YEAR OF DAMNATION
I. Cradle Mouthed

✶

     By the ninth of October, leaves began to wilt off the trees, blanketing the courtyard. The season's first frost knocked showers of them from their branches, and they suddenly formed thick beds and carpets on the ground, swirled up into the castle by the wind.

     Summer dissolved in an instant. An array of orange and brown speckled across the cobblestone and Dion found the soles of her brown bar shoes losing traction as she kicked up the dead foliage from its resting place. She weaved under the grand arches and sidestepped through the crack between Jean and Rosemary Bandini as they passed through the steel double doors.

    A scuffle ensued behind her, parchment went flying across the entryway, and a sharp, "Dion!" pierced the confidence of her stride and stopped her in her tracks. Dion spun on her heel, her long white-blonde plait swung after her, grazing her last rib. She inhaled through her teeth at the sight before her.

     Sanyu imitated a very clumsy run of hop-scotch: she bounced twice on one of her legs, gold and pearl necklaces jangling against her collarbones and the red and gold tie half done up around her neck before she caught herself with both feet on the third and animatedly apologized to the twins. They ignored her and shot dirty looks at Dion, then squashed two of the parchments that billowed around the corridor like dust bunnies with their feet. Abashment crept up Dion's neck, burning underneath the cool metal of the triple beamed cross that sat between her collarbones.

     She caught two out of the air, the rest drifted into her friend's hands with the flick of her wrist. There was no time to waste. Dion continued her march.

     "You should be a seeker," Sanyu huffed as she caught up, coils of her dark hair escaped her ponytail and bounced around her face in par with her steps. "Scrawny, slippery—every player's worst nightmare."

     "I am not..." Dion shook the distraction from her head. "We are going to be late. I have never been late."

     They had a terrible excuse, too—terribly embarrassing—to be caught up in one of Peeves' obnoxious pranks at their age. He turned an entire corridor into a splotchy ice rink with one of his gadgets; Dion and Sanyu, as well as a handful of other students, went blundering down the hallway with baby deer knees and chilly feet.

     Sanyu blinked, then grinned crookedly. "Well... neither have I."

     "Urgency, then. Urgency!"

     "Dion, being a few minutes late won't kill us."

     A disgruntled noise escaped Dion, something between a groan and a whine as she picked at the broken seam of her satchel strap. She would fix it after their monthly prefect meeting. "It won't kill you. People respect you."

     "Oh." She inhaled sharply and gulped like she was trying to swallow her words back into her mouth. If Dion did not know her, she might have thought Sanyu threw up a little and tried to hide it. "Let's not dawdle."

     Sanyu Ngondi, star beater and captain of her house's Quidditch team.

     It was quite the sight to experience, watching her play. Every slam of her bat against the bludger made the stands erupt into tidal waves of gold and red; she gleamed just as bright on the field as she did off of it, even without the sizable jewelry adorned along her neck and limbs. Dion did not know why Sanyu chose to be her friend, oftentimes she thought much too well of her. But in the case she thought poorly of the blonde, Dion theorized she would have still been her friend.

     Sanyu's slender umber fingers drummed against her thigh as they heel-and-toed through the corridor. Dion felt the rhythm against the whirl of her robe sleeve: one, one, one, two, one, one, one, two.

     The air became thicker once they descended into the dungeons. It always did, night or day. Unused classrooms from Salazar Slytherin's time left a mouldy smell that only strengthened in the incessantly damp air. Once everyone went to bed; when she stood alone in the corridor after particularly late nights in the Room of Requirement, Dion could hear a single constant drip from an unknown source and the teeny patter of mice feet scurrying along the stone alongside her labored breaths—they must have been sleeping, now. Or the neverending bustle of students during the daytime scared them into hiding.

     Sanyu gripped the back of Dion's robes and yanked her away from the approaching wall. She nearly collided with it when they stopped in front of the Potions classroom while she watched for dashing mice around her feet. Oops.

     Other prefects were already becoming situated in their seats when she and Sanyu arrived; Professor Slughorn left the door propped open with a large glass bottle of Knuts. Dorian Rosier, the Head Boy, had his creepy doll-like stare locked on Dion as she passed it.

