forward to bring his lips more level with hers.

When they finally stopped kissing, they did not put more space between them. Rather, Lily’s arms slid down his body to snake beneath his arms and loop around his back as she nestled her face into the base of his neck, his arms still around her waist and holding her just as close to him as ever. He turned his head, lowered it a bit so that his mouth was pressed into her soft, fragrant hair. She felt in the expanding of his chest, rather than heard, him take a deep breath.

“Lily Evans. More than any thing in any world, I love you.” His grip on her waist tightened and she felt him draw her ever closer. “Even if you are a bit strange.”

[genericpseudonyms]

The Fields of Summer

AN: Belated birthday gift for @mytypeismisunderstood for being a wonderful friend for the past decade. Holy fuck girl, we are old. I’m so sorry that I’m such a slowpoke writer.

Typos my own.

Summary: His past was bleeding into the present, just as his future was bleeding out of the gaping wound in his neck. And since memories were useless to a dead man, Snape plucked them out of his mind and gave them to The Boy Who Lived. He didn’t realize that in so doing, he’d forget her.

—

Dying was not at all like what Severus Snape had imagined.

He had hoped—perhaps naively, considering his lot in life—that he might die like Albus had: Clear-eyed, with minimal suffering. Here one minute, gone the next in a flash of green.

The last thing he had wanted was to linger.

Still, there were worse ways to go. There was no pain, despite the thick coppery tang of blood filling his mouth, and the horrible wheezing coming from his throat. An ironic benefit of Nagini’s poison. It had coursed through his veins like liquid fire until every inch of his skin flushed with fever. Then it had settled, turning his blood to lead as it pinned him to the rotting floorboards of the Shrieking Shack.

Forgive me.

Exactly whose forgiveness he was asking, Snape wasn’t entirely sure. No one. Everyone. One person in particular.

He remembered the grass tickling the soles of his bare feet. The sweet, heady scent of asphodel and wormwood in the fields behind his childhood home. The particles of dust waltzing through beams of sunlight filtering in through the library window. The way the light stained her skin gold as the smell of dusty tomes filled his nostrils. The feel of his stomach clenching at the sharp whistle of the Hogwarts Express. The agony of her cool hand cupped around his ear, her warm breath whispering secrets. The pleasant bubbling of a cauldron and the tightness in his chest when he first realized that Amortentia would always smell like her perfume.

His past was bleeding into the present, just as his future was bleeding out of the gaping wound in his neck. If he had breath to spare, Snape would have laughed.

Death, he mused, had a way of bending time to its will. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there, or how long he’d have to relive his regrets. His only concept of time was how very little of it was left. But at some point, he realized he was no longer alone. Someone was propping him up, shaking his shoulders gently.

"Professor…"

It was the boy.

All at once, the haze of Nagini’s poison lifted. Snape saw himself rushing through the halls, looking for the Boy Who Lived, his chest heavy with the fear that once again, he was too late. And now here he was.

The boy was thinner than when he’d last glimpsed him in the woods. And his eyes—her eyes—were older. Briefly, Snape wondered what Lily would say if she could see her son now.

And what she would say to him for his role in shepherding the boy to his death.

Fisting his fingers in the boy’s shirt, Snape forced himself upright. A clever man might have found another way. A braver man would’ve told the boy everything while he still had the chance.

Snape swallowed. He had never been brave or clever when it counted.

You could be now.

The fields behind the mill—the first place he’d ever laid eyes on her. The thrill of holding her hand that first September on the Hogwarts Express. His humiliation when she refused his apology. Cold, bespectacled gray eyes when he’d begged for their lives on his knees. For the boy’s life. The years he spent scraping together whatever dignity he had left. His rage in Albus’ office when it all became clear just how useless his efforts had been.

One by one he plucked the shattered fragments from his mind and let them go. He watched the silvery wisps curl through the air, carrying with them the last of his strength.

"My memories," he rasped. "Take them."

For a second, he saw pity in the boy’s eyes. Just a few hours ago, that would have irked him.

"Look at me."

The boy’s eyes were a brilliant shade of emerald green. He couldn’t explain why, but that comforted him. His forgetfulness should have upset him. Instead, Snape felt himself fade into those emerald depths, his soul slipping free of the weight of the past twenty years.

—

The rain fell in thick globs, plastering his hair to his skin. Around them, the air crackled with the promise of thunder. The wind whipped through the tall grass, and jagged white fingers of electricity streaked through a purple-black sky. It was like nature was mocking him.

When he was small, in the days before his father left, his mother used to scoop him up onto her lap during summer storms. They’d sit by the window in the kitchen, tracing old runes into the condensation. He wasn’t sure why he’d told her that. Maybe because Fifth Year was looming and this was the only way he knew how to keep her close.

“Do you miss him?”

He shrugged, wiping away his hair—and maybe some tears—with the back of his hand.

“He doesn’t miss us.”

Her hand found his, her tiny fingers slipping into the spaces between his. Somehow, her skin was still cool despite the rare sticky heat. Though, it could have easily been the blush from his cheeks. Suddenly, he was glad for the rain.

“Well I’ll miss you. Even if you are the biggest jerk this side of Manchester.”

“You’re only going for a week.”

“Yeah,” she scrunched her nose. Not for the first time, he noticed her freckles reminded him of constellations in the night sky. “But it’s a family vacation with Petunia.”

“We should probably go back inside.”

“Aw, Sev. We’re leaving tomorrow and I won’t see you until school starts.” She poked him in the rib. Despite his best efforts, he felt the corner of his lip quirk and was rewarded with the sound of her laughter. “Besides, a bit of rain never hurt anybody.”

—

He woke up to his forehead smacking against the window of the Hogwarts Express. He supposed he had fallen asleep that way, curled up with his head against the cool glass, his neck bent at an odd angle.

The train was strangely quiet. In all his years, he’d never been able to sleep on the ride home. Students chattering about summer plans, promising to send owls or make arrangements for trips to buy school supplies at Diagon Alley. The air had always been thick with conversations that had no room for him.

But what really kept him up was the dread of returning home—a place with no friends, no magic, and nothing to distract him from the truth of his circumstances.

The ride home after seventh year had been the happiest. He’d left behind nothing in that rickety house, and now that he was a grown wizard, he had no reason to return. He had already found a flat with his friends, and finding a job was unnecessary because...

