CHAPTER NINETEEN
vibe check

HAVING WRITTEN OFF GILDEROY LOCKHART AS MORE OF A PREDICAMENT THAN ANYTHING WORTH HER TIME, Sawyer sits in the back of her Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom watching Quinn add cartoon monsters to the piece of scrap parchment they've been doodling on for a good portion of the past half an hour since class started. As Professor Lockhart went on his long spiels about the fancy places he'd visited and saved from imminent danger of darker powers and beasts lurking in periphery, the two girls passed the parchment between them, taking turns making additions—Sawyer would cobble together a childish drawing of something, and Quinn would pencil in a speech bubble and amusing dialogue—to pass the time. The moment Lockhart concluded the lecture, however, Sawyer knew Quidditch tryouts would be awaiting her. She was just running from the vice-like chokehold of one unbearable thing to another.

            In the beginning, Lockhart had started them off with a short quiz, the questions of which were no short of self-absorbed, casually revolving around himself and his many published, best-sellers. Equal parts horrified and perplexed, the entire class of sixth year students—save for the girls who were still bedazzled by Lockhart's frivolous charm and winsome, toothpaste-commercial-worthy grin—had begun to stress out about the year's turnout of results, already drawing negative conclusions.

            Somewhere in the middle rows, Oliver Wood sat with one of his Gryffindor friends, Ashton. Loudly and without ceremony, he'd already established Lockhart as useless, that the time was better allocated to researching new Quidditch tactics, or even better, playing Quidditch before the pitch got booked out and left in a state of unrest by the Slytherins. Like most student athletes—at least two-thirds of the class were on the Gryffindor or Hufflepuff Quidditch teams, both reserve and first string members—Sawyer had taken DADA because it was an easy, guaranteed pass, and the exams had minimal writing involved, which meant less revising, more intuition, and more time allowed for Quidditch practices. But the immediate consensus was this: Professor Lockhart was a dumbass who peacocked his accomplishments around rather than taught, and this class was nothing but a waste of time.

          Not all that distressed about Lockhart's evident misgivings, Sawyer had taken to watching the other students sleep, scribble notes into their own parchment paper, fiddle with their quills, make valiant attempts to listen to Lockhart's fables, and pass notes folded into origami birds charmed to flutter over to the respective recipient's desk. Not surprisingly, they failed to hold her interest for long as her mind went oblivion, blanked in the drug-induced fog shrouding her brain. She still couldn't decide if she liked the feeling of not feeling every single noise in the world digging into her nerves and setting her skin ablaze with irritation, keep her pulled so taut she might snap at any given moment, or if it was just a foreign, palpable absence of the agitation she had to get used to.

            Either way, she let her gaze drift past the backs of the other students' heads, past Professor Lockhart's tasteless slideshow of himself in different outfits, supposedly in different parts of the world, holding different invaluable artefacts and shaking hands with different important people projected on the screen at the front of the classroom, past the window where a blue strip of sky lay, a rare, already diminishing sight for this side of Scotland—the perfect weather a monotonous reminder of perfect Quidditch condition—and past the faint outline of the forbidden forest. Past everything.

             "Is it just me or does his trip to Egypt to fight that Sphinx sound a little too far-fetched to be true?" Quinn had mused, hastily scrawling something into their cartoon-infested parchment before sliding it back to Sawyer. "I mean, come on, slaying so many beasts in such a short time? And maintaining perfect eyebrows and teeth and glowing skin? Sounds like fabrication to me."

           Considering the dialogue and the negative space around the cartoon on the parchment paper, Sawyer scribbled a stick-figure devil holding a watering can standing in Quinn's wilting garden. "Even if it is, nobody's going to call him out. Just look at the idiot. He's a white man with money who's got half the world in his pocket and the other half shining his shoes."

          "If he gives us one more quiz on his adventures in exotic countries, I will," Quinn almost growled, shooting Lockhart—who was still regaling the class with tales of his glory days traipsing around South America, looking for magic in niche regions, shaking hands with famous people, and about a new book he was working on that contained more magical enlightenment—a frosty glower. "Does he even know what he's doing is violating Inca culture?"

