CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
the irony of choking on a lifesaver

SOMETHING WAS WRONG—Sawyer felt it the moment she'd stepped off the train, an invisible weight that dogged at her heels throughout the welcome feast the previous night, following her from the moment she woke up this morning, shackled to her ankles. She didn't know what it was. Just that it was like fifth year all over again, the feeling of two hands pressing down on her shoulders, holding her down when she knew she should be moving forward. Over the summer, things had gotten better. Maybe she wasn't whole yet, but if all the therapy sessions with Dr Josten had taught her anything it was that the goal wasn't about wholeness. It was about discarding bad habits and replacing them with healthier ones, and then, gradually, replacing bad thoughts with healthier ones. For instance, Sawyer had locked her lighter away after the first session, and hadn't felt the need for it since.

As she stared at the backs of her hands under the table, watched her burn scars stretch thin and bunch up over her knuckles each time she flexed and relaxed her fingers, a pit of hopelessness had opened up. Beneath her skin, there was a familiar buzzing. An ache for pain. To feel something other than the rift opening up in her chest. Around her, the noise dimmed. As the students slowly filed into the Great Hall for breakfast, it felt like the world was going by at twice the speed and she was stuck in tar, her brain barely processing anything. For a moment, the urge hit her full-force. She regretted leaving her lighter at the bottom of her suitcase.

The rattle of pills in a prescription bottle snapped Sawyer out of her reverie.

Marcus set the bottle down on the table in front of her with an expectant look, and Sawyer downed two pills without complaint. Dr Josten had switched her to Valium over the summer. The sharp V grinned at her, a little bit cruelly, a little bit judgementally. Sawyer wanted to turn the bottle away so she wouldn't have to see it anymore, but could only bother with flicking it over on its side. On cue, Marcus pocketed it, shooting Sawyer a concerned look.

"I have a good feeling about this year," Jeremy said, flipping through the Daily Prophet.

On the cover page of the paper, Sawyer caught the headlines of the day: SEARCH FOR ESCAPED MURDERER ONGOING. Below the bold type print, Sirius Black's grainy mugshot grinned wolfishly at them as he laughed like he was taking in chunks of air and spitting it back out, his unruly hair falling over his face, crooked teeth gleaming in the flash of the camera. Sawyer tried to mirror his smile, but it felt weak, diluted. It collapsed in a second and the rift inside her opened wider, like someone had dug a finger through the gap and ripped it some more.

"I don't know..." Quinn frowned, trailing off as she glanced anxiously at the windows where a Dementor drifted by. Since Azkaban had somehow lost a runaway prisoner, Hogwarts had been crawling with Dementors. Out of everyone in the group, Quinn and Sawyer felt the storm cloud of their presence more heavily than the others. Ever since the train ride, they'd both been drained of energy lately. The world had become sluggish and though Sawyer had been taking her medication without fail, she felt the effects waning. As the Dementors drifted down the corridor, right past their carriage, Quinn had broken down, a panic attack violently wracking her body. Later, the group would learn that this was her first one in years. "I think the Dementors being here is just setting me on edge."

Rio let out a sharp laugh. "I've been wanting to go back to bed since I woke up."

Sawyer wanted to tell her friends that she had a bad feeling sitting in her bones, that it was getting bad again and she was terrified all her hard work was going out the window, but it was as though someone had stuck a bottle of glue in her mouth and squeezed it all onto her tongue. So she kept quiet, pushed her eggs and bacon around a little, and the noise around her began to tunnel. Her stomach had shrunken to a tiny seed sitting in her midsection, and her appetite was gone.

"Aw, shit," Marcus grumbled, patting his pockets.

"Why? What's wrong?" Jeremy asked, furrowing his brows, peering over the top of the newspaper in his hands as Marcus let out an exasperated groan.

"I think I left my Charms textbook in your house."

Over the course of the summer, Sawyer had kept a tally of how many times her friends have stopped taking shelter in their own homes because even though the roofs were intact, there were storms leaking in they needed to hide from. They'd even gone to Diagon Alley to shop for the year's supplies as a group.

Rio hadn't gone back to his house once, understandably. He spent all that time with a wad of cash stolen from his father's safe and a duffel bag stuffed with all his possessions bumping between Jeremy's and Sawyer's homes. Once, he stayed at Quinn's but because her parents were conservative, and this was the first time they had ever come face-to-face with Rio, all six feet of scars and rough edges, they didn't approve of him staying over, no matter how platonic Quinn swore they were. Nobody dared to tell them that he didn't even bat for Quinn's team.

