Second Chance - Hogwarts Legacy AU
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The first trial was not what Ciara expected.
Figg and her decided to keep her true origins from the Keepers, because it wasn’t really that big of a deal, however, they did press onto Rackham the Ranrok threat to help push this whole ‘ancient magic’ thing along.
Ciara also didn’t go into her theories about how they might be very wrong in saying ancient magic is a form that is unknown and unattainable to others because she didn’t want to give herself a bad first impression, but also because she wasn’t entirely sure her theory was correct. She could bring up the fact she sees colours and they don’t at a later time.
So, with the portrait man convinced that she needed to start right away, she and Figg trekked to Bakar Tower. They snuck through the Loyalist camp outside the tower, completely undetected, leaving Ciara to enter the trial on her own while Figg Disapperated back to Hogwarts to wait for her.
The trial was full of moving stairs and bridges, and moving platforms around with Accio, and fighting knights that were trying to kill her, and figuring out how these archways worked – admittedly, those archways gave Ciara a ten minute long panic attack because they reminded her of the Death Room in the Department of Mysteries and Sirius falling into it after he was killed by Bellatrix, but she shook that off and stomped that memory into the ground like all her other less than pleasant memories. But there was also the fact that Ciara was not good at puzzles. That was not her strong suit.
The fighting was where she excelled. There were so many knights, large and small, that she fought. The knights were strong, shining with that myriad of rainbow coloured enchantments. Her own magic was far stronger than that of the knights she was facing. She had Vanished a troll! With that terrifying confidence booster, she blasted through the knights with minimal injuries; mostly just shrapnel flying back and hitting her, but a few knights did manage to get a little bit too close.
She was forced to be more creative, though. While she was more powerful than them, she still had to conserve her energy for whatever she had coming next. She couldn’t just use all her power to vanish a knight and cripple herself like she did with the troll. Ciara was trigger happy, but that that stupid. After fighting for a while, she realised that the knights with a more milky rainbow sheen fought defensively, using ranged attacks and protecting the other knights that had more saturated colours shimmering over them.
Fighting the Guardian – she deemed that an appropriate name for the utterly massive knight she had to defeat to move on to the final room of the trial – might have been one of the hardest fights of her life. She was rolling and dodging and catching projectiles and throwing them back at the Guardian both wandlessly. She had to read what kind of magic it was going to throw at her by identifying the type based on the colour surrounding it and crafting a counter or just dodging entirely. It was mentally and physically draining in a way that Ciara hadn’t experienced before. She had fought for long periods of time, but never to the point of draining nearly all her energy like this. Though, she supposed that having a grand total of eight hours of sleep in the last forty-eight hours wasn’t doing her any favours. Or the fact she’d barely eaten anything. She made a note to herself to eat before doing the next trial and always have snacks on her – and wiggenwelds. Usually she was good at having snacks on her, but she hadn’t gotten the chance to stock up yet.
By the time she reached the end, where a pensieve waited for her, she was bruised and bleeding and tired and prayed that she’d be able to remember what the hell she was about to witness by the next morning as she suspected she had been down there the entire day.
The memory was of Professor Rackham teaching a slightly older Isidora Morganach, around Ciara’s age, how to wield ‘ancient magic'. He was teaching her to transfigure these massive, ornate pillars atop a sea stack. Mercury-silver swirls danced as the pillars materialized at her wand movements. He was just teaching her conjuration, why were they calling it ‘ancient magic?’ Granted, the magic was slightly different than how she saw Conjuration, but apart from the colour, it looked the exact same.
Isidora began to lament about her grieving father. Her brother died recently, before she came to Hogwarts, Ciara guessed, and her father, from the sounds of it, was still not moving on from it. Rackham tried to comfort her, but she only got angry, talking about how she wants to use her powers to remove her father’s pain.
Ciara couldn’t agree more when Rackham told the girl, “It is not your pain to take.” Pain wasn’t a thorn that someone else could remove. It was a scar interwoven within all the other emotions: happiness, sadness, grief, mourning, joy, excitement, fear. Ciara knew better than anybody that the scar of emotional pain never went away, but it did fade over time, occasionally rearing its head to remind you that it was there, that you went through something painful. But it was entirely up to the person whether they let that scar become another part of the jigsaw puzzle that was their identity, or let it become their identity entirely.