     As if she would be able to get very far if she stupidly chose to steal from it. Dorian was all limbs and towered over everyone to an unnatural extent—he would be at her heels within four large strides at most. He looked like the trees of the Forbidden Forest in the dead of winter when they were missing their leaves; his night-black hair slicked flat against his head, and what little skin peeked from the sleeves of his robes looked close to white in contrast to the dimly lit classroom. His thin lips pressed together when he glanced down at his watch, they coveted to scold Dion and Sanyu for their tardiness, but they must have been right on time.

     She heard whispers from the newest prefects on the first train to Hogwarts in September. He'd be more scary if his face wasn't so... womanly, Stanley Parrish had whispered to the other Ravenclaw prefect, who agreed from what Dion remembered. She couldn't blame him, Dorian's face did resemble that of a very handsome woman. Tall, protruding cheekbones, pouty lips and long lashes with a pointed chin. Not a hair out of place, nor a blemish on his skin—much to Dion's envy.

     Despite it, prestige surrounded him in a veil. Over the years she observed that if you spoke with the absolute conviction he did, people listened.

     His desire to scorn dissipated the moment each of the seats filled. The tables were pushed into a square formation, the Head Boy and Girl stood at the apex of it, their backs faced Slughorn's desk where the professor in question scribbled on a piece of parchment. Slytherin took up the southern length of the square, the prefects of each year sat next to each other, elbow to elbow.

     Tom Riddle was Dion's male counterpart of the sixth-year Slytherin prefects. He sat effortlessly formal, his shoulders neither slumped nor too rigid, and he stared straight ahead like he was pretending the seat next to him was empty. What a dreadful type of exclusion, to not be seen. Not exactly surprising; he and Dorian were friends—extremely close friends—they sat together at dinner every day since Tom's fifth year.

     The type of fervent sacrosanct that Tom had built from the ground up appeared contagious. It was the only thing that truly made sense about his situation. Muggleborns were seldom politely ignored, let alone befriended en masse by the head players in the pecking order; Sanyu's running theory was that he spiked their porridge with a love potion one morning and the rest became history. Dion had to disagree.

     To be so mythically admired by teachers and students alike; perhaps he was simply that lovely.

     Not that she would know. The last time they had a conversation that didn't involve the rest of the prefects was last June, the week of O.W.L.S.

     ("Are you reading this?" He'd asked Dion in the library, pointing at a book within the teetering stack of literature she had haphazardly grabbed in that near-exam rush everyone became possessed by during the last month of school.

     "No." She was planning to. "You can have it."

     He smiled politely in that impersonal way that people did because it was the right thing to do. "Thank you."

     Then he went back to his table and she stifled nervous vomit in her throat. Or she'd almost—very obviously—dropped the book when she handed it to him with trembling hands. She did not quite remember.)

     After that, Dion couldn't recall the last time she spoke to him one on one since her third year, if at all. The disjointed puzzle of his teenaged face that appeared in her mind was pieced together with hesitant fingers: short glances during prefect meetings, glimpses of him she caught when he turned around in class, faraway effigies of the proportions when it was much too far to make out anything but attractive muddled features in general dark shapes.

     From every angle she observed (which she did fairly often), he remained the same admirable, if slightly perplexing, peer.

     Dion fumbled with her parchment uselessly and placed her quill and ink over the corners of her sheet that were littered with sketches of Greek statues and flowers and swirls, and a crude drawing of Gryffindor's seventh-year prefects, Ira Abbott, and Ignatius Prewett. They both had very long heads and expressions that made them look exceptionally disgusted with the people around them, much like that one American painting of the farmers (she hardly kept up with modern art, much less from America). This meeting was no different. She wondered what made them so sour.

     There was the shuffle of pages and Dorian flipped the hourglass in front of him, sand fell steadily from the top column. Dion leaned forward and rested her chin on her palm.

     "So, where did we leave off last month?" The Head Girl, Almeda, asked. She was pretty; thick black hair always pulled up into a ponytail and deep dimples. Dion did not know much of her besides the fact that she was a Hufflepuff.

     "There's still imps running around the edge of the forest. Nasty things, they are." Sanyu shook her head, huffing in exasperation. She had been designated to handle imp problem after a few first years let the imps meant for Care of Magical Creatures class loose, though she'd nearly failed the subject herself. "We've cleaned up what we can with Professor Copperwood but they like to hide."

     Almeda frowned. "Have you tried luring them out in the open?"