Jeremy and Rio spent three days sleeping on Sawyer's floor. Jeremy had been back to his house for a week before he decided he couldn't stand the mum-shaped hole in the wall and his father's haunting presence even if they kept to two different ends of the house like roommates who would meet in the kitchen once for an awkward interaction but otherwise never spoke if they had a choice. His mother was a dead end. Correction: he tried, took the phone off the cradle, but he didn't know what numbers to dial.

Quinn had come to stay over at Sawyer's thrice. At first, her parents thought Sawyer was a boy's name, but after Quinn had Sawyer come over and prove that she was, in fact, not a boy, they hounded her less.

Marcus and Rio hadn't spoken at all, and by then everyone had grown accustomed to the awkward divide between them. Jeremy had stayed at Marcus' a few times. At one point they all went on a camping trip to Isle of Sky and watched the night swallow the light and spit it back out in tiny seeds dotting the darkness. That night Sawyer shared a tent with Rio and they listened to Jeremy and Quinn talk in soft tones about constellations and what they meant to each other until Sawyer got a metaphorical toothache and Rio yelled at them to just bone already.

"You can share mine for the time being," Quinn offered. It made sense, since they were in the same Charms class this year. "It's no biggie."

"I'll get my dad to mail it over tomorrow morning," Jeremy said, nonchalantly.

Marcus smiled in relief. "Thanks, guys."

And there was a selfish flash of a moment where the irritation stabbed through her chest again. Everyone seemed so caught up in their own worlds, and her friends were being helpful and someone was being grateful and there she was: useless and stagnant and ineffectual and unable to speak and unable to eat and unable to do anything except feel sorry for herself. Somewhere deep inside her, all the ugliness and rot that she'd taken pains to bury under the foundation, had begun to crawl through the floorboards into the house that she'd built for herself. It was like all the existential pains of fifth year and every year before that had coldkicked all the work she'd put in to stay better, to stay in a state of mind that wasn't hellbent on destruction, to keep her hand on the restart button, and tossed her back into the cycle all over again. And then she felt monumentally stupid for thinking all that.

Maybe she'd been quiet the entire time. Maybe it was the last year of school and Sawyer still didn't know what she wanted to do while everyone else seemed to have an idea. Maybe the discovery that things were disintegrating had just begun to unravel. Maybe she was forced to watch life pass her by again as if through a lens, watching everyone get better, watching them get their way, watching them laugh and talk about their summer and hug their friends. Sawyer supposed it wasn't their fault. It was irrational and it made her feel stupid to even think about the way she felt, being angry at her friends for just doing normal things friends did for each other. Life, as per usual, looked like that. A favour done without expectation for something else and a simple exchange of thanks. She couldn't blame them for going about life as per usual.

But at the same time, why hadn't they noticed that wrongness within her?

* * *

SAWYER HUNG AT THE BACK of the classroom with Quinn by her side as Professor Lupin introduced himself and briefly outlined the syllabus they were going to contend with throughout seventh year.

While Sawyer didn't have much of an opinion on their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, she supposed he seemed miles more competent than Lockhart. Quinn, on the other hand, responded with more enthusiasm to the prospect of actually getting to learn something useful. It only was their first class of the year, and, already, Quinn had expressed her high hopes for their final year at Hogwarts.

Sawyer cast a glance around the classroom. Even though Quinn's excitement was inspiring, it stirred only a bitterness in her. What did Quinn see in the rote motion of cycling between classes and studying and sleeping and eating that Sawyer couldn't see? All this regimented activity was only a means to get you up the ladder of life, one rung at a time towards your goal. But what if you didn't have a goal? What if you didn't know? And what if you didn't care? Was life simply one slow march towards death, and the endless chasm between the two tails of existence—which some people called purpose—just a creative space for you to make stuff up along the way?

Unwittingly, Sawyer hadn't realised she'd stopped looking around and was staring at Oliver's side profile this entire time. He stood on the other side of the classroom beside his friend, Ashton, who was talking a blue streak in his ear about something Oliver seemed only half-invested in, judging from the monosyllabic responses he offered up intermittently. He looked entirely disinterested in the class. Sawyer could tell that his mind was on this afternoon's Quidditch tryouts.

In the hotter days of July, Oliver came over a few times, much tanner, much more golden, and more toned from his month-long Quidditch camp. Sawyer lost count of how many nights he stayed in Wyatt's room, but she knew they ran into each other in the kitchen in the middle of the night while she'd been eating ice cream out of the tub eight times, and all eight of those times, he would say hi and ask about her day but in a tone that suggested he wanted to say something else. And then, when they made sure that nobody was about to come into the kitchen and nose around, Oliver backed Sawyer against the fridge and kissed her until Wyatt yelled for him from the corridor. She was always the first to push him away, always the first to act like nothing had transpired, and she figured he understood the terms of their arrangement.