Snape blinked.

He hadn’t been a student in over twenty years. Glancing out the window, Snape furrowed his brows. Outside, there was no British countryside with its rolling hills and gray skies. There was only the dark walls and bloodstained floorboards of the Shrieking Shack. In the middle of the room stood the boy, Weasley and Granger, their eyes wide with shock at the body on the floor.

His body.

Snape’s hand flew to his neck. He remembered the sting of fangs sinking into his skin, the gush of blood oozing from the wound. But when he pulled his fingers away they were clean.

“It can be a bit of a shock at first.”

He swallowed. There, sitting across from him, was Albus Dumbledore in all his glory. His white beard; eyes that crinkled at the corners; half-moon glasses with dirty lenses. Everything was just as he remembered—all, except the hand that should have been charred black. Dumbledore followed his gaze and chuckled.

“I don’t understand,” he said. His voice sounded hollow, almost as if it didn’t belong to him. “You’re dead.”

“So are you, Severus.”

“I know, but…” he paused. There were so many things he had to ask. Had they won? Did time flow the same here as there? If he was dead, why was he on the Hogwarts Express? Could he go back and watch over the living? (Not that he had any desire to).

What came next?

Was this all there was?

“I don’t have many answers, Severus. As much as I’d like otherwise, that’s not how it works here.”

“I don’t—”

“Understand. Yes, I know.” Albus said, leaning back into the seat. “These trains never were all that comfortable, were they?”

Snape swallowed and chanced a look out the window. The boy and his friends were gone, but to their credit—and his surprise—they had folded his arms and clasped his hands over his navel. He was still lying in a puddle of his own blood, but whoever came to collect his body would see that he’d been moved. Laid to rest, so to speak.

“Albus,” he whispered.

“Yes, Severus?”

“What are we doing here?”

Dumbledore laced his fingers neatly over his lap. As far as Snape could recall, he only ever did that when there were no satisfactory answers. The silence stretched between them for one heartbeat, then two, and finally three before Dumbledore spoke.

“I’ve been dead a while longer than you, my friend, but you must understand, death…is not…” Dumbledore paused, his lips pursed as he searched for the right word. “Whatever this is, it does not belong to you. There are things we must do before we are allowed to rest.”

“Things?”

“Talking with people mostly. They come and go. Sometimes they help you, other times you help them. Every once in a while, you help each other.”

“You must be terribly busy then,” Snape muttered. To his credit, Dumbledore chuckled.

“It has been rather eventful. But I am glad to see you, if only to thank you. I imagine it’s been an unpleasant year.”

Snape grimaced. He had attained everything he’d ever dreamed of—a position of power, influence, and fame—but it had been nothing like he wanted. Most days, he had woken up wishing he could go back to his cauldrons, back to the days where he had the begrudging respect of his peers and an uneventful life. The worst part was he’d died before he got the chance to see it through.

“If the boy failed, does any of it matter?”

Dumbledore sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I’m certain she would think so.”

Blinking, Snape stared blankly at Dumbledore. “She?”

There was something that unnerved him about the way the amused twinkle faded from Dumbledore’s eyes. Snape fidgeted in his seat. He’d revealed himself lacking—in what way exactly, he wasn’t sure, but lacking nonetheless.

“Severus.” Dumbledore’s eyes flickered down to Snape’s neck. His voice was calm and quiet. Almost as if he were speaking to a skittish creature that might scurry away at the slightest provocation. “How did you tell Harry what he needed to do?”

Snape opened his mouth to answer, but the words died on his tongue. Thankfully, the train slowing as it pulled into its destination saved him the agony of having to remember.

Outside, the scene of his lifeless body had disappeared. The dreary walls of the Shrieking Shack had faded into a lush, verdant hill by a babbling creek. In the distance he spied an old mill, the kind that sputtered dark plumes of smoke at all hours of the day. It was an odd, but familiar sight. He’d spent a lot of time in fields like this—back when he was still a lonely child waiting for his Hogwarts letter.

It was then that Snape noticed the train had stopped. The door to the compartment slid open, and before he had time to think, Dumbledore was already out of his seat stretching his long arms and knees.

“Well I suppose this is your stop, Severus.”

“My stop?”

“Surely you didn’t think you’d spend the rest of eternity on the Hogwarts Express.” Dumbledore chuckled. “It appears we’ve reached the end of our time together.”

Snape licked his lips, his gut churning at the finality in Dumbledore’s voice. “The end?”

“It depends. Sometimes you spend days with a person. Other times only a few minutes. However long is needed.”

“For what?”

Dumbledore’s lips curled into a slow, mysterious smile.“Your guess is as good as mine.”

And in an instant, he was gone.

—

She was crying and he didn’t know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to be like those men on the covers of those absurd muggle novels she read when she thought no one was looking. The ones with the strong arms that a weeping woman could fall into and feel safe.

But if he tried that, she’d probably punch him.

“She’s stupid, obviously.”

“Sev!” Her hand whipped out and thwacked him soundly on the shoulder. “That’s my best friend you’re talking about.”

He tried not to wince as he rubbed his arm. He’d seen her hit James Potter a million times. Potter had never flinched.

“I thought I was your best friend.”

“My best girl friend, stupid.” She kicked him. “What are you, jealous?”

Yes, he thought.

“No,” he said. “I don’t see what you’re so upset about. It’s just a party.”

“She literally invited everybody in our year! Every. Body. Except. Me!”

“I guess the owl with my invitation just got lost then.”

Flushing, she dropped her gaze to the grass. “That’s not what I meant—”

“I know.” He breathed in sharply through his nostrils and fought the urge to rip out all the daisies blooming around them. “Have some pity. You’re the cleverest, prettiest witch in our year and she has a crush on James Potter. Let her have this party.” His lip curled. “After all, Potter’ll be mooning over you all Fourth Year.”

“Blergh. Don’t remind me.” She pretended to gag. “What does she see in him?”

His heart skipped.

“Who knows.”

—

Time was an affliction for the living.

Snape couldn’t say how long it’d been since Dumbledore and the Hogwarts Express had vanished, or even how long he’d been on the train in the first place. He wasn’t even sure how he’d got to be standing in the field. He didn’t recall standing up from his seat or getting off the train. The truth of it was that one minute he was there, and the next he was here.