          Sawyer's lackadaisical smile turned mocking. "And so, with all the power vested in little Quinn and her peasant rags, she donned her battle armour and slew Gilderoy the Disrespectful with her heightened cultural sensitivity, saving villages of knowledge-starved children from having to suffer through more of his bullshit."

           Quinn did not look amused.

* * *

EVEN THOUGH THE ENDLESS MOTLEY OF MEDICATION is supposedly sanding off the tapered edges of her mind, softening the malicious shards of broken glass inside, some part of Sawyer can't let go of the self-destruction. If she isn't hurting someone else, she is hurting herself. It is the way things have always been. Natural order can't be changed, can it?

          Lying on her back in the stands, it's with this subliminal thought hanging on a thread in her drug-muddled brain that she finds herself staring at the sun. Her eyes are burning and watering and she's pretty certain there are tear tracks sticking to her cheeks, drying against the cool breeze biting at her cheeks and the pink tip of her nose, but she can't look away from the silver-gold corona searing into her irises. In the back of her mind, she knows the long-term effects of UV rays and getting blinded by the burning ball of gas lighting up the sky in the day might cause detrimental problems in her future, but the pain keeps her grounded. It takes her back to old habits. She hasn't burnt herself with her lighter, hasn't actively sought out self-mutilation, hasn't fought anyone in the hallways. The pain is familiar. It's a sick sentiment, but she misses it. She'd never admit it out loud to anyone, though—not that she's all that vocal about her inner afflictions anyway—because this tiny, minuscule sliver of dysfunction is enough to put her in a psych ward.

           Maybe it's what she needs.

          But it's not what she wants.

           In the midst of her absence from the earth, lost in the cosmos of her subliminal thoughts, Sawyer doesn't notice that she isn't alone anymore when someone stands over her, head eclipsing the sun, casting a shadow over her, and all she sees is the burning imprint of a blinding light smudging the person's features like a cataract.

           "I don't know how self-destructive you are, but actively blinding yourself is not the way to get you out of Quidditch training."

           By the sound of his voice, Sawyer recognises the speaker as Kenai Denali, the Hufflepuff team's goalkeeper. After Nia had graduated, Kenai had been appointed to take over as Captain. Though Kenai had evidently learnt from Nia's past mistakes and knew not to push Sawyer into doing more than she wanted to, the only other downside to his newfound role was that, in the name of keeping the team together, he tried too hard to be everyone's friend. Whereas Nia knew where to pull her weight and where the camaraderie began and ended, Kenai's distorted notion of leadership stemmed from the kindergarten mentality of hugging it out. Which, in essence, sent Sawyer's non-existent respect for him plummeting into the negatives.

          Sawyer hums, making a show of contemplation. "You sound like Oliver."

           "You mean I sound like I'm concerned for your health?"

             "Madam Pomfrey can fix me up," Sawyer points out. "If I lose this pair of eyes, she'll harvest me new ones."

           Frowning, Kenai crossed his arms over his chest. "Doesn't it hurt?"

          Stupid question. Sawyer ignored him.

           "Well, we don't have time to grow you a new pair of eyes. Tryouts start in ten minutes." Kenai's lips twisted into a small, impish grin that would've been the picturesque of natural had it not been for the waver in his expression, the slight falter in his words as he floundered to put them in order, and she glimpsed the desperation in the cracks of his facade. "Do me a favour and... play, like, for real this time, yeah?"

           Heaving an explosive sigh, Sawyer swung her legs over the bench and manoeuvred herself upright, flashing Kenai a wolfish grin, cold and cheerless and vacant save for the promise of pain if he didn't move out of her way. "We are not friends," Sawyer said, marking out the first of his mistakes, the one flaw in his plan so prominent it stuck out like an eyesore. "And I don't do favours. You have nothing to offer me, therefore this exchange has been entirely pointless."

           Frowning, Kenai's mouth parted as bafflement tangled the soft lines of his features, as he wracked his brains for a shred of leverage but drew blank after blank, the same look Sawyer's been met with on more accounts than one—Oliver, Nia, Wyatt, other team members, previous captains, and even Madam Hooch. The same look she got whenever someone asked something of her, only to be dished the same response: barely a cool look and a cold, hard, "no." And now that Violet had cemented her role as a valuable asset to the team, Kenai couldn't use her against Sawyer.