At some point in the middle of August their families went on a day trip to a farm connected to a country club that the Woods had bought over and their fathers went golfing while their mothers sat in the country club and drank iced teas in the shade. Sawyer sucked on ice cubes stolen from her mother's sweating glass and watched Wyatt and Oliver smuggle a chicken out of its coop. They came back with scratches on their faces and arms, but they were grinning like comrades bleeding out on a battlefield. The chicken in Wyatt's jacket cooed and clucked in impatience. Sawyer remembered the way Oliver's eyes lingered on her. She remembered watching when he wasn't looking, and looking away when he turned to meet her gaze.

After that trip, Wyatt had disappeared from the house for a week to stay at his friend Ashton's house. When he came back Sawyer heard at breakfast that the entire gang had been there, and they played Quidditch in Ashton's backyard until the sun deserted the sky and they lay around and ate everything in Ashton's pantry and talked about girls. Sawyer wondered is she was one of the girls that came up in conversation. She wondered if Oliver ever talked about her. And then she had to resist the urge to put her head through the drywall because there was no way she was acting like this over a boy.

That evening the phone rang and Sawyer jumped to answer it, and was only a little bit disappointed to hear Marcus' voice.

At the front of the classroom, Professor Lupin began to introduce the subject of today's class: a Boggart, a shapeshifter with no definite form, taking the shape of that which is most feared by the person who encounters it.

Oliver turned, as though sensing the weight of Sawyer's stare, and when their eyes met, his expression shifted. His lips curved up in a small smile.

Sawyer lifted her hand in a tentative wave. It's the first time they'd seen each other since August. Even at King's Cross, moments before they boarded the train, Marcus had pulled Sawyer away from Wyatt at the platform before Oliver had found the twins.

"So," Quinn said, shooting her a knowing look, lips twisting in a smug smile. "You got anything you wanna tell me, or...?"

Sawyer flicked her a flat look. "No."

"C'mon, it's me, Sawyer," Quinn said, exasperated. "Who am I gonna tell? You, Jere, Rio and Marcus are my only friends."

Sawyer ignored her, and glanced back at Oliver, who'd turned his attention back on the closet, which shook on its legs as the Boggart trapped inside bumped against the wooden walls.

"I know you're all expected to have mastered non-verbal spells by sixth year, but seeing as I've heard you had a particularly ineffective teacher last year, I figured we should start off with mastering the spell before applying it in a non-verbal context," Professor Lupin was saying, eyeing up the students gathered around him, "And remember, you can't just say Riddikulus! and call it a day. You have to picture something that would turn your worst fear into something you'd find completely...ridiculous. Got it? Tell me you understand, class."

"Yes, sir," they chorused in unison.

"Any volunteers?"

"Oliver wants a go, professor!" Ashton declared, a scheming grin on his lips.

Oliver shot his friend a glare that could've reduced him to ashes.

"You'll all have a go at facing the Boggart," Professor Lupin said, smiling, "would you be the first to get the ball rolling, Oliver?"

Oliver regarded Professor Lupin with a cool look. And then he relented, nodding stiffly in consent.

Curiosity sparked in Sawyer. What would his fear look like? Probably something Quidditch related. Probably McGonagall telling him Quidditch was cancelled forever. Or a rejection letter from his favourite Quidditch team. Then she realised if everyone was taking a turn facing their worst fears, that meant she would have hers inevitably. Dread crept through her gut and though her expression betrayed nothing, Quinn turned to her with a worried look on her face. 

"Perfect," Professor Lupin said. "Now, everyone take a step back. Oliver, you stand in front of the closet so you'll will be the first person the Boggart sees."

* * *

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, the Hufflepuff team had been introduced to their new captain, Cedric Diggory, their Seeker. Sawyer didn't see the point of tryouts. Closing their eyes and fishing out enough Chasers and a Keeper to replace the graduated players would produce the same result. No matter how much potential the candidates possessed, their team would always be nothing. Turning Hufflepuff's dire luck around would take a miracle, but Cedric seemed to think different. Or maybe he thought himself a miracle. The girls on the team seemed to think so, and Sawyer wanted to see where they were coming from, but all she saw was a boy who was too clean, too pretty, too good to be true. An oasis shimmering in the desert sun.

But the thing is (and what everyone desperately wants to believe to be true) that Cedric is bright in the way a traffic cone is, with the promise to guide his team back to the beaten road time and time again. Donning his Hufflepuff uniform with pride, yellow in the way the sun shines, bordering on gold, his talent effortlessly calling for attention. With Cedric comes balance, wrangling scraps of athletes to a team that could finally wash the taste of rock bottom out of their mouths.