     "Yeah, uh—food, sweets, coins, and... things from Zonko's. They know better than that."

     "Use the first years that let 'em out," Stanley snorted. His teeth were gapped like picket fences and his unruly orange hair stuck up like he had been struck by lightning. He was in the Duelling Club and he never shut up there, either. "They've been pushing all the young ones into the lake, surely if you place them close enough to the water and wait for the imps to come out, it'd be—it'd be clockwork. Don't think Dippet will care much how we get it done, just so long as we do."

     "Fine by me." Sanyu's voice was low and smooth, like honey when it folded over itself in the jar. Thick, accented English that held attention easily.

     Almeda stared at them for a moment, then shook her head. "Well, that's sorted for now. Dorian?"

     Forcefully, and overdramatically, Dorian cleared his throat with two loud grunts and scanned the stack of parchment in his hands. Like he needed the extra attention. He made himself known through stature alone.

     "Headmaster Dippet has requested we be less... heavy-handed with the deduction of points." Someone coughed from the left side of the room and it sounded an awful lot like Ravenclaw. "It's become a chore for our professors to sift through at the end of the day, so he's asked everyone to "tone it down and only deduct when necessary", in his exact words."

     "And what do they consider "necessary", exactly?" a fifth-year butted in.

     Dorian's jaw twitched, Dion wanted to call it boredom, but it was most likely ire. They had already gone over this, after all. Her own patience waned.

     "Anything that breaks the rules, which are conveniently transcribed outside of the Headmaster's office." He looked pleased with himself. "If there is a situation that requires more deliberation, report to Almeda and I, or a professor."

     He droned on in that nasally banal voice of his about the statistics of injuries on Hogwarts grounds compared to that of other schools and Dion went somewhere else, where there was no talk of children dangling midair and a severe lack of Head Boys.

     Remnants of a stain speckled along the wooden tabletop like age spots on a wrinkled hand; she thought she might have created that stain, actually. Dion had never been particularly great at Potions, in comparison to her other classes. She only continued to take it past her fifth year because Professor Murk required it at a N.E.W.T. level for his Advanced Alchemy classes. Bah-humbug. At least she and Sanyu shared that period.

     Sanyu was much better at Potions than she was and she enjoyed walking Dion through the steps, no matter how many times she had already explained it in the simplest terms. This exchange was not to be mistaken as a one-way street. Dion helped her best friend with unerringly, everything else. Not that Sanyu was unable to complete her work without another's assistance, but some days were long, and hard, and Dion knew that reading bred listlessness in her; notes were notes whether Sanyu took them herself or not.

     When the callouses on Sanyu's hands were rubbed raw and bloody from vigorous training days, Dion wrote her essays and made her rose tea. They rubbed elixir on each other's wounds when their bodies demanded remedying; Sanyu was much better at healing than her, too. The only injury to best her so far was a nasty gash on Dion's left palm that refused to close. If she managed to mend it weakly, by the next day, it would have opened again from the wear and tear of life. Dion eventually got used to the bandage wrapped snugly around her palm and wrist, it became a sort of second skin to her. Comfort.

     I am alive and bleeding, am I not? I am just like them.

     She picked at the yellowed edge of the gauze bandage and watched the shadows of the oil lamps dance like children holding hands along the walls. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Stanley passing chocolate baubles to his friend under the table. Her stomach grumbled.

     Dinner would begin soon. The dungeons did not have windows but Dion was getting hungry—correction: hungrier than usual. Nutrition throughout her childhood left her a tad empty per usual. But Dion was getting hungry, so dinner must have been soon. She hoped there would be sweet glazed carrots, or maybe apple pudding if the world chose to be merciful that evening.

     "Seaver?" Dorian's voice chopped through her. Butcher knife slammed on wood. An internal record scratched and the awareness of her visibility to the rest of the world twisted her stomach into knots.

     Her eyes refocused and she looked at her parchment like she had taken notes. What were they talking about? Imps, poor safety record, poor health, poor grades, tutoring. Tutoring. He needed her report on this month's tutoring progress. The need to impress swallowed her whole.

     "It has been going well... the tutoring." Dion paused for the reaction. His face did not change, so she knew she guessed right. Her eyes flitted to her empty sheet. "But we are having issues with the retention of information from students, stress on the tutors, and, erm... boredom."