Life after death, he mused, had a dreamy quality to it: Everything felt real when he was in the moment, but it all slipped away once it was over.

He had the distinct feeling that he was waiting for someone. Who, he couldn’t say. Someone important. The thought made his stomach flip, so he took to exploring the field around him.

He headed north where he could still make out the smoke from the mills. Where there were factories, he reasoned, there were people. And where there were people, there was information.

He walked aimlessly, past small white flowers and patches of mud until he reached the creek. He could have apparated across, but for some reason, he opted to take off his shoes and peel off his socks. The water felt cool against his skin, the stones at the bottom slick and slimy. He might have spent more time wading, if he had been inclined. But Snape was unused to idling so he trudged onward. He did, however, leave his shoes and socks next to some cattails by the bank. He had forgotten the feeling of grass underneath his feet and whatever else had been said about him over the years, Severus Snape was not a man who denied himself the occasional small pleasure.

He walked until he passed a second creek, and then a third. But it wasn’t until he passed a fourth and then a fifth creek, that Snape began to feel suspicious. Surely, he’d been walking for hours now and the mill wasn’t any closer. And then, after wading through the water a sixth time, his eyes fell upon a familiar pair of shoes.

“I was beginning to wonder when you’d notice.”

A chill ran up Snape’s spine. It had been twenty years since he’d heard that voice. Twenty years of building a name for himself, of shedding the skin of the gangly boy so hungry for control. And yet here he was again, feet wet in the grass, walking aimlessly in circles, waiting to be humiliated.

“I don’t really wanna be here either but the least you could do is turn around.”

“How disappointing,” Snape snapped. “And here I was hoping death might be peaceful.”

His tormentor fell silent, which struck Snape as strange. In life, James Potter would have seized any and every opportunity to spew insults and quips that weren’t nearly as clever as he imagined. Behind him, Snape could hear Potter suck in a deep breath through his teeth.

“Would you…just turn around?” Silence suffocated the air between them, but Snape just imagined his feet sinking into the ground, his toes extending into earth like roots. He was prepared to stay there, until he heard a long shuddering sigh. “Please?”

Blinking, Snape felt the tension seep out of his body. In seven years at Hogwarts, ‘please’ was a word Snape had never heard fall from James Potter’s lips. Curiosity scratched at the back of his mind, but another part of him relished the fact that for once, he held all the power.

“Look, Severus. I get it. I do. But we can spend the next thousand years standing right here, with you ignoring me, or you can turn around and we can both move on to whatever’s next.”

Snape paused, his stomach lurching as Dumbledore’s cryptic farewell on the train echoed in his ears. Sometimes you spend days with a person. Other times only a few minutes. However long is needed.

Lips curling into a sneer, Snape slowly turned. He was stubborn, yes, but he hadn’t died a miserable death to spend a thousand years with James Potter.

“Was that really so hard?”

“Yes.”

Death had been unfairly kind to James Potter. (But what else had Snape expected? Life had been exceptionally kind to Potter.) Standing on the other side of the creek, Potter looked exactly the same—tall, young, and handsome. A bit lanky, sure, but with thick black hair that fell in charming waves and dark eyes the color of the ocean.

The perks of dying young, Snape mused bitterly, was never having to watch yourself grow old. And James Potter would forever retain the bloom of his youth. While he…

Snape blinked at his reflection in the water. He was an awkward, gangly young man again. In an instant, twenty years of hard-earned confidence had melted away into scrawny limbs, slumped shoulders, and the distinct feeling he was too small for his body. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to know he had yet to grow into his wide-set eyes, long nose, and too-big ears.

“Well,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I’ve turned around.”

James’s lips tightened into a grim line. “Why do you always have to make it so hard?”

Snape had no answer for that. It was a question he’d asked himself a million times since… Well, he couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t asked himself that. He could have picked a side and stuck to it, regardless of the consequences. It would have been easier. Instead, he had made his bed living on the edge between the light and the dark. And what had that gotten him? An unheralded death, a life missed by none, and a legacy that everyone would do their best to erase from the history books. A lifetime of sacrifice, and he couldn’t even remember why.

It wasn’t until Potter cleared his throat that Snape realized he had been waiting for an answer.

“I don’t know.” Snape grimaced and stared at the grass poking up between his toes. Why was it always his shortcomings? “Why do you?”

“I don’t know either.” Potter’s breath left his chest in a heavy whoosh. “I s’pose we always did bring out the worst in each other.”

Snape grit his teeth. Under his skin, he could feel years of silent injustices bubbling in his veins. How typical of Potter to paint over his sins with the brush of mutual blame. To fail to acknowledge how he, the Boy Who Had Everything, had spent every waking moment trying to humiliate the Boy Who Had Nothing. How he had taken the only thing Snape had ever wanted, just because he could.

“You’re really not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

Snape seethed. “Heaven forbid that you work for anything.”

“Merlin’s beard,” Potter ran a hand through his hair before closing his eyes. “If I hadn’t promised her…”

“Promised who?”

“You know who.”

“The Dark Lord is not a woman.”

“Well obviously not him.” Potter narrowed his eyes. “Who do you think I’m talking about?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue, nor do I care.”

At that, Potter finally closed his mouth. When he was younger (and alive), Snape would have relished stealing the last word. But any sweetness from his victory turned sour as Potter’s eyes softened. He knew that look. Had seen it on Albus’s face a million times over the years.

“You don’t remember her, do you?”

For a brief moment, Snape could see the achingly familiar silhouette of a woman behind Potter. But then he blinked and she was gone.

“No,” he admitted quietly. He wiggled his toes and tried to ignore the way his stomach twisted. “And I’m not sure I want to.”

He didn’t have to look at Potter’s face to know he’d find a mix of guilt and pity. The thing was, if Snape were honest with himself, Potter had tried after the Whomping Willow. He had gone from being his primary tormenter to a bystander on the sidelines. And Snape had known that if he had just made an effort to swallow his pride, things might have been different. But by then, his hate had been a balm to the chaos raging inside him. If things weren’t going his way—and they never did—then at least he could blame everything on James Potter.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I can’t say it much better than that. I know…I know you had every right to hate me. And what you’ve done for my family—I’m not sure I could have done the same. I like to think that I would have, but…” A shuddering sigh escaped Potter’s lips, as if he realized that his rambling was falling on deaf ears. Swallowing, Potter clamped his hand right over his heart. “Thank you for protecting my son.”