           A beat passed. Kenai's brows furrowed. Bored, Sawyer flicked her fingers at him a dismissive gesture as her other hand snaked into her pocket and drew out her flip-top lighter. "Run along, now. Try-outs are starting."

          Stunned, Kenai could only blink, and though he'd visibly been robbed of speech, and though he looked torn between dragging Sawyer onto the pitch (terrible idea, for a plethora of reasons, the most obvious one being that he did have some sense of self-preservation) and involving Madam Hooch (another terrible idea, even if it would be less physically compromising than the former). But as the seconds ticked past, as the sun rays began to sear the back of her neck, as Kenai had the good sense to back up, Sawyer's attention had been snatched up by the flip-top lighter and its quiet hissing as a tiny flame flared to life before her face. There was no getting it back.

* * *

BETWEEN HER SECOND DOSAGE and the light chatter about everything and nothing bouncing back and forth between Jeremy and Quinn, Marcus and Rio's sardonic quips, Sawyer found herself distractedly pushing her half-eaten dinner around her plate. Around her, the sounds of the Great Hall barely permeated the nebula of her brain, and where, before the medicine, the screech of forks scraping against ceramic and the obnoxious cacophony of conversation and boisterous laughter might have made her skin prickle, might have been all too much, it now feels more like she's standing in the eye of the hurricane and the rest of the world is just moving around her. Spinning chaos in every direction but she's caged in her inconsequential silence, stagnant and stuck, damned to watch the rest of the students go about their business, blurry streaks of motion in her periphery.

          You get used to it, Dahlia Josten, her therapist, had said in an attempt to be reassuring—but Sawyer didn't need reassurance or pity or kid-glove handling treatment. She needed results. Results and efficiency and something to repair the hole inside her head that only grows, this rift between everything she feels and everything she's supposed to feel that'd been carved out since the beginning of time that she's been filling with burn scars and drowning lessons and reckless abandon. You can patch a hole up for only so long before the cracks grow roots and the damage seeps into the foundation, but that's all it is: a shoddy, temporary patch-up job. Permanence was what Sawyer needed. Not a patch-up, but actual repairs.

          You won't feel like yourself for awhile, said Dahlia, picking purposefully at the hem of her knitted sweater, but that's only because you've consolidated this anger into a primary state of being for so long that any other state of being will feel foreign. I'm going to be completely transparent with you. This healing process is not going to be a smooth road. It takes effort, hard work, and a lot of patience. At the end of the day, though, you'll see an improvement. But only if you're willing to work with me, to trust me as I trust you, and only if you're interested in aforementioned improvement.

           Healing is not a linear process. A watched kettle never boils. This, Sawyer is beginning to understand as the world moves around her and her brain is melted down to within an inch of its function and she's starting to notice things she's never noticed before like how much anger she's held onto for so long—so much anger and so little room—that there never was much space for other parts of herself to develop. Time passes different now. Some days it feels like she's floating, feet off the ground and barely feeling the steps she takes until the medicated high wears off and she's crashing back down to reality. Some days it's like she's drowning, head submerged underwater, learning how to hold her breath in the bathtub for a whole summer, hearing everything but all the words are moving mouths and muffled sound—not because she can't actually hear, but because there's nothing she cares to listen out for.

            "You're quiet," Rio remarks, nudging Sawyer's foot with his as Sawyer watches Marcus unceremoniously unloading his peas onto Quinn's plate. "What's up?"

            "Nothing," Sawyer says, a vacant grin pulling at the edges of her mouth.

           Rio hums. "Well if you think of something..."

           Sawyer shrugs.

           There's nothing to think about. The world goes by in snatches. Everything is fine.

* * *

MIDNIGHT: the quiet flare of torches mounted on the kitchen walls, vaguely cognisant of the sleeping sounds of Hogwarts, the ancient groan of the draft howling through the hallways, the house elves making their last minute preparations, the skitter of paws against the marble tiles as ginger cat streaks after a particularly fat rat scurrying down the corridor. The Hufflepuff common room had gone dark and quiet since eleven, and Sawyer finds herself alone, unconfronted, with her homework in one hand and a quill clipped between her teeth.

          When she reaches the doorway to the kitchen, she stops dead in her tracks.