     "So, it isn't going well?"

     "It is. I just think both the tutors and the pupils would benefit from some outside assistance, which I might have a solution for." Her nose twitched. She hoped they would not realize this came off of the top of her head. "I think there should be more encouragement to join clubs related to the subjects they are struggling with so they get a more... hands-on experience? Erm, while still honing their skills."

     Dorian merely gave her a slight brow raise, eyelids still slack and bored, but Almeda's expression perked up the longer Dion explained. "You think the different environment would help?"

     Dion nodded, brushing her fringe flat with her fingers. They fell just above her eyebrows in awkward channels. She dropped her hand.

     "This would be great for inter-house relations as well?"

     "Yes—"

     "I'll get Dippet to make an announcement."

     On all occasions, Dion had been rather talented at flubbing through predicaments of her own doing.

     Bees swelled in her stomach and ricocheted like bludgers when she glanced upwards, scanning the vacuous faces of her peers. They averted their eyes to their former position and Dion once again returned to being a phantom who took up a chair that belonged to someone more worthy. She pursed her lips to stop herself from glowering and saw Sanyu offer a sympathetic smile across the room.

     Eventually, they would take notice of her, past whatever rumors floated through loose lips. Perhaps her grades would be the catalyst; once she scored higher than Tom Riddle—which meant she would not be perceived through her grades. She overtook him in a sprinkling of classes, but his charm in company with the intellect he bore like a weapon was impossible to beat and Dion did not particularly care for making a rival of him. Certainly, his friends would follow close behind if she were to make a declaration of that sort. They were better kept under observation in their natural element, without outside forces such as herself to disrupt.

    Scaredy-cat, Edora's voice taunted her.

     Dion imagined smacking her away with a broom like a disease-ridden bat that flew in through the chimney.

     One great moment would hook her peer's attention and anchor it: a well-placed spell, some grand idea. She had to time it well, lest she wasted it with no one around to see. However, she would not seek it out to avoid the risk of being caught in an act of desperation—that would be shameful beyond description. If that happened, Dion would just have to crawl into bed and never be seen again.

     She did not know what would trigger the catalyst; it would fall into her lap eventually. Good things took time. The saying was written down and charmed stuck onto the underside of the sheer emerald canopy that hung over her bed; Dion reminded herself every morning when she opened her eyes.

     Routine kept those with faraway minds grounded, and Lord knew that her mind was wandering further and further and—

     The meeting finished shortly.

     People around her shuffled, chairs screeched against wood as the last grains of sand fell to the bottom column of the hourglass. Dion copied them in a blithering way. Her hands reached for any of her belongings without much purpose and shoved them into her satchel. Then she hissed under her breath and unpacked it all onto the table, her quills were lucky she could not afford to break one for the sake of punctuality.

     She sorted them from her favorite to least favorite so that, if anyone were to open it, they would see she had immaculate taste. Unfortunately, this was counterproductive as she intended to leave at the same time as everyone else. Awaiting her friend, Sanyu tapped her feet, leaning against the stone doorframe.

     From his desk, Professor Slughorn looked up at Dion as if he had not noticed her lingering presence. "Miss Seaver—a moment, will you?"

     Dion glanced at Sanyu out of the corner of her eye, who shrugged insensibly with one shoulder. Great waves of anxiety overtook Dion as if she had been caught doing something wrong, but she shuffled over to Slughorn with hesitant steps. The strap of her satchel had been slung over her shoulder and remained clutched in both of her hands for comfort, like a child that refused to let go of their tattered doll.

     "Your appearance was missed at the last club meeting, my girl," he chuckled, his strawberry-blonde handlebar moustache quivering in tandem with the movement. In a way, Slughorn reminded her of her cat, Sir Garfield. He was round and orange as well.

     "I had to tutor," she lied.

     Right, she lamented, The Slug Club. Professor Slughorn enthusiastically invited her to every Slug Club meeting they'd had since her fourth year and she had begun to run out of excuses as to why she could not attend. Dion most often fobbed off Slughorn by placing the blame on her tutoring schedule.

     She found the dinners far too stressful, and she lacked a proper dress for the occasion. The other girls dazzled from afar like the women locked in paintings; long, eloquent dresses that reminded her of her mother and rich coloured fabric that shimmered under the torchlight—Dion knew she would stick out like a frumpy sore thumb in her plain cotton clothes.

