the prodigy.

You don’t know any of them. The tearful faces that greet you at the hospital, that wrap their arms around you tight and long. You feel like a fraction of an inche closer and your rib cage might burst open to greet theirs in an embrace. You’ve never met them, not that you can recall. You learn that you have a mother, and a father, and two brothers, both older. You can’t separate hues of their eyes and the slopes of their noses from the masses, the police officers, doctors, and psychologists who ask you question after question. Does this hurt? Does this hurt? Does this hurt? No. Should it? You can’t discern these tear kissed faces from a hole in the wall, you privately think as they clutch to your hands and leak tears onto your scarred skin. The only whisper of familiarity you find in them is how their features match the one you’ve seen in the mirror briefly when you had gone to brush your teeth, minty gel staining your tongue. You realize that you carry some of the features of this family of yours, thick-browed and forest eyes. However their expressions lack the emptiness that seems to consume you. And yet, you pity them.

The doctors tell you it’s PTSD. That the sensory deprivation’s marriage to the abyss like depression that had has feasted on your joy since high school was not a smart match. Go figure. Apparently it sent your brain in to fucking maximum over-drive, canvasing all your thoughts in a sea of nothingness. He chuckles at you, hand at your shoulder and reassures you that you’ll be fine. Time, rest, and acclimation will cause the lifetime of memories streaming back. He tells you that you’re a bright kid, salutatorian of your high school even, so of course you’ll be fine. You can’t remember any of that though, the empty grin behind the podium at graduation or your polyester robe that draped in front of that secret under your shirt. You just stare back at him blankly and nod, wondering when the whispers of yesterday would begin to trickle into your brain.

The hospital bracelet on your wrist reads Elizabeth, but they all you call Libby and you don’t think to correct them. She sounds nice, you think. She sounds normal. Under the florescent lights, you wonder what she must have done for fun, what Libby must have laughed at with friends, what her favorite color may have been. You wonder where she is, perhaps abandoned in that dark nothingness, still crying out for salvation. You wonder if Libby will ever return to these people who care for her, furious that you’ve stolen her form, her friends, her family, her fire. Or maybe you’ve killed her, penance for the scraps of sanity needed in order to survive the hell abduction had been. Maybe she’s gone for good, and you’re damned to forever be confined to the half-shell version of a girl you’ll never meet, gazing at photographs of a girl who’s smile will never look like yours.

You can’t remember who told you, but learn that once upon of time there was a boy, beautiful and kind that had furrowed his way into your life, into your heart. Once upon of time he would press a constellation of kisses to your bared skin, and whisper ribbons of praises into your hair. Once upon a time you were loved with so much passion that you wondered if the fiction you had viciously devoured in your youth would ever do justice to just how vibrantly you were drenched in this feeling, this love. You could live off it alone, the sensation of making a home of someone else’s heart, someone’s arms. But this boy, he doesn’t come for you as you sit perched in your hospital bed. He must not have really loved her, you think to yourself. Maybe she’s lucky, to be flung out of space and shaken out of her own body, as to not learn of this news. You think yourself to be smarter than her, knowing that it must have been puppy love masquerading the wolf that lurked beneath. You’re smarter, because you remember that no matter how much you trust the wolf in the forest, it will always sink it’s teeth into your flesh and eat your heart. You do not know that you were the wolf, the traitor, not him.

You’re unaware of the betrayal, of the living evidence of their love that bore the same blonde curls as her father and the bright smile of her mother. At least, on her face the boldness of their love takes form even still, a living product of something that once was true. She is a fossil of what they were; what they could have been had they remained. A small museum of what-ifs. You don’t remember it, laying on your back at another hospital with your legs splayed apart as you delivered your biggest mistake, bloodied and screaming into the world. That you were another girl then, it was another time.