Digging his toes into the dirt was all Snape could do to keep himself upright. His heart thudded against his ribs and something inside of him twisted and finally snapped. He could hear James babbling and if he listened carefully, he could hear the faintest echo of a woman’s voice. Snape squeezed his eyes shut.

She knows what you’ve done.

This isn’t want he wanted, he thought as he covered his ears. Saving the boy had never been about James Potter. It hadn’t been about Voldemort, Albus, or even the boy himself—it hadn’t been about any of them.

And while she’s sad you don’t remember her…

When Snape opened his eyes again, it was dark and he was alone in the Shrieking Shack. The field was gone, the grass beneath his feet replaced by rotting floorboards and a wet copper stain, the scent of summer lingering his nostrils.

She’ll be waiting when you’re ready.

—

She was already waiting for him underneath the oak tree, wearing a green summer dress with a white floral print. Her feet were bare and he could see she’d painted her toenails the color of ripe strawberries. In her lap were the books for Third Year because, that’s right, she’d gotten them last week with her parents during a trip to London.

Snape pinched himself as he approached. He was used to her in cutoff jeans, old T-shirts with grass stains, and beat-up trainers. He was comfortable with her in diaphanous Hogwarts robes.

Reaching up, he ran a hand through his hair, hoping that it would make him look neater and possibly make his ears look smaller. He straightened his shoulders and the hem of his threadbare shirt.

It was summer and they were thirteen, standing on the precipice of something big.

—

The days blurred together until the field seemed more and more like a dream.

Not for the first time, Snape clutched his knees to his chest as he lay on the dingy old mattress that once served a young Remus Lupin. In death, there was no such thing as hunger or sleep to break up the days. Instead, people came and they went. Or sometimes he was the one that went—to London, Hogwarts, or someplace he’d never been. Depending on the person, he grew old or he became young. But always, he ended up right back here.

He was no closer to figuring out how Death worked. There was no rhyme or reason to the people he met and when, but it was a distraction. Sometimes, it could even be pleasant and that took the edge off waiting. But when he couldn’t drift off, he remembered Dumbledore’s voice echoing above the rumble of train tracks.

“Whatever this is, it does not belong to you. There are things we must do before we are allowed to rest.”

It wasn’t all meaningless. He’d gleaned a few things from his time in limbo. Not too long ago he’d opened his eyes to find himself in Narcissa Malfoy’s library. She’d been much older than when he’d seen her last, her hair more steely silver than white gold. There were crows feet around her eyes that crinkled when she smiled at him.

She had died peacefully in her sleep, which told Snape the Boy Who Lived had prevailed. And her voice had swelled with pride when she talked about Draco’s son, Scorpio, who had just graduated from Hogwarts.

Which meant he’d been dead for at least seventeen years.

He’d learned other things, too. Like how the Boy and Weasley had become Aurors, That they’d installed a portrait of him as Headmaster at Hogwarts. That absurdly, there was a boy named Albus Severus Potter. They told him these things as if it would please him, and somehow Snape managed to smile, if only because it was expected of him. Inside, he knew that he was waiting for The Boy Who Lived. The thought turned his stomach.

He closed his eyes and opened them again.

Still the Shrieking Shack.

For the millionth time, he reminded himself that his death did not belong to him, and there were things he must do before he was allowed to rest.

Snape sighed. It was a long afterlife.

—

“Sev, can you believe first year is already over?”

He shrugged. They were sitting along the bank, dipping their feet into creek. The water soothed his pinched feet—his mother had promised a new pair of shoes weeks ago, but he was beginning to think she’d forgotten—even if the pebbles at the bottom felt slimy against his soles. He tried curling his toes around a flat stone, but despite his best efforts it kept slipping.

“Sev—”

“I s’pose.”

She furrowed her brows, nose scrunching like it always did when he said something she didn’t like. Which, since he’d been sorted into Slytherin,  happened more often than he liked.

“Is something the matter?”

He dug his toes below the stone until it balanced on the top of his left foot. If he couldn’t pick it up with his toes, maybe he could lift it.

“Is it stuff…” she paused. From the corner of his eye, he could see her fingers digging into a patch of grass. “Is it stuff at home?”

He was being sullen and if he kept it up, she’d eventually get tired of him. Here, he had her all to himself. Here, he didn’t have to share her with the rest of the school and he was wasting it.

“I just wish House stuff wasn’t so important.” He chanced a glance in her direction. “You’re my friend too.”

She let go of the grass and slipped her hand into his, squeezing lightly. Her eyes were soft and it made his skin crawl. He wasn’t sure if he craved that gentleness or hated it.

“We’re always going to be friends, Sev. I promise.”

—

He was old again. He could feel it in the straightness of his back and the weariness in his bones. The days had come and gone—so many that he’d long since lost count. But now that he was here, standing in the Hogwarts dungeons where he had taught hundreds of children the beauty of a simmering potion, Snape found himself wondering exactly how long he had been dead.

Breathing in sharply through his nose, Snape knew he had forgotten many things since dying, but it always surprised him how much of his memories relied on things. Things like the feel of a well-worn pewter cauldron, or the medicinal smell of herbs mixing with damp wet stones. How many hours of his life had he spent here? And yet, it had all vanished the minute he died.

“Professor?”

The Boy Who Lived looked better than when he last saw him. Like he’d had a proper meal and a good night’s sleep. His hair was tamer, less unruly, but the rest of him remained the same. The mirror image of his father, except for those eyes. Those green orbs pierced through him, just as they had that fateful first day in this very dungeon all those years ago.

For the first time in a long while, Snape thought of summer fields.

“Mr. Potter.”

“It’s…” Potter’s son raked a hand through his hair and Snape almost rolled his eyes. Like father, like son.“It’s been a long time, Professor.”

“So I’ve heard.” He drummed his fingers against his thigh as The Boy Who Lived bit back a sharp laugh.

“You never did let me off easy, did you?”