     Even Slughorn's casual attire, made up of opulent waistcoats, lengthy taupe smoking jackets, and various metal buttons—surely nothing less than pure gold and silver—made Dion sickeningly aware of her own tiny closet. She felt the stupid, ugly cracks in the leather of her bag and loose threads against her palm. With immaculate restraint, her gaze left his apparel and she forced them to stare into his eyes.

     Professor Slughorn was one of the younger professors, no older than mid-thirties, but he was short and round like his youthful appearance enjoyed mocking the professors around him. Like a really big baby that had the cadence of a man. Dion meant this in great spirit, as Slughorn went out of his way to be jovial to her despite her having given several reasons to ignore her. He encouraged her to be very normal, so she could not find it in herself to dislike him and his obvious favoritism.

     "Yes, yes." His tone flowed absentmindedly. He did not put much thought into her excuse, it seemed like he had something else on his mind. "Well, I do hope to see you at our annual Halloween gathering."

     "Erm, I meant to inform you..." Dion trailed off, eyes darting away for a split second. Standing still as a plank, she said, "I am expecting lady problems by Halloween—"

     Sanyu hardly stifled a laugh from the door.

     "Oh!" exclaimed Slughorn, his knees thwacked against the underside of his desk and Dion felt bad for her unkind fib. However, she simply could not stomach such a party. "I—I suppose there is always next year..."

     "I do feel terrible about it. I apologize." Dion's voice came out smaller than she wanted.

     "There is no need to apologize, Seaver!" he insisted with a feigned flippancy that was tangible. "Next year."

     Dion hated when people did not get to the point immediately because it created odd gaps in the conversation, like this moment, for example. Silence smothered their conversation like a flame and Dion opened her mouth, then closed it and glanced at the ceiling as she contemplated the proper thing to say. To her gratitude, Slughorn belatedly circled around to the true reason he called her over.

     "I couldn't help but overhear your interest in clubs."

     "Not mine. For the students I tutor."

     "Yes, yes. However, don't you think they learn best when they're lead by example?" Slughorn asked. "Certainly—," he chuckled, "—those in need of tutoring."

     A jar of boar's eyes stared at her from over Slughorn's shoulder and her stomach churned. Suddenly, her hunger vanished. Words of protest fizzled and died in her throat. She wanted to stick her tongue out at the eyes for ogling at her in her moment of weakness, suppressing it because Slughorn was right there.

     Despite his earnest goodwill as he attempted to help Dion, she could not help but feel herself becoming flustered as he poked holes in her idea.

     "You're very talented in alchemy, aren't you? Very talented indeed." The sound of Slughorn's voice snapped her attention back. "There's a club for the subject... a handful of your fellow Slytherins are esteemed members, yes."

     Dion's interest was piqued. "Are they?"

     "Riddle... Rosier... several others. It would do some good to grow acclimated with them. They are academics, like yourself, so you needn't worry about club time being used to goof off," he continued.

     She listened with bated breath, unable to deny the way excitement buzzed throughout her body.

     The Alchemy Club sounded prestigious. Dion imagined intellectual conversation as it flowed around a table; she could hear it already. Hushed murmurs of Zosimos of Panopolis over a shared cigarette, surrounded by textbooks and parchment, and debate that turned to laughter as the sun set over the orange horizon streamed through the windows. Friends and assistance. Tom Riddle. The image was palpable.

     Marginally, her lips curled upward. Dion hoped her tone strayed from its usual monotony when she spoke. "That is...  a splendid idea, sir. The most splendid idea I have ever heard. I will consider it," she promised, nodding.

     Deep from his stomach, laughter bellowed out like the jolly red and white wizard of British muggle Christmas. "That's the spirit, Seaver! I haven't seen you this enthusiastic since Professor Ferncut announced his retirement!"

     Dion returned to her typical cadence, babbling, "Oh—him. He was a terrible professor: he was rude, his lessons were needlessly black and white, and—"

     "Now, now, no comment on that from me—for loyalty's sake," Slughorn stated, tickled and winking at her with the indiscreet wag of his chubby finger. "The Alchemy Club would be an advantageous pursuit, I assure you. I'm never wrong about this sort of thing."