When the memory shifted to a new scene, one of Rackham standing in a room with Charles Rookwood and the other Keepers. What surprised her was that Isidora has returned to Hogwarts as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Part of Ciara was spooked at the notion. That is exactly what Voldemort tried to do. He was strangely powerful and then returned shortly after graduating to become a professor, only for Dumbledore to turn him down. The deja vu Ciara felt from that memory filled her with a sense of foreboding and she could only imagine how downhill this story went from here.
Isidora invited the Keepers to her house to show them what she discovered from her travels and then the memory faded as she walked out excitedly.
After Ciara stood from the pensieve, the exhaustion from being awake for nearly forty straight hours and all the adrenaline crashes started catching up to her, colour dots and lights dancing in her vision. With a cursory glance at the space, she saw a wall with the golden ripples and made her way over to it like a moth to a flame.
She didn’t care where the wall would take her, she just hoped it would take her somewhere closer to the castle. When she apparated, her exhaustion made her feel like she had fallen through the wall and her face collided with the floor.
“Ah!” Figg’s voice suddenly rang in her ears. “You’re back! How did you get here? And what are you doing on the floor? Are you alright?”
Her eyes snapped open. Professor Figg was approaching her as she lay on the floor of the Map Chamber. Ah, how lovely, she was significantly closer to her bed than she had even hoped. She didn’t even notice that her nose was bleeding.
“Merlin’s beard, what happened?” Professor Figg asked when he saw just how beaten up the girl looked as she stood. He shoved a bottle of Wiggenweld into her hands and cast minor healing spells all over her body. The pain ebbed away, but her exhaustion remained.
“Forgot Protego existed, mostly,” Ciara quipped as he cast Episky on a small cut on her cheek and then again on her nose.
“Well, next time, don't forget.” he lightly scolded, looking over her once more, seemingly satisfied with her state of wellbeing.
Ciara smiled at him, squeezing his arm once to let him know she was okay before facing the portrait towering over them. Only when she turned to face Rackham, did she notice that a second portrait had an occupant. Her vision was slightly blurry from exhaustion, but she recognized him as Professor Rookwood from the pensieves.
“What have we here?” Professor Rookwood remarked. “Has someone completed the first trial?”
“I have, Professor. My name is Cia-” She faked a yawn to cover to slip up. “Carina Black and this is Professor Figg.”
“Goodness! I wasn’t expecting someone so young.”
“Well, apparently the ancient magic manifests at fourteen, so I’m not sure what’s so surprising about that,” Ciara quipped before she could stop herself. Realising that she sort of stunned her company with her snark, she moved on. “Where is the second trial located?”
Before Rookwood can answer, Rackham interrupts. “Before you proceed, I would like to have a word with Charles about the urgent goblin situation.”
“Goblins?” Rookwood wondered aloud.
Rackham began telling Rookwood about the goblins and Ranrok, and Figg even chimed in with how Victor Rookwood was working with Ranrok, much to poor Rookwood’s chagrin. But Ciara was exhausted. Her body was tired, her mind was tired, she was falling asleep on her feet.
“Carina?” Figg’s voice brought her back to the land of the awake. “Are you alright?”
She nodded slowly, forcing her eyes to stay open.
“I’m fine, professor, just a little tired,” she assured him. “How long do you need to ensure the second trial is ready?” Ciara asked Professor Rookwood again.
“Maybe a week or so,” he answered. “I have much to discuss with Professor Rackham and I need to ensure the location of the trial isn’t destroyed.”
“So, if I come back in a week, would it be good to go?” she confirmed.
“I hope so, yes.”
“Perfect,” she smiled tiredly, stretching her arms over her head causing the loud popping of her joints to ring out in the chamber. “In that case, I will leave you to your discussions. Goodnight!”
Without waiting for their farewells, Ciara looped her arm with Figg’s for support and strolled out of the chamber.
Much to her disdain, Figg asked her to regale all the details she could remember from the trial. Being infuriatingly fond of the man, Ciara obliged, telling him every scrap of detail she could remember until he delivered her to the entrance of the Slytherin common room.
“Classes start in a few hours, so be sure to get as much sleep as you can,” he tried to lecture her, but she was already giving him a loose hug before nearly falling down the stairs to get to her dorm.
The moment her head hit the pillow, she was out like a light.
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The pain was unbearable. Everything in her body, mind and soul felt like it was being stabbed with red hot pokers repeatedly. Her throat was raw from screaming. She’d never felt pain as terrible as this before. She’d been beaten, stabbed, sliced, burned multiple times in her life, but nothing compared to this. Nothing compared to the Cruciatus Curse.