“Your father said something similar.” The words tumbled from his lips before he could stop them. Potter’s eyes widened, though not in the way Snape would have preferred. Surprise, anger, shock. Those emotions he could have accepted—respected even. Instead, his skin crawled at the way Potter’s emerald gaze softened.

“I-I know. He said they’d seen you. I think that’s why I’m here, actually.”

Snape narrowed his eyes. The Potter he remembered was slightly dopey, always a step behind Hermione Granger. The Boy Who Lived had always been disappointingly and exceptionally average in all things except flying—another trait he shared with his father. So for Potter to know something he didn’t?

“Out with it. I’ve already spent enough of my life making sure you stayed alive. Am I to spend the rest of eternity doting on you as well?”

To his indignation, Potter smiled.

“Do you remember the last time we were here? You were teaching me occlumency.”

“Trying to teach you, more like.” Snape grimaced. He forgot the exact reason why those lessons failed. Potter had crossed a line, that much he knew. Not for the first time, Snape wondered why he seemed to remember so much less than everyone else.

“It’s where I learned about the Pensieve,” Potter said slowly, his eyes fixed on Snape’s face, watching for his reaction. “I saw something I shouldn’t have. Do you remember?”

He did. Snape remembered how his blood had turned to ice and the violent twist of his heart—how he had so quickly gone from dreading another mediocre lesson to absolute terror at the sight of Potter’s head submerged within the Pensieve. But for the life of him, he couldn’t recall what it was he hadn’t wanted him to see.

This was exactly how he’d felt right before he’d gone to beg Dumbledore for his help. The same feeling he’d had all those days curled up in the Shrieking Shack, staring at a pool of what he knew to be his own blood.

“I’ve forgotten someone,” he said slowly. “Someone important.”

Potter nodded, biting his lip. “That night. The night you died in the Shrieking Shack, we didn’t find you time. You couldn’t speak, so—”

“I gave you my memories.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re here to give them back.”

“Yes.”

“What if I don’t want them?”

Despite the endless monotony of his death, despite how often his inability to remember frustrated him, his body remembered how heavily life had weighed on his shoulders. Forgetting let him stand straighter than he had in years. It lightened his step. And while Snape was keenly aware of the ever-present hollowness in his chest, he found that most days he didn’t mind it.

Potter gaped, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. A small, petty part of Snape reveled in his surprise. Dumbledore wouldn’t have approved. In fact, Snape was sure Albus would have reprimanded him for being childish.

The silence stretched between them, and Snape’s only regret was that the Powers That Be could be incredibly high-handed. What was the point of forcing him and Potter together? Why did he have to meet with a seemingly endless stream of people who’d made his already miserable life difficult? Why force him to live in a cage of half-drawn memories at all?

“You know, Ron asked me once if I wasn’t lionizing you after the fact. Naming my son after you, lobbying to put your portrait up at Hogwarts, making sure your name was cleared in the papers. There’s a card of you now. My daughter found one in her Chocolate Frog. And you might be surprised, but that made me happy.”

“For once,” Snape drawled, “Weasley may have had a point.”

“But,” Potter said sharply, pointedly ignoring him, “I didn’t stop hating you until you gave me these.”

He watched as Potter pulled a small vial from his pocket and set it on the very desk he’d sat at as an 11 year-old first year. Swirling inside the glass was the familiar silvery smoke of memory. His memory.

“You don’t have take them back…but they don’t belong to me. They’re yours. And hers.”

“Hers?”

“My mother.”

Snape froze. Of course, on some level he knew Harry Potter hadn’t sprung up from James Potter himself. And everyone knew the legend. That she’d sacrificed herself for him. That her love had repelled the Dark Lord’s killing curse. Snape knew he should have known who she was. That at one point, he had.

“I don’t…I can’t…”

Potter nodded, his head bobbing wordlessly as his eyes scanned every inch of the room. His breath was ragged from holding back a sigh. “It’s understandable,” he said. “I don’t think you intended things to turn out the way they did. I blame myself for that. I didn’t see. I didn’t want to see.”

Snape could have said anything. A few retorts flitted across his mind. Easy retorts meant to make Potter seethe. Cutting remarks that would make him bleed.

“I did what I had to,” Snape said simply. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“But—”

“Thank you for returning them.” He curled his fingers around the vial and slipped it into his pocket. The glass was cool but he could feel his memories pulsating inside. “And for keeping them all these years.”

Potter’s mouth hung open. In life, the sight might’ve made Snape sneer. In death, his stomach sank as if it were made of lead. Of course James’s son would find it surprising that the awkward, dour Potions Master could be gracious. What else could be expected of him?

“I…I’m sorry for being such a prat in your classes.”

Snape blinked.

In six years of trying to teach Harry Potter, years spent hiding his misery and guilt behind bubbling cauldrons and sarcastic quips, he’d never expected an apology. It was right for James Potter’s son to hate him. It made protecting him easier.

It struck him then that Harry had wrinkles that James never did. Creases around the corners of his mouth. Crows feet around his eyes. And if he squinted, Harry’s hair was peppered with silver near the temples. He’d lived longer than both Snape and his father. Seen more of the world than either of them.

“Professor? Are you alright?”

“Did you at least make the most of your life?”

Harry smiled.

The dungeon grew hazy around the edges, shimmering like the edges of a Pensieve before fading into the next memory. For a brief moment, Snape hoped it meant he would finally be allowed to rest.

—

“Sev, are you nervous?”

It was August 31st. At the edge of the horizon, the sky was already starting fade from vibrant pinks and reds to a deep purple. The crickets were chirping their sad songs, and in that moment, an 11-year-old Snape wondered if she could hear how fast his heart thudded against his ribs.

“No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

He turned to look at her. She’d pulled her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs as she curled up into the trunk of the tree.

“Why would I be?”

“I dunno. It’s the first day. At Hogwarts.”

“I know.”

She bit her lip. “What if it goes all wrong?”

“It won’t. We’re going to be the greatest wizard and witch Hogwarts has ever seen.”

“But how can you be so sure?”

He swallowed. Because it had to be better. Anything would be compared to staying home for another year. Another year of his parents fighting. Of his mother crying alone in the bathroom when she thought everyone was sleeping. Of his father stumbling home drunk in the dark.

Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of his life. His real life.

“Trust me. When we’re big, everyone is going to remember who we are.”

She scrunched her face.

“If you say so.”