     Advantageous, the pursuit would be for an individual who was not her. The weight of Dion's inferiority suddenly hung off of her in a muggy way that clung to her throat when she tried to swallow, a sticky, gross mass inside of her that yanked her apart from people like Slughorn and Dorian. It reminded her why she had not thought of this plan herself in the first place. She remained painfully aware of the way their tongues cradled silver spoons, hidden between smiles and flattery and mindless droning of their wardrobe because they knew how to play the game. A subtle quirk of the mouth could kill her a second time, rip the seams of her social fabric again.

     Dion was good at pretending not to notice subtleties. It made life easier to indulge in ignorance, lest she spent her life picking apart every minute detail.

     Her mouth grew dry, and she wrapped her arms around her middle in an embrace. "Yes, yes. It will. Erm, I must leave now, Professor. I will consider it."

     "I suppose it's almost time for dinner, isn't it? Ah, I do love the desserts. The kitchen elves do a wonderful job. Hm, chocolate orange tart tonight? I do hope..."

     Dion withheld a scowl. Slughorn was lucky he resembled Sir Garfield.

     The restraint pulled taut in her face went over his head and he sighed wistfully at the idea of overly decadent desserts. "Well, no matter. I will not keep you any longer—remember what we've discussed, will you?"

     "Yes, sir."

     Her skin crawled as she turned on her heel and walked away. Dion would remember it. It would be the only thing she could think about, she feared.

───────────

     No fruit laid out on the Grand Hall's platters compared to the bilberries Dion foraged as a child.

  They grew late in the season, the short span of summer after school sent her home. That was a month subsequent to when the rain fell the hardest, so the flat terrain became wetlands and remained that way until her father apparated her to King's Cross Station for another long year of Hogwarts. According to Sasha, who read maps better than he could ever read a book, the singular hill that grew bilberries resided a mile away from the house. Dion never bothered to confirm.

     She waded through bogs of mucky, grey water. Her feet disturbed mayflies that buzzed around the surface; she did not attempt to be careful, she hated bugs that buzzed. Especially unsightly mayflies. She had forgiven their existence when she learned how ephemeral it was—two days. Two days to see the world. To hug each other and read a good book. To love, because surely they could.

     When she stepped out of the wet, marshy divot they kissed her legs where the bony limb reflected the sky with water. Specks of mud and plant debris stuck to her skin and reminded her of lenticels on apples; excitement bubbled in her stomach for the fruit she would soon find. She bit the insides of her cheeks to conceal her thrill, she wouldn't get ahead of herself. Not yet.

     By then, she was out of breath, feverish, and starved from her trek. Her mouth watered in anticipation of the way the tangy berry burst against the flat of her tongue, coating it. It made a believer of her. Convinced her of the living Earth, intertwined by roots and veins and all things organic. The bilberry bushes greeted her when she approached and every bramble shook and waved at her in the wind.

     Dion pulled herself up the steepest part of the hill by tugging at the weedy wild brush surrounding the bushes and heaved herself up. Without the support, her feet always slipped on the long blades of grass and she lost her footing. Before she learned her lesson, she would go tumbling down the hill in a heap of limbs, it left her with horrible purple bruises littered across her body.

     It took her hardly two seconds in front of the bilberries before she stuffed them in her mouth with a zealous fervor that could only be compared to the homeless man in the muggle town closest to her house in The Fens: East Kindale. Dion had seen him once, shoveling through the rubbish, scooping at leftovers of a discarded lunch with his bare hands which were stained with something dark. Sasha called him desperate under his breath and hugged Dion a little closer to his side when they passed. It seemed more innate to her; she would never tell Sasha that.

     Her peers never knew of the kind of dire ache that made fruit taste so much sweeter. She reminded herself when she scooped a heavy ladle of slick, juicy peaches and raspberries into her porridge every morning. People seated at the Gryffindor table chattered around her in a lulled way that could only be heard during breakfast. The high walls of the castle protected them from natural forces like a fixed ward.

     "'Wuzzat?" Sanyu mumbled with a yawn. She rubbed sleep from her eye with her knuckles and reached over Dion to grab her spoon.

     "The same thing I have every morning." Dion smiled, tight-lipped. People tended to think she was standoffish when she did not smile.

     She shrugged and stole a bite before tossing the spoon back into the porridge with a tired sigh.

