Time is running out. He’s running scared. Quentin’s heartbeat picks up tempo like the grandest of crescendos, thumping as the bass to a composition that would take ages to master and decipher, even for him, even with his years of experience. His breaths come in heavy wheezes, erratic gasps that he can’t synchronize to his heartbeat as his head feels light. His thoughts are racing, racing, tumbling along in an incoherent mess of panic and he squeezes his eyes shut in a last-shot attempt to quell their onslaught.
He stops suddenly, stops running and topples over with the force of the momentum that had propelled him. Quentin Lemony: teenage boy is sobbing in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds, the heels of his palms scraped where they’d come into contact with the ground, the knees of his slacks stained with the hue of the spring grass.
This is what panic looks like.