“You deserve this pain,” Bellatrix sang above her. “You let Harry walk away. You let him die. You let Sirius jump in front of you. You let that all happen. You failed to protect them.”
“No…” Ciara sobbed out. “No… I didn’t… Harry lived… you’re lying!”
“Oh, did he?” Bellatrix taunted. “Look!”
The woman pounced onto Ciara, grabbed her chin and forced her head to the side. Next to her, open eyes staring blankly through her, was Harry’s corpse. Her head was wrenched the other way. Sirius was on her other side, dead.
“No…” Ciara stuttered. “No… please… I didn’t… I’m sorry…”
Her grief-filled words were cut off by another scream as Bellatrix dug a dagger into Ciara’s arm. Delicately carving letters into her skin and muscle. Bloodtraitor.
“Nagini,” a new voice rang throughout the room. Ciara barely had time to turn her head to see the white face and red eyes of the owner before the Cruciatus Curse was cast upon her again. The pain was worse than before, the corpses of those she loved as family lying next to her.
“Kill,” Voldemort finished his order to the snake.
Just as the giant snake’s strike pierced her ribs, Ciara sat up with a jolt. Her hands were on her chest, holding where the snake had crushed her clavicle but feeling no raised skin of where she should have scars. Ciara was sucking in air as if she had just sprinted a marathon, her skin tingled with the memory of the Cruciatus Curse. The memory of where the snake’s fangs pierced and tore through her skin ached.
It was just a dream, Ciara told herself, simply a nightmare. Granted the most vivid and terrifying nightmare she’d had yet, but still. It was just a nightmare.
She was fine.
Her stomach growled and she remembered where she was. It was Monday morning in 1890, the day after she completed the first trial.
She was alive.
She got dressed relatively easily, the routine of putting on so many different layers and garments becoming normal for her. She never thought she would miss bras and boy shorts as much as she did as she tugged on the full body underwear. Even if she could wear trousers, she’d be happier. The skirt was worse than the one she had to wear in the 1990s.
Ready to get some food in her, Ciara took a step to leave her dorm when the owl perched on a stand hooted at her. Curious, and cautious, Ciara approached the owl. Below the owl, fastened to the perch, was a basket with a letter that bore her name.
When she got a little too close, the owl fluffed its feathers at her threateningly. Ciara backed up immediately. Animals still hated her and Ciara didn’t know whether that they could sense her soul, or because Carina was a raging bitch. But it honestly didn’t matter. She’d lived with it before, she can live with it now.
Opting to maintain the bird’s personal bubble, Ciara summoned the note to her hand silently to read it.
Ciara,
I know that we agreed on meeting after Defense, however, Anne’s condition has gotten worse. I know you have a free period this morning, would you mind meeting me then to brew that shrivelfig potion you mentioned?
Meet me outside the Defense classroom as soon as you read this.
Hope to see you soon!
Sebastian
Ciara sighed at the letter. If Anne was getting worse, she had to get a move on. She wasn’t even sure this potion would heal her, but she could only hope.
With a heavy sigh, Ciara decided to skip breakfast and head straight to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. The Kitchens and Great Hall were too far out of the way. She could already hear Mrs Figg’s voice scolding her for skipping a meal when she was clearly hungry.
The passing thought of Mrs Figg sent a shudder of sadness through Ciara. She quickly shook the feeling away, ignoring the stone of grief that settled in her stomach. She didn’t have time to think about all that right now. She had the world to save first.
When she arrived at the Defense classroom, Sebastian was pacing at the bottom of the stairs, fretting nervously. She could only imagine the anxiety he must be feeling with his sister getting worse.
“Sebastian,” she alerted him to her arrival. The rest of the students were all rushing to make the bell and paid no attention to the pair.
“Oh, thank Merlin,” he sighed when he saw her. “I was worried you weren’t coming.”
“I don’t break promises,” Ciara assured him.
“Okay, erm, follow me,” he said, still jittery from nerves. He grasped her hand and led her underneath the stairwell to the Defense classroom above. There, an ornate clock of some kind stood. It looked like something Dumbledore would have in his office that would turn out to be some device that could reverse the water cycle or something else unrealistically bizarre. What caught her eye though was the same dark blue locking spell that swirled within the dials that was on the portkey container.