     Sanyu's tie tangled itself around her neck, half done-up and forgotten underneath her jewelery as she grumbled groggily and made her plate. Lots of meat. She had built herself quite well for Quidditch, in Dion's opinion—but her uniform did not agree. It stretched tight across her shoulders and arms, especially when she pushed herself as hard as she had been. House Cup was in Sanyu's grasp this year.

     Dion tried not to upturn her nose at the smell of her friend's meaty breakfast. She brought her goblet of tea up to her face and inhaled in a vain attempt to dissuade the scent.

     "My baba's overseas again," Sanyu said. "Guess how long?"

     Dion hated guessing games because she always got them wrong, but she liked to humor Sanyu so she responded, "A month?"

     "Try six," she said, her tone exasperated.

     "Oh, wow."

     "Yeah. With all the men being sent to the muggle war, they have a lot more free reign to harvest." Sanyu's face fell. "Not quite breakfast conversation."

     She chuckled awkwardly like she did whenever the muggle war was brought up and dove into her sausages, her knife shredding them with an unnecessary amount of force.

     "You mustn't apologize."

     "Yeah, yeah—breakfast's horrendous this morning."

     This sentence, or something close to it, was uttered at least once a day. Dion agreed; she preferred schi and borscht, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Sanyu would not find her culture's food appetizing, either.

     Dion hummed. "My porridge is quite delicious."

     "No offense, but you eat like... er, a mouse—cheese... and grain and stuff, but no meat."

     "Blegh."

     Sanyu tried to keep her composure but her smile was poorly hidden behind a forkful of food. "Since baba's away for a while, my aunties are staying with my mom. So... expect some food sent your way over the next few days."

     Sanyu's father supplied various types of wand wood from Southeastern Africa all across Europe and Asia. Her grandfather did the same and the grandfather before that. From what Sanyu told her, the transaction of wand wood was fiercely competitive, so it was best kept to the family. It amused Dion to think about middle-aged men going gray over lumber of all things.

     A soft simper graced her lips. "I will have to thank them."

     "You're going to write them a novel again."

     "Your mother loves my letters."

     Sanyu laughed wryly. "Yeah, she reminds me when I won't write her. I tell her, "Mama, we can floo." And she reads me a passage from one of your letters in response."

     Dion's face grew warm and she shook her head as she tucked into her porridge, brushing the anecdote off. Sanyu's mother was far too kind to her. She looked forward to receiving her letters; they smelled like ginger and had jewelry pieces made of clay and glass beads attached to the twine strings that held the parchment together. Her wrists had not been bare of bracelets since her third year when Sanyu transferred from Uagadou.

     It had been far too long since Dion had seen Sanyu's mother. She struggled to remember her face but knew her kind, brown eyes like the back of her hand—they were the same as Sanyu's.

     A boisterous cackle echoed across the Great Hall like a howl. Antonin Dolohov's laugh. Dion cursed herself for having recognized the source of the sound immediately, yet it hardly stopped her eyes from wandering to his seat at the end of the Slytherin table.

     Through the gaps between the heads of students, she watched Antonin grip Dorian by the shoulders and give him a hard shake. The former talked animatedly, while the latter seemed to be waiting for him to stop so he could continue eating—if people made way with their heads a bit more, she imagined the rest of the Knights of Walpurgis huddled around the end of the table, closest to the dais. Sanyu glanced over her shoulder at the noise, too, and scoffed.

     "Dolohov." She uttered his name like a curse and turned back around with the short shake of her head.

     The Knights of Walpurgis. A clever name for a clever group of people—though Dion thought the title was a bit on the nose if you knew anything of the array of festivities that took place in Northern Europe. She wondered who came up with it; word play entertained her.

     She recalled seeing Antonin's name on a sheet, recently. One pinned to the notice board in the Slytherin common room—the alchemy club. A handful of Knights had their names jotted along the lines of the sign-up sheet; Dolohov, written in messy capital letters stuck out like a sore thumb against the neat calligraphy of the others. She thought about adding her name, as she enjoyed alchemy and her conversation with Slughorn shoehorned its way into her mind no matter what she did to deter it.

     Dion's porridge fell from her spoon when she paused in the middle of a bite to stare at Antonin, fully immersed in his actions. It toppled into her bowl with a lame plop.

     "Sanyu," she said suddenly, setting her spoon down. "I was thinking of joining the Alchemy Club."