—

When he awoke, the world was awash with sunlight. Shielding his eyes, Snape could see dozens of daisies and dandelions dotting the verdant hills like stars in the night sky. In the distance, he could make out the silhouette of smoke stacks and plumes of smoke.

Snape sighed. The Powers That Be were insufferable.

Pursing his lips, he chucked off his shoes and stalked off in the direction of the creek. As he walked, he could feel the vial tapping against his thigh.

The narrative was clear. He’d read enough of those pulpy swashbucklers as a child to know what the hero did next. The sooner he did it, the sooner he—and, the Potters—could get on with their afterlives.

Then again, he’d never been the hero. Not even in his own story.

As he reached the banks, the water felt cool against his feet, the stones slimy under his toes. He flexed them a few times, reveling in the dappled pattern of sunlight through water. He’d done this often as a boy—mostly when the silence at the dinner table was too thick, or as an escape on the days his mother couldn’t force herself to pretend.

He hadn’t seen her. Not once. Through the endless days, he sometimes thought he caught a whiff of her perfume. Other times, he saw a passing shadow bearing her resemblance out the corner of his eye. He supposed that was just as well. In life, his mother never had much to say to him. Why should death have been any different?

And not for the first time, Snape imagined a world where his parents never met. He’d found a photo after his mother died, buried away in an old album. She’d been sitting at this very same creek, her long black hair spilling over her shoulders as her nimble fingers wove a crown made of daisies. She looked young, her skin smooth and her lips slightly upturned as if she was trying not to laugh at a terrible joke.

He imagined she would have stayed that way. Free of the lines around her mouth from frowning every time his father came home stinking of gin. She would have stood tall, her back straight instead of slightly hunched. She would have married a respectable man from a good wizarding family. She wouldn’t flinch when people spoke to her. She would have greeted the world with a cool, confident smile.

And in that world, her son might have been someone worth noticing. Handsome, charming, accomplished, and admired by everyone who met him.

Someone more like James Potter.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

He knew that voice. Had dreamt of it all those lonely nights after she died. And for the first time in years, he remembered his favorite thing about Lily’s voice was how it reminded him of clear, running water.

Swallowing, Snape reached a hand into his pocket only to find it empty. He supposed she learned that trick from one of Potter’s friends. (Sirius Black, most likely.)

“In my defense, you were taking an awfully long time.”

Behind him, he could hear her kicking off her shoes. He didn’t have to look to know she’d taken off the left first, then the right before tossing them carelessly over her shoulder.

“I missed this, you know. I only came back once after fifth year. Just before Harry was born. You were already gone by then, who knows where. I sat here all by myself for a whole afternoon but it wasn’t the same.”

He could see her in his peripheral now. Parts of her at least. Her feet were pale next to his, though her toenails were painted a bright shade of shamrock green. Snape fixed his gaze on a misshapen rock near his big toe. It worked for the most part, though every once in a while he could see a wisp of red hair when the breeze picked up.

“Sev—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Oh, he can speak.”

Alive, he’d imagined this moment so many times. In the early years, he’d wrapped himself in his guilt until it became his armor. He pictured her as stone-faced as the night she’d rejected his apology. In his dreams, he’d reach out for her hand. He’d try to explain himself and she would always turn away without a word.

Later, he allowed himself the fantasy that she’d greet him with open arms. She’d shower him with forgiveness and gratitude for selflessly sacrificing himself for her son. He never got much further than that. His sense of reality and disgust with himself usually won out.

But somehow, in the 17 years after her death, Snape had forgotten just how annoying she could be.

“What do you want me to say?” he said between gritted teeth.

“A ‘Hello’ would do. ‘Long time no see.’ Something along those lines would’ve been fine. James said you’d been difficult. I hoped he’d been exaggerating.”

“Ah yes, James.” Snape’s lip curled. “And I’d hoped dying meant I’d finally heard the last of him.”

“Really? This is how we’re starting off?” Lily’s voice pitched. When they were children, this was the part where she’d stomp across the fields back to her house. He’d watch her go, too stubborn to apologize, but desperate for her to at least look back. She never did. “You’re absolutely unbelievable.”

“Perhaps. But this?” He gestured to the air between them, but kept his eyes fixed on the water lapping at his ankles. “Whatever this is, I’m done with it. You should go now.”

Beside him, he could hear Lily sputtering. If he looked, Snape was certain her mouth would be hanging open, her brows furrowed and her hands curled into fists at her sides.

“We both know that’s not how this works.”

Ah yes. His death did not belong to him, just as Lily’s death did not belong to her. They both had things to do before they would be allowed to rest. Neither of them would be permitted to leave until the Powers That Be deemed them worthy. Snape grit his teeth.

“You’re the one who started things off the on the wrong foot.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You had no right. Those were my memories.” “I had every right.” Lily’s voice was steely. “Those memories belonged to me, just as much as they belonged to you. What was I supposed to do? Wait another twenty, thirty years for you to feel ready?”

“Oh, so the seventeen years after you died. All that pain and suffering. Those belonged to you too?” Snape grimaced. “Did you ever think for a moment that maybe I wanted to forget?”

That shut her up. Briefly.

“It’s not my fault you beat yourself up for seventeen years. Unnecessarily, might I add. I didn’t ask you to do that, Sev. I never wanted you to do that.”

He swallowed. She had that magical talent of twisting his words against him. Of reflecting back to him just how selfish and narcissistic he could be. Of making him feel so incredibly beneath her, unworthy of her company. And despite his infinite shortcomings, even a young Snape had known deep down it wouldn’t last. They’d both picked over every scab until their friendship was infected by doubt.

Every time he’d seen James Potter make her laugh, it’d felt like something cold squeezed its fingers around his heart. The next time he’d see her, instead of being a friend he’d say something rude. Something unkind. And he’d watch, his stomach sinking, as the warmth in her eyes cooled.

The noble thing would have been to be honest with her. But despite what Albus had said, Snape would’ve never been sorted into Gryffindor. What he’d done for Harry had been easy. Courage borne from guilt wasn’t anything special. But now, after all these years, even though he knew that she knew, he would’ve rather wasted away for an eternity rather than tell her face-to-face.

“You had no right,” he whispered.

“Would you at least look at me?” After a few beats, she added, “Please.”