Checking their surroundings to ensure they were alone, Sebastian waved his wand at the clock, the light blue of a more intricate and powerful Aolohomora countering the solid dark blue of the locking spell. The hands and dials ticking on it all spun wildly until they all lined up perfectly and the face of the clock opened like a door, revealing a tight staircase.
Was this a thing in her time? Ciara wanted nothing more than to go back to 1991 and go straight here.
Sebastian gestured for her to go first and followed behind her closely, closing and locking the door behind them.
The staircase wasn’t long, but it was dark and kind of cold. When she got to the bottom, Sebastian rushed past her to hold open the wrought iron gate that revealed a spacious dungeon room full of stacked crates, barrels and other stuff that’s been long forgotten. To the right, there was a place that Sebastian had seemed to set up for their brewing. It had a table, with tools and various ingredients, a brewing station, and then a sofa and armchair sitting on a plush rug. It was as if he was trying to make the space a bit more comfortable.
Ciara let out a breath of amazement when she stepped into the space. ”Woah… What is this place?” she asked, turning to face the boy who was looking at her intently.
“We call it the Undercroft,” Sebastian said casually. “Someone in Ominis’ family knew about it and showed it to him. Ominis, Anne and I used to play gobstones down here every day. What I wouldn’t give to lose to her again...” He looked at the middle of the room as if he was watching those memories play out in front of him. “She hasn’t been the same since she got cursed. She was the troublemaker out of the three of us. But since the curse… she’s a completely different person. Sad, hopeless… I just want my sister back.”
Sympathy surging through her, she stepped closer to him and squeezed his arm, hoping to portray that she understood. She missed her loved ones every day, she saw them every time she closed her eyes.
“Let’s get brewing then,” she smiled gently, turning to approach the brewing station. She slipped off her robe, knowing that the sleeves would get in her way and threw it over the back of the armchair. Retying up her hair from a fancy half-updo that Phoebe taught her into a messy bun, she got to work.
Sebastian watched her in wonder as she buzzed around the space, occasionally writing her process in a blank notebook so she could remember it for later. It took her a couple tries to actually get it right, her memory was non-existent at the worst of times and oddly specific at the best, but she hadn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep and regretted not stopping for breakfast. Recalling the exact details of the potion was trickier than it should have been for a potion she’d brewed countless times.
Her companion hovered over her shoulder, watching her every move, asking questions about her process and why she used certain ingredients rather than something else he had heard of. She answered him calmly and shortly, focusing more on her hands than what she was saying.
He even gave her more details of his sister’s curse. Anne would get these bouts of pain at random times. They started off manageable, but slowly got worse and worse over time until she was basically bedridden, unable to get up for hours after certain flares of pain. Ciara had never heard of any curse of that kind of nature. The only pain-inflicting curse she knew of like that was the Cruciatus Curse, but even that curse had to be actively cast and maintained to keep the effects present. Whoever cursed Anne hit her with something that even she, with all her futuristic knowledge of Healing Magic and Dark Magic could not identify.
Ciara was terrible at doing homework, she barely retained any of that information. The only things she retained were from her own research and things she had to learn to survive. The things she did during the war, the people she hurt, the magic she cast… Just more things to haunt her nightmares.
She did wish she had Snape’s old annotated potions book though. Harry and his friends asked her to hide it where no one could find it after the incident with Malfoy, so she put it in her pocket. What she wouldn’t give to have that cheat-sheet with her right now. It’s where she learned this potion in the first place. The only reason she had it memorised was because she had to brew it so often during the war.
Ciara chopped one of the shrivelfigs and crushed the other a little too aggressively to snap herself out of her head before adding the chopped ones to the cauldron. Stirring meticulously, adding a few other ingredients at the right times, then the crushed shrivelfig, then stirring more until the potion in the cauldron was a simmering lilac with wispy strands of pinkish-gray smoke furling from the surface.
It wasn’t until now that Ciara realised that she was probably the only one that could see the vibrancy of the potions. Everyone else must have seen just steam, while she saw sparkles and shimmers and shifting shades of lilac. Though polyjuice would never be appealing, no matter how sparkly it was.
“There we go!” she cheered, conjuring a bunch of flasks to pour the potion into so Anne would have a decent supply for a while.
Sebastian’s eyes lit up when he saw her labelling each flask with Anne’s name. “Thank you, truly,” he smiled at her as he took the flasks.
“Now, this may not be a cure,” Ciara reminded him. “Please know that. It might just be pain relief.”