Naturally, Sawyer's first inclination was to debunk that. Get under Cedric's skin via incorporation the way she worked her past team captains to the bone. But she'd promised herself that things would be different. And now that the skies, for once, were clear and there didn't seem to be any Dementors lurking nearby, she let herself into the mirage that they all seemed to see.

In preparation for the one and a half hours of pointless efforts and scrimmages, Sawyer took twice the dosage of Valium required and felt the haze setting in, spreading under her skin until she was comfortably numb. Too numb, in fact, she barely noticed the Dementors drifting in and out of view in the sky as they circled the school grounds like vultures. Cedric had them set up different stations. Since they were primarily sourcing for a Keeper and two Chasers, they lined up the students who wanted to tryout for the position of Keeper and had the students who were trying for Chaser score against the former. Beaters worked with Sawyer and Violet. Seekers were tested by Cedric in a round of drills that involved pitching tennis balls into the sky and seeing who was quickest to save it.

The students trying out for reserve Beater seemed to respond well to Violet, who was encouraging and forgiving, whereas Sawyer was relentless and brutal. There was no denying the fear in their eyes as they realised they'd have to play against her in their scrimmage. A couple of them ended up dropping out and trying their hand with the Chasers, but Sawyer didn't think it was much of a loss. Though hesitant at first, the ones who remained weren't so easy to break down. It was Violet who drew them in, and it was Sawyer who decided who got to stay.

By the time Cedric kicked them off the pitch at the end of tryouts, the late afternoon sun was a yolk-yellow, blazing down on them without mercy. Sawyer pulled the collar of her shirt over her nose and wiped the sweat off her face. Squinting against the harsh light, Sawyer spotted the red robes of the Gryffindor team perched in the stands. Instantly, she spotted Oliver, with his back to the pitch, as he addressed his team. She didn't know how long they'd been there, and she knew their presence shouldn't be cause for distraction, but it didn't stop her from wondering. As the potential players were speaking excitedly amongst themselves while they fetched water for the potential Beaters, who'd been worked down to the bone without mercy and were now lying on the grass groaning about every ache and pain in their bodies, Cedric drew Sawyer, Violet, and Sanchez—the remaining members of the original team, aside to discuss anyone in particular they wanted on the team, whether it be for reserve or in the lineup.

"We'll start with Chasers," Cedric said, screwing on the lid of his water bottle, "Sanchez?"

Lauren Sanchez, a lithe fifth year who insisted they all address her by her surname for some reason, hummed in thought. "Three of them stuck out to me. Zacharias Smith, Jacob Macaulay, Heidi Macavoy. The others could use some work, but we're short on reserve players anyway if we bump Florence up to the lineup from reserve. She spent last season warming the bench, anyway. I'd like to see her in action."

"So, we put Irene and Florence on the lineup this year," Cedric said, nodding in assent. "What about Keepers? We didn't have any on reserve last year so we'll need two."

"We should put that Herbert guy on the lineup." Sanchez cocked her head. "He's a little small for a Keeper, but he's fast. Like, crazy fast. He'd be a Seeker if he could catch anything."

"Reserve?"

"Elliot Bailey," Violet said quickly, before Sanchez could give her input. When Cedric turned his attention on her, she blushed and clasped her hands behind her back. "He's one of my friends, and he's super good, I promise. He played in little league with me."

Cedric's smile was a soft and glowing thing. "I trust you. And since you trust his skills, I guess that means he's on reserve. Sanchez? Do you agree?"

Sanchez shrugged. "Sure."

"That leaves the Beaters," Cedric said, shooting Sawyer a pointed look. "We'll need two for the reserve team."

Sawyer crossed her arms over her chest. "Malcom Preece and Anthony Rickett." She didn't bother with an explanation, and Cedric took her answer without pressing her for more. In truth, Sawyer only picked them because Violet seemed to think they showed promise. Her explanation had been this: Sawyer had picked Violet because, despite her lack of power and shaky skill, had shown an eagerness to learn, and in turn, Violet understood that what made a good player wasn't initial talent but a determination to be better. Even though the two boys weren't shaped in the traditional build of a Beater, Violet figured that they deserved a chance. Sawyer figured nobody would fight her if she spoke in place of Violet.

Violet nodded vigorously.

Sanchez frowned. Sawyer cut her a cool look and Sanchez averted her critical gaze.

Cedric grinned. "Great. We'll give Madam Hooch the list tomorrow. Thanks a lot for your time, guys, I have hope that we'll smash this season out the ballpark."