This was it. The moment he’d dreamed of. Turning his head, the rapid beat of Snape’s heart stilled.

Lily had never lived long enough to develop laugh lines or that crinkle at the corner of her eyes. Her skin was still smooth and pale, her cheeks rounded and full. But she’d cut her hair. It was shorter, more practical—though still curled in waves by at her shoulders. And her eyes, oh those eyes. They were older. Wiser. Those were eyes that had seen the truth of the world, but still believed in good things.

She was still so very young, while he had grown so very old.

“Sev.” Lily stretched a hand toward him, her fingers gently brushing against his knee. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” His voice cracked in his throat. “It was never supposed to be like this.”

She pursed her lips, eyes softening, and Snape wished he could hide under a rock.

“I used to think that too. In the beginning. I thought I’d be here with James. You know. Clouds and halos and all that muggle jazz about angels and Heaven. I thought at the very least I’d get to watch over Harry. But it doesn’t really work like that. I see James every once in a while, but never for very long. I did get to see Harry grow up, though not as much as I’d have liked. Enough to get a sense of who he turned out to be. But mostly, it was just a lot of waiting by myself. Lots and lots of waiting. Sound familiar?”

Lily didn’t wait for him to respond before she continued.

“Then one day I’m magically here at the creek and I knew I’d see you again soon. I knew what you’d done for Harry. And I was so ready to just talk. There was so much I wanted to say. You probably won’t believe me but I’ve thought a lot over the years about what seeing you again would be like.” Pausing, Lily smiled tightly at him before wincing. “Didn’t happen quite the way I imagined.”

It never did with them. It never would. The realization sank heavily into his bones. All those years, when Harry was being difficult, he’d lie in his bed and stare at the ceiling imagining this moment. He dreamt of what it would be like if none of the bad things had ever happened. They’d be back to how they were before things got so twisted.

But, as it turned out, he had started forgetting long before his death. They had always sniped and bickered and poked at each other until the one of them went crazy. They’d always seesawed back and forth between affection and exasperation. He’d always disappointed her, and she’d never tried to understand his point of view.

She had just realized it before he had.

“Do you remember that summer before first year?”

Lily scrunched her nose. “Vaguely. Why?”

“The day before we came to Hogwarts, we sat here. You asked me if I was nervous about what school would be like.”

“Yeah. You said everyone would remember us.”

He chuckled darkly. “After that. You wanted to play tag but the sun had already started setting. If I could, I’d go back to that moment and I would do everything differently.”

“How so?”

“For starters, I’d have let you go.” When Lily started blinking rapidly, Snape licked his lips. His cheeks were warm and a small part of him wished the earth would crack open beneath him and swallow him whole. “It was all different after third year. If I’d been…better I’d have let you go instead of…” He waved his hand, as if he could summon the perfect blend of words that would express what he meant while preserving his dignity. “Instead of hoping you’d see me as anything more than your friend. And resenting you when you didn’t. ”

The words hung between them, heavy and thick like the air just before a thunderstorm. He’d always suspected she’d known. Every time their conversations skirted too close, every time he worked up the nerve to hint, she’d always steered the conversation back to something safe. And as they grew older, she stopped whispering in his ear or looping her arm through his. Worse yet, he wasn’t blind and she was a terrible actress. Her eyes started lingering on James Potter, following him whenever he left the room. And while Snape had always looked back when they said goodnight, Lily had never once done the same.

But to finally say it. Snape breathed in the sweet smell of summer grass. It didn’t help the dull ache in his chest, but when he finally exhaled, his entire body sagged with relief.

“Oh, Sev.” Lily’s eyes were shut, her lips pursed in a half grimace.“I—”

“You don’t have to say anything. It’s fine.”

To his surprise, it actually was. For the first time in years, he could see her for who she was and not who he wished she’d be. The ache in his chest, his constant companion since the day he first laid eyes on her, ebbed. He doubted it would ever go away completely. Even when he couldn’t remember her, the echo of it had still been there.

“I forgive you. For that day.”

“You shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it.”

“Maybe not. But I forgive you anyway.”

And for the first time since the summer before Fifth Year, they sat together in comfortable silence. It was like rereading an old book for the hundredth time; he knew every sentence, every twist and turn of phrase. He knew how this story ended, had always known how this story ended. But for once, he didn’t resent his part.

“You know,” he said, voice trembling. “It’s not too late.”

Lily’s head tilted to the side, her brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

Brushing off the grass from his knees, Snape stood with a new lightness in his limbs. There was no troublesome ache in his neck. His bones did not creak. His back did not ache. The air was sweet with the scent of asphodel and wormwood, and when he looked at his hands, they were smooth. No calluses from years of writing, no scars from broken glass. Most importantly, there was no Dark Mark on his left forearm.

He glanced back at Lily and his heart leapt. She looked just as she had before a scarlet train took them to a magic castle in Scotland. Before she was a beautiful woman, back when she was a gangly girl with knobby knees and grass in her long auburn hair. It was the Lily Evans that only he knew—the Lily he loved best.

Leaning over, he lightly tapped her arm.

“Tag,” he said. “You’re it.”

Snape didn’t bother looking back as he shot across the field, his feet splashing through the creek as he darted toward home. He’d never been the fastest runner. Besides, he had full faith she would catch him before long.

Behind him, he heard Lily’s indignant shriek and he pushed his legs to run faster. He didn’t know if he’d ever see her again. Perhaps, he was the last person she needed to see before she left for shores unknown. As for him, he had a nagging feeling he wasn’t done just yet. But this moment? This he could take with him.

A smile spread across his lips as he felt her grab a fistful of his shirt. Laughing, they tumbled down the hill.

This was something they could share, if only for a little while.

[newstfionline]

New Office Hours Aim for Well Rested, More Productive Workers

By Emily Laber-Warren, NY Times, Dec. 24, 2018

A few years ago, scientists conducted a real-world experiment at a ThyssenKrupp steel factory in Germany. They assigned the day shift to early risers and the late shift to night owls.

Soon the steel workers, many of whom had been skeptical at the outset, were getting an extra hour of sleep on work nights. By simply aligning work schedules with people’s internal clocks, the researchers had helped people get more and better rest.

“They got 16 percent more sleep, almost a full night’s length over the course of the week,” said Till Roenneberg, a chronobiologist at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, who headed the study. “That is enormous.”