“Even still,” Sebastian smiled when he looked her directly in the eyes. “Thank you, Ciara.”
She smiled back at him softly. “Don’t worry about it, Sebastian.”
They just looked at each other for a moment before Ciara‘s face fell when realized what he had said. “Wait, no-“
”I knew it!” he exclaimed, his voice echoing off the walls of the Undercroft. “I knew you weren’t Black!”
“No, no!” Ciara tried to save herself. “I am Carina. I must have misheard you.” But it was too late, and she knew that. Oh god, what had she done?
Sebastian shook her head. “Don’t even try to lie about it,” he chided her but still with a smile on his face. “You are not Carina Black.”
Ciara raised a brow at him, crossing her arms defensively. “You don’t seem very upset about it.”
”Why would I be?” he beamed. “Black was a bully and a tyrant that terrorised the halls. You, Ciara, you are an angel in devil’s clothing!”
She tilted her head, scrunching her nose in confusion. “That’s… a compliment?”
“Believe me, being anyone but Carina Black is a compliment,” he chuckled.
“She does seem to have been a bitch from what I’ve learned,” Ciara rolled her eyes with a smirk.
Sebastian tilted his head. “She was a female dog?”
Ciara’s eyes widened at her second slip up of the day. “Oh, um, it’s just a word to call someone irritating and mean.”
“Interesting,” he hummed, looking at her like he was trying to piece together the puzzle that is Ciara Figg.
“But let’s refrain from calling her that again,” Ciara joked. “Don’t want her hearing something and then giving me a headache or anything.”
”What?”
Fuck, Ciara cursed herself out. Damn her and her big ass, sleep deprived mouth.
“Why would she give you a headache?” Sebastian asked. His head tilted, looking Ciara over as if she he was an art critic ensuring a piece was actually an original Picasso or a copy. “Are you using Polyjuice, or are you… sharing a body with her in some way?”
Ciara, funnily enough, was relieved that he was now asking the questions she expected if anyone ever found out. Didn’t mean she was particularly keen on answering them.
“It’s complicated,” Ciara answered slowly. “The gist of it is that I’m a different soul, I’m just occupying Carina’s body.”
”How long will it last?” Sebastian asked. “Where’s your body? Were you cursed, or is this some sort of spell?”
Ciara just shrugged. “I’m not sure. To all of those questions. This sorta just happened and I’m just living it day by day.” Not entirely the truth, but good enough she hoped.
His face suddenly fell a bit. “Does that mean Black will come back at some point?” he asked. “She’s, as you put it, a bitch, and you are far better company than her.”
Ciara just shrugged again. “I’ve no idea.” She could only hope she was able to go home after she defeated Ranrok.
Sebastian began pacing. She just had to watch as Sebastian paced back and forth, thinking hard on something, wishing that she could read his mind.
His reaction really did surprise her. He must have really hated Carina. Or maybe he was happy to have Ciara, who had a potential cure or pain relief for his cursed sister. She did enjoy his company. He was engaging and listened to her, and she honestly didn’t mind how invasive he was of her personal space, leading her around by the hand, hovering over her. It didn’t feel suffocating, it felt comforting for some reason. She was used to being physically close to people, and she had no issues with having her personal space invaded in most cases. This just felt different in a way she couldn’t describe.
“I am not calling you Carina, though,“ Sebastian finally declared after he stopped pacing. “I’m sorry, but I refuse to call you by her name when you are not her.”
Ciara sighed. “Well, you can’t call me Ciara, because that would ruin this entire blending in thing I’m trying to do.” She waved her hand over herself, gesturing to her being in Carina’s body. Well, even though it was basically the exact same as her body, except the eyes and less muscle mass.
“I’m not calling you Black either,” Sebastian said, making her roll her eyes. “I only call people by their last name if I don’t like them.”
Her heart fluttered a little. It was nice to hear those words outright, if she was being honest. Well, sort of outright, Sebastian more so implied that he liked her, but still, it felt nice.
“How about Ciri?” he suggested after a few moments of thought.
The fluttering stopped. In fact, it felt as if her entire heart stopped beating entirely.
“We won. We won, Ciri. Please, don’t leave.”
“I love you, Harry… I always have…Be happy…”
“Ciri… I love you too. Don’t leave, please. No… no, no no no no no, please. Ciri. Please.”