     Sanyu's brows raised in disbelief and she swallowed the food in her mouth with a labored gulp. "The one that whole group is in?"

     "It is not all of th—yes." A knowing expression overcame her friend's face, and Dion's fell in tandem. Murmuring, she picked at her food, "Professor Slughorn suggested I join a club and, well—I rather enjoy alchemy."

     "Dion. I wouldn't be surprised if they've claimed it as their own to mess around."

     "They are academics, Sanyu. I am certain they have many interesting theories."

     "Theories of how to steal as much firewhiskey as possible, more likely," Sanyu grumbled, shooting another disparaging glance toward Antonin. "Why not... the Spic-and-Spans? They always got room."

     Dion blew out a huff of air. "No. I have no interest in using my Saturdays to clean up after Quidditch matches. Besides—it has to involve the curriculum in some way."

     "I think you need to mull it over more before you put one hundred percent into something and get your feelings hurt," replied Sanyu, scratching the back of her head with her chewed nails.

  You will not fit in, Dion imagined she meant.

     Her shoulders shrunk and she kept her eyes on her bowl, biting on the flesh inside of her lip. Sanyu was the one in all the world who was dear to Dion. She took her word seriously—more seriously than she took textbooks and authority. Momentous deliberation had to occur if she were to go against Sanyu's judgment.

     That night, Dion found herself in front of the notice board with her quill clutched in her fist, dangling by her side and squinting like the sheet would relent itself to her in some way. Maybe willing it to write her name for her, so she would not have to make the decision herself, or perhaps wishing it would disappear altogether.

     The surface of her skin prickled with that burnt feeling of sitting too close to the fireplace for a long period of time. Fire crackled beside her, warming up the perpetually cold common room.  She would wring Salazar Slytherin by the neck if she met him for placing them so close to that blasted lake. It was nothing but a void at this time of day, once the sun went down.

     She stared at it and her reflection stared back at her, wide-eyed, unblinking. She looked away instinctively, then looked back and tried to make a neutral expression like Sanyu's.

     It was not pleasant, it pinched up her face like she smelled a pungent odor. She stopped and bared her teeth at herself. Terrible girl. A current of water distorted the translucent image.

     Dion walked away from the notice board, deflated significantly from the initial confidence during her conversation with Slughorn. She padded past the curved, velvety emerald sofas and shivered once her feet left the vine-patterned rug, hitting the frigid stone. The green and silver motifs of their quarters were drowned out by the night that kissed all corners of Hogwarts, the only sources of light that remained were the flickering torches held in iron sconces. Her pace hastened, and she hurried down the narrow corridor adjacent to the fireplace. Heavy mahogany doors lined either side, and she slipped into her room at the very end of the hall.

     Her dorm mates were asleep. Still bodies that rose and fell behind drawn canopy curtains; Rosemary left her oil lamp lit, forgotten on her nightstand as a book rested over her face. Dion knew better than to touch her things, even to assist her. It was not worth the chance to get caught.

     She clambered into bed, the shapes of her blanket and pillow fuzzy in the dimly lit room. She felt her way underneath and placed her quill and ink on the bedside table, desperate to forget all about this short-lived pipe dream. A silent exhale escaped her lips, tension releasing from her muscles as she laid flat on her back, staring at the underbelly of her canopy. The ill-defined shape of a small slip of parchment stuck out against the darkness like a sore thumb—she stuck it there in September, she knew what it said. Good things take time.

     It taunted her.

     Maybe she took the quote too literally.

     Was this her "time"? Professor Slughorn laid the foundation out for her, but surely, she had to be the one to execute it... that was the silver lining, wasn't it? There was always a silver lining.

     A moment of tranquility strangled every thought bouncing around her head. Pure quiet. The sounds of the people around her, the flicker of a flame gleaming orange against the stone walls. She held her breath, the phrase fell from her lips in an awed whisper. Good things take time. It beckoned her, called her name in the silence. One great thing would catch their attention. One great thing.

     Dion bolted out of bed, quill and ink in hand. Her footsteps were feeble, hardly filling silence. But she heard them. Dion knew they disturbed the peace that night.

{ ༺✶ } writing this had me screaming like mitski's drunk walk home... PLEASE ignore the fact my style is like all over the place i'm still getting my bearings

wc: 6912
girlpools  /  2023