In recent years, American educators have been paying increased attention to their students’ sleep needs, with growing debate about delaying school start times. Now a number of businesses are following suit, encouraging their employees to work when their bodies are most awake.

“It’s a huge financial burden not to sleep properly,” Dr. Roenneberg said. “The estimates go toward 1 percent of gross national product,” both in the United States and Germany.

Emerging science reveals that each of us has an optimal time to fall asleep and wake up, a personalized biological rhythm known as a “chronotype.” When you don’t sleep at the time your body wants to sleep--your so-called biological night--you don’t sleep as well or as long, setting the stage not only for fatigue, poor work performance and errors but also health problems ranging from heart disease and obesity to anxiety and depression.

A full 80 percent of people have work schedules that clash with their internal clocks, said Céline Vetter, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and director of the university’s circadian and sleep epidemiology lab. “The problem is huge,” Dr. Vetter said. “If we consider your individual chronotype and your work hours, the chances are very high that there’s quite a bit of misalignment.”

Put it this way: If you rely on an alarm clock to wake up, you’re out of sync with your own biology.

Studies on workers in the call center of a mobile phone company, a packaging manufacturer and an oil transportation company show that these employees are more stressed and may experience more work-related discomfort and pain. It’s the mismatch--not the hours themselves--that matters. A 2015 Harvard Medical School study found that for night owls, working during the day increases diabetes risk.

Among the companies seeking to remedy the problem is Southwest Airlines, which allows pilots to choose between morning and evening flight schedules. The United States Navy recently traded an 18-hour submarine shift schedule for a 24-hour one that more closely matches sailors’ biological rhythms. And at some pharmaceutical, software and financial companies, managers expect employees to come to the office for only a few hours in the middle of the day--or to work off site entirely.

“I think circadian rhythms will be a huge issue for human resources in the future,” said Camilla Kring, a Danish consultant who has helped employees at AbbVie, Roche, Medtronic and other companies learn to respect their natural sleep cycles. “It really makes sense to think about when people have the most energy and when they’re peaking mentally.”

Worker fatigue has played a role in many workplace accidents, most famously the Challenger space shuttle explosion and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but no doubt countless more on the commute to and from work. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that drowsy drivers cause 16.5 percent of fatal crashes.

A survey released last year by the National Safety Council found that 97 percent of workers have at least one risk factor for fatigue, with 27 percent reporting having unintentionally fallen asleep on the job in the previous month and 16 percent that they had experienced at least one safety incident because of fatigue.

“We have a 24/7 society, so we knew fatigue was definitely affecting part of our work force,” said Emily Whitcomb, senior program manager of the council’s fatigue initiative. “But we did not anticipate that fatigue was going to be affecting almost 100 percent of our work force.”

Dr. Roenneberg has collected data from 300,000 people and found that chronotypes plot as a bell-shaped curve, with a few individuals at each extreme and most falling somewhere in the middle. According to Dr. Roenneberg’s research, the most frequent chronotype--held by about 13 percent of the population--sleeps from around midnight to 8 a.m. Thirty-one percent of people have an earlier natural bedtime, and 56 percent have a later one. That means for at least 69 percent of the population, getting to the office by 8 or 9 a.m. requires waking up before their body is ready.

Not all experts acknowledge such fine-grained distinctions, instead grouping people into morning, evening and “intermediate” types. Regardless, while true “larks” and “owls” tend to dominate the conversation, they make up a small percentage of the population.

To determine your chronotype, imagine that you have two weeks of vacation to spend as you like, with no evening or morning commitments and no pets or children to wake you. Chronotypes reflect habits as well as biology, so you would also need to eliminate caffeine and avoid artificial light at night, which pushes a person’s chronotype later. At what time would you tend to fall asleep and wake up? Don’t be surprised if you’re unsure. After years spent accommodating work, family and social commitments at the expense of sleep, “a lot of people don’t know what rhythm they have,” Ms. Kring said.

Chronotypes shift in a predictable way over the course of a lifetime. Between the ages of 12 and 21, everyone’s natural sleep schedule gets about 2 1/2 hours later--which is why adolescents have so much trouble waking up for school. After that, chronotype creeps in the other direction, which is why older people typically find themselves waking earlier than they used to.

But chronotype determines more than when you sleep and wake. It orchestrates predictable peaks and troughs of energy over the course of the 24-hour day. The so-called “window of circadian low”--the hours when the body is least adapted for wakefulness--typically occurs between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. There’s another, smaller dip 12 hours later, in the midafternoon.

There are also two high points, when thinking is sharp and reaction times quick. One occurs within an hour or two after waking, and the other after the daytime dip. This cycle is shifted earlier in a morning person and later in an evening or night person.

A 2018 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, which represents 300,000 H.R. professionals in more than 165 countries, found that 57 percent of its members offer flexible hours, 5 percent more than in 2014. “Managers who give it a try often find that employees’ morale, engagement and productivity all go up, because they are working at a time that works best for them, and able to get the most work done,” said Lisa Horn, the group’s vice president of congressional affairs.

Some companies restrict meetings to “core hours,” between, say, 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., to accommodate various schedules. Others build flextime into the workweek. At Phase 2, a software development firm in Oklahoma City, each week ends with “productivity Friday,” when employees are expected to work remotely in a place of their choice--whether that be from home, a coffee shop or at a weekend house at the lake.

Stefan Volk, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School, has suggested that businesses can leverage chronotypes to maximize team success. For example, members of a surgery team should have similar chronotypes because they need to be in top form simultaneously. But at a nuclear power plant, workers should have different energy peaks, so that someone is always on the alert.

But while lots of corporations promise flexibility, veering from the traditional 9 to 5 work hours requires a cultural shift. A 2014 study led by Dr. Barnes found that many managers have an ingrained prejudice in favor of early birds, whom they perceived as more conscientious simply because they arrived at work early, a view that could dissuade some workers from using flextime.

But sticking to traditional hours can be counterproductive, leading to “presenteeism”--employees showing up and being only minimally functional. “Companies are wasting the potential of their people,” Dr. Volk said. “You have someone sitting there from 7 til 9 a.m. sipping coffee, being completely unproductive, and then you send them home at 4 when they actually start getting productive.”