Her eyes started to burn with both tears. She closed her eyes tight so Sebastian wouldn’t see the pain in her eyes, tears sneaking past and falling down her cheeks.
“Wait, no, Ciara, I’m sorry,” Sebastian rushed forward and held her shoulders. “Why are you crying? I’m sorry. I won’t call you that. I’ll think of something else.”
Ciara struggled to get the grief out of her lungs, it felt like gravel weighing her down and preventing her from breathing. Her eyes burned from the hot tears flowing down her face.
Finally, she realized that Sebastian was hugging her, letting her tears stain his shoulder while muttering apologies for upsetting her.
“I don’t know why you’re upset, but I won’t call you that again, I’m sorry,” he mumbled into her hair.
“I’m okay,” she croaked, her throat dry from holding back sobs. “Sorry, it’s just… someone I loved called me that before… I lost them.”
“Then I won’t call you that,” he promises. “I’ll think of something.”
Ciara nodded and tried her best to breathe.
“Maybe until then, just don’t use my name unless we’re alone,” she suggests, finally feeling the heat die down.
After a minute, she trusted herself to separate from the boy.
“Sorry.” She shook her head, mentally beating her emotions down with a metal pipe.
Sebastian smiled at her, “You have nothing to apologise for, rionnag.”
Sebastian already had a slight Scottish accent, but to hear it in full force with that word caught her slightly off guard. She liked the sound of it, the accent suited his voice nicely.
To hide her thoughts, Ciara rolled her eyes. “Didn’t take you long to think of something, I see. Roo-nak? That’s not a slur in Scottish, is it?”
He let out a breath, smiling like the dork he was. “No, it certainly is not.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” she smiled, turning back to the table where the two dozen flasks for Anne sat. “Let’s get these packed up for your sister, shall we?”
With a wave of her wand, Ciara magicked up a box to pack the flasks in. She nearly conjured bubble wrap before stopping herself and changing her conjure to straw instead, thinking that would be a more normal thing to use as packing filler. Sebastian already knew she was sharing a body with Carina, she did not need him figuring out she was from the future as well. At least until she could answer those questions about what happened after she had defeated Ranrok.
“Would you like to deliver them with me?” Sebastian asked, as she tied a string around the box.
When she turned around to face him, his cheeks went a little bit rosy as he hastily hurried to add, “To make sure they work. You are the one that brewed it after all.”
Ciara shrugged. It made sense. “Yeah, I can come. When?”
“After classes today,” he suggested. “Meet me in the common room so we can use the Floo Network.”
Ciara nodded. Shrinking the box and its contents, she gave it to Sebastian for safe keeping for the day until they departed.
With her instructions clear, she left the Undercroft first, claiming she had to meet with Phineas before lunch. In reality, she only had two classes at the very end of the day (Ancient Runes and Charms) and Ciara desperately needed to sleep. It was a miracle nothing exploded or the world didn’t end in the last two hours with everything that happened. She was so fucking tired, she was never more grateful for the glamour charms Phoebe had taught her during the summer.
“Hello Sebastian- wait…”
If Ominis could see, Ciara would look like a deer in headlights as the clock face closed behind her. Frozen in place and panicked beyond belief. Her luck had to run out at some point, it seemed.
“You there!” Ominis pointed in her direction. “I can hear you.”
“No you can’t,” Ciara stupidly answered with clenched teeth.
“Who are you?” Ominis hissed, confusion laced in his voice.
“Who are you?” Ciara hissed back. She didn’t know why he didn‘t recognize her voice, but she decided to run with it.
“I asked you first.”
“I asked you second.”
He threw his hands in the air in frustration. “That’s not how this works! Tell me who you are!”
“I am none of your bloody business, that’s what!” Ciara was nearly shouting at this point.
“Anyone coming from the Undercroft is certainly my business.”
“The fuck is the Undercroft?” Ciara asked, trying to sound as confused as she could.
Ominis scoffed. “Do not play dumb with me,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“I’m not!” Ciara continued to make this hole she’d dug deeper with every word. “I’m clinically stupid! Goodbye!”
With speed she didn’t know she had, she darted around Ominis, quite literally rolling under the hand he shot out to try and catch her, then sprinted as far away from the Defence Against the Dark Arts Tower as fast as she fucking could.
It wasn’t until she had sprinted to the Slytherin common room and threw herself on the bed did she realise what had just happened; why Ominis didn’t recognise her voice. She had just had that entire conversation with Ominis in Parseltongue.