You’re not sure when sleep steals you away, you’d been avoiding it like a bad date. The drowsiness pulling at your lids, threatening to whisk you into slumber before you snap up, afraid that you may have invented this whole hospital room. Afraid that you’re still locked in a dark space, and this was just your brain playing tricks on you. But you can’t fight it forever, can you? Thirty hours later and you’re blanketed by sleep, exhausted from the deafening progression of the past day. When you wake up you’re a little like you again, fuzzy-headed and curious. Where am I? When did I get here? You’re still not used to it, free movement of your limbs, air around your lips, light burning through your lids. The first memory comes to you right away, like a ghost coming to haunt you, giving you no time to prepare. The first memory you have is a menial one. You’re seventeen, in woods behind your great big house. You’re alone save for the rustle of the leaves in the wind, and the dog at the end of your leash. Your feet intrinsically guiding you towards the pond at the edge of the woods, planting yourself in front of it, hoping the sun would encourage the blossom of positive outcomes. It was the day you’d found out about product of a regretted weekend. Overtaken by confusion, unable to piece string together chunks of time you turn to the phone that lays at your bedside table, filled with messages. Names you can’t recall, some of which you can. Holden? Familiar, large, unclear relationship. Oz? Unfamiliar. Ivy? Familiar, blonde, friend. Among them, an email. Why does that look familiar? Who is this from? A surge of nervousness washes over you as you find yourself reading it. You can’t stop, even though you want to. This is a wound, and your fingers are itching to pick at it, tear it open and revel in the redness of your own blood. Your own pain, similiar to the dull aching at your hip where the kidnapper had left their mark. 30. Images of a past life are racing through your head like a movie. Birthday cakes, and ballet slippers. Pinky promises, and pregnancy tests. Diplomas, and defeats. You want to focus on the good, the bits of sunshine that are sliced down into film in your brain but the grief outweighs it all, heavy and cold in your hands. You’ve always had an intimacy with loss and pain, that’s something you can begin to remember now. Turns out the kidnapping wasn’t the end of that. It was just the beginning.

she always knew there was a reason her mother was mistrusting of her uncle, and it turns out it’s because he was a wizard and the private school he’d always gushed about sending his son to was just a cover for hogwarts. though, the last person she wanted to tied down to on the long train ride to hogwarts is her cousin holden woods, so she grabs her barn owl trotsky, and disappears amongst the carriages and stumbles upon ivy westbrook. they’re both nervous, but find a comfort in one another… and though they don’t know it then, it is the beginning of the most magical part of hogwarts, their friendship.

 later on, libby is sorted into ravenclaw even though the hat greatly debated placing her into gryffindor. libby is heartbroken because she’s separated from best friend ivy, though the pair become skilled in sneaking one another into each others common rooms and are often berated for it by their head of houses… it’s the only rule libby breaks religiously. that and breaking into the library at night, also with ivy… though libby suspects ivy is mostly in on it for the thrill of it.

libby has a big love affair with the forbidden section of the library and has been itching to get her way into it since she discovered it was even a thing…

she becomes a prefect at one point, and later on head girl! we stan a big ass nerdy hall monitor. though she always has be on duty with someone else because she has a horrible habit of letting her friends go, after a 20 minute lecture on the importance of school respect of course. she often states that the best part of being prefect is the bathrooms. a bitch loves a good bubble bath.

libs adores quidditch but doesn’t find the time for it, as she takes over the required amount of electives… instead she shows up to every single game, rain or shine. she also has a soft sport for quidditch capts… become the capt and win her heart.

her patronus is a crow! it symbolizes the extent of her intelligent, her loyalty, and her slight mischievous side.

she is fucking obsessed with the giant squid… i don’t know why, but she is. she often goes down to the lake when she’s sad just to watch him slosh around, sometimes she brings it a snack or two. her peak date spot is literally… watching the giant squid in the arms of a lover, lmao.

her top classes are alchemy, herbology, charms, and defense against the arts. her worst is xylomancy. just thinking about it stresses her tf out.

her fave magical candies are ice mice, and chocolate frogs. she’s kept every little wizard card she’s every gotten. she would also die for pumpkin pasties.