As they disbanded, Cedric called out to Sawyer just before she could head towards the locker room.

Sawyer turned, staking her broom into the ground like a staff and leant against it. She arched a brow.

"I just wanted you to know that if you don't want to play this year, I'll make up something to tell Madam Hooch," Cedric said, his voice low enough so no one else could catch it but her. "It's your last year, anyway. I don't want to force you into anything if you're not going to have fun."

Sawyer cocked her head, considering Cedric for a moment. A small part of her was surprised that he was giving her the option of an out. Something she'd pressed her teammates into believing from the way she played, from her lack of active participation during practices. Nia put her on the pitch with leverage. Kenai had tried persuading her into playing by being overly friendly in an attempt to win her over, but Sawyer wasn't so easily bought. The past few years, Sawyer did the bare minimum. It wouldn't matter if she played to her full potential. The team would lose either way. Nobody was picking up their slack. Cedric, on the other hand, had hope. He was also telling her that it wasn't a life or death situation if she didn't want to play.

"And they say chivalry isn't dead," Sawyer drawled, a mocking grin slashed over her lips.

Cedric shrugged, unbothered. "I just need to know if you want to actually play for us or not. It's your choice, really."

A nagging feeling in the back of her head recognised the familiarity in his words. Where else had she heard them from? Sawyer flicked her gaze over Cedric's shoulder, where the Gryffindors had descended on the other side of the Quidditch pitch, ready to make use of their relegated time slot. She met Oliver's curious stare. And then it all clicked into place. Sawyer didn't know whether to laugh or to punch the living daylights out of the boy who could ask her to keep her hands bound behind her back and she would.

When she turned back to Cedric, he was still waiting for an answer.

"If I'm going to play, I don't want Madam Hooch supervising this pitch during team practice," Sawyer said, knowing Madam Hooch was an instalment that the school saw fit to implement during Hufflepuff practices since Sawyer was flagged by the school committee as a threat to the safety of her team—some bullshit like that. Frankly, Sawyer thought Madam Hooch's presence a little intrusive, if not insulting. Each time Madam Hooch blew the whistle to warn Sawyer off getting too rough, she thought about crushing her skull in with a bludger. Like canon fodder. Sawyer's eyes flashed. "Those are my terms. And you can tell Oliver during your next team captain meeting that he should mind his own team. I'm not his pet psycho he can micromanage as and when he likes."

A sheepish look overcame Cedric's expression and Sawyer's suspicions were immediately confirmed. Before he could open his mouth to apologise, a familiar voice cut in, equal parts steel and boredom.

"Tell him yourself."

Sawyer turned, and Oliver was standing behind her, levelling her with a granite look, arms crossed over his chest, his head eclipsing the sun. She fixed him with a deadpan stare. Just because they had crossed over that thin membrane between friends and more didn't mean he had any business interfering with things that didn't concern him. She heard Cedric leave, his footfalls soft against the grass as he figured it was better to leave them to hash this out between themselves.

"If you think I'm micromanaging you, you need to brush up on your definition on the word," Oliver pointed out, and all she could think about was the shape that the Boggart took when it shot out of the closet and fixated on Oliver—his father, telling him he wasn't good enough. "Cedric gave you a choice. You're a good player. Everyone would want you on their team. Whether you want to play for them or not is for you to decide. He knows you won't do anything unless you got something out of it. I merely gave him a tip on how to approach the problem."

"This team is a joke and your contribution to reinforce its lineup has done nothing to improve the odds," Sawyer said. "Your efforts to get me to play aren't cute."

Then, she brushed past him, shoulder knocking into his so hard he was shoved sideways with the momentum.

And despite her apparent animosity, Oliver smiled, because he knew he'd won.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
ok so in part 2 a lot of issues weren't addressed to my satisfaction or were mentioned only in passing; ie Jeremy's home situation, his mental health, rio's addiction problem, his mental health, how marcus is taking the break up, and his wellbeing in general. part 2 was supposed to get the ball rolling. sawyer missed a lot of what her friends were feeling because a) her medication is still difficult to adjust to and it's hard to keep something pinned down in her head. b) i wanted to illuminate sawyer's feelings first because part 2 is all about feeling/not feeling. part 3 will tie everything together. AND there's a prom at the end of the year 🥰

On another note, i've come to realise that my outline for this part of the story requires some revision because i completely forgot about the Dementors and their possible effect on the students. so i should warn you guys that this is all also part of the process of healing: sometimes, relapses occur. sometimes, the road to healing isn't always linear. however, things do get better. it just takes awhile and a lot of commitment to get there.