           With his back to her as he's seated at the kitchen table in the corner, hunched over a thick volume, scribbling notes on a piece of parchment, Oliver can't see her. Stalled by the doorway, Sawyer contemplates leaving there and then to avoid painful conversation. But then there's also the fact that there's nothing to run from, so why should she be the one to have to turn away when she's already here?

             "Waffles again, miss?" A gnarled house elf croaks at her elbow, spindly fingers knotting together anxiously, glassy eyes darting over her face and hands furtively, as if afraid Sawyer might strike him.

             "With honey and cream," Sawyer mouthed around her quill, and out of her peripheral vision, she swore she could see Oliver jolt upright at the sound of her voice, but when she cast her gaze towards him, he was still hunched over his book, pouring over the notes, and entirely oblivious to her presence.

            Without thinking too much of it, Sawyer strode over to the table and pulled out a chair, seating herself opposite Oliver. For about five painstaking minutes, Sawyer lays out her homework haphazardly over her space, plucks the quill out from between her teeth and begins to write, keeping her eyes on her creased parchment and Transfiguration textbook. Every odd moment, she looks up and catches Oliver's critical gaze, his pale eyes glistering with something indistinguishable, but it's only for a nanosecond before he flicks his eyes back down to his work. When the house elf returns with her plate of waffles, glistening gold with honey and topped with cream, Sawyer scratches out a whole sentence of her Transfiguration essay and starts again.

            "How were tryouts?" Oliver asks, clearing his throat. When Sawyer glances up at him with a blank expression, he scratches the back of his neck and says, "I heard the Hufflepuff team had theirs today."

            Sawyer shrugs. "Not so shabby. The turnout gets more hopeless every year."

            Kenai had set up a mock match to weed out potential players, and Sawyer had spent half of it letting bludgers hit freshmen off their brooms before getting benched by Madam Hooch for not being a team player. As much as she acted out, though, Sawyer knew she would never get pulled from the team. They needed their line of defense, and no matter how little effort Sawyer put in that Madam Hooch let her get away with, no matter how minimal her contribution, they clung to her to stay afloat.

            "How's Violet doing?"

           Sawyer smirks, cutting up her waffles into little pieces. "She might dethrone Kenai at some point."

          Twirling his quill over his knuckles, Oliver doesn't quite smile—outside of matches, he hardly smiled—but his expression isn't carefully blank or bored anymore. "Good thing we'll both be graduated by the time she earns her captaincy."

          Sawyer doesn't say anything. For awhile, she chews thoughtlessly, letting the silence stretch between them, as Oliver flips a page. As the shadows brush over the both of them, dancing in the hollows of their features, Oliver's hoodie a sudden sting of red in the firelight, Sawyer's grey one fading in and out of darkness as the torch flames mounted to the walls flicker and flare, she studies him—them, studies them both in their little microcosm of nothing, this bell jar of silence descending.

           "Can I ask you something?" Oliver pipes, shattering the glass.

           "Yes?" Sawyer lifts a brow, preparing a snarky response and a wall of cold silence if it's something personal and pervasive.

           "Why waffles?"

          Sawyer blinks.

            "Should I have gotten a kale salad instead to appease your health-nut Highness?" She drawls, spearing a piece of waffle and dragging it through a pool of honey.

            Rolling his eyes, Oliver sets his quill aside. "No, I mean, every time you're down here, it's always waffles. Or something morbidly sweet. I remember in fourth year you straight-up ate a whole tub of ice cream under ten minutes. I still don't know if I should be impressed or grossed out."

           "That's not a record."

           "Sawyer."

           Sawyer picks at a piece of loose thread on the sleeve of her hoodie. "I just like sweet stuff. My mum says its bad for me, but I don't care. Since we were kids, Wyatt and I always had limits on our sugar intake, and now that I'm away from home, it's like I can take back this one piece of control over..." she trails off, waving a dismissive hand in the air for Oliver to interpret it however he wanted. "Whereas you, on the other hand," she says, jabbing her fork at him in an accusatory fashion, "I bet you actually eat salads for snacks."

            Oliver rolls his eyes. "Alright, leave me alone."

             Sawyer's eyes flash with the barest shade of amusement. "As you wish."

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
i lied this chapter isn't juicy at all and it's short as fuck with 0 substantial oliver x sawyer content but hey the next one will be