YEAR OF DAMNATION
V.    In Memoriam

✶

     November bled into a graze of frost. Fine dustings of white that reminded Dion of the bulbous, powdery tea cakes Mother would serve on their finest china when Mr. Simenov came to chat. Dion hid under the dinner table or cramped herself in cabinets or drawers or chests and waited until their backs were turned to shove as many as she could into the pockets of her castoff, too-large trousers. She flit around the house like a shadow, unheard, unnoticed among thick dust bunnies blown from lace curtains.

     By the time they discovered Dion's ruse, she was up the stairs and hidden beneath the sardine queues of their six beds. She had always been good at hiding. Cotton blankets hung like curtains in front of her while she divvied the sweet cakes for her siblings.

     Three for Edora, a treat to distract from her illness; three for Sasha, as he was the biggest; two for Bronya; one for Tanis; half for baby Laika; all that remained of the lot was a crumbled half cake, to be nibbled on when Mother hissed a shrill demand from the foot of the staircase.

     Olesya was angry, as she always was when bothered by her no-good children; Dion could not remember her mother's face unpinched.

     Head-hung and caught, Dion would stand there at the top of the staircase, voice stuck in her throat, shaking her head with every demand. Only then would her mother stomp up each squeaky step, pick her up around the middle, and drag her down the stairs no matter how hard Dion gripped the railing, how hard she marked it. Sage paint chips dug under her nails, but her mother yanked and yanked. She would boot her out the back door until she learned that thieves had no place in their home.

     Mother never made Father tea cakes. Mr. Simenov, for all his gifts of leather bound ledgers and Nott elderberry wine, deserved none more.

     When the sun slumbered under the ocean blue horizon, her siblings found the lumps of cake on their pillows. Sasha would retrieve Dion from her perch in the fork of the great wych elm, rooted in front of their kitchen window after his shift at the butcher's.

     A killing of the day would loll within his grip, a ragwillow leaf crushed between his teeth to stay alert during long hours. Fist full of hen's neck, pliant as soft taffy while its body hung loose under his fingers; an hour ago it must have been clucking and flapping and full of life, now, a simple dead thing with no name. The beady onyx gaze reflected nothing in the darkness. She thought she heard it scream in the back of her mind.

     Sasha, her brother, taught her capability. Sasha, the butcher boy, taught her to fear it.

     The Fens were a home that bode disquiet in memory and he, alongside it. Dion supposed she was but a souvenir of The Fens, too.

     She was nurtured by the air that raised her, and the taste of it would never leave her mouth.

     Perhaps proximity bound her to The Fens more than Sasha, perhaps it was why she could only remember him with a rucksack in his trembling hand and herself as everything that made their former home inhabitable.

     A clash of cloth on wood resounded across the Alchemy classroom, startling Dion out of her wits and forcing her to tear her contemplation from the foggy window, behind its drawn, velvet curtains. Pinks and blues strung across the horizon, and she knew the sun would set sooner and rise later in the coming weeks.

     She struggled to wade through the violet material, but she thrusted her arms forward and found the division, adorned with gold tassels and the like. From the appalled look on Evelyn's face, Thaddeus had slammed his pristine copy of Ars Speculativa Alchemiae onto the table top.

     Professor Murk awoke with a snore turned snort. The jolt of his arm sent a stack of decorative, glittering rocks from his desk onto the floor in a clatter.

     "Thaddeus. Do you ever cease—" Evelyn began, lips curling into a sneer of disgust.

     "So long as you let yourself be annoyed," smiled Thaddeus. He kicked his penny brown loafers onto his bench and carded his fingers through his carob brown curls that bounced around his ears.

     Upon closer inspection, his textbook had not had a single fold or crease in the binding. Dion was sure he had never opened it.

     Murk, grazing a brushed-out tuft of hair from his eyes, surveyed the classroom and its seven frequent inhabitants. "Ah, greetings. One... two... seven... You're all here—Seaver, out from behind the curtains."

     Reluctantly, she shuffled into her seat next to Evelyn. They still had not added a seventh bench to the wretched circular formation and she imagined it felt worse for Evelyn than it ever would her, for Dion relished over being allowed at the table to begin with.

     "Thaddeus, feet off the bench," he continued, "Where did we leave off last meeting? It was... oh, yes, I missed it. I've been terribly busy—the publishing house has been a nightmare." Scratching his scruff, he awaited for a sympathetic reaction that never came. "No matter, what was it we were discussing? Dorian."

     The Head Boy cleared his throat and sat up straight as if he were preparing for an important speech. "Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone, sir."

     "Of course, the magnum opus of Alchemy, that of which every alchemist seeks to create. A rather mild subject, no? We've already passed that chapter in class."

     "Sure. But it hardly speaks on the process in which it was made. We're curious," interjected Romulus with an arrogant drawl, chin resting in palm. He spoke like he knew the answer would be dull.

     "If I knew, wouldn't I be relishing in the success of replicating something so renowned?"

     Dion thought of Flamel and her conversation with Tom, his denial of the virtue of alchemists. Implications of which made her head unspool within her life, beyond the confines of the Alchemy Club. Her fingers ran across the gauze tied to her palm and she grew uneasy. Desperate to ring Tom's words false, she raised her hand.

     "Seaver," Murk drawled, "We aren't in class, think of it as a gathering, you may say whatever you please whenever you please."

     Much like Romulus, Dion knew his response would lack the substance she sought. Still, she asked anyway, "Yes, professor. Erm, well, the law of exchange implies he must have given up something of equal value to acquire the Philosopher's Stone..."

     "Go on."

     "What could you possibly give for that?"

     His face twisted for a second within a pondering hum, its cragginess exacerbated. "You're beginning to think like great alchemists. Channel this curiosity and see what you discover."

     Crestfallen by Murk's disregard, the classroom's buzz of enthusiasm dwindled, save for the candlesticks continuing their clumsy dance overhead. Dion blinked slowly, nose crinkled and shoulders pinched taut into herself. The geriatric always droned of wisdom, but never seemed to offer any when it counted.

     Murk sighed, morose. "Your glum faces have told me all I need to hear. I'll see if Professor Dumbledore has time to drop by a meeting. You can bring these queries about Flamel to him."

     "That won't be needed, sir," remarked Tom, "It'd be unbecoming to disturb him in the midst of his current affairs."

     His black eyes were syrupy in the candle-lit room, surveying the Knights and Dion. Somehow his gaze was still cold in the warmth. Admonitory. She did not argue but noted it as a talking point of commonality.

     Often, it appeared as though Dumbledore peeped at things that were not his to grasp; where others saw a playful twinkle over his half-moon glasses, she felt shown. Confessing her concerns of the man was blasphemy to Sanyu, and Dion, fearful of her reaction, never branched the subject again.

     "Ah. Very well," Murk dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Talk amongst yourselves, then. Theorise. Delve into the mind of Nicholas Flamel. Become Nicholas Flamel. Now, I must get back to writing."

     A heavy pause stalled the conversation and Dion's eyes darted around the circlet of Knights. Time seemed to crawl with broken arms until Romulus scoffed out a laugh, drumming his fingers against his bench.

     "Anyway," he commenced.

     Sifting through her satchel, Dion retrieved her notebook with a terse huff, thoughts of Flamel and the stone still reeling.

     She relied on her notebook for many things: lists, recipes, and out of class endeavours—not quite her diary, that was hidden in the Room of Requirement, but still a treasury of herself. The leather binding was battered and bulging with pages, the result of her continuous extension charms, and the strap that bound it appeared trices away from snapping. Its pages were cockled and yellow from the time Abraxas stole it, read several of love poems out loud to his gaggle of bullies, and pitched it into the lake. She stopped keeping anything important or incriminating in it after that.

     With a sigh, she placed it on the bench, terribly aware of the way Thaddeus gaped at it. Even her notebook was a stain in their bliss.

     Antonin snickered from across the arrangement, "What's got you so tense, Seaver?"

     Many matters. The orange light wicking off of Antonin's teeth, how such joy rang bloodless. Their eyes, all of them, burrowing into her. Murk's head dipping every few seconds, already halfway close to dozing. Kostya scratching. The itch of her wounded palm. The conjecture of Flamel that no one but her seemed to take as a conjecture.

     Out of all those things, Dion chose to lie. "I do not enjoy non-answers."

     "Seems like you've got every answer in front of you," said Thaddeus, snatching her notebook. Her arms chased him to no avail. "Any more and this could be considered a weapon."

     Blank faced, she regarded him with nothing more than a sweep of the eyes. He furrowed a thick brow at her, though his dimpled cheeks, remained adorned with a smile, never faltered.

     If he wanted an outburst or quip, Dion had no interest in a reaction that would earn such satisfaction from him. On the other hand, she was aware she had a lacklustre sense of humour and that certainly did not bode well with a boy built on wise-cracks and laughter.

     "What do you even have in here?"

     "After our last meeting I did some research—"

     "Some?"

     Thaddeus reminded her of a petulant child screaming at a birthday party because the attention could not be entirely attracted to him. Notts had a habit of that.

     "Some," she repeated in case he had not heard her correctly, "I did some research regarding alternative methods of immortality and found information regarding the bodily alchemy of Taoists. Using yoga and meditation, they believe they can achieve a form of immortality."

     "Yeah—yeah," Antonin cackled, "I think I've heard this one before at the healer's: exercise often, eat decent, and you'll live a long, healthy life."

     Perturbed by the way his laughter echoed around the classroom, Dion wavered. "It-it—"

     "It-it—" he ridiculed, tongue poking out to wet his bottom lip.

     Romulus laughed as well—when her eyes darted around, they were all in the throes of various manners of amusement—but he paused and said, "Let's hear what she has to say, Dolohov."

     Antonin rolled his eyes. She took a moment to catch her breath.

     "Thank you—what was I saying?" Dion muttered to herself lamely, shaking the nerves from her head in a desperate attempt to get her bearings again. She felt so close, yet so far to a common ground with them. "It means internal alchemy could be a viable explanation for the stone."

     "Which end d'you think it popped out of?" joked Thaddeus.

     Everyone was unsure what to say next.

     "You're vile," Dorian chided.

     "Don't flatter me too much, I'll start blushing."

     Dorian's thin nose flared as a strangled noise escaped his throat, brows cinching so hard they nearly connected in the middle. "You're ignored until further notice."

     "Oh, take me out to dinner, first."

     "Nott," Romulus interjected like he was a bad pet, "This... 'internal alchemy.' How would it apply to the stone?"

     "That is what I am unsure of..." Dion took a lock of hair from her shoulder and stroked it many times to soothe her fidgety hands, her eyes fixed on the up and downs of the movement. "The stone itself may be connected to Flamel in some way."

     "These are presumptuous arguments, aren't they?" Tom asked

     After his stint the other night, he still had the gall to call her presumptuous. She wondered if he said things simply for the novelty of it, or if he truly thought himself above her own assumptions. She hoped for the first. Part of her was aware it was the second.

     "As theory is, yes," she replied, not unkindly.

     "Yes, theory. Hypothesis. You seem to have your mind made up."

     "You do as well."

     "For good reason. Magic of such calibre demands a cost, Seaver."

     Evelyn seemed to consider Dion for a moment. Window-shopping expression again—her transparent brow raised, eyes slightly narrowed, lips curled thoughtfully—the same one she had seen on Tom. "Hm. There's few things I could imagine that are of equal exchange for infinite wealth and living forever."

     "Never meet your idols," Thaddeus added.

     Dion knew. Dion knew and she still asked, "Why would Dumbledore—"

     "The greats don't become great because they are good." Tom, despite any reaction at all, seemed exasperated. "They do what they must in order to pass beyond the bounds of what we know. If you'd like to continue to deny the truth in order to make it palatable to your naivety, then I'm certain the first years you tutor are sorely missing your unshakeable moral integrity."

     His eyes were argument-halting. Even. It was hard to believe that, long ago, they had anything in common at all.

     He was her, once. The stranger at the door, clawing, fingers shoved in every crack he could and wrenching. Under constant scrutiny, feeling as though every uttered word would be her downfall. She was letting her emotions sweep her feet from under her, again; she doubted he ever offered the same thought to her.

     "I do not understand why you insist upon immediately believing such a terrible extreme. I will read. I will find a feat of similar status and merit to prove it does not have to be so grim."

     "Nothing compares to the Philosopher's Stone," Dorian added.

  "How not? I do not believe it is perfect."

     "Pray tell," sneered Tom.

     "I would only need to find a magical feat of near perfection."

       Show them, Kostya urged.

     Dion inhaled. It hardly lingered on her tongue before sinking to her stomach. "Erm, as far as we know, the stone is only capable of turning metals to gold and creating the Elixir of Life. Very wonderful things, of course. Gold is rather pretty—though, I quite dislike money... My point is, there's limitations to the Elixir. Limitations that render the 'immortality' claim false."

     "Since when have you been able to speak more than five words at a time?" Evelyn asked, lips thinning.

     "I have realised my silent demeanour is dissuasive."

     Several of them hummed and hawed in agreement. It was hard to decipher who said what, but Thaddeus nodded weightedly and Evelyn had no retort. Dion began to find some footing on whence she should lie and speak honestly. Emotional information was taken with a grain of salt—material information, such as her favourite alchemists and the clothes she wore, was scrutinised.

     "Enough," Dorian snapped, the monotony of his voice dissipating as its pitch raised. "You implied the stone is flawed."

     "It was not an implication."

     "You claimed the stone is flawed."

     "As a means to live forever, yes."

     They stared at each other.

     "Perhaps the stone is a product of alchemical limitation," suggested Tom.

     A terrible feeling swelled warm and accomplished in her chest. Greedily, like a child demanding more dessert, she wanted Tom to appraise her proposals—over and over again until he could not dispute them. She wanted to be right, and she wanted all of them to know she was right after all these years of watching them through the window.

     "Boring. Everything should be as simple as charms," Thaddeus claimed with his head thrown back, glasses slipping onto his forehead. "A perfect world."

     "You daft—" Dorian began.

     Romulus placed a tentative hand on his shoulder and Dorian calmed with a slick of his black hair, regaining his composure. "Magic, like charms, can be used alongside alchemy for stronger reactions. It's more advanced," the smaller boy explained, "You'd know if you read anything."

     Antonin stood up from his bench, palms, thick with callouses, plastered against the mahogany. "We should try it ourselves."

     Dion should stop this. Nothing came out when she opened her mouth to speak.

       Tell him to shut his trap, Edora would have said. If Dion could find her voice, she might have stayed silent to spite her, anyway.

     "What?" Evelyn smirked. "Charms and alchemy? Shall we play Snakes and Brooms, too?"

     "No." He rolled his eyes. "Let's try and find something that's not flawed."

     Dion had not intended for this when she branched the subject, but their spiral of enthusiasm was too strong to stamp out. The shame of dampening it would be crippling. They would see her as weak. Someone not to be trusted.

     "What? Something to say, Seaver?" Antonin smiled and she schooled her expression on impulse. "You're the one who said it's possible without doing anything wrong."

     Marred cheek curling higher, his pink scar sheened in the flickering candlelight—if he could not see her fear, he could smell it. "Come on, a little immortality never hurt anyone."

     Suddenly, each of them were laughing.

     She tittered awkwardly with them, a joke lost on her. Stomach full of bees and butterflies and other insects that fluttered terribly, she ignored their suffocating buzz in her ears. Perhaps these words would ring hollow, declarations unfulfilled—they would forget the plight and remember the laughter; that Dion shared their glee.

───────────

     After the meeting, Dion left in a hurry to get to dinner. Students lingered in the corridor, whispering in hushed voices with one another, they savoured the warmth of the castle, peering through the glass at the evening that greyed with rolling storm clouds. A yellow-robed couple kissed on a window sill and Dion tore her eyes away so as not to stare.

     She had been kissed before, but never tender, always impersonal obligation and they never called her theirs. Loving those who liked her. She often laid awake at night with the thought of only ever meeting everyone halfway no matter how much of herself she spilled into others.

     Humbled, she hoped it would be different with the Knights. Certain things concerned her regarding their plans for the Alchemy Club, certainly Tom and Antonin's lack of morality in the face of serious subjects and Thaddeus' levity. The conversation should not have been had in front of a professor, even if he sat like a decoration in the corner of the room as he slept at his desk.

     Then again, it was all in good fun, was it not? Discussing theory and ethics was an integral part of any subject and, for all it was worth, Antonin's untamed demeanour reminded her of bestial transmutation. Aspects of other creatures could possibly be isolated and concentrated into a subject, but Dion needed to brush up on her knowledge of the stringent branch of alchemy.

     "Seaver, hold on," Romulus called out behind her, Dorian-less. It almost looked improper of him to be alone.

     She stopped in her tracks and spun to face him, surprised by his brisk walk despite the stiffness in his gait. Guilt for making him hurry like that caught in her throat.

     "Hi," she murmured.

     "Yeah, hello," he huffed, brushing a handful of reddish-blond curls from his eyes.

     His hands held remnants of blister scars and calluses, the last bits of his Quidditch days etched into his skin. Pale from his years off the pitch, blotches of ink covered them. She wondered if they were a cadaver to him, like her own scars. What should have been and died.

     Romulus, as sociable as he was, remained a mystery to Dion throughout her time at Hogwarts. Perhaps this was due to his place as a seventh year student, or because his family dallied among the strand of Malfoys and Blacks, but this was the first time she had spoken to him personally. Like all good purebloods, he came from an upstanding family with a Ministry employed father and a homemaking mother. He had an apt for piano, a distaste for Quidditch, and he painted ugly, dull things like wheat fields and barns and men in penguin adjacent suits

     Up-close, his short stature grew more apparent and a bit podgy, with a button nose, heavy lidded, glimmering blue eyes, and a half-smile that made him look endlessly patronising as though he lived through the world listening rather than seeing. Handsome, but not intimidatingly so.

     Dion petted her bandage. "Thank you for standing up for me."

     "Dolohov has a weird sense of humour. You'll get used to it."

     "I see." Although she tried to mask it, Dion knew she sounded dubious.

  "You've got a bit of fire to you, don't you? I hadn't realised."

     "It is all very new—"

     "New?"

  "Yes... a—a new experience. I would like to make an effort to befriend you all."

     All besides Antonin, Thaddeus, and Tom, as of currently. The latter two were on a trial period, but it would be too much of a hassle to explain, so she refrained. Romulus motioned her to follow him with a jerk of his neck and she obliged.

     "With the state you're in?" he chuckled, "They'll reduce you to nothing."

     "Pardon?"

     Unaware he acknowledged her beyond a smirch in their informal academic adventures, Dion's elation and trouble grew in tandem by this news. Elated, as this meant she had a place in Romulus' thoughts, and troubled, as his perception of her took her by surprise.

     "People have tried to join the Alchemy Club to get in our good graces before. Did you know that? None lasted very long."

     Her brows furrowed. They climbed stairs toward the Astronomy Tower in pensive silence until he spoke again.

  "I'll let you in on a little secret."

     Dusk washed out what little colour the day had. Sooty clouds casted a lightless pallor over the landscape, frigid winds swept around her bare legs as the windows dwindled, replaced by glassless arches the closer they approached the tower summit. Romulus paused his speech to heave his right leg up the last few steps, holding the rail in a white-kuckled grip. Dion offered her hand to help, but he brushed it away, his jovial expression slackened icily before resurfacing. If she blinked, she would have missed it.

     They reached the top and Dion shuffled behind him awkwardly, thoughts still stuck on the hard-eyed look he had given her.

     "Boo. Too many stairs in this school."

     Stopping in a western aperture, they oversaw the grounds and Ogg, the gamekeeper's, shed. It had been cleaned and now lodged Rubeus Hagrid, the expelled boy, blamed for Myrtle's death. Clearly there were other factors at play, if he were allowed to remain on school grounds, but Dippet was a quiet man of dubious priorities so Dion's knowledge of the situation remained shoddy. Tom was the one to uncover the creature he kept hidden within the castle, they had an entire celebration dedicated to him. She did not attend.

     "At home, I Apparate everywhere. I've been able to since fourth year," he continued.

     Romulus leaned against the stone pier and Dion shifted her gaze to the horizon, frowning when her stomach brewed hot with envy.

     The Trace was once trivial to her; now, every summer she actively reminded herself to halt her magic use until the following autumn. Bronya would tell her she should have appreciated it before it was a forgotten luxury. Dion had no heart to disagree.

     "I still have the Trace."

     He pouted for her—or at her, or he mocked her. She was not sure. "Shame. Seems annoying having to worry about something like that."

     "Yes." She forced herself to refrain from grumbling. "I would like to know the secret now, please."

     "Please," he teased, "Since you asked so nicely: the way they function—it's not overt. Do you know the game?"

     There were games she knew like the back of her hand, like Babki and Ladushki. The game was not among those she knew well. Its presence lingered like a macrocosm she had never been a part of, but revolved around her in snide smiles and passing comments. Her mother played it, her father in his busybody Ministry affairs, Sanyu rejected the game yet won it anyway, and Tom managed to conquer it.

     The other night during their prefect rounds, his attempt to engage with Dion in the game fell flat. She cringed to herself at the memory, unsure if it was for her sake or Tom's.

     "Somewhat. Not well," she admitted.

     "Simply put, it's multitasking."

     "I have never been very good at games."

     Knowing and participating were severely different. She knew Babki but never managed to strike the pyramid of sheep knucklebones like Edora, and her sole opponent in Ladushki was Baby Laika—that, and the fact no real winner came of Ladushki.

     Her mind drifted to her duels with Sasha; before his eyes hardened and his words grew mean and doctrinal. Laughter followed the sting of a spell and if her cheeks were not ruddy with exertion, it meant she had not been trying hard enough. Dirt and grass stamped on her knees and palm heels, wands drawn and her hair blown into her eyes, the earthy scent of summer dew as sunlight broke over the horizon. His teeth were uneven when he smiled. Dion made a note to tell him she remembered that if she ever saw him again.

     Nostalgia obscured people in funny, nauseating ways. Dion longed for an eternal summer every time the weather grew cool and gloomy and she knew she would long for snow in July, too. Never satisfied. At least the pain it brought reminded her she always left duels with less bruises than her brother.

     "But you're a quick learner," Romulus asserted, jabbing a finger into her shoulder ("Ow."). "That's about the only important part."

     "I see."

     "There's three parts to the game: words, actions, and motivation." He held up his pinky, adorned with the gold Mulciber signet, ring, and middle finger. "It's straightforward, really. If one of these doesn't match up with the other two, you're being played. Root it out and you win."

     According to this logic, each of the Knights—or anybody for that matter—were to be under her suspicion. Truly, no one had any good reason to speak to her unless they were a professor or prefect.

     As a perpetually bored child with a sneering disbelief in integrity, she may have been more receptive to such a despondent view of everyone around her. Unfortunately for Romulus, he was a few years too late.

     "This seems rather cynical."

     "People are cynical. But games make it fun, no?" Romulus' unerring confidence trampled any further argument. "Think of it this way: the world is the ballroom, the game is the music, and we're the dancers."

     "Why are you telling me this?"

     "Games are no fun unless everyone knows the rules."

     Dion paused thoughtfully and weighed the possibilities. Inharmonious relationships gave her stomach aches and a general suspicion of everyone and everything. Unfortunately, this game seemed like the kind of game people do not play by choice, but as means of survival.

     "I do not think I will play," she said despite herself.

     "Suit yourself." Romulus' tone belittled her, a pureblood weaned on the game speaking down to those who were not trained to win. He checked his well-groomed nails and thought nothing of her dejected frown. "Oh, before I forget—here."

     Reaching into his slacks pockets, he fished out a thin, gold bangle and held it out to her on the flat of his palm. Hesitantly, she picked it up and cradled it between her fingers, inspecting the intricate relief, depicting a snake tangled in ornamental acanthus, feathering into bloomed amaranths. Blank space took up a third of the bangle.

     It was neither Christmas, nor her birthday, and this was a curious gift to receive out of the blue—however, Dion did not want to appear ungrateful. She had never been presented with a seemingly random gift from anyone besides Sanyu. She tore her eyes away from the jewellery and glanced at Romulus again.

     "Thank you."

     "Thaddeus calls it a Scribe. Think a message, run your thumb down the bracelet, and everyone will see what you wrote. Test it out," he directed, motioning to the bangle with a nod.

     Dion dallied her sample of the item in fear of saying the wrong thing to everyone. Whoever that everyone may be. She thought of telling a joke, but many told her she had a poor sense of humour, so she remained her dull self. Her thumb glided across the cool metal and Romulus checked his wrist.

     Hello, signed across the Scribe in her familiar, slender cursive. Her eyes widened when the gold warmed against her fingers. The writing vanished, as did the heat.

     No one responded and Dion could not help her awe of the ingenuity. Such magic must have taken years to pose, let alone cast upon several gold bands.

     "Nifty, isn't it?" Romulus mused.

     "How novel! Who made it?"

     "Riddle, of course."

     Flipping the bangle over in her palm, she eyed the craftsmanship and forgot Romulus' presence. Protean charms were difficult enough to manage, but the Scribe granted holders the ability to convey their thoughts wandlessly. For all of Tom's strange dichotomies, she could appreciate his ability—and his flair for the picturesque. Jewellery of such finesse, gifted to a select group of people, teetered between sentimental and distinguishing; the former stuck out as she had no idea he had any interest in such things.

     Tom Riddle ran deep. Everytime she thought she had some footing, she plummeted into the unknown again.

     "Emblematic romanticism..." she mumbled under her breath and slid the Scribe onto her wrist.

      "I'm sorry?"

     Dion tore her eyes away from the gold band and Romulus smiled demeaningly, as if she were the one who spoke out of turn.

     "He likes pretty things. Meaningful pretty things."

     "Don't we all?" he replied.

     Her brows knitted and she hummed noncommittally; agreement absent, but uncertain to oppose his claim.

     Elaborate shows of claim enticed Dion. Family crests littered the Dolohov's manor in great emblems of manticores and the phrase, "In law and justice," seeped into every conversation, every action taken place within their home. She remembered cowering behind Sasha in their trophy hall. A long, well-lit corridor lined with mounted animal heads whose eyes followed her around the room in unblinking stillness, as if they were aware, but trapped in a posed, unnatural position.

     At the very end sat the Dolohov trophy case, filled with settlements won in duels, antiques, items stolen from enemies they defeated. She used to sit and examine each lavish heirloom for hours with eyes the size of saucers, wishing, desperately, to be claimed by an enclave so fiercely.

     Purebloods had a penchant for such notions; Romulus' signet ring held an ornate coat of arms, a fox balanced on one foot with the words Ad astra per sanguinem engraved into the banner under the animal. For Tom to practise such extensive artistry in both magic and fashionable flamboyance for the sake of a school club raised Dion's suspicion, though she chose to believe he simply held a passion for uniformity.

     "We'll be using these to communicate in case we have any impromptu meetings—preferably without Murk, if you know what I mean," explained Romulus.

     Stomach plunging at the realisation they planned to continue studies outside of their professor's supervision, she could only nod and mumble dryly, "Okay."

"Dorian expects me for dinner, so I'll best be off."

     "Oh. Sorry to keep you."

     "It's alright." He stepped back, half smiling, half squinting. "Keep your wits about you, Seaver. I have a feeling this year will be one for the books."

     "Thank you."

     And he left Dion alone. As alone as Dion could ever be, nowadays—her hair stood on end and goosebumps puckered across her skin before the wraith made herself known.

       You did well, coughed Kostya, voice squeaking like nails against her bones, Smart girl, throwing him off your trail.

     "What are you talking about?" she sighed and leaned over the measly steel guard rail with her head hung. She wondered if there were precautionary protection spells to save her if she fell.

       The game. You lied to him about not playing, didn't you?

     "No. I have no interest in things like that."

       You wanted friends.

     "Yes, friends—not adversaries."

       There's no difference to people like them.

     "There could be."

     The quiver of Dion's voice betrayed her hesitation and Kostya's hand eased out of her wrist like a knife in sand, finger by finger. The wraith snatched Dion's wrist and yanked it away from the rail, sending her stomach-first into the cool metal. Pain prickled across her torso and she coughed once, sharp autumn air slicing through her throat and lungs in her frantic attempts to catch her breath. Her knees hit the ground and she held onto the rail to avoid face-planting.

     Kostya released her, fingers slithering inward once again. Stubborn child, you're a gaping wound on legs. They're bound to see it in time. How long will you pretend to be good and virtuous? I'm sure they've done worse.

     "You have no right—" she swallowed a thickness in her throat, fist clenching weakly. "No right to comment on my affairs."

       How not? You are as much me as I am you, bloodwitch.

     Ebon blood pooled in Dion's palm with a sting, warm and viscous as it soaked through her bandage in a moment, coating where she gripped the rail and trickling down her wrist in wiry branches. She gasped through her teeth and her hand quivered. Such brutish ways to make a point of her station within her. Good for nothing wraith.

     "And yet, I know nothing about you beyond a name," she fussed and pulled herself to her feet, pressing her good palm against the other once she steadied.

       Silly me, I misspoke, she replied sweetly. What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine, too.

     "Since you terrorise me with no end in sight, at the very least tell me how long you plan to take refuge within me."

       Refuge? Kostya's waterlogged voice whetted into an edge. You misunderstand our relationship severely. I'm no beggar. The minute you aren't of use to me, I'm gone.

     "Use?"

       You let me in when I was a frail little idea, and now I'm an effigy of myself. Why do you think that is?

     "Kostya," she huffed and wiped her forearms on the black cloth of her robe, crimson streaked across her pale skin in dapples and made the fabric impossibly dark, but hid the wound well. "Why did you fail to mention this earlier?"

       You never questioned it, terrible child. Not that you seemed to need much guidance, seeing as I'm doing quite well for myself.

     The throbbing, hot ache of her stomach made it difficult to convey the frustration she felt. "What do you need me to do?"

       Do I need to hold your hand and explain it? Use that big head of yours.

     Her blood soaked through the gauze, staining her fingers a sticky red.

     Dion's blood; birthed from it, attracted by it, latched onto Dion through it—the unpleasant common denominator stuck in between her teeth, unable to voice it aloud in all its awfulness and familiarity.

     She toyed with darkness out of necessity and now it toyed with her. Wraiths were not beyond magic's weight, confined to the limits set, weaved within its forces like Dion. Like the birds and trees and wisps of wind. A beating heart. The rush of blood.

     "Blood magic," breathed Dion, shutting her eyes.

       There you go. I'm fueled by it.

     "The more I do it, the stronger you become. Once you are strong enough, you do not need me," she continued slowly.

       Finally, it only took you forever.

     "What of me?" croaked Dion. "What happens to me once you leave?"

       That's up to you. You're free to frolic and save kittens from trees or whatever it is you do to feel better about yourself, or die for all I care.

     "I would save a kitten regardless of my self-image."

       Your tender heart is detestable.

     "Leave me be." A heavy pause followed, then Dion grew restless with many questions she had yet to ask in fear of prying too far. "Have you always been a wraith?"

     No response came from the depth of her chest.

     "Kostya?"

     Silence ensued. Kostya was gone—for a short while, anyway and Dion could breathe despite the hollow feeling she left. She sighed and sank to the floor with a pit in her stomach, tucking her knees to her chest and laying her forearms on the bony caps, resting her head against the blood streaked skin. Frigid air swept through the Astronomy Tower, skimming her legs. Her teeth chattered and she wondered if this was rock bottom, possessed, alone, and miserable by her own doing.

     Had she been such a shameful child that she deserved this life? Life licked at her like a fire that never went out; surrounding, consuming, unyielding and unstoppable. Yet she continued to defy it time and time again, beginning with that damn hare in the snow all those years ago. Perhaps this was her consequence. Magic's way of placing a cost on her deeds.

     She could not stop. Not now. Dion and Kostya could both get what they wanted through this partnership, if magic allowed her to pay a little more.

     Icy, wet snowflakes hit her cheek and she frowned, peering above her arms at the landscape beyond the tower. Thestral foals dove above the treeline of the Forbidden Forest in pairs, black bolts among the fluttering white shimmer of the first snow.

     Dion's eyes welled with tears and she desperately wished to be cast away in that horrible, ramshackle cottage house again, stealing tea cakes and hiding in elm trees, far from Kostya. Her body ached imprecisely in tandem with the void in her chest. She cried big, wet droplets that wracked her trembling frame and she could not tell where it hurt anymore.

{ ༺✶ } i dont know who to make fun of this chapter theyre all horrible and also annoying and also mentally unwell. hope they burst into flames before they can recite really watered down philosophical understandings to me. also ummm dont imagine hannah dodd anymore just imagine how i describe dion Ok...... i will still use her for edits though

wc: 6484
girlpools